Core–mantle differentiation

Hey there! Do you know that the Earth is actually made up of layers, just like a cake? The outermost layer is called the crust and it's the part that we walk on. Beneath the crust is the mantle, which is made up of hot and gooey rock that moves around slowly. And at the very center of the Earth, there's the core, which is even hotter and made up of very dense metals like iron and nickel.

Now, a long, long time ago when the Earth was just forming, everything was mixed up and there wasn't really any differentiation between the different layers. It was all just a big ball of hot, melted stuff. But over time, as the Earth cooled down, something really cool happened. The super hot metals in the center of the Earth started to sink down towards the center because they were heavier than the other stuff around them. This made them form the core, which is now at the center of the Earth.

As the molten stuff cooled down even more, the layer above the core, which is the mantle, also started to change. The mantle is made up of different types of rocks and minerals, and as they heated up and cooled down in different ways, they started to separate into different layers too. This is called core-mantle differentiation.

So now, we have a layered Earth with a core at the center, a mantle around it, and a crust on top. And all of these layers are important because they create different environments that plants, animals, and humans can live on and in. Cool, huh?