Earth's Core Contains Vast Amounts of Sulfur

 Here is an interesting article that seems to hold up the formation of the moon by a collision between Earth and a near Mars sized asteroid.

Apx. 1700 miles under your feet, Earth's core begins. Why should we be interested in this? Well due to the depth and heat, it is impossible to observe or even measure the composition of the core directly.

But thanks to an international group of researchers who developed an indirect geo-chemical methods to show core composition.

Until quite recently it was believed that Earth's core consisted of an iron / nickel amalgam. Due to the core's size it has been suspected that the core contained other lighter elements, such as sulfur, silicon, oxygen and carbon and the new method of imaging the core have proved that out.

Earth's core contains vast amounts of molten sulfur. 10X more than in the rest of Earth or better than 10% of the mass of the Moon!

So when you are told that brimstone lies just under your feet - well in a certain context -   they are not to far from the truth!

For more info - check the Daily Mail site HERE

The Sun WILL eventually Bake the Earth Lifeless

Yes, we have all heard of the scenario where the sun brightens, or even when the sun become a red giant, in either case Earth becomes a cinder of its former self.   This little gem of good news has been postulated as early as 600 million years, based on how fast the sun is brightening, about 1% every 100 million years or so.

But before you invite yourself to the world's biggest fish fry, here is something to consider.  It would seem that the model above was based on incomplete or erroneous information.  The conclusions were based on how  evaporating water and heat would be trapped in the earth's atmosphere, quickly raising the temperature and making life on the surface hellish. 

It would seem though that the model  wasn't complicated enough.  , Recent studies however have  added in cloud coverage and regional temperature differences.  Some studies now estimate that the inevitable will occur closer to 1 billion to 1.5 billion years from now.  It will still happen, but much later than previous studies had suggested. 

The original Popular Science article can be found HERE

Is the Moon a planet?

Anyone that has spent any amount of time looking at the moon has got to ask themselves that question.  I know it is not that simplistic.  The moon is simply too damn big to be captured by the Earth.  More than likely it was formed early in Earth's history when Earth was struck by a Mars sized objects. 

It is clear that the Moon has been with the Earth for much of Earth's history, but that doesn't go anywhere near far enough to explain the phenomenon that is Earth's largest satellite.

First the Moon is huge, a full quarter the size of Earth....nearly a planet in it's own right.  Matter of fact, the Moon is so large that it in truth doesn't orbit the Earth as much a travel along with Earth, in a sinusoidal pattern that sometimes has it slightly ahead and sometimes slightly behind the Earth and one which if you plotted one complete "orbit" you would find that it does not center on the core of Earth but some 3 thousand miles from the center.  This means of course that both bodies "orbit" this commonality.

The pair would seem to then have a co orbit something like this, but due to the Moon size, the Sun in reality has more influence on the Moon than the Earth, so the orbit would appear more like this, with the orbit more centered around the sun with the Earth playing tug of war....

But as attractive as these orbits are, in truth the orbit of the Moon around the Sun is almost circular with no where near the large perturbations of these examples.  The point being that many of the criteria that have been accepted as rules to go by in determining a planet could apply to the Moon! 

Read the IO9 article here
 

50% of Sol Class Stars May Contain Earth Class Planets

Data from NASA’s Kepler space telescope has been used to compile a new estimates of Earth type planets.

The present data suggests that as many as 50% of Sol class stars contain earth sized planets which inhabit the favorable "Goldilocks" orbit where liquid water is still liquid.   

As good as this sounds though, researches say that planets 2 or 3 times the mass of earth, roughly the size of  Neptune or Uranus  would be equally as common as Earth sized planets and with the size and atmosphere, not very likely to produce life as we know it.   

Also a large portion of Earth sized worlds are likely to be well outside of the life zone.  ether   to close in to their primary or much to far outside the habitable zone. 

Still, the chances are good for Sol type stars having Earth class planets

Read complete wired article  here  Wired Science 

Moon Creating Impactor May Still Be Around?!

Huh? Are they serious?! The planet that ripped Earth a new one so bad that the leftover orbits us every 29 days or so, may still be hiding out to finish the job?! That's what I said when I read this in a Dvice article. It would seem that:

• the rogue planet was not actually destroyed in the impact, and we don't know where it went.

