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.
This is a drawing showing the earth's atmosphere going around.

Motions in Jupiter's Interior

Motions in the interior of a planet help carry heat from the inside to the outside of the planet.

The drawing shows a kind of movement that is usual in the atmosphere as well as the inside of a planet. Material moves the way water does in a pot that is boiling. In the drawing, there are three different red sheets of activity where the air is turning over.

In the interior of Jupiter, the liquid layers are warm enough to move this way. Motions like this in the liquid metallic hydrogen layer inside Jupiter cause the big magnetosphere of Jupiter.

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Motions in Jupiter's Interior, part 2

Motions, or currents in the interior of a gas-giant planet such as Jupiter may be very different from the motions typical of the earth's interior. A second idea for the motions in the interior of a gas-giant...more

How Jupiter's Magnetosphere is made

Magnetospheres are generated with 1.) magnetic materials and 2.) with motions within the magnetic material. The Earth-like planets generate magnetospheres from iron at the center. This leads to roundly-shaped...more

A Look at the Inside of Jupiter

The Giant planets do not have the same kind of layers inside that the earth-like planets do. The history of the giant planets was so different that they formed with much more gas on the inside. Jupiter...more

Heat from Inside Jupiter

Have you ever thought that a planet could make energy within itself? If you think about it, the ground is not very cold at all (except in the winter). This means that the Earth makes enough energy for...more

Motions in Jupiter's Interior

Motions in the interior of a planet help carry heat from the inside to the outside of the planet. The drawing shows a kind of movement that is usual in the atmosphere as well as the inside of a planet....more

A Diagram of Jupiter's Atmospheric Structure

This is the temperature profile of Jupiter's entire atmosphere. The horizontal lines indicate the boundaries between the troposphere, the stratosphere, the mesosphere, and the thermosphere. ...more

A Brown Barge in the Jovian Atmosphere

This is a picture of a brown barge. The accompanying clouds, next to the barge, look very similar to earth clouds. ...more

Where to find Jupiter's Clouds

There are three different layer of clouds in Jupiter's atmosphere, as shown in this picture. The clouds are made of complex molecules such as water. Another molecule which the Jupiter clouds are made of...more

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