Why doesn't the crust of the Earth melt? | AskScience Blog

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Thursday, May 2, 2019

Why doesn't the crust of the Earth melt?

Why doesn't the crust of the Earth melt?


Why doesn't the crust of the Earth melt?

Posted: 01 May 2019 10:50 AM PDT

Dumb question: if the planet is filled with magma, why doesn't the outer crust melt into it? At some point deep down, melted rock is touching un-melted rock, so why aren't we all living on a Mustafar-like planet?

Edit: wow so many food metaphors! Thanks for the responses.

submitted by /u/sagressa
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Does being exposed to the common cold constantly like in a work environment strengthen your immune system?

Posted: 01 May 2019 09:21 PM PDT

Ask Anything Wednesday - Physics, Astronomy, Earth and Planetary Science

Posted: 01 May 2019 08:16 AM PDT

Welcome to our weekly feature, Ask Anything Wednesday - this week we are focusing on Physics, Astronomy, Earth and Planetary Science

Do you have a question within these topics you weren't sure was worth submitting? Is something a bit too speculative for a typical /r/AskScience post? No question is too big or small for AAW. In this thread you can ask any science-related question! Things like: "What would happen if...", "How will the future...", "If all the rules for 'X' were different...", "Why does my...".

Asking Questions:

Please post your question as a top-level response to this, and our team of panellists will be here to answer and discuss your questions.

The other topic areas will appear in future Ask Anything Wednesdays, so if you have other questions not covered by this weeks theme please either hold on to it until those topics come around, or go and post over in our sister subreddit /r/AskScienceDiscussion , where every day is Ask Anything Wednesday! Off-theme questions in this post will be removed to try and keep the thread a manageable size for both our readers and panellists.

Answering Questions:

Please only answer a posted question if you are an expert in the field. The full guidelines for posting responses in AskScience can be found here. In short, this is a moderated subreddit, and responses which do not meet our quality guidelines will be removed. Remember, peer reviewed sources are always appreciated, and anecdotes are absolutely not appropriate. In general if your answer begins with 'I think', or 'I've heard', then it's not suitable for /r/AskScience.

If you would like to become a member of the AskScience panel, please refer to the information provided here.

Past AskAnythingWednesday posts can be found here.

Ask away!

submitted by /u/AutoModerator
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Why is Saturn the only planet in the Solar System to have a stable polygon shaped (hexagon) storm?

Posted: 01 May 2019 08:21 PM PDT

As far as I know, storms on other planets can be unpredictable, but what makes those storms last for centuries forward, especially Saturn's special hexagonal storm on its north pole?

submitted by /u/Skelyro
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Do animals have a sense of "good" smells and "bad" smells like humans?

Posted: 01 May 2019 08:35 PM PDT

Do animals (dogs, chimps, etc) find things that humans usually find pleasant to smell, also pleasant? (cologne, flowers, perfume etc.)

submitted by /u/m-a-k-o
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How do oil companies know where to drill for oil reserves?

Posted: 01 May 2019 11:33 PM PDT

How fast does something have to travel in earths atmosphere before it begins to heat up?

Posted: 02 May 2019 02:47 AM PDT

When I hold my hand out of a car window it gets colder so I was wondering how much faster something would have to travel before it heats up like objects from space do when entering the atmosphere.

submitted by /u/Voltaire1778
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What are the deternining factors for how much scar tissue a wound will grow?

Posted: 01 May 2019 07:04 PM PDT

How can we know half-life without observing nuclear decay rate?

Posted: 01 May 2019 10:48 PM PDT

From Nature: Dark-matter detector observes exotic nuclear decay

This article describes how scientists just observed a nuclear decay from Xenon-124 for the first time ever. They then give the half-life of this isotope at a trillion times the age of the universe, or 1.8 × 1022 years.

How is it that they can arrive at a number for the half-life if we can never measure the decay rate experimentally? Why isn't more than a single data point necessary for what they call "statistical" uncertainty?

submitted by /u/slushpilot
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How do anthropologists and paleontologists clarify that a discovered bone is from a separate pre-modern species and not just an old bone from a modern species that had a physical abnormality?

Posted: 01 May 2019 05:26 PM PDT

Why does the gulf stream make the temperatures of western/northern europe so moderate yet doesn't seem to have a similar affect on much of the east coast of the US?

