Earth's inner core may have started spinning in the opposite direction: study

The debate around the activity of Earth's inner core has taken another turn after a team of scientists claimed the hot iron ball is now spinning in the opposite direction. The hot iron ball once stopped its rotation and started moving in the other direction, said the new research.

The Earth's core is located around 5,000 km below the surface and it can spin independently because it is separated by a liquid metal core. Scientists have been studying seismic waves over the last 60 years to understand the movement of the core.

Now, experts at China's Peking University have concluded that the inner core's rotation came to a near halt around 2009 and since then started turning in the opposite direction. They also think the inner core rotates back and forth like a swing. One cycle of the swing is about seven decades and the core changes direction every 35 years, reported AFP.

The study's authors Xiaodong Song and Yi Yang think the core once changed direction in the early 1970s. They believe that the next such change will occur in the mid-2040s. "This rotation roughly lines up with changes in what is called the "length of day ", small variations in the exact time it takes Earth to rotate on its axis," they added.

Until now, experts across the world did not think the inner core has any noticeable effects on people living on the surface. However, researchers Song and Yang think there are physical links between the layers of Earth.

Many scientists across the world have been studying seismic activity from earthquakes to understand the nature of the inner core's movement. Several of them agree about the swing movement but have varying opinions on the duration.