How Does Pressure Inside Earth Maintain Its High Temperature?

[Tor Barstad]

I know very little about this topic, so it would be very nice of you to help me out.

The inside of the Earth has a high temperature because there is high pressure I have been told. But how does this work? The kinetic energy from inside the Earth must reach the outer layers of the Earth and must then be radiated out to space sooner or later I suppose. At the same time no work is done either?

As far as I have understood the Earth is cooling (at least in the long run), but surely heat is produced inside the Earth even if it doesn't produce quite as much as it looses. Why?

 

[Borek]

High pressure is not a source of high temperature. Radioactivity is a source of energy that heats the inside, but there will be high pressure even when the Earth cools down.

 

[Tor Barstad]

High pressure is not a source of high temperature. Radioactivity is a source of energy that heats the inside, but there will be high pressure even when the Earth cools down.

Thank you!

 

[Lsos]

I'm pretty sure the size of the Earth keeps it from cooling off as well. It might not be huge in cosmic terms, but there's still a lot of insulation between the inside of the Earth and the outside.

Not sure of the mechanics behind it, but I heard that Mars doesn't have an atmosphere because it's small size resulted in the inside cooling off, thus losing its magnetic field, thus allowing the solar wind to strip off the atmosphere.