DEEP THOUGHTS Jules Verne's classic "A Journey to the Center of the Earth" has inspired several film versions, including one in 2008.
As if the inside story of our planet weren’t already the ultimate potboiler, a host of new findings has just turned the heat up past Stygian.
Geologists have long known that Earth’s core, some 1,800 miles beneath our feet, is a dense, chemically doped ball of iron roughly the size of Mars and every bit as alien. It’s a place where pressures bear down with the weight of 3.5 million atmospheres, like 3.5 million skies falling at once on your head, and where temperatures reach 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit — as hot as the surface of the Sun. It’s a place where the term “ironclad agreement” has no meaning, since iron can’t even agree with itself on what form to take. It’s a fluid, it’s a solid, it’s twisting and spiraling like liquid confetti.
Read More: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/29/science/earths-core-the-enigma-1800-miles-below-us.html
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