Heat slowly moves through Earth's mantle like softened wax

Convection flows in Earth’s mantle drive the movement of tectonic plates

These processes transfer heat from Earth’s core to the surface via rising magma plumes, while cooler, denser rock falls into the mantle at rates similar to human fingernail growth. These rates are determined by combining seismic data with computer simulations to model Earth’s interior.

Movement of molten metal around its solid inner core creates Earth's magnetic field

According to the geodynamo process, the rotation of the planet and the looping, convective flow of electrically conductive iron and nickel produce dynamic electric currents, which generate a self-sustaining magnetic field. This is unlike natural, stationary magnets, which possess a static field created when the metal cooled and its atoms aligned with Earth's magnetic field.

How we know what’s deep inside the Earth, despite never traveling there

We'll likely never see the Earth's core, but we can make educated guesses about what it's like down there. Nearly as hot as the sun's surface and under impossibly high pressure, the inner Earths extreme conditions make it impossible to explore. Yet, seismic waves during earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and light waves from the sun provide fascinating insights about our planet’s mantle, crust, and core.

Earth's inner structure is a dynamic system of layers in constant, slow motion

From the crust to the core, each of Earth's layers—some solid, some liquid—plays a role in generating its magnetic field, moving tectonic plates, and cycling matter. These details are determined through modeling since humans have only drilled 12 kilometers underground.

The continuous decay of radioactive elements regenerates geothermal energy reserves

Geothermal power is a renewable energy source derived from Earth's interior, where the core reaches temperatures exceeding 5,000 degrees Celsius (9,000 degrees Fahrenheit). These temperatures result from leftover energy from collisions during planetary formation, with radioactive decay in the core releasing additional energy that travels to the surface.

How the sun heats the Earth

We all know it: Without the sun's heat, the Earth would be uninhabitable. So how does it work? The sun fuses roughly 600 million tons of hydrogen every second, the energy from which bursts out into space—including toward our planet. Our atmosphere...

Earth's core is leaking precious metals, including gold

Earth's core, containing 99.999% of all known gold, is leaking trace amounts of precious metals into the mantle. Advanced isotopic methods have detected this leakage at volcanoes in Hawai'i, providing new insights into the movement of material beneath Earth's surface.

Atmospheric greenhouse gases trap thermal energy and make Earth habitable

The moon and Earth are at the same distance from the sun, but the moon experiences large fluctuations in surface temperature because it lacks an atmosphere to insulate it. Gases such as water vapor, ozone, carbon dioxide, and methane can intercept about 90% of the infrared radiation emitted by Earth's surface.

View the internal structure of the sun and its puzzling surrounding atmosphere

From the stellar core to the surface, the sun's density decreases from more than 10 times that of lead to 0.00001% that of air, while temperatures drop from millions to thousands. Temperatures increase from the sun's surface to the outermost layer of its atmosphere—the corona—a phenomenon whose explanation is still under investigation.

The movement of seismic waves reveals the structure of Earth’s interior

Changes in temperature, density, and composition alter the path of primary and secondary waves, impacting where they are detected along Earth’s surface. These deflections create shadow zones 104 degrees to 140 degrees away from the epicenter, where no waves are directly detected.

Extraterrestrial volcanoes spew material present during their formation

Unlike Earth's volcanoes that release lava, cryovolcanoes on distant moons erupt cold jets of water, ammonia, and other light gases present during the formation of their host planet. The movement of internal heat produced during formation is thought to drive icy plume movement.

Differences in pressure and temperature between atmospheric gases create wind

Because Earth's surface is not uniformly heated by the sun at all times, pockets of warmer and cooler air will form and interact. Warmer pockets of less dense air will rise, leaving gaps for cooler, denser air to move in. Wind is this movement of air from high-pressure to low-pressure areas.

Hawaii formed from oceanic plate movement over a hot spot in the mantle

Abnormally hot magma rose through the crust and emerged from the seafloor, where it cooled and piled onto layers that became tall enough to form an island. As the plate moved, the existing island moved away and a new one formed over the hot spot, repeating for each Hawaiian island.

Helium formation, from radioactive decay inside Earth to nuclear fusion within stellar cores

Over the course of billions of years, uranium and thorium undergo alpha decay, producing helium nuclei—two protons and two neutrons—which become helium atoms after gaining two electrons. This helium becomes trapped in underground reservoirs along with other gases and can be recovered during natural gas extraction.

How diamonds form in the deep earth

Deep within Earth's mantle, diamonds form from carbon-bearing fluids. The formation of these beautiful gemstones, the only direct samples we have of the mantle, helps scientists uncover how carbon functions deep inside our planet. Understanding this complex process aids in the exploration for new diamond deposits.

Tidally locked exoplanets experience extreme atmospheric temperatures

On worlds like WASP 76b, which orbits its host star approximately 3% the Earth-sun distance, temperatures on its day side can vaporize iron. Winds more than 14 times the speed of sound blow this material to its night side, where it condenses and falls as liquid metal.

Learn how the Earth was made

Four and a half billion years ago the Earth formed from dust in space to become a molten ball of rock orbiting the sun. Travel back in time to investigate how the Earth was made.

Mars once had oceans and a thick atmosphere

It formed over millions of years as small clumps of matter orbiting the sun smashed together, solidified, and cooled. Geological features indicate the presence of past surface water, which evaporated away due to the planet's weak gravitational field.

