* Astronomy

Exploring the last white spot on Earth

Scientists will soon be exploring matter at temperatures and pressures so extreme that the conditions can only be produced for microseconds using powerful pulsed lasers. Matter in such states is present in the Earth's liquid iron core, 2500 kilometres beneath the surface, and also in elusive "warm dense matter" inside large planets like Jupiter. A new X-ray beamline ID24 at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF) in Grenoble, France, allows a new level of exploration of the last white spot on our globe: the centre of the Earth.
We know surprisingly little about the interior of the Earth. The pressure at the centre can be calculated accurately from the propagation of earthquake waves; it is about three and a half million times atmospheric pressure. The temperature at the centre of the Earth, however, is unknown, but is thought to be roughly as hot as the surface of the sun.
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