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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 ...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 depicting the motions in earth's atmosphere.
Click on image for full size
Image from: Random House Atlas

Motions in Neptune's Interior

Motions in the interior of a planet helps to carry heat from the core to the planet's surface.

The drawing to the left illustrates a kind of global motion that is typical of motions in the atmosphere as well as the interior of a planet. Material rises from where it is warmest, and moves in a roiling motion like the boiling of a pot. The material eventually cools enough to sink again. In the drawing, there are three different cells of activity in the atmosphere where the air turns over (depicted by red sheets).

In the interior of Neptune, the ice layers are warm enough to move in this fashion. Some scientists think, however, that the interior of Neptune may have a different sort of motion.

The magnetosphere of Neptune seems to be produced by motions in the icy layers inside Neptune. More study is needed in order to decide exactly what kind of motion Neptune has.


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Motions in Neptune's Interior, part 2

Motions, or currents in the interior of a gas-giant planet such as Neptune 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

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Magnetospheres are generated with magnetic materials and motions within the magnetic material. Scientists believe that as long as a planet or star has these two ingredients it can generate a magnetic...more

The Source of Heat from Within Neptune

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Motions in Neptune's Interior

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Neptune's Present Great Dark Spot

This image shows the new Great Dark Spot of Neptune, which was discovered using the Hubble Space Telescope. The image shown here, shows a "hole" in the clouds of Neptune in pink, in the northern hemisphere,...more

An Overview of Neptune's Atmospheric Evolution

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Neptune's Cirrus Clouds

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Neptune's Smog Hazes

This image of Neptune uses false colors to bring out the hazes of smog, which can be seen in red along the limb of Neptune, at the edge of the picture. These hazes of smog are found at very high altitudes,...more

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