{"id":231188,"date":"2026-02-12T05:38:38","date_gmt":"2026-02-12T11:38:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/02\/new-experiments-suggest-earths-core-contains-up-to-45-oceans-worth-of-hydrogen"},"modified":"2026-02-12T05:38:38","modified_gmt":"2026-02-12T11:38:38","slug":"new-experiments-suggest-earths-core-contains-up-to-45-oceans-worth-of-hydrogen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/02\/new-experiments-suggest-earths-core-contains-up-to-45-oceans-worth-of-hydrogen","title":{"rendered":"New experiments suggest Earth\u2019s core contains up to 45 oceans\u2019 worth of hydrogen"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a><\/p>\n

Scientists have long known that Earth\u2019s core is mostly made of iron, but the density is not high enough for it to be pure iron, meaning lighter elements exist in the core, as well. In particular, it\u2019s suspected to be a major reservoir of hydrogen. A new study, published<\/a> in Nature Communications<\/i>, supports this idea with results suggesting the core contains up to 45 oceans\u2019 worth of hydrogen. These results also challenge the idea that most of Earth\u2019s water was delivered by comets early on.<\/p>\n

Because of the extreme conditions in Earth\u2019s core and its distance from the surface, analyzing its composition presents difficulties. Additionally, many techniques are inadequate for resolving hydrogen because it is the lightest and smallest element. Earlier estimates relied on indirect methods, such as inferring hydrogen composition from lattice expansion in iron hydrides. These difficulties have led to highly uncertain estimates of hydrogen in the core, spanning four orders of magnitude.<\/p>\n

The team involved in the new study took a different approach, using laser-heated diamond anvil cells to simulate high-pressure, high-temperature core conditions, up to 111 GPa and around 5,100 Kelvin. The team placed core-like iron samples and hydrous silicate glass, representing Earth\u2019s early magma oceans, in the diamond anvil cells to induce melting, similar to conditions in the core.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Scientists have long known that Earth\u2019s core is mostly made of iron, but the density is not high enough for it to be pure iron, meaning lighter elements exist in the core, as well. In particular, it\u2019s suspected to be a major reservoir of hydrogen. A new study, published in Nature Communications, supports this idea [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":427,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-231188","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231188","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/427"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=231188"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231188\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=231188"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=231188"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=231188"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}