Volcanoes 'die' when their supply of magma runs out, if they are shifted away from their underlying magma reservoir, or if they get clogged by collapsing or their magma cooling back into rock.

Why parts of the Earth are colder when the planet is closer to the Sun

The Earth orbits the Sun in an elliptical shape, and winter in the Northern Hemisphere occurs when the Earth reaches the point in its orbit closest to the Sun, known as perihelion. The lower temperatures result from the hemisphere tilting away from the Sun.

Black holes form from the collapse of massive stellar cores due to gravity

Over time, less energy is released from the cores of massive stars as heavier elements are created through fusion. Once iron has been fused, energy is consumed rather than created, and runaway collapse creates a dense enough region where the stellar core existed to warp spacetime into a black hole.

Meet the Earth's 'radiation donuts'

Radiation donuts might summon up a certain television cartoon character's favorite snack, but they're something else entirely. Also known as Van Allen belts, these zones of radiation arise from charged particles emitted from the sun and subsequently captured by the Earth's magnetic field. Understanding the underlying physics of the Van Allen belts is critical to modern-day telecommunications.

Breaking down the ionosphere, which reflects radio waves from Earth's surface

Made up of ionized regions within the mesosphere and thermosphere, the ionosphere contains charged particles produced when solar radiation knocks electrons free from atoms and molecules in the atmosphere. Before satellites, radio operators would bounce signals off these regions to wrap around the planet and extend the range of transmissions.

Planets' high orbital speeds prevent them from falling into their host star

Although the gravitational force attracts a planet and the star it orbits around, the large speed the planet orbits with, which is acquired during its formation process, causes it to continuously miss the star as it orbits around it. This is analogous to theoretically throwing a baseball horizontally faster and faster until it's fast enough to orbit the Earth while attempting to fall to its surface.

Astronomical models suggest dark matter must be 'cold,' or slow-moving

Theories for what constitutes dark matter have ranged from slow, planet-sized objects to light subatomic particles that travel at high speeds. However, fast-moving candidates would quickly spread across the universe, preventing the gradual gathering of visible matter into the galaxies and galaxy clusters seen today through gravity.

While the sun's gravity keeps the planets in orbit, their gravity also pulls on the sun, causing it and everything else in the solar system to orbit around a mutual balance point called the barycenter—the true center of the solar system.

Temperatures colder than Pluto can allow electricity to flow resistance-free

Since its discovery in 1911, applications of superconductivity have made MRI machines and maglev trains possible due to quantum effects at extreme temperatures. These effects are modeled as electrons cooperating in pairs and flowing more efficiently.

The boiling temperature of water decreases with increasing elevation because the molecules need less energy to overcome the lower atmospheric pressure associated with thinner air.

Dirty lightning is a thunderstorm created from friction between rising and falling flows of ash and smoke during volcanic eruptions.

Stars appear to twinkle because turbulence in the motion of molecules in Earth's atmosphere causes light to bend and wiggle rapidly on its way to the surface—a phenomenon called scintillation.

How fusion—which releases energy when two lighter atoms combine to form a heavier atom—differs from fission

The deadliest aspect of volcanic eruptions is often not lava, but pyroclastic flows—avalanches of ash, gas, and rock that can move more than half the speed of sound.

Scientists can determine Earth's past climate conditions by analyzing air trapped in microscopic bubbles within ice cores—columns of compressed snow layers that build up over hundreds of thousands of years.

Learn how your body is, scientifically, like a firework with its own slow, controlled burn.

Hurricanes, which rely on air consistently spinning in the same direction, cannot cross the equator because air curves in opposite directions north and south of it.

Neutron stars, the remains of some massive stars after they explode in a supernova, are the densest directly observable objects in the universe.

Pure water does not conduct electricity because this flow of energy requires the movement of charged particles, and water is a neutral molecule.

While El Niño moves warm Pacific Ocean waters east along the equator, La Niña moves them west, shifting where rainfall will become more common for months.

Radioactive elements can introduce software errors because the ionizing radiation they produce can detach electrons from atoms, and computer code relies on the distribution of electrons.

According to the physics of black holes, our 4D reality may be a hologram—a projection of information coded on a 2D surface on the edge of the universe.

Track the location of the Voyager probes, currently between 13 and 15 billion miles away from Earth.

The history of many kitchen appliances involves unexpected discoveries and applications, including wartime radar turned hamster defroster and replacing an 'ice king' with heat-stealing boxes.

Explore the animals that populate the depths of the ocean, from fish and coral in the first few hundred feet, all the way down to the bottom of the Mariana Trench.

Bone marrow (soft tissue found inside certain bones) generates roughly 500 billion new blood cells each day

Coral polyps reproduce via broadcast spawning, where entire reefs simultaneously release reproductive cells for about one hour, once a year.

Massive 3D printers have been used to build homes by stacking layers of 'concrete toothpaste,' a fire-resistant material that effectively insulates against outside noise.

The word 'jazz' evolved from 'jasm,' 19th-century American slang for 'energy'

Gerrymandering works through two techniques: cracking opposing voters across districts to dilute their power, and packing them into a few to waste their votes in lopsided majorities.

The US dollar is the most widely circulated currency in the world, and is involved in nearly 90% of global transactions

After the Boston Tea Party, colonists switched to coffee, which became the main morning drink for revolutionaries.