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

[mitterdoo]

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]

[Napalm_bomb]

If the Earth split the shit pushing and heating would cool by that time the core wouldn't be hot enough to melt completely? I don't know!

[Collin665]

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 significantly more than being too cold...

[Nikita]

The half-sphere of earth would crumble and become somewhat more spherical again.

I think the core right now is at the point where there is no distinction between "solid" and "liquid" phases.

As in, it's solid, but flows.

So it would do that if the earth were split. Then it really depends on pressure. Maybe the pressure would make the core shoot out of the earth and out into space? Then it would certainly liquefy.

[Pseudonym]

FYI the inner core would actually become gas if there was no pressure keeping it in a solid state.

Of course the scenario you presented has a bunch of other things one would have to take into consideration.

[Block]

[QUOTE=Nikita;37076397]
I think the core right now is at the point where there is no distinction between "solid" and "liquid" phases.

As in, it's solid, but flows.
[/QUOTE]

Why do you think that? All I've read is that the inner core is solid and outer core is liquid.