The cause of low terrestrial carbon

2009/11/01 Elhuyar Zientzia Iturria: Elhuyar aldizkaria

• Astronomia

The presence of small amounts of carbon on Earth can be explained by a chemical reaction in the Earth's disc of creation, according to the model developed by scientists at the University of Michigan.

The Earth's mantle has much less carbon than you would expect to know the amount of carbon in our galaxy. According to a previous theory, carbon evaporated during the formation of the Earth. But the Earth is too far from the Sun to reach the temperature that would be necessary.

Researchers at the University of Michigan have studied chemical reactions that could occur on the Earth's disc of creation. They have seen that the temperature of the disc was insufficient to evaporate the carbon, but yes so that the oxygen reacts with the carbon (and not with the silicates). This reaction caused half of the disc to be carbon free.