D-Bone
May 31st '07, 04:06 PM
Above ground, Mars is mostly a bone-chilling desert pocked with craters. Hundreds of miles below, however, a molten sea of iron, nickel and sulfur churns. And new research suggests the gooey core will eventually solidify-either from the outside-in, forming an iron-nickel core, or from the inside out, forming a core of a fool's-gold-like minerals.
Andrew Stewart, a planetary geochemist at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, said Mars' cooling core might restore magnetism to the red planet. "If liquid metal moves around a solid core, it could create a natural dynamo like the one found in Earth's core," said Stewart, who co-authored the study detailed in today's online edition of the journal Science.
Liquids turn solid at different temperatures when pressure or purity are changed-dry ice, for example, is carbon dioxide gas squeezed under immense pressure. Add impurities to ice, and its freezing point is lowered (which is why roads are salted). Likewise, explained Stewart, sulfur mixes things up under Mars' crushing pressure of 5.8 million pounds per square inch.
Read More: http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/070531_mars_core.html
Andrew Stewart, a planetary geochemist at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, said Mars' cooling core might restore magnetism to the red planet. "If liquid metal moves around a solid core, it could create a natural dynamo like the one found in Earth's core," said Stewart, who co-authored the study detailed in today's online edition of the journal Science.
Liquids turn solid at different temperatures when pressure or purity are changed-dry ice, for example, is carbon dioxide gas squeezed under immense pressure. Add impurities to ice, and its freezing point is lowered (which is why roads are salted). Likewise, explained Stewart, sulfur mixes things up under Mars' crushing pressure of 5.8 million pounds per square inch.
Read More: http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/070531_mars_core.html