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Dr. Universe: Why Does The Earth Have Lava In The Middle? \u2013 Nora, 6, Florida<\/p>\nDr. Universe: Why Does The Earth Have Lava In The Middle? \u2013 Nora, 6, Florida<\/p>\n
Dear Nora,<\/p>\n
I live near a few volcanoes. One of them\u2014Mount St. Helens\u2014is bubbling with molten material that will probably gush out as lava someday. I asked my friend Johannes H\u00e4mmerli about lava. He\u2019s an earth scientist at Washington State University. He told me Earth is mostly solid. \u201cThe very center of Earth is a solid metal ball,\u201d H\u00e4mmerli said. \u201cOutside that ball, there\u2019s a thick shell we think is liquid. And the rest of Earth\u2014if you go through the mantle and crust\u2014is pretty much solid.\u201d<\/p>\n
Earth formed when a cloud of dust in space collapsed. The elements inside the cloud squished together. As it squished, it got hotter and melted. Heavy stuff like iron and nickel sank to the middle. That formed the metal core. It\u2019s now solid because it\u2019s under so much pressure. That metal ball sits inside a big bubble of liquid called the outer core. It\u2019s made of similar stuff, but it\u2019s under much less pressure. It\u2019s not being squeezed as much, so it flows like any liquid. That\u2019s super important for life on Earth.<\/p>\n
The metal atoms in the liquid outer core swirl around in the super-hot metal syrup. That churning makes a magnetic field around Earth. It works like an invisible shield, deflecting dangerous radiation from the sun. The liquid outer core is surrounded by the thick layer called the mantle. It\u2019s mostly solid rock\u2014not melted like lava. Over time, changes in heat and pressure make the solid rock slowly flow. It\u2019s like how taffy is solid but stretches and oozes in a way most solids don\u2019t.<\/p>\n
On top of the mantle is Earth\u2019s outer layer, also known as the crust. That\u2019s the solid ground we walk on. Most of the mantle is solid rock. But sometimes parts of the mantle melt and turn into liquid rock. That can happen if the mantle gets hotter or water seeps in. Or it can happen if the pressure decreases. Liquid rock underground is called magma. That melted rock slowly rises toward the surface because it\u2019s less dense than the solid rock. If it erupts from a volcano, the liquid rock is called lava.<\/p>\n
H\u00e4mmerli told me that nobody has ever reached Earth\u2019s liquid outer core. It\u2019s about 1,800 miles below the surface. That\u2019s the distance from Los Angeles to Chicago\u2014nearly a 30-hour car ride. Humans have only drilled about 7.5 miles into the Earth. There\u2019s just so much heat and pressure down there. That makes the drills fail or gum up. It would be super expensive to overcome those challenges. So, how did we figure out there\u2019s a liquid outer core if we can\u2019t stick a straw down there and slurp up a sample?<\/p>\n
It turns out we got clues from earthquakes. They send out two kinds of waves. Some waves can travel all the way through Earth. Other waves can\u2019t do that. They come to a screeching halt when they bump into liquid\u2014like the outer core. That and other data point toward how we understand Earth\u2019s layers today. Maybe someday we\u2019ll drill deeper to volca-know even more about Earth\u2019s interior. That would really rock.<\/p>\n
Sincerely,<\/p>\n
Dr. Universe<\/p>\n
Ask Dr. Universe is a science-education project from Washington State University. Visit AskDrUniverse.wsu.edu to read more Q&A\u2019s, or to send in a science question of your own \u2013 or that of a kid you know \u2013 for a chance to be featured in a future Q&A. Or you can write to: Ask Dr. Universe Washington State University ITB 2013B Pullman, WA 99164.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dr. Universe: Why Does The Earth Have Lava In The Middle? \u2013 Nora, 6, Florida Dear Nora, I…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":146782,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[9,24,63,122,124,123],"class_list":["post-146781","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-queens","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-queens","tag-queens-headlines","tag-queens-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146781","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=146781"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146781\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/146782"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=146781"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=146781"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=146781"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}