This is pretty fascinating stuff:
As the earth turns, the center of the earth turns even faster.
Confirming assertions first made in 1996, a team of geophysicists are presenting data in the journal Science today showing that the earth’s inner core, a ball of solid iron, spins faster than the rest of the planet. Over a period of 700 to 1,200 years, the inner core appears to make one full extra spin.
That extra spin could give scientists information about how the earth generates its magnetic field.
The inner core, 1,500 miles wide, sits at the center of the planet, ensconced in a sea of hot liquid metal known as the outer core. With nothing to hold it in place, the inner core can rotate independently. Nearly a decade ago, two scientists at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University said it did just that.
Other scientists, however, questioned the analysis, which was based on the speed of earthquake waves passing through the earth. Subsequent attempts to pin down the inner core’s rate of spinning produced a wide range of answers. Some said it spun, but at a much slower rate than the Columbia scientists claimed. Others said they could find no sign that the core was out of step with the other parts of the planet.
The same researchers who made the original claim, Paul G. Richards and Xiaodong Song, now a professor of geology at the University of Illinois, led the new research, which they say should remove any remaining doubts.
The stuff of science fiction novels.
ppGaz
Does this spinning core thing threaten any Biblical teachings?
If so, I hope the government bans any further research into it.
Enough is enough. We need to get back to God.
jobiuspublius
Did this come from New Scientist dot com? IIRC, there was an article there, recently, about fetuses not experiencing pain untill I forgot when. Third trimester, I suspect. Now that’ll get you on Robertson’s hit list. :)
kdaug
I completely agree, enough is enough. How many times do we have to keep telling people – the earth doesn’t turn at all!
The earth is the stationary center of the universe, and the sun, moon, and planets rotate around it.
These “scientists” are trying to destroy God, Christians, and everything that’s good and wholesome.
kdaug
Oops, almost forgot:
/sarcasm
(Don’t want to leave that turned on…)
Otto Man
As we all know, the Earth’s rotation is caused by the Devil’s hordes moving in hell.
demimondian
No, no, no, no, no!
The so-called inner core is nothing but the image of Hell. God has concealed it from the apostate eyes of the materialists and the natural philosophers. We who are truly enlightened know that Hell is there, and that you can crawl down into it through a cave somewhere in Italy, but only after you dodge a wolf, a lion, and a jackal.
DougJ
This is the sort of craziness that helps explain why so few Americans trust scientists. If the earth is one solid piece, how could one part of it spin more quickly than the rest. It makes about as much sense as the idea that my great-great-great-grandaddy was amoeba, another “scientific” claim.
ppGaz
It’s not, though, DougJ.
See, that’s the thing. It’s not.
That lava you see on television? Not science fiction.
That big cloud of stuff that came out of Mt. St. Helens? Real.
Shifting continental plates? Not a Walt Disney invention.
jg
Earth is flat. Can’t have a spinning center.
Rick
More importantly, the rotation rate of the Earth’s molten core is entirely controlled by Karl Rove and the Right Wing Smear/Noise Machine.
I would’ve thought the sharp commentariat here would’ve been all over that little data point.
Cordially…
demimondian
No, damn it, Rick, didn’t you get the memo?
The rotation rate of the Earth’s core is rising, in fact, in order to preserve the angular momentum of the total Earth system. It’s compensating for the spinning of the Rethugligan Noise MacHine.
Sheesh.
cd6
*head explodes*
goonie bird
Is ARNIE SAKRASAN getting dizzy down there or are the MAYARS getting motion sickness?
capelza
Now, I already had heard this before somewhere. It doesn’t suprise me at all if it is true. The mantle separates us from the core, and as it’s “fluid” there is no reason that I, a complete ignoramous, can see why the core might not be doing it’s own thing with the upper levels, being larger around, aren’t going at the same speed. Is this why the earth has convection?
carpeicthus
OK, if that was the real DougJ, then it’s official: There is no real DougJ.