How do scientists know what the core of the Earth is made of, even though we’ve never drilled anywhere near that deep?

Question

How do scientists know what the core of the Earth is made of, even though we’ve never drilled anywhere near that deep?

In: Planetary Science

Answer 1

To add on to what others have said about seismic, we know the rough overall density of the earth due to it’s gravitational pull and size. This means we have to have certain materials inside that can get us to the densities observed.

We can also study asteroids and comets to see their makeup. Especially by studying such interstellar material that comes from the time of the formation of the earth, we can get an idea of what materials were abundant at the time of forming the earth.

Finally, we have super strong presses in laboratories that can take surface materials and transform them to states of matter that only exist under the extreme temperatures and pressure found inside a planet.