Missing Nitrogen: A dramatic game of hiding deep cosmic within our planet

Imagine if there was a mystery novel in the history of the Earth, and one of its biggest unresolved puzzles was: where did all nitrogen go? Scientists have long known that the rocky outer layers of our planet – mental – are strangely worse in nitrogen than other unstable elements such as carbon or water. Very strangely, C/N and ³⁶The wholesale silicate is much more than people found in the Earth (BSE, the entire earth minus metallic core) found in the AR/N ratio meteorite, which distribute these materials during the planet’s infancy.

For decades, this “missing nitrogen” problem has surprised researchers. A New study published in Earth and planetary science papers In the end, the answer can be: a dramatic game of deep kasmic hidden-and-sok within our planet.

To understand this secret, we need 4.6 billion years. Earth was a fierce, melted ball, with a churning Magma Ocean deeper than 1,000 kilometers. During this period, heavy metals such as iron were submerged to make core, while light mineral components increased and then froze to make silicate mental.

Core-mental discrimination is called, this process shaped the layered structure of the Earth. But it was not just going to sort the metals and rocks itself – volatile elements such as nitrogen, carbon and argon were caught in the crossfire. Where these elements are finished – stuck in the core, dissolved in mental, or lost in space – why the Earth looks and acts as it does today.

Nitrogen is particularly esoteric. While it makes 78% of today’s atmosphere, the total amount in the entire rocky mantle of the Earth is shocking – just 1 to 5 parts per million. Carbon and argon are more abundant relative to nitrogen than meteorites that possibly distribute these elements.

Scientists have proposed several hypotheses: perhaps the nitrogen escaped into space, or perhaps it was never given in large amounts. But a team of researchers at the Geodionamics Research Center, EHIM University in Japan asked a different question: What if the Earth’s core steals most of the nitrogen?

To test this idea, scientists re -created the extreme conditions of the Earth’s early Magma Ocean using the “supercomputer”. He said SIM said that when the surface is squeezed under pressure up to 1.35 million times under pressure, how to behave nitrogen and heated to 5,000 k – a young, molten planet is found to be thousands of kilometers deep.

With the thermodynamic integration method based on statistical physics jointly using a quantum mechanical method called Inito Molecular Mobility, which calculates nuclear interactions with fundamental physics principles, tracked nitrogen preferences: Did it dissolve in binding with iron or silicate mental with iron rich core?

The results were striking. Under the acute heat and pressure of a deep magma ocean, nitrogen became a “metal lover”. In 60 GPA, nitrogen was 100 times more likely to join the core compared to staying in mental after its freezing. As the pressure increased, this priority increased – but not in a straight line. Instead, the relationship was curved. This nonlinear effect was never clearly shown before before and helps explain why earlier experiments created conflicting results.

But why does nitrogen behave in this way? The simulation revealed a subtle system. In the melted silicate of the Magma Ocean, nitrogen atoms are initially paired with itself or hydrogen atoms such as ammonium ions (NH)₄^,But under increasing pressures, they broke. Bonded with silicon atoms instead of nitrogen, nitride ions (N⁻⁻) in the silicate network were integrated.

Meanwhile, in the metal core, nitrogen slipped into intervals between iron atoms, behaving more like a neutral atom. This behavior caused more nitrogen to leave the melted silicate for the embrace of the core.

The study did not stop at nitrogen. Combining with previous studies, Huang and Tsuchia found that carbon, while somewhat siderophyl (metal-love), was lower than nitrogen under deep magma ocean conditions. Argon, a passive element, did not care about the metals. This hierarchy – Nitrogen> Carbon> Argon in core preference – can solve two secrets.

To determine this, researchers made a model of Earth’s growth at 4.6 billion years ago. Suppose the Earth received volatile from meteorites with carbonus chondrites, similar solar system compositions. Giving just 5% -10% of the mass of the Earth from these rocks will supply adequate nitrogen, carbon and argon.

If the main formation occurred in a deep magma ocean (eg, 60 GPA), more than 80% of the nitrogen will sink into the core, which will leave the mental with 1-7 ppm -matching comments. Carbon, will be less curious to leave, will remain in mantle, forming the high C/N ratio. Argon, core and mental will be dismissed by both, will be unequally focused in the atmosphere explaining the high ³⁶AR/N of BSE.

This discovery rebuilds our understanding of the unstable origin of the Earth. For years, scientists argued whether the Earth’s strange proportions mean that it affects unusual meteorites or lost nitrogen in space. This study argues for a simple story: Earth’s volatile carbonus came from chondrates, but their fate was sealed by the extreme physics of the main formation.

The depth of discrimination matters the most – Shawls magma oceans did not produce the ratio seen, but deep people repeat the earth’s unstable fingerprints completely. This further involves an argument that different -unstable ratios of BSE can reflect different -different growth time rather than different sources than chondrates.

This main formation process has determined how much nitrogen was maintained in the BSE, which is one of the conditions required for the abundance of bio -elements in the Earth’s atmosphere and rocky layers. Despite that to live longer for the Earth to live, the conditions required for life can be determined billions of years ago when the core and mental were separated.

Finally, the Earth’s nitrogen was not lost. It is hidden in plain vision, closed in the core for billions of years. This discovery reminds us that the history of our planet is written not only in rocks and fossils, but also in the esoteric priorities of atoms under unimaginable pressures.