Subject:
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Re: Melting a planet's core
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Tue, 10 Jun 2003 17:49:02 GMT
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Viewed:
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363 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, David Laswell wrote:
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Steven Lane wrote:
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I saw a program the other day which said that the planet Mars lost most of
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it’s atmosphere when it lost it’s magnetic field. It said that the field
deflected harmful solar winds preventing them scouring away the atmosphere,
but it lost it’s field when the planets core stopped rotating, this being
the result of the core cooling down and solidifying.
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Entering extrreme geek zone
OK let’s do the math
every thing is metric
radius of the earth = 6378137 meters
figure the “core” is 1/4 radius out 1594534.25
volume of core 4/3 * PI * R-cubed = 16982051976875485000 = 1.7e10^19 M^3
Ignoring pressure issues and assume core 100% iron
density of iron = 7874 kg/m^3
mass of core 1.7 10^19 * 7874 * 1000g/Kg = 1.3x10e26g
specific heat of iron 0.45j/g (pressure assumption effects this)
joules required to raise core 1 degree C = 1.3x10e26g * 0.45 = 6.0e10^24
joules in on gram of matter (assuming 100% conversion to energy)
E = MxC^2 = 1x3.0x10^9 = 9e10^10
amount of matter required to raise core 1 degree
1.3x10e26/9e10^18 = 1.4e7
Melting point of Iron = 1538 (again pressure issues)
to melt core starting at 0 C (aauming 100% heating efficieny)
1.4e7 * 1538 = 2.2e^10g or 2.2e^7 Kg or 2.2e^4 metric ton
So to melt the core you would have to convert 100% to energy and apply with 100%
efficiency 22,000 metric tons of matter, that’s a lot of H-bombs
End extereme geek zone
Lester
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Message has 1 Reply:
 | | Re: Melting a planet's core
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| GRIN.... (...) This is off topic for .debate... it belongs in .geek! C'mon guys! Now if you want to debate whether melting Mars is a good idea or not, that's different. :-) Personally I'm not sure it's a good idea, or necessary. There's plenty of (...) (21 years ago, 10-Jun-03, to lugnet.off-topic.debate, lugnet.off-topic.geek)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: Melting a planet's core
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| (...) That sounds a lot like the premise of the recent movie The Core, but I saw a geophysicist on TV talking about it, and how he liked the fact that recent movies have been inspiring kids to get into science, but he said that in this case he (...) (21 years ago, 10-Jun-03, to lugnet.off-topic.debate, FTX)
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