Scientists discovered a doughnut-shaped structure within our planet’s liquid core, which could be influencing its magnetic field.
Forbidden Donut
Scientists at the Australian National University have made a highly unusual discovery thousands of miles beneath the Earth’s surface: a doughnut-shaped structure within our planet’s liquid core.
The mysterious torus could provide researchers new clues about how the swirling liquids trapped within the Earth’s core affect its magnetic field, which protects us from the Sun’s extreme radiation.
« We don’t know the exact thickness of the doughnut, but we inferred that it reaches a few hundred kilometers beneath the core-mantle boundary », said study coauthor and ANU geophysicist Hrvoje Tkalčić in a statement.Planetary IBS
As detailed in a new paper published in the journal Science Advances, the scientists studied the reverberating shock waves from earthquakes to make their discovery.
