About HotCores

The Earth’s inner-core is 1220 km radius planet within the Earth, made of solid iron (Fe) crystallizing from the outer core as the Earth cools down. The inner core affects our life at the surface: its growth provides a major source of energy for maintaining the Earth’s magnetic field. Understanding the history of the inner-core and its effect on the global Earth requires a reconstruction based on today’s observations and knowledge of the physical properties of the inner-core iron alloy.

The HotCores project is a 2.5 M€ grant from the European Research Council, awarded to Sébastien Merkel at the Université de Lille and starting in December 2022 to reenact key events of the history of the Earth's inner core in the laboratory.

More about the HotCores project.

Une brêve introduction en français.

HotCores: a five-year research project funded by the European Research Council (ERC) Advanced Grant program to reveal the unknown planet within the Earth

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