This according to new models. But the odds of this happening are very very low and truth be told that the best time for this to have happened would have been 4.5 billion years ago. Now the truly astute among us are saying, hey wait, that was when it hit us the first time and you would be right! The odds have steadily dropped since that first cataclysmic impact.

The worrisome part of all this speculation is that, studying the competition of the Earth and the Moon seems to indicate that very little of impactor's mass was exchanged and it may have continued on it's orbit with little loss of mass.

Well, like this article suggest though is that it is a "bit" on the fringe, and a fair piece from the standard model. Lots more evidence will have to come to light before it looses it's "crackpot" status....but still...something does not add up and remember it's what you DON'T know that will git ya!

The graphic shows A new model showing a Mars-sized planet impacting Earth to form the Moon and then escaping.

New ResearchQuestions Moon Origin

Our Moon is a highly unusual object in the Solar system. One of the things that make the Moon really different is its size. According to the Wiki, It is the largest natural satellite of a planet in the Solar System relative to the size of its primary, plus is is the fifth largest satellite in the Solar System.

The most accepted theory on the Moon's formation some 4.5 billion years ago was that of a rogue planet delivering a glancing blow to Earth. One that stripped Earth of much of its crust and destroying the rogue in the process. This material stream coalesced in Earth orbit with the majority forming the moon. This is called the impact theory.

New research from scientists at the University of Chicago, suggests that the impact hypothes might be wrong! They came to this conclusion by comparing elements from the Earth and Moon. Chemical analysis shows that these elements are for all intents and purposes identical. No evidence what so ever of the presence of another body that would have contributed material to the formation of Earth's satellite.

Of course you deal with one problem and several more creep up. It is easy for the Moon to resemble the chemical makeup of Earth's crust. Up to about half way to Earth's center there would be little difference. It is only after you pass this half way point that the chemical nature of the rocks changes drastically due to raising pressures and temperatures. The Earth due to its mass has no trouble at all maintaining these extreme temperatures and pressures. However the moon, being FAR smaller, could never sustain a high temperature core. Strangely enough at some point in it's early life it did just exactly that!

Read the Daily Galaxy article that is linked in the title and below


Daily Galaxy article 
Wiki info here 
physorg.com

Young Sun Paradox Says Life Should Not Have Happened?

Yep, you read that right. IO9 posted an article that for all intents says that due to the energy output of Sol's when it was much younger could not have warmed the Earth enough to have liquid water and there for making life all but impossible. But since Earth teems with life, there is a bit of a paradox. The young sun paradox.

This is approximately how it works. In the early days of the solar system, the sun's output was only about 70 of today's levels. This means that there was not enough energy to maintain a liquid water environment on Earth and absolutely no running water on Mars which we know is NOT the case. This paradox was first put forward in the 70s by the likes of Carl Sagan.

From the article:

• A Penn State research team .. has created a new computer model that can simulate the Sun's evolution under various different starting condition. What they're searching for is the right combination of starting elements and internal conditions that could support an old, largely disregarded explanation: that the Sun was once more massive than it is now, and a fierce solar wind shrunk it to its present size.

How much bigger....anywhere from 2% to 10%  larger than it's present size.  That would mean that despite a lower output, the additional size means that the energy reaching Earth and Mars was pretty much the same.  

Check out the article here

Earth, Quite Often, Has Extra Moons

A new study of the way Earth captures asteroids suggests that at any given time Earth has more than one Moon. This study springs from observations that were made on an object in 2006. Initially because of its' size and color, it was though to be a booster rocket stage. But object 2006 RH120 as it was designated, orbit was a bit odd. Studying the data showed that the object had wandered into an unstable orbit in 2006 and in 2007 this was proved out as the object again wandered off on its' own.

From the Daily Galaxy article:

• it turned out to be a tiny asteroid just a few meters across captured by Earth's gravity in September 2006.

Mikael Granvik at the University of Hawaii states:

• At any given time, there should be at least one natural Earth satellite of 1-meter diameter orbiting the Earth

Check out the Daily Galaxy Article here

Object photo is the near Earth asteroid Toutatis

Around the World in 63 Seconds From the ISS

A time-lapse taken from the front of the International Space Station as it orbits our planet at night. This movie begins over the Pacific Ocean and continues over North and South America before entering daylight near Antarctica. Visible cities, countries and landmarks include (in order) Vancouver Island, Victoria, Vancouver, Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Los Angeles. Phoenix. Multiple cities in Texas, New Mexico and Mexico. Mexico City, the Gulf of Mexico, the Yucatan Peninsula, El Salvador, Lightning in the Pacific Ocean, Guatemala, Panama, Columbia, Ecuador, Peru, Chile, Lake Titicaca, and the Amazon. Also visible is the earths ionosphere (thin yellow line), a satellite (55sec) and the stars of our galaxy.

