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A new study of metal ore deep inside the moon is offering fresh evidence that Earth's natural satellite was formed by an ancient planet crashing into Earth long ago. This long-theorized interplanetary collision — which scientists believe occurred some 4.5 billion years ago — saw a Mars-sized planet named 'Theia' slice itself into hot lava fragments upon impact with the Earth. While some of Theia's planetary remains appear to be buried as dense and massive 'blobs' deep underneath Africa and the Pacific Ocean's tectonic plates, scientists said evidence for where the rest of Theia went after this crash had remained...

The Moon’s contraction causes fault scarps and moonquakes in the south pole, posing risks for lunar outposts. Findings from a recently published paper led by Smithsonian senior scientist emeritus Thomas R. Watters reveal evidence that the south polar region of Earth’s moon has experienced the effects of the shrinking moon. Global contraction of the moon has caused young lobate thrust fault scarps near and within some regions NASA has proposed for the crewed Artemis III moon landing. The paper, “Tectonics and Seismicity of the Lunar South Polar Region,” published recently in the Planetary Science Journal, associates one of the most...

The first hints that the moon had an Earth-like interior came from NASA's Apollo missions. Data gathered by the lunar landers' instruments suggested that the celestial body was differentiated — or layered with denser material at the center and less dense material nearer the surface — as opposed to uniform rock all the way through. Apollo astronauts even left seismometers on the moon, which later revealed that it experiences moonquakes... However, scientists were only recently able to sort through the massive data sets from the Apollo missions and other lunar probes to get a clearer picture of the moon's insides....

Ice Age Magnetic Reversal Was Global Event And Linked With Super Volcano Eruption And Rapid Climate Variability, Says New Research October 17, 2012 in Geology & Climate During the last ice age, around 41,000 years ago, there was a very rapid and complete reversal of the Earth’s geomagnetic field, according to new research. There was already localized evidence of polarity reversals during this time, but with the new research, the theory that it was a global event is now strongly supported. And very interestingly, it is one that nearly coincided with the very fast, short-term climate variability of the last...

A study published Tuesday suggests that Earth has an additional inner core that may tell the tale of a “significant global event from the past.” The highly specialized study published in Nature found that there is a giant metal ball sitting within the Earth’s inner core, known as the innermost inner core (IMIC). The ball is roughly 800 miles, and has been part of geological theory for quite some time, but the results from the study almost conclusively prove its existence (since we can’t get down there and check with our own eyes). The study was conducted by a team...

NASA’s Artemis program took an important step forward this weekend, with CAPSTONE finally reaching its destination—a near-rectilinear halo orbit (NRHO) around the Moon. The 55-pound cubesat will now test this promising orbit in preparation for the Gateway lunar space station. CAPSTONE, short for Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System Technology Operations and Navigation Experiment, reached NRHO on Sunday, November 13, according to an Advanced Space press release. Later this week, the $33 million cubesat will attempt a pair of tiny clean-up maneuvers to confirm its placement in the lunar orbit. In addition to being the first human-built device to operate in NRHO,...

Mysterious Shift in Earth's Gravity Suggests Equator is Bulging By Robert Roy Britt Senior Science Writer posted: 02:00 pm ET 01 August 2002 Something strange has been going on under our feet for the past four years. Earth's gravity field suddenly shifted gears and began getting flatter, reversing a course of centuries during which the planet and its gravity field grew rounder each year. The scientists who noticed the change and report it in the Aug. 2 issue of the journal Science suspect Earth itself may be flattening out, with the oceans rising near the equator, but they aren't...

Satellites solve mystery of low gravity over Canada 20:16 10 May 2007 NewScientist.com news service Kelly Young The GRACE satellites have detected changes in the gravitational field over regions of Canada that can be attributed to the crust bouncing back after the melting of a glacier 20,000 years ago and convection in Earth's mantle (Illustration: Science/M Tamisiea) If it seems Canadians weigh less than their American neighbours, they do – but not for the reasons you might think. A large swath of Canada actually boasts lower gravity than its surroundings. Researchers have puzzled for years over whether this was due...

