Jessica Irving, a seismologist at the University of Bristol in England, said, "We're finding a whole new hidden world."
Scientists have discovered a whole new hidden world under the Earth’s surface. According to a new study, there is an undiscovered underworld, called ‘Pataal’ in Hindi, in the Earth's core.
It has been believed for more than half a century that the Earth's inner core is solid. However recent study has discovered that the Earth's inner core is mushy. Earth's inner core was supposed to be a solid ball of compacted iron ore wrapped by a liquid outer core.
But according to a recent study published in the journal Physics of the Earth and Planetary Interiors on September 20, the firmness of the Earth's core varies from hard to semisoft to molten material.
The University of Bristol's Jessica Irving, a seismologist, explained that the more we investigate the Earth's inner core, the more are fresh discoveries found.
Jessica stated that until Jules Verne published the novel ‘Journey to the Center of the Earth’ in 1864, the centre of the Earth was a great mystery. According to Verne, the earth's core was hollow. This insight, however, was overlooked by scientists in 1950. According to scientists, the earth's core is extremely hot and pressured. This is just too much for a person or a human-made device to handle. Irving said, “Unless something awful happens to our planet, we will never have a direct observation of Earth's core”.
A report was written by Hawaii Institute of Geophysics and Planetology geophysicist Rhett Butler and his team. At five different locations on Earth, they analysed the waves sent by large earthquakes. Straight-Line Compression Waves, which flow in a straight line, and Undulating Shear Waves, which flow in a zigzag pattern, are the two vibrations. Depending on the type of geographical activity, each form of wave can increase or reduce its speed and leap.
Butler noticed that light waves struck some areas of the solid sphere in the earth's inner core and returned, while others passed through. If the entire thing had been solid, these waves would have clashed with it and returned.
Rhett Butler and his partner double-checked it several times and got the same result each time. This indicates that perhaps the iron in the Earth's inner core can be found in solid, liquid, as well as soft forms.
Scientists believe that gaining a better understanding of the inner core will give them enhanced grasp about the relationship between the inside of a planet and its magnetic behaviour. This study has the potential to transform our view of the Earth's magnetic field.