There is a smoother version on this same page but some of the graphics are missing, and yes the thunder storms are just plain amazing!

Earth Had Two Moons?!

Tim Sayell sends in a Yahoo News article that makes some startling conclusions - Earth at one point in its early history had more than one moon. The second moon was most likely very small and may have collided with its larger Luna companion. This would go a long way towards explaining why the Moon's surface is so different from one hemisphere to the next.

From the article:
The second moon ... would have been about 750 miles wide and could have formed from the same collision between the planet and a Mars-sized object that scientists suspect helped create the moon we see in the sky today

The Wikipedia has a great article dealing with the science of Earth having more than one moon here

picture from popsci

Earth Facts: from AARP April Bulletin

The April bulletin from the AARP has an interesting article called Changing Earth. It consists of a 50 point essay on how the planet Earth is changing. Here are some of the high points:

• Global Warming followed each of the several ice ages starting in the Precambrian more than 600 million years ago.
• By 2100 global temperatures may rise as much as 1o degrees
• Between 1970 and 2010 the mean temperature rose 1.6 degrees and ocean temperatures rose 1.4 degrees and sea levels are predicted to rise 3 feet by 2100
  
• The ozone hole over Antarctica is the smallest since 2004 and will disappear by 2050
• Average Americans accounted for 17 metric tons of CO2 in 2009 down from 20 metric tons
  

Did Earth Share Its' Orbit? Data Points to Yes

In the distant past, did Earth share the same orbital path with a Mars sized Planet? New data from the Kepler telescope seems to point in that direction.

Kepler has uncovered a planetary system with two planets that orbit their primary at exactly the same distance. This discovery would support support the theory that Earth once shared its orbit with a Mars-sized body, that later collided with it, creating the moon.

What makes this seem plausible is the dynamics of the system uncovered by Kepler. Each planet's orbit contains two orbital "safe zones" that are gravitationally balanced. At 60 degrees ahead and 60 degrees behind a planet in orbit are Lagrange points (I know, yes there ARE two more, one between the planet and the sun and one that exists an equal distance further distance from the sun) Kepler's discovery has the planets in each other's Lagrangian points 60 degrees forward or behind, depending on your frame of reference.

Read the complete Daily Galaxy article here

NASA Mission Finds Earth Candidates in Habitable Zone

NASA Kepler Mission continues to pay dividends. NASA reports that Kepler has discovered its first Earth-size planet candidates and its first candidates in the habitable zone, the region around a star where water could exist on a planet's surface in liquid form. Five of the potential planets are near Earth-size and orbit in the habitable zone of smaller, cooler stars than our sun. More investigation will be needed to determine if the bodies are indeed planets as well as more data on size and orbit.

Read the complete NASA article HERE

Animation of a 300 mile asteroid hitting Earth

I know, I always seem to gravitate to these type of disaster videos. I have to say that this is one of the better that I first found on Pink Tentacle. It is a simulation of what it would be like should a 300 mile wide asteroid hit Earth. The PT article says that this video was "produced by NHK Japan and the National Film Board of Canada..." It's from a longer piece, but this 10 minute selection makes you nostalgic for the good ole days of global warming!

Earth's most pristine crater discovered

Using Google Earth, Italian researchers discovered what may be Earth's best preserved crater. The crater Kamil, is located in a remote area of the Sahara desert.

From the Gizmodo article:

• The crater measures 147 ft at its widest point and 52 ft deep at its deepest. Using those numbers, scientists estimate that the meteor that hit Earth was only 4.2 ft in diameter (but was traveling at 8,000MPH!).

The crater is so well preserved that it still retains the bedrock splatter patter that one often only sees on airless bodies. Most craters on Earth erode fairly quickly due to the weather.

Another cool thing about the crater is that it is mostly likely only a few thousand years old!

