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Researchers suspect that the Earth’s core holds large reserves of the rare gas, helium-3.
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Nationalgeographic.co.id—A new study has revealed about the leak helium-3 of earth’s core, which is a rare isotope of helium gas. Since nearly all of the helium-3 came from the Big Bang, this gas leak adds to evidence that the Earth formed inside nebula suryawhich scientists have long debated.
Helium-3 has been measured on the earth’s surface in relatively small amounts. But scientists do not know how much is leaking from the earth’s core, where it contrasts with its middle layer called the mantle.
The study points to the core as the main source of helium-3 for Earth. Helium-3 is an isotope, or variant, of helium that has one neutron instead of the usual two neutrons in its nucleus. It is a rare gas, making up only 0.0001% of the helium on Earth. Some natural processes can produce helium-3, such as the radioactive decay of tritium, but helium-3 is created primarily in solar nebulae, the large rotating clouds of gas and dust that gave rise to our Solar System. Since helium was one of the earliest elements produced in the universe, most of helium-3 can be traced back to the Big Bang.
NASA/ESA
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This image taken by the Hubble Telescope shows the Lagoon Nebula. After the Big Bang, large quantities of the rare gas helium-3 were created, and particles of this gas became part of the nebulae, one of which later gave rise to our solar system. The amount of helium-3 leaking from Earth’s metallic core indicates that our planet formed in a nebula with a high concentration of helium-3.
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As a planet grows, it collects matter from its surroundings, so that its composition reflects the environment in which it formed. To get high concentrations of helium-3 deep in the core, Earth had to form within the expanding solar nebula, not in its periphery or during its waning phase.
This new research has added further clues to the mystery surrounding Earth’s formation, providing additional evidence for the theory that our planet formed within a solar nebula. The results of this study have been published in the journal AGU Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems on March 28, 2022 entitled Primordial Helium-3 Exchange Between Earth’s Core and Mantle. This study has published research on the chemistry, physics, geology and biological processes of the Earth and planets.
“About 2,000 grams of helium-3 leaks out of Earth every year, enough to fill a balloon the size of your desk,” said study lead author Peter Olson, a geophysicist at the University of New Mexico, as Tech Explorist reports. and a clue to Earth’s history, that there are still large amounts of this isotope in the interior of the Earth.”
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