Scientists have discovered that Earth's inner core is changing shape, resolving a long-held controversy about its solidity. This finding illustrates a dynamic inner Earth, with seismic wave analysis revealing deformations occurring between 2004 and 2008. This change may affect the length of the day and the planet's magnetic field. Seismologists like John Vidale and Xiaodong Song emphasize that the understanding of the inner core's behavior is evolving, as evidence shows it is rotating at differing rates within the molten outer core.
For the first time we're seeing that it's deforming, says John Vidale, a seismologist at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles.
After decades of research and debates, we are coming to an ever-clearer picture of the changing inner core, says Xiaodong Song, a seismologist at Peking University in Beijing.
The waveforms, or shapes, of some of the seismic signals changed between 2004 and 2008 due to the inner core's changing shape.
Researchers made the discovery by analyzing how seismic waves from earthquakes traveled from the South Sandwich Islands in the South Atlantic Ocean to seismometers.
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