• Question: What is the inside of the earth like?

    Asked by eringracecooke to Christina, Jess on 28 Jun 2013.
    • Photo: Christina Pagel

      Christina Pagel answered on 28 Jun 2013:

      hot and dark!
      But there are basically 4 layers:

      The top layer is called the crust and it’s very thin (0-60km) and is the solid rock on which we all live.
      the next layer of the earth is hot rocks, and the further down you go the hotter the rocks get and eventually they become liquid under the intense pressure (this is the lava which comes out of volcanoes). This is a really thick layer (almost 3000 km thick)
      Then you get to the core – the outer core is molten iron and nickle and the movement of this liquid metal is what gives us our magnetic field
      The inner core is solid iron and nickle (solid becuase it’s under so much pressure from the weight of all the earth above it!).
      The core (both outer and inner) are very hot (over 5000 degrees C)!

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