image: Recreating the Earth's liquid iron core in the laboratory: a tiny piece of iron, the size of a speck of dust, is thermally isolated and then placed between the tips of two conical diamonds. Pressing the two diamonds together produces pressures of 2 million atmospheres and more. A laser beam can then heat the sample to temperatures of 3000 to 5000 degrees making it melt. This image relates to a paper that appeared in the April 26, 2013, issue of Science, published by AAAS. The paper, by Simone Anzellini at French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA) in Arpajon, France, and colleagues was titled, "Melting of Iron at Earth's Inner Core Boundary Based on Fast X-ray Diffraction." view more
Credit: [Image courtesy of ESRF/Denis Andrault]