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posted by hubie on Friday January 27 2023, @12:02AM   Printer-friendly
from the it's-inner-cores-all-the-way-down dept.

Earth's inner core might be reversing its spin:

A new study suggests that the Earth's inner core recently stopped spinning and is changing its direction. The changing spin may be behind slight fluctuations in the length of a day from year to year.

In the January 2023 issue of the science journal Nature Geoscience, researchers Xiaodong Song and Yi Yang of China's Peking University claimed the planet's inner core stopped spinning relative to the other layers around 2009. The Earth's innermost layer, about 3,100 miles below our feet, made of hot iron and about the size of Pluto, can rotate independently of the mantle and crust because of a liquid outer core that surrounds it.

The researchers said the inner core started reversing its spin after stopping and that this process repeats about every 35 years. The reversal last occurred in the early 1970s; the next could be in the mid-2040s.

[...] University of Southern California seismologist John Vidale disagrees. He thinks the inner core oscillates every six years based on data from nuclear explosions from the late 1960s to the early 1970s. Other geophysicists have numerous theories, but Vidale doesn't believe any models adequately explain all the data.

[...] However, he also doubts the accuracy of all the proposed theories. Seismic data only provides limited information about what's happening inside the Earth. Other theories postulate that the inner core may have another core inside it. So scientists have yet to reach a consensus on what happens in the inner Earth.

Journal Reference:
Yang, Y., Song, X. Multidecadal variation of the Earth's inner-core rotation. Nat. Geosci. (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-022-01112-z


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  • (Score: 2, Funny) by billbellum on Friday January 27 2023, @01:05AM

    by billbellum (18539) on Friday January 27 2023, @01:05AM (#1288825)

    That explains the dizzy feeling I have had lately.

    "I feel the. earth. move. under my feet,
    I feel the sky come tumbling down."

    https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/caroleking/ifeeltheearthmove.html [azlyrics.com]

  • (Score: 2, Offtopic) by Snotnose on Friday January 27 2023, @02:27AM (8 children)

    by Snotnose (1623) on Friday January 27 2023, @02:27AM (#1288836)

    Which means it's gay? Mind blown.

    --
    Why shouldn't we judge a book by it's cover? It's got the author, title, and a summary of what the book's about.
    • (Score: 4, Funny) by darkfeline on Friday January 27 2023, @02:33AM

      by darkfeline (1030) on Friday January 27 2023, @02:33AM (#1288838) Homepage

      No, stop trying to project sexuality and/or radical political philosophies on everything, especially the sciences. Even if Freud and Marx would be proud.

      --
      Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Tork on Friday January 27 2023, @03:07AM

      by Tork (3914) Subscriber Badge on Friday January 27 2023, @03:07AM (#1288842)

      Why is tamales pronounced tamales but females is pronounced females instead of females?

      'Tamales' is rooted from a spanish word and uses that language's pronunciation. Womb, comb, tomb, bomb might be a more interesting example for you of English silliness.

      Which means it's gay? Mind blown.

      Knee-slapper.

      --
      🏳️‍🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️‍🌈
    • (Score: 4, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 27 2023, @06:28AM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 27 2023, @06:28AM (#1288865)

      Which means it's gay?

      It used to be Gaia. 😉

      • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 27 2023, @06:53AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 27 2023, @06:53AM (#1288868)

        Not that there's anything wrong with it.

    • (Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 27 2023, @06:38AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 27 2023, @06:38AM (#1288866)

      ·ɐᴉๅɐɹʇsnⱯ uᴉ ooๅ ɐ ɥsnๅɟ oʇ ǝʞᴉๅ sˌʇᴉ ʇɐɥʍ ǝɔuǝᴉɹǝdxǝ ๅๅᴉʍ ǝɹǝɥdsᴉɯǝɥ uɹǝɥʇɹou ǝɥʇ uᴉ ǝʍ ʇnq ʻoN

    • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 27 2023, @09:00AM (2 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 27 2023, @09:00AM (#1288872)

      How do you know it wasn't gay before but the planet-conversion-therapy worked and it's now time to bang some random black-holes?

      • (Score: 2) by Freeman on Friday January 27 2023, @02:55PM (1 child)

        by Freeman (732) on Friday January 27 2023, @02:55PM (#1288921) Journal

        It would just get sucked in and not in a good way.

        --
        Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
        • (Score: 3, Informative) by DannyB on Friday January 27 2023, @03:30PM

          by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Friday January 27 2023, @03:30PM (#1288934) Journal

          Some people were born gay. Others somehow got sucked into it.

          --
          People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
  • (Score: 5, Interesting) by VLM on Friday January 27 2023, @02:03PM (2 children)

    by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Friday January 27 2023, @02:03PM (#1288910)

    The phrase to google for is "inner core super rotation"

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inner_core_super-rotation [wikipedia.org]

    The numbers are VERY small and it seems the rate of super-rotation is somewhat more than one degree per million years and less than two digits of degrees per year with most popular result being so slow that its hard to estimate.

    The magnetic field of the earth overall across the entire planet drifts very slowly west around 0.1 degree/yr. That's probably why the geologists have a huge hard on for core rotation likely being about the same magnitude to that RPM or at least somehow related to that rate.

    I F'd around with magnetometers at home with the idea of having my own magnetic storm meter for ham radio purposes. This is non-trivial but geomagnetic storms will be slightly out of the noise with enough equipment and computing power. For the sheer hell of it I tried a data analysis on the "well known" westward drift and that's totally lost in the noise; must take very expensive equipment indeed... Note that local variation is "normal" due to geologic processes the westward drift is like averaging the entire planet together, so no surprise it didn't show up. IIRC any drift I saw in my noisy data had a larger N-S component than E-W component but thats probably either statistical noise or local phenomena. But if you statistically averaged together every mag on the planet you'd expect a net zero drift but its actually tiny bit westward as I understand it.

    Planet sized conductors with low current density none the less add up to large total currents which when placed in weak planetary fields are non the less enormous torques; or maybe its the other way around, having a planet sized object spinning means planetary sized torques so small variations mean large currents; damn electromagnetic fields can't figure out who's the chicken and who's the egg.

    • (Score: 2) by Freeman on Friday January 27 2023, @03:00PM (1 child)

      by Freeman (732) on Friday January 27 2023, @03:00PM (#1288923) Journal

      Wait, so what you're telling me is that the amount that it's slowing down could be due to some rounding error? We can't get everyone on the same page for 4 or 8 years, but they want people to actually care about something that isn't going to be an issue for hundreds or thousands of tens of thousands of years or even longer? Or did I miss something?

      --
      Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
      • (Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 27 2023, @04:50PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 27 2023, @04:50PM (#1288945)

        amount that it's slowing down could be due to some rounding error?

        Well, the core is spherical, so...

  • (Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Saturday January 28 2023, @06:42AM

    by maxwell demon (1608) on Saturday January 28 2023, @06:42AM (#1289050) Journal

    Wait, the Earth's core stopped spinning? Quick, get the unobtaininum and start drilling!

    --
    The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
  • (Score: 1) by jman on Saturday January 28 2023, @01:04PM

    by jman (6085) Subscriber Badge on Saturday January 28 2023, @01:04PM (#1289069) Homepage
    Granted, thanks to Kepler we know why we don't travel in a straight line, but the planet as a whole does spin and orbit in the same direction.

    Newton would have been curious to know just what unbalanced force is purportedly acting upon the inner core to make it switch direction.
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