Scientists: Earth's inner core has stopped rotating and has been rotating backwards since 2020
A recent study revealed that the inner core of the planet may have stopped rotating during the past decade, and its rotation may be in the opposite direction at the present time.
According to the study, which was published in the journal "Nature Geoscience" and examined several decades of data in search of patterns in the rotation of the inner core of the Earth, the inner core stopped rotating - compared to the movement of liquid materials within the Earth's mantle layer - between 2009 and 2020.
But the matter does not cause concern, and scientists confirmed that this incident occurred several times in which the speed and direction of the Earth's core changed over many years, and since 2020, it seems that the Earth's core has been rotating backwards.
Researchers Yi Yang and Xiaodong Song, from the "SinoProbe" laboratory at Peking University, say that data from 1964 to 2021 indicate finding frequent earthquakes strong enough to produce seismic waves that can penetrate the inner core, and that by studying the nature of those waves over a period of years. The earthquake graphs show that seismic waves are almost completely inverted, so the greater the superspin of the core, the shorter the day and vice versa.
The study expected that the reverse rotation of the Earth's core from east to west would begin in 2040.
Song was one of the first scientists to suggest that the Earth's inner core rotates faster than its crust, according to The Washington Post, adding in press statements that "the inner core is the deepest layer of the Earth, and its relative rotation is one of the most interesting and challenging problems in geoscience." .
The researchers said the Earth's core cycle is related to changes in the length of the day - which mysteriously became longer and shorter when calculated with microsecond precision - as well as to changes in the planet's magnetic field.
According to Yang and Song, the variations in day length and the Earth's magnetic field follow a pattern spanning about 6 to 7 decades, but the scientists pointed out that the full data record only covers a period of 56 years.
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