S crust in a 3D rendering with elements supplied by NASA.

The core of this Earth is cooling down quicker than expected, and scientists are now warning that our planet may become a more arid rock like Mars or Mercury sooner than expected.

The study, published in the scientific journal Earth and Planetary Science Letters, examined how successfully Bridgmanite – the primary mineral that gravitates at the edge between the Earth’s core and mantle layer – routed heat from the hot, molten core to the surface.

The question remains how quickly the Earth cooled, and, how long, before this process lifts the lid on the heat-driven processes that are underway.

The interior of the Earth will eventually cool and solidify, and plate tectonics too will stop, which will potentially transform the Earth into a sterile rock similar to Mercury or Mars, ScienceAlert reported.

“Our results could give us a new perspective on the evolution of the Earth’s dynamics. They suggest that Earth, like the other rocky planets Mercury and Mars, is cooling and becoming inactive much faster than expected,” said Motohiko Murakami, earth sciences at ETH Zurich, who coordinated the study.

Another factor in the speed with which the Earth is losing heat is that when it cools, bridgmanite is changed to postperovskite, a mineral that transmits heat more efficiently, increasing heat loss from the Earth’s core to the Earth’s mantle.

The flow of liquid metal in the outer core produces electric currents, while the rotation our planet undergoes around its axis causes these electric currents to spread towards a magnetic field around it.


Earth

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The third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to harbor life. According to radiometric dating and other evidence, Earth formed over 4.5 billion years ago (wikipedia)


Lower mantle (Earth)

The lower mantle, historically also known as the mesosphere, represents approximately 56% of Earth’s total volume, (wikipedia)