Eli5 The earth has a magnetic field, including because of the metal core, but magnets are demagnetized at high temperature. How is this possible
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Earth’s Outer Core is heated by the first events from the solar systems’ history, and by friction heating, caused by denser/colder material sinking to the bottom, and also by decay of radioactive isotopes. EOC also suffers from density variation throughtout its depth, denser stuff at the bottom, lighter on top. This sets up the conditions for an naturally occuring electric generator. Convection currents are transformed into electromagnetic ones by heating up the iron and electric currents are induced by earth’s magnetic field. Those electric currents have their own magnetic field. And thus the process is self sustained as long as there is heat being generated in large enough quantities.
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