Current Events

  • Kansas Legislator Proposes Bill to Outlaw Sustainability Education
    A bill has been introduced in the Kansas legislature this week that would prohibit the promotion of ...Read more

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    Kansas Legislator Proposes Bill to Outlaw Sustainability Education

    A bill has been introduced in the Kansas legislature this week that would prohibit the promotion of sustainability. Here is a link to the one-page bill: http://www.kslegislature.org/li/b2013_14/measures/documents/hb2366_00_0000.pdf. See report on Bloomberg News.
  • Earth's Center Is 1,000 Degrees Hotter Than Previously Thought, Synchrotron X-Ray Experiment Shows
    Scientists have determined the temperature near the Earth’s center to be 6000 degrees Celsius, 1000 ...Read more

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    Earth's Center Is 1,000 Degrees Hotter Than Previously Thought, Synchrotron X-Ray Experiment Shows

    Scientists have determined the temperature near the Earth’s center to be 6000 degrees Celsius, 1000 degrees hotter than in a previous experiment run 20 years ago. These measurements confirm geophysical models that the temperature difference between the solid core and the mantle above, must be at least 1500 degrees to explain why the Earth has a magnetic field. For more information about this study, see the press release from the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility.
  • Ocean Volcanic Rocks Contain Samples of Recycled Crust
    Scientists have long believed that lava erupted from certain oceanic volcanoes contains materials fr...Read more

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    Ocean Volcanic Rocks Contain Samples of Recycled Crust

    Scientists have long believed that lava erupted from certain oceanic volcanoes contains materials from the early Earth’s crust. But decisive evidence for this phenomenon has proven elusive. New research from a team including Carnegie’s Erik Hauri demonstrates that oceanic volcanic rocks contain samples of recycled crust dating back to the Archean era 2.5 billion years ago. Their work is published in Nature. Oceanic crust sinks into the Earth’s mantle at so-called subduction zones, where two plates come together. Much of what happens to the crust during this journey is unknown. Model-dependent studies for how long subducted material can exist in the mantle are uncertain and evidence of very old crust returning to Earth’s surface via upwellings of magma has not been found until now. For more information about these results, see the press release from the Carnegie Institution.

Janet Kozyra

Janet Kozyra has been active in space plasma physics and aeronomy concentrating on processes that couple the atmosphere and ionosphe with near-Earth space. She has extensive experience in data analysis and interpretation as a member of the science teams of a variety of NASA science missions. She was an interdisciplinary scientist (IDS) on the Dynamics Explorer Satellite team that studied the interaction between the Earth's upper atmosphere and inputs from the Sun and near-Earth space environment. She became a guest investigator on the Active Magnetospheric Particle Tracer Experiment / Charge Composition Explorer (AMPTE/CCE) spacecraft science team. This spacecraft explored the radiation belts and the near-Earth magnetosphere and looked at the processes that produce the Northern Lights and magnetic storms. She is currently a co-I on the TIDE instrument onboard the POLAR spacecraft. POLAR is an element of the exciting international Solar Terrestrial Physics program that is studying the coupling between the Sun, near-Earth space, the magnetosphere and the Earth's upper atmosphere and the flow of energy between these regions to its ultimate sinks in the atmosphere. She has also been selected as an interdisciplinary scientist on the proposed Thermosphere-Ionosphere-Mesosphere Energetics and Dynamics (TIMED) mission, which is a new start candidate in the 1997-98 time frame. The mission will study the fragile and extremely variable interface between outer space and the upper atmosphere. Her research emphasis has been on development of theoretical models of geophysical regions and the comparison of model results with satellite observations. Author or co-author of more than 25 publications and over 50 seminars and conference presentations. Associate Editor of the Journal of Geophysical Research, Space Physics during the January 1990 thru February 1992 time period. Currently Associate Editor of Geophysical Research Letters. Member of the Magnetospheric Management Operations Working Group for NASA Space Physics Division until March 1993. Member of the NAS/NRC Committee on Solar System Physics (CSSP) utnil June 1996. Recipient of the 1992 University of Michigan Outstanding Research Scientist award. Recipient of a 1988 Editor's Citation for Excellence in Refereeing from the Journal of Geophysical Research. Member of the Geospace Environmental Modeling (GEM) Steering Committee for NSF's Atmospheric Sciences Division beginning August 1996.

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Shop Windows to the Universe

We now offer the Cool It! card game in our Science Store. Cool It! is the new card game from UCS that teaches kids about the choices we have when it comes to climate change.

Windows to the Universe, a project of the National Earth Science Teachers Association, is sponsored in part by the National Science Foundation and NASA, our Founding Partners (the American Geophysical Union and American Geosciences Institute) as well as through Institutional, Contributing, and Affiliate Partners, individual memberships and generous donors. Thank you for your support! NASA AGU AGI NSF