An international team of scientists from the US, UK and China have advanced the research into what forms the center of the planet. The research was published in Nature Communications and carried out by the University of Edinburgh.
Using “single-pulse laser heating diamond anvil cell experiments [which] combine measurements of optical emission, transmission, and reflectance spectroscopy in the visible spectral range (480–750 nm) using a streak camera”, the scientists replicated conditions at the Earth’s core.
According to the University of Edinburgh, the researchers saw “how samples of nitrogen behaved at more than 1 million times normal atmospheric pressure and temperatures above 3,000C”. They confirmed that under such conditions, nitrogen exists as a liquid metal. Now that the researchers saw how nitrogen behaves at extreme conditions, this “could aid understanding of how the planets were formed”.
