Primordial helium from the beginning of the solar system may be trapped in the earth’s solid core, according to new research. These findings can have implications for a long -lasting debate about how fast our planet is formed.
This rare helium form is called helium-3 because it has two protons and one neutron in its nucleus. Normal helium which is 700,000 times more common than Helium-3, called Helium-4 because it has two protons and two neutrons. Whereas Helium-4 is a common product of the decay of radioactive elements, Helium-3 originates almost entirely from the initial dust and gas clouds that form the solar system.
This primordial element is already known in the earth. Every year, around 4.4 pounds (2 kilograms) helium-3 leak out of the middle of the sea of the sea where the crust is released and exits the volcanic hot points that knock on the magma from the deep coat. But how exactly it remains in this planet for billions of years is a continuous mystery.
Helium is a very light gas and most of the volatile gases have long come out of the coat after being blown by the wind during the giant collision that forms the moon or flares up to the surface by the unavoidable tectonic plate movement.
Scientists have theorized that maybe this primordial helium is locked in the core of the earth, where it will remain safe from large disturbances and leak to the surface only very slowly. But the point is that most of them are iron, and helium and iron are usually not mixed.
Now, in a new study, researchers at the Kei Hirose laboratory, a planet scientist at Tokyo University and their colleagues have found that at the expected temperature and pressure in the core, the two elements are really mixed. In fact, solid iron at high temperatures and pressure can contain up to 3.3% helium, the researchers reported on February 25 in the journal Physical Review Letters.
The researchers found this compatibility by heating iron and helium up to between 1,340 and 4,940 degrees Fahrenheit (727 to 2,727 degrees Celsius, or 1,000 to 3,000 Kelvin) while compressing elements with a base of diamonds to between 50,000 and 550,000 times the pressure on the surface of the earth. Then, they decrease the sample pressure below the cryogenic temperature and measure the structure of the crystal. This method is likely to prevent the release of helium during the measurement phase, Hirose said in a statement.
“Researchers use normal helium-4 in their experiments, but Helium-3 is likely to behave very similar,” said Peter Olson, a geophysical expert at the University of New Mexico who studied the core of the earth. These findings confirm that the helium can remain locked in the inner core of the dense earth for a long time, Olson said to live science, but he warned that only 4% of the dense core.
“This is important, because this shows that the helium is compatible with the core solid phase. But because the nucleus is almost certainly formed in a liquid state, there is more work that must be done to show that the same interpretation can be applied to the liquid part, “Olson said.
“Finding out how helium-3 is put into the nucleus during the formation of the earth is very important to understand when the planet is formed. Light gases such as helium hanging around nebula gas-and-debu that form the solar system for only a few million years, “continued Olson.
“There has been a lot of debate how long the time the earth needs to be formed. There are other evidence that have been interpreted to say that the earth is formed very slowly, requires 100 million years. You will not get a lot of helium far in the earth if the earth is formed as slow as that,” Olson said.
In other words, if scientists can show that the core of the earth contains a lot of helium-3, it will strongly recommend that the planet is formed quickly, resolving old debates about the birth of the solar system. (Live Science/Z-2)
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