World's Deepest Drill Hopes to hit Mantle Soon

the Chikyu research vessel already holds the record for deepest hole drilled, at 23,000 feet below the seabed, two to four times that of any other drill. But far from sitting on its' laurels, Chikyu wants to add another mile to that depth, bringing it to the Earth's mantle for the first time in history.

As the PopSci article puts it:

• In 2007, off the coast of Japan, it became the first mission to study subduction zones, the area between tectonic plates that is the birthplace of many earthquakes. Over the next three years, scientists will tack on at least an extra mile of drill and attempt the most ambitious mission ever: piercing the Earth’s mantle.
• For deeper ground penetration, where temperatures can exceed 500°F and corrosive chemicals reside, engineers will use a higher-tensile-strength steel to build the drill string. Also in development are new drilling (synthetic) mud that cool the drill bit during operation.

PopSci via Gizmodo

Earth Bumped off it's Axis

If you ever doubted the vast power released during a

According to NASA's website:

• The Feb. 27 magnitude 8.8 earthquake in Chile may have shortened the length of each Earth day.
• JPL research scientist Richard Gross computed how Earth's rotation should have changed.
• Using a complex model, he and fellow scientists came up with a preliminary calculation that the quake should have shortened the length of an Earth day by about 1.26 microseconds.

What is even more amazing is that Chilean quake may have shifted the whole planet off it's axis by as much as 3 inches!

By comparison - estimates of the 2004 magnitude 9.1 Sumatran earthquake should have shortened the length of day by 6.8 microseconds and shifted the axis by 2.76 inches.

Off course these are estimates and are likely to change as more data comes in.

Read NASA article here

Great wide angle shot!

Check this out! Earth AND Jupiter in the same shot! How they do that you might ask? It was snapped by the Mars Global Surveyor on May 22, 2003. And what's more, you have got to log onto the Dvice site here to check out the larger hi-rez version! Amazing photography!

Would an Earth without Humans recover?

Has anyone been watching the series on the Discovery Channel called, life after people? This fascinating program shows the short term repercussions on structures after all Humans have left. Here is an article about a possible cause and the long term effects.

Shaun Saunders sends us in a a new "word for the day" that just screams science fiction to me.

From the pages of New Scientist we read an article about chemist Paul Crutzen who has coined the word Anthropocene. Crutzen coined the word about 10 years ago when he formulated a startlingly new concept. The idea being that human activity is now affecting the Earth so profoundly that we are entering a new geological epoch.

Needless to say, this is far from a universally accepted theory, has yet to be accepted as a geological time period. At it's base is the assumption that in just a few centuries, the pressure humanity is placing on the ecology leads to ecological collapse and a mass extinction. Possible scenarios include a collapse of society, leaving just a few hundred thousand eking out a meager stone age existence.

Most of the argument is based on earlier carbon spikes in past geological periods. And of course mass extinctions are far from unique, however in most of the previous examples, the Earth was substantially different in areas like temperatures.

Read complete article in New Scientist

In time for XMAS - Earth's new warm cloak

Newly discovered, that is.

A team of scientists led by Charles “Rick” Chappell, research professor of physics and director of the Dyer Observatory at Vanderbilt University says their analysis of the measurements of five different satellites reveals the existence of the "warm plasma cloak", a hitherto unknown region of the magnetosphere, that invisible shield of magnetic fields and electrically charged particles that surround and protect Earth from the solar wind.

Published this fall in the space physics section of the Journal of Geophysical Research, Chappell's research reveals a “natural cycle of energization” that accelerates the low-energy ions originating from Earth’s atmosphere up to the higher energy levels characteristic of the different regions in the magnetosphere. This brought the existence of the new region into focus.

So what is it? Says the Vanderbilt news release: "The warm plasma cloak is a tenuous region that starts on the night side of the planet and wraps around the dayside but then gradually fades away on the afternoon side. As a result, it only reaches about three-quarters of the way around the planet.

"It is fed by low-energy charged particles that are lifted into space over Earth’s poles, carried behind the Earth in its magnetic tail but then jerked around 180 degrees by a kink in the magnetic fields that boosts the particles back toward Earth in a region called the plasma sheet."

By the way it wraps around Terra, should it be called a warm toga or a warm lungi or heavens - a warm diaper? - instead of a warm cloak?

Image: Rick Chappell, Vanderbilt University