ELI5 what is the core of the Earth made of, how does it stay molten, and what would the impact of it cooling be?
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The outer core is liquid iron and nickel (mostly). The inner core is solid and believed to be made of an iron-nickel alloy with some other elements (it’s never been directly measured).
It doesn’t “stay” molten, it simply takes a long time to cool down. We’re talking billions of years. This will likely never happen though, as our Sun will probably turn into a Red Giant and engulf everything up to Mars long before Earth’s core manages to cool.
If it did cool down however, we’d all be dead. The core is what creates Earth’s magnetic field, which protects us from things like cosmic radiation and solar winds.
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