Timeline for Why isn't the Earth's core temperature the average of its surface temperatures?
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| Apr 13, 2017 at 12:46 | history | edited | CommunityBot |
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| Apr 13, 2017 at 12:39 | history | edited | CommunityBot |
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| Nov 15, 2015 at 0:03 | history | edited | dmckee --- ex-moderator kitten | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
added 386 characters in body
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| May 28, 2013 at 5:55 | comment | added | Mark Adler | @BenCrowell: FYI, Mars still has a molten core. | |
| May 28, 2013 at 3:52 | comment | added | dmckee --- ex-moderator kitten | It can't rule out fission on any kind of absolute basis, but it can put strict limits on the fission power (on-going chain reaction fission generates a higher energy neutrino spectrum than un-triggered decay). The claim is that there is not a large amount of fission going one in the inner core. Like I said, since those results people have been floating models that move the fission out or have it turning on and off. It would take a much bigger, much cleaner detector to be really definitive about those kinds of models. | |
| May 28, 2013 at 3:49 | comment | added | anna v | I just read the abstract, but I would think that neutrinos from uranium decay would not exclude some uranium to fission? Are there further arguments in the publication? | |
| May 28, 2013 at 3:42 | comment | added | anna v | I am just pointing out that they would increase the internal heat or even the errors, if measurements depend on locality. | |
| May 28, 2013 at 3:40 | comment | added | dmckee --- ex-moderator kitten | @annav The KamLAND and Borexino results convincingly rule out a steady central reactor of significant size contributing to the current geothermal heat. That said, I've seen proposals for non-central or intermittent reactors that can't be ruled out by the existing data. | |
| May 28, 2013 at 3:38 | comment | added | anna v | Also that the heat content of Mars is under investigation en.wikipedia.org/wiki/InSight . also the moon onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/JZ072i012p03301/abstract | |
| May 28, 2013 at 3:35 | comment | added | anna v | I would also add that it is not only decays of long lived radioactive materials that are adding to the heat but possibly also fission of these en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_nuclear_fission_reactor . | |
| May 28, 2013 at 2:23 | comment | added | user4552 | Equilibration is an exponential-decay process, so it doesn't really matter much how high the initial temperature was. What matters much more is the rate of exponential decay. The reason the rate of equilibration is so slow is that the earth has a low surface to volume ratio. Bodies like Mars and the moon no longer have molten cores, because they have lower surface to volume ratios. | |
| May 28, 2013 at 2:21 | vote | accept | daniel | ||
| May 28, 2013 at 2:16 | history | answered | dmckee --- ex-moderator kitten | CC BY-SA 3.0 |