What changes could indicate that the Earth’s core has slowed down

A Peking University study raised alarm among the general public because scientists indicated that the rotation of the Earth’s inner solid core stopped in 2009 and had begun to reverse.

The internal core, solid and formed mainly by iron and nickel, is physically separated from the rest of the Earth mass by the external core, made of liquid iron, which allows it to maintain a rotation independent and different from that of the Earth itself.

The Institute of Geosciences of the Complutense University of Madrid (UCM) reassured the population and clarified that the nucleus had not stopped.

Earth’s core has ground to a halt and could be starting to reverse, research says

“What the new research says is that the core has slowed down and is ‘out of step’ with the spin rate of the rest of the planet. It is as if we (the crust) were ahead of the core. This means that if we eliminated the global rotation that we ourselves experience, we would see how the nucleus rotates in the opposite direction. This effect is due solely to the reference system, it does not mean that it goes backwards than the rest of the planet, ”he indicated on his Twitter account.

Slowdown is not something new and has even been described in recent years. This will not have general consequences in the short term. The institution pointed out that the decoupling could influence the length of the days, it was recalled that in the geological stage the rotation of the Earth was longer, so the days lasted 23 hours.

In statements by an IGEO researcher, this situation of velocity decoupling should be analyzed if it has any connection with the fluctuation of the magnetic field, which protects from the effects of the sun’s rays.

Because the Earth has been decreasing its rotation capacity, time has had to be adjusted since they are now measured with stable atomic clocks. This is why every certain year a second is added, known as leap second.

From 2035 it is proposed to eliminate it. (YO)