What can be inside our native planet? Simply put, what does the Earth consist of, what is its internal structure? These questions have long worried scientists. But it turned out that clarifying this issue is not so simple. Even with the help of ultramodern technologies, a person can go inside only at a distance equal to fifteen kilometers, and this, of course, is not enough to understand and justify everything. Therefore, even today, research on the topic “what the earth consists of” is carried out mainly using indirect data and hypotheses. But in this, scientists have already achieved certain results.
How to study the planet
Even in ancient times, individual representatives of mankind sought to know: what the Earth consists of. People also studied rock sections, exposed by nature itself and available for viewing. These are, first of all, cliffs, mountain slopes, a steep coast of seas and rivers. From these natural sections, much can be understood, because they consist of the rocks that were here millions of years ago. And today, scientists drilled wells in some places on land. Of these, the deepest is 15 km on the Kola Peninsula. Also, the study is carried out with the help of mines breaking through for the extraction of minerals: coal and ore, for example. Samples of rocks that can tell people about what the Earth consists of are also extracted from them.
Indirect data
But this is what concerns the experimental and visual knowledge of the structure of the planet. But with the help of the science of seismology (the study of earthquakes) and geophysics, scientists penetrate into the depths without contact, analyzing seismic waves and their propagation. These data tell us about the properties of substances that are deep underground. A study is being made of the structure of the planet with the help of artificial satellites that are in orbit.
What planet Earth consists of
The internal structure of the planet is heterogeneous. Today, researchers have found that inside the globe consists of several parts. In the middle is the core. Next is the mantle, which is huge and makes up about five sixths of the entire mass of the Earth. The outer crust is represented by a thin layer covering the sphere. These three components, in turn, are also not completely homogeneous and have structural features.
Nucleus
What does the core of the earth consist of? Scientists put forward several versions of the composition and origin of the central part of the planet. The most popular: the core is an iron-nickel melt. The core is divided into several parts: the inner is solid, the outer is liquid. It is very heavy: it makes up more than a third of the total mass of the planet (for comparison, its volume is only 15%). According to scientists, it was formed gradually over time, and iron and nickel were released from silicates. Currently (in 2015), scientists from Oxford have proposed a version according to which the core consists of radioactive uranium. By this, by the way, they explain both the increased heat transfer of the planet and the existence of a magnetic field to this day. In any case, the information that the Earth’s core consists of can only be obtained hypothetically, since prototypes are not available to modern science.
Mantle
What does the mantle of the Earth consist of? It should immediately be noted that, as in the case of the nucleus, scientists have never had a chance to get to it. Therefore, the study is also carried out using theories and hypotheses. In recent years, however, Japanese researchers have been drilling at the bottom of the ocean, where "only" 3000 km will remain to the mantle. But so far, the results are not announced. And the mantle, according to scientists, is made up of silicates - rocks saturated with iron and magnesium. They are in a molten liquid state (temperature reaches 2500 degrees). And also, oddly enough, water is also part of the mantle. There is a lot of it (if all the internal water was splashed to the surface, the level of the world's oceans would rise by 800 meters).
Earth's crust
It takes only a little more than a percent of the planet in volume and a little less - in mass. But, despite its low weight, the crust of the earth is very important for humanity, because it is on it that all life on Earth lives.
Spheres of the earth
It is known that the age of our planet is approximately 4.5 billion years (scientists found this out using radiometric data). In the study of the Earth revealed several inherent shells, called geospheres. They differ both in their chemical composition and physical properties. The hydrosphere includes all the water available on the planet in its various states (liquid, solid, gaseous). The lithosphere is a stone shell tightly encircling the Earth (from 50 to 200 km thick). The biosphere is all life on the planet, including bacteria, plants, and people. The atmosphere (from the ancient Greek "atmosphere", which means steam) is the air shell of the earth, without which life would not be possible.
What the atmosphere of the Earth consists of
The inner part of this shell, which is most important for life, adjoins the earth's crust and is a gaseous substance. And the outer one borders on outer space. It determines the weather on the planet, and in its composition is also not homogeneous. What does the atmosphere of the Earth consist of? Modern scientists can accurately determine its components. Nitrogen in percentage terms - more than 75%. Oxygen - 23%. Argon - a little over 1 percent. Quite a bit: carbon dioxide, neon, helium, methane, hydrogen, xenon and some other substances. The water content in the atmosphere varies from 0.2% to 2.5% depending on the climatic zone. The carbon dioxide content is also variable. Some characteristics of the Earth’s modern atmosphere directly depend on human industrial activity.