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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 of how a comet interacts with the environment of interplanetary space.
Click on image for full size
JPL

A Look at Pluto's possible Magnetosphere

No one knows whether or not Pluto has a magnetosphere. Scientists were very surprised to find that Jupiter's icy moon Ganymede had a magnetosphere because it is hard to explain how an icy body can develop a magnetic field. Nevertheless, Pluto may well have a magnetic field, being warmed by tidal forces stemming from its dual orbit with its moon Charon.

On the other hand, Pluto may have a magnetic interaction with the interplanetary magnetic field similar to that of a comet, as illustrated in this diagram. Only exploration of this unique system will give us the answer.


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Traveling Nitrogen Classroom Activity Kit

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Questions to answer about Pluto

Pluto is so far away, and has never been explored. Questions to answer about Pluto include the following: What are the geologic features of the surface. (pictures of the surface) If there are bare spots,...more

Pluto

Pluto is a frigid ball of ice and rock that orbits far from the Sun on the frozen fringes of our Solar System. Considered a planet, though a rather odd one, from its discovery in 1930 until 2006, it was...more

Pluto & Charon, a binary planet

Of all the planets and moons in the solar system, Pluto and Charon are the two which resemble each other the most closely. They are almost the same size, and they are very close together. They are so...more

An Overview of Pluto's Atmosphere

It may seem hard to believe that Pluto could have an atmosphere because it is so cold at 39 AU, where Pluto resides, but it does. Because there are times when Pluto is closer to the sun than is Neptune...more

A Look at Pluto's possible Magnetosphere

No one knows whether or not Pluto has a magnetosphere. Scientists were very surprised to find that Jupiter's icy moon Ganymede had a magnetosphere because it is hard to explain how an icy body can develop...more

The Moons of Pluto

Pluto has // Call the moon count function defined in the document head print_moon_count('pluto'); known moons. Charon, the largest by far, was discovered in 1978 by the American astronomer James Christy....more

Pluto's Interior

The diagram to the left shows a cutaway of the possible interior structure of Pluto. The composition of Pluto is mostly ice, therefore there is probably a small core of some rocky material buried inside,...more

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