Earth's Inner Core Melting vs. Inner Core Staying Solid - General

Hi. Several months ago, in Science class we started a mass debate about if the earth's inner core will melt or stay solid when the earth is split completely in half. The split would be INSTANT so know that. So I decided to start a post right here. I think the core will [B]not[/B] stay solid because first of all, it loses its pressure the earth is giving it right now, making it liquify. Secondly, if it's still solid after the split, the intense heat of the outer core and the inner core itself would heat itself to melting point. And for the people who say it will cool off in space, it will, but the split is instant, so the heat would still remain for a period of time. What do you think? [sup][sup]This is my first debate thread so sorry for any mistakes. Yes, I did read the rules.[/sup][/sup]

Explosive decompression would occur. It would liquify and the immense change in pressure would cause the liquid metal to probably explode off into space. The rest of the planet would be fucked, too, of course. Not just the core. In addition, space is nigh absolute zero, sure, but that doesn't mean it conducts heat very fast... Consider that 'space' usually only contains a few molecules per square meter. The air we breath has 10^25 molecules per square meter. The time for the thermal energy of the metal to dissipate off would actually be a huge amount of time. In fact, astronauts/space station deal with overheating more than being too cold...

Earth's inner core is lava and heat due to the sheer pressure of the Earth's mass around it. At least in layman's terms. (A lot of astronomical/geographical stuff applies.) So the Earth split in half in a split second? Hell, I don't know, it would be quite a sight from distance. But it would be the end of Earth in a rather spectacular fashion. It would fuck up our planet's geometry total fucking absolutely. So.. was this the point of this debate?

Well it would either liquefy or vaporise.

[QUOTE=Gekkosan;37080259]Earth's inner core is lava and heat due to the sheer pressure of the Earth's mass around it. At least in layman's terms. (A lot of astronomical/geographical stuff applies.) So the Earth split in half in a split second? Hell, I don't know, it would be quite a sight from distance. But it would be the end of Earth in a rather spectacular fashion. It would fuck up our planet's geometry total fucking absolutely. So.. was this the point of this debate?[/QUOTE] The point of the debate was to debate about the Earth's core melting or staying solid after being split instantly. I'm not trying to debate about how the surface would react, I'm trying to debate about how the core would react.

Do you actually move the two pieces of earth away from each other during this split? Unless you add a decent distance between the two pieces, the earth would simply stick together again thanks to gravity.

[QUOTE=Gekkosan;37080259]Earth's inner core is lava and heat due to the sheer pressure of the Earth's mass around it. At least in layman's terms. (A lot of astronomical/geographical stuff applies.) So the Earth split in half in a split second? Hell, I don't know, it would be quite a sight from distance. But it would be the end of Earth in a rather spectacular fashion. It would fuck up our planet's geometry total fucking absolutely. So.. was this the point of this debate?[/QUOTE] The Earth's core is solid iron and nickel.

This is a pretty stupid debate. None of the things said here can't be substantiated without a nice fat peer reviewed study, conducted by scientists.

If you somehow magically cut away half the Earth so you only had one half left, it'd probably just collapse into a spheroid, everything would get mixed up a bit and you'll end up with a smaller planet that has half the volume, with the surface being a mixture of solid and liquid lava everywhere. [editline]5th August 2012[/editline] if you wanted anything close to a definite answer you'd probably need to run a pretty complex CSM simulation or something [editline]5th August 2012[/editline] well, when I say definite, it'd still be more of an educated guess really

as pressure increases, melting point increases as well. the earth's core is under extremely high pressure due to gravitational force, and as such it retains a solid state in spite of high temperatures. if the atmospheric pressure was lowered significantly, its melting point would decrease and it would vaporize due to its high temperature. as someone else said, this isn't really a debate given that there is scientific evidence that backs up certain theories and a clear right or wrong answer to the question.

This isn't a debate, it's a general agreement.

It will continue to stay hot as so long the radioactive elements keep on radiating or whatever. A few lumps of plutonium will keep an astronaut warm on cold Mars. So I imagine that a few thousand (at the very least) tons of plutonium and other radioactive elements will melt rock.

[QUOTE=Collin665;37076140]Explosive decompression would occur. It would liquify and the immense change in pressure would cause the liquid metal to probably explode off into space. The rest of the planet would be fucked, too, of course. Not just the core. In addition, space is nigh absolute zero, sure, but that doesn't mean it conducts heat very fast... Consider that 'space' usually only contains a few molecules per square meter. The air we breath has 10^25 molecules per square meter. The time for the thermal energy of the metal to dissipate off would actually be a huge amount of time. In fact, astronauts/space station deal with overheating more than being too cold...[/QUOTE] You don't need matter to transfer heat, it'll just lose heat because of the EM radiation.

[QUOTE=Bulletspong3;37094917]This isn't a debate, it's a general agreement.[/QUOTE] Happens every now and then. Not even Facepunch can disagree on everything.

If the earth simply split in half, the two halves will simply form back together due to gravity, with nothing happening to the core (or next to nothing). Assuming the split is the only force at play, there's no force moving the halves any further apart then they were before the split. Magma will simply fill the newfound void and nothing would happen to the inner core. On the other hand the surface where the cut happened would be fucked depending on how thick the split was.

[QUOTE=cqbcat;37135093]It will continue to stay hot as so long the radioactive elements keep on radiating or whatever. A few lumps of plutonium will keep an astronaut warm on cold Mars. So I imagine that a few thousand (at the very least) tons of plutonium and other radioactive elements will melt rock.[/QUOTE] That's not why the core is hot.

[QUOTE=EvacX;37137733]You don't need matter to transfer heat, it'll just lose heat because of the EM radiation.[/QUOTE] Still won't do it very fast at all.

if the planet split in half it would snap back together. If it had enough velocity to overcome tidal and gravitational forces, two equally sized planets would form, not in the same shape of course.. how the core acts is a meaningless question given the impossibility of such an event occurring. [editline]8th August 2012[/editline] [QUOTE=cqbcat;37135093]It will continue to stay hot as so long the radioactive elements keep on radiating or whatever. A few lumps of plutonium will keep an astronaut warm on cold Mars. So I imagine that a few thousand (at the very least) tons of plutonium and other radioactive elements will melt rock.[/QUOTE] if plutonium was in the core it would of all decayed by now. I doubt there would be enough of any radioactive element to produce a substantial amount of heat, the concentration would have to be enormous given the size of the planet.

It would spill out a bit and then turn into a rock,probably