Oxygen Deposit In The Earth's Core Is Larger Than Previously Estimated - Research

                                      

Before i start? Lets go back to a little chemistry, like the ones we learnt in secondary school.

The earth's atmosphere is primarily composed of nitrogen (78%) and oxygen (21%) with only small concentrations of other trace gases (this research just proved this is not entirely true). 

Nearly all atmospheric water vapor or moisture is found in the troposphere, so it is the layer where most of Earth's weather takes place.

A team called Ryerson just changed the study of the earth's core forever, laying waste to all we did in secondary school, which afterall we don't use (except when arguing lol). But knowledge is priceless.

Based on the higher oxygen concentration of the core, Ryerson’s team concludes that Earth must have accreted material that is more oxidized than the present-day mantle, similar to that of planetesimals such as asteroidal bodies. A planetesimal is an object formed from dust, rock and other materials and can be can be anywhere in size from several meters to hundreds of kilometers.

It is said that the Earth formed about 4.56 billion years ago (bible students will argue this lol), over a period of several tens of millions of years through the accretion of planetary embryos and planetesimals. The energy delivered by progressively larger impacts maintained Earth’s outer layer and an extensively molten magma ocean. Gravitational separation of metal and silicate within the magma ocean results in the planet characterized by a metallic core and a silicate mantle.

Science revealed the formation of Earth’s core left behind geophysical and geochemical signatures in the core and mantle that remain to this day. In the past, core formation models have only attempted to address the evolution of core and mantle compositional signatures separately rather than looking for a joint solution.

During An interview with Ryerson he explains how this discovery changes the science world he said

"This new model is at odds with the current belief that core formation occurred under reduction conditions,” Ryerson said. “Instead we found that Earth’s magma ocean started out oxidized and has become reduced through time by oxygen incorporation into the core.”

They found the oxygen concentrations in the core are higher than previously thought and silicon concentrations are lower than previous estimates. In our quest to look for habitable planets we have to put this large amount of oxygen deposits into consideration.