Earth's core is much hotter than thought

European scientists said on April 25 that a new laboratory experiment shows the Earth's core is likely much hotter than last reported 20 years ago. It's not that the iron core of our planet has warmed, but rather that the technique used to estimate its heat previously was flawed, researchers said in the journal Science.
Newer techniques have allowed experts at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility to determine the temperature near Earth's centre to be 6,000 degrees Celsius (10,832 degrees Fahrenheit). That is about 1,000 degrees C hotter than an experiment conducted by German researchers in 1993.
Researchers are analysing the solid iron core of the Earth, where extreme temperatures and pressure result in a hard center, while the surrounding iron at lower temperatures of about 4,000 degrees Celsius remains liquid. "We have developed a new technique where an intense beam of X-rays from the synchrotron can probe a sample and deduce whether it is solid, liquid or partially molten within as little as a second, using a process known diffraction," said Mohamed Mezouar from the ESRF.