{"id":7414,"date":"2022-05-12T10:07:52","date_gmt":"2022-05-12T08:07:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pasqualerobustini.com\/?p=7414"},"modified":"2022-05-17T12:15:46","modified_gmt":"2022-05-17T10:15:46","slug":"why-are-there-continent-sized-blobs-in-the-deep-earth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pasqualerobustini.com\/en\/why-are-there-continent-sized-blobs-in-the-deep-earth\/","title":{"rendered":"Why are there continent-sized &#8216;blobs&#8217; in the deep Earth?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.pasqualerobustini.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/mantle_blobs.png\"><img class=\"wp-image-7415 alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/www.pasqualerobustini.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/mantle_blobs.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"358\" height=\"262\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.pasqualerobustini.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/mantle_blobs.png 628w, https:\/\/www.pasqualerobustini.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/mantle_blobs-300x219.png 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 358px) 100vw, 358px\" \/><\/a>In a strange corner of our solar system live two alien blobs.<\/p>\n<p>With sprawling, amorphous bodies the size of continents, these oddities are thought to spend their time lying in wait for their food to rain down upon them \u2013 then simply absorbing it.<\/p>\n<p>But their natural habitat is, if anything, even more unusual than their diet. It could be described as &#8220;rocky&#8221; \u2013 all around, there are exotic minerals in unknown shades and forms. Otherwise it&#8217;s fairly barren, except for a glittering sea in the far distance \u2013 one so large, it holds as much water as all of Earth&#8217;s oceans put together.<\/p>\n<p>Every day the &#8220;weather&#8221; is the same: a balmy 1827\u00b0C (3321\u00b0F), with some areas of high pressure \u2013 equivalent to around 1.3 million times the amount at the Earth&#8217;s surface. In this crushing environment, atoms become warped and even the most familiar materials start to behave in eccentric ways \u2013 rock is flexible like plastic, while oxygen acts like a metal.<\/p>\n<p>But this blistering wonderland is no extra-terrestrial planet \u2013 and the blobs aren&#8217;t strictly wildlife. It is, in fact, the Earth itself \u2013 just very, very deep underground.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/future\/article\/20220510-why-are-there-continent-sized-blobs-in-the-deep-earth?ocid=ww.social.link.email\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Continue reading on BBC Future&#8230;<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In a strange corner of our solar system live two alien blobs. With sprawling, amorphous bodies the size of continents, these oddities are thought to spend their time lying in wait for their food to rain down upon them \u2013 then simply absorbing it. But their natural habitat is, if anything, even more unusual than [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7,46],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pasqualerobustini.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7414"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pasqualerobustini.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pasqualerobustini.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pasqualerobustini.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pasqualerobustini.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7414"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.pasqualerobustini.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7414\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7422,"href":"https:\/\/www.pasqualerobustini.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7414\/revisions\/7422"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pasqualerobustini.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7414"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pasqualerobustini.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7414"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pasqualerobustini.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7414"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}