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it home reported on september 2 that a study published in the journal science advances on august 30 found that there is a donut-like ring structure in the earth's outer core, parallel to the equator.

image source: pexels

professor hrvoje tkalčić, a geophysicist at the australian national university and one of the co-authors of the study, said that because current technology cannot directly reach the earth's inner core, the research team analyzed the shape of seismic waves generated by large earthquakes as they pass through the earth's inner core.

they found that seismic waves slow down as they pass through a certain region close to the mantle. professor tkalčić explains: "by understanding the geometry of the paths of seismic waves and how they travel through the volume of the outer core, we reconstructed their travel times through the earth. we realised that seismic waves slow down in a region mathematically called the 'torus'. to most people, this region looks like a donut."

understanding the earth's outer core is important because it is essential for the survival of life on the surface. according to it home, the outer core is responsible for generating a magnetic field that protects the earth from the constant bombardment of charged particles emitted by the sun. the current formed by the flow of molten iron and nickel in the outer core acts like a huge "generator" to generate and maintain the earth's magnetic field.

professor tkalčić said scientists do not yet understand why earth has such an active dynamo while many other planets do not: "we can say that we know the surfaces of other planets in better detail than the interior of our own planet."

professor tkalčić said that the earth's interior consists of a solid inner core, a liquid outer core and a mantle. he said: "we don't know the exact thickness of this donut, but we infer that it extends hundreds of kilometers below the core-mantle boundary." and the buoyancy of the structure indicates that there may be lighter chemical elements in it, such as silicon, sulfur, oxygen, hydrogen or carbon.

professor tkalčić stressed that our understanding of the earth's interior is mainly based on data observed on the surface, and there are still many unknown areas. dr. ma, another co-author of the study, said that the discovery of new structures in the outer core has lifted the curtain on the dynamics of the earth's magnetic field, but "there are still unresolved mysteries in the earth's outer core."