Seismic waves travelling through the Earth have revealed a giant structure between Earth’s molten core and solid mantle under the Marquesas Islands in the South Pacific Source: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2245939-seismic-waves-reveal-giant-structures-deep-beneath-earths-surface/?utm_campaign=RSS%7CNSNS&utm_source=NSNS&utm_medium=RSS&utm_content=home…
Tag: mantle
Remnant of world’s largest ‘lava lamp blob’ found off New Zealand coast
An underwater plateau near New Zealand was likely created by the ‘largest volcanic outpouring’ in Earth’s history, a new study suggests. Source: https://www.livescience.com/new-zealand-mantle-superplume-blob.html
Is Mars still volcanically active? New study says maybe
Scientists studying the ancient Martian Tissint meteorite say they’ve found new evidence that Mars was volcanically active a few hundred million years ago … and may still be today. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/is-mars-still-volcanically-active-tissint-meteorite…
Why is Earth’s magnetic north pole drifting so rapidly?
The location of Earth’s north magnetic pole appears to be controlled from deep within Earth by 2 competing blobs in the magnetic field. One is under Canada, and the other is under Siberia. “The Siberian blob is winning,” according to scientists. Source: https://earthsky.org/earth/magnetic-north-rapid-drift-blobs-flux…
Scientists lead study of galaxy’s ‘water worlds’
Astrophysical observations have shown that Neptune-like water-rich exoplanets are common in our galaxy. These “water worlds” are believed to be covered with a thick layer of water, hundreds to thousands of miles deep, above a rocky mantle. Source: https://phys.org/news/2020-04-scientists-galaxy-worlds.html…
April’s birthstone is the diamond
Happy birthday April babies! Your birthstone, the diamond, is the rich cousin of graphite. Source: https://earthsky.org/earth/april-birthstone-diamond…
SpaceX Wins NASA Contract to Launch a Spacecraft to an Asteroid Beyond Mars
An anonymous reader quotes Teslarati:
SpaceX has been awarded a $117 million launch contract for NASA’s Psyche mission that will study a unique metal asteroid between Mars and Jupiter. The NASA mission to loft a 5,750-lb. (2,608-kg) spacecraft atop of SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy Rocket will study a mineral-rich asteroid named 16 Psyche. The mission is expected to take place sometime in 2022…
Marsquakes: InSight lander shows active faults in planet’s crust
The results from its NASA’s Mars InSight lander’s first 10 months on the martian surface have been published in a series of papers. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/mars-quakes-insight-lander-shows-active-faults…
Mars Is a Seismically Active World, First Results From NASA’s InSight Lander Reveal
The first results from NASA’s quake-hunting InSight Mars lander just came out, and they reveal that Mars is a seismically active planet. Space.com reports: Martian seismicity falls between that of the moon and that of Earth, [says InSight principal investigator Bruce Banerdt, of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory]. “In fact, it’s probably close to the kind of seismic activity you would expect…
Journey to the center of Mars: A new compositional model for the red planet
While InSight’s seismometer has been patiently waiting for the next big marsquake to illuminate its interior and define its crust-mantle-core structure, two scientists, Takashi Yoshizaki (Tohoku University) and Bill McDonough (Tohoku University and University of Maryland, College Park), have built a new compositional model for Mars. They used rocks from Mars and measurements from orbiting satellites to predict the depth to…