It’s Snowing Iron Inside Mercury
posted in Outer Space |Mercury, the smallest and the innermost planet of the solar system is experiencing an iron meltdown. Though the law of physics claims that the core of this small planet (40% smaller than Earth) could have solidified and cooled years ago, a radar technique revealed that the planet had both solid and semi-liquid matter. This partial liquid core explains the poor magnetic field of the planet.
Researchers are of late masticating on a new theory that it could be raining iron flakes inside Mercury. This scenario opens more ground into speculating the magnetic field of the planet because mercury is the only other terrestrial rocky body apart from Earth.
The “messenger spacecraft” launched by NASA reveals that when it passed Mercury this January 2008, the planet’s magnetic field seemed to be dipolar which implies that Mercury like Earth has a north and south pole. Explicating further, the researchers claimed that such fields are caused by the “dynamo effect” which exists when a conductive molten core rotates.
Researchers from the University of Illinois and Case Western Reserve University, Ohio assert that it could be a combination of sulfur and iron which could be creating iron flakes in the form of snow which is appearing at the outer edge of the planet’s core.
The scientists took a sample of sulfur and iron and blend them together to determine the results of Mercury’s core. It was finally concluded that as the planet’s core cools, iron atoms condense to form tiny cubic iron flakes which travel to the center of the planet. On reaching the center, the light and sulfur-laden liquid lying deep inside the core, rises and causes convection currents that produce Mercury’s weak magnetic field.
Earlier discoveries support the view that sulfur led to the half molten state of Mercury’s core. Researchers are stating that further evidence is required by means of images of the planet’s magnetic field, chemical studies and sulfur deposits inside the planet in order to determine whether it is snowing iron flakes inside Mercury.