How do scientists determine the composition of the interior of Earth and other planets?
Art Lerner-Lam, associate director for seismology, geology, and tectonophysics at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University, explains. Much of our understanding of the basic structure and composition of Earth and the other planets in our solar system is not strenuously debated. We can infer a surprising amount of information from the size, mass and moment of inertia of the planets, all of which can be determined from routine astronomical observations. Measurements of surface chemical composition, either by direct sampling (as has been done on Earth, the moon, and Mars) or through spectroscopic observations, can be used to estimate elemental abundances and the degree of chemical differentiation that occurred as the planets condensed from the solar nebula. Remote observations of the gravitational field can be used to understand how a planet’s mass is distributed, whereas the strength and shape of the magnetic field provides some constraint on the structure of a metallic