Posted: 01 May 2019 08:40 PM PDT

Do our taste buds react differently to tastes as we age?

Posted: 01 May 2019 02:21 PM PDT

Not sure if this is the right subreddit to ask, but anyways, do our taste buds react differently as we age?

I remember loving chocolate so much when I was young, but now I do not like chocolate, nor do I crave it.

Same thing goes with foods like Bell Peppers. I hated them so much as a kid but now I love them, cooked or straight from the fridge.

submitted by /u/TacoJones2
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How does a child have a different blood type from its mother? Doesn't it get the blood through the umbilical cord?

Posted: 01 May 2019 08:16 PM PDT

Will the total amount of radioactive material in the universe decrease over time?

Posted: 01 May 2019 04:03 PM PDT

Since all radioactive material has a half life, shouldn't that cause the total amount of radioactive materials to decrease? For example: In 5730 years, will the universe only have half as much carbon-14?

submitted by /u/dashwsd
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Now that the Xiahe mandible has been identified as denisovan, what does it tell us about denisovan's appearance/anatomy in comparison to modern humans?

Posted: 01 May 2019 03:42 PM PDT

Does it tell us more about their skull shape?

Also, I've always heard speculation that denisovans are somwhat larger than humans, due to the size of their teeth in comparison. Has this been confirmed or contradicted by this revelation?

submitted by /u/TheDwarvenGuy
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Could we have a FinFET tranistor with 4 control surfaces rather than 3?

Posted: 01 May 2019 11:05 PM PDT

Here a "control surface" means contact between the gate and the source-drain circuit.

My understanding is that FinFET has an advantage over previous transistors because the raised gate now surrounds the path of the electrons on three sides, whereas previously it only had contact with one side. Having more contact area allows for greater control and thus less leakage, which can compensate for decreased control area as the length of tranistor shrinks.

If the gate entirely wrapped around the source-drain path, wouldn't the extra side reduce leakage? Is this impossible because one side needs to be the silicon substrate, or is it just infeasible with current manufacturing techniques?

Bonus question: Since going from 1 side of contact to 3 sides of contact between the gate and the circuit gave substantial improvements, would adding another side be a minor improvement or would it have disproportional benefits. e.g. a 4th side is only a 33% increase in contact area, but this might reduce quantum tunneling by 50%.

submitted by /u/Bananacity
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What component in drowsy drugs makes you drowsy?

Posted: 01 May 2019 07:05 PM PDT

How the human body chooses an energy source? (in other words: how it decides when to use either lipids(fats) or sacharides (glucose, glycogen...?)

Posted: 01 May 2019 11:58 AM PDT

Reading a Patent about aging spirits, it mentions a compound called m-2-gallic acid, what is it?

Posted: 01 May 2019 05:27 PM PDT

Okay, so I am reading this US Patent for accelerated aging of spirits, and in it the inventor mentions that oak bark contains a compound called m-2-gallic acid (amongst other tannins). He also mentions that this m-2-gallic acid can be divided into "2 particles" of gallic acid, indicating it's a dimer of some sort?

What is m-2-gallic acid? Does anyone here know? I have been searching google for about 30min now trying to figure out what it is, but I can't find any reference to m-2-gallic acid anywhere via google.

Could it be as simple as 2 gallic acid molecules bonded at their meta- positions, making it digallic acid (m-digallic acid)? But they made an error in naming it when writing the patent?

Any help would be appreciated.

If you want to read the patent, here it is. The m-2-gallic acid part is on page 4 of 6, and starts around line 35 (#s in middle of document)

US Patent on Google

submitted by /u/adaminc
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Why does water have a high freezing point compared to its parts?

Posted: 01 May 2019 08:58 PM PDT

Water's melting point is 0° C. Yet hydrogen and oxygen's melting point is super duper low. Why is this? Please explain!

Thanks!

submitted by /u/TerraWarriorPro
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Can and How do submarines 'float' still in the water without sinking further or going up further?

Posted: 01 May 2019 11:59 AM PDT

I need to make a small submarine for a project. It can already float on the water, sink and go up thanks to the Archimedes' principle, but I can't get it to be still on a certain depth. Does it have to something with Fp and its buoyancy Fa when equal in size. (like when floating on the surface.) If you can, linking your sources would be very helpful.

submitted by /u/ASnowyBird
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