Rotating 3D view of Earth's blobs. (Cottaar & Lekic/Geophysical Journal International, 2016) ********************************************************************************************* Earth's interior is not a uniform stack of layers. Deep in its thick middle layer lie two colossal blobs of thermo-chemical material. To this day, scientists still don't know where both of these colossal structures came from or why they have such different heights, but a new set of geodynamic models has landed on a possible answer to the latter mystery. These hidden reservoirs are located on opposite sides of the world, and judging from the deep propagation of seismic waves, the blob under the African continent...

Earth is far from a solid mass of rock. The outer layer of our planet – known as the lithosphere – is made up of more than 20 tectonic plates; as these gargantuan slates glide about the face of the planet, we get the movement of continents, and interaction at the boundaries, not least of which is the rise and fall of entire mountain ranges and oceanic trenches. Yet there's some debate over what causes these giant slabs of rock to move around in the first place. Amongst the many hypotheses put forward over the centuries, convection currents generated by...

The researchers explain that instruments for measuring the strength of the Earth's magnetic field were first invented only approximately 200 years ago. In order to examine the history of the field during earlier periods, science is helped by archaeological and geological materials that recorded the properties of the field when they were heated to high temperatures. The magnetic information remains "frozen" (forever or until another heating event) within tiny crystals of ferromagnetic minerals, from which it can be extracted using a series of experiments in the magnetics laboratory. Basalt from volcanic eruptions or ceramics fired in a kiln are frequent...

Why is Earth pulsating every 26 seconds, and why canÂ’t scientists explain it after 60 years? This is an enigma wrapped in a periodically predictable mystery motion. It could be a harmonic phenomenon, a regular seismic chirp caused by the sunÂ’s energy, or a beacon drawing scientists to its source to begin a treasure hunt. âž¡ The world is weird. We'll show you how it works. In the early 1960s, a geologist named Jack Oliver first documented the pulse, also known as a "microseism," according to Discover. Oliver, who worked at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Geological Observatory at the time, heard...

NASA's new Imaging X-Ray Polarimetry Explorer spacecraft is a tiny satellite with the unique ability to capture images in X-ray with polarization and timing information for every photon captured. It's designed to operate for 2 years and capture new scientific measurements of some of the most extreme places in the universe with gravitational and magnetic fields that would destroy ordinary matter.And in an interesting turn of events the satellite switched from the intended launch vehicle to a cheaper option that nobody considered - the Falcon 9. This is the first time we've seen a rocket lauched from a domestic US...

NASA is actively monitoring a strange anomaly in Earth's magnetic field: a giant region of lower magnetic intensity in the skies above the planet, stretching out between South America and southwest Africa.

Using satellite data, researchers believe an "anomaly" in the South Atlantic may have split in two, with the eastern section "developing vigorously." Earth's magnetic field is generated by movements within the planet's molten iron core. ...When the magnetic field is stronger, it blocks more radiation. When it is weaker, more radiation reaches the planet's surface. The magnetic field is constantly moving. It strengthens and weakens as part of normal fluctuations. According to the European Space Agency, the magnetic field has lost around 9 percent of its strength over the preceding two centuries. One section of the magnetic field has been...

Anyone watching a compass needle point steadily north might suppose that Earth’s magnetic field is a constant. It’s not. Researchers have long known that changes are afoot. The north magnetic pole routinely moves, as much as 40 km/yr, causing compass needles to drift over time. Moreover, the global magnetic field has weakened 10% since the 19th century. Earth’s magnetic field protects us from solar storms and cosmic rays. Less magnetism means more radiation can penetrate our planet’s atmosphere. Indeed, high altitude balloons launched by Spaceweather.com routinely detect increasing levels of cosmic rays over California. Perhaps the ebbing magnetic field over...

he Bermuda Triangle and missing aircraft may seem like science fiction, but there is a well documented region off of the coast of Brazil that contains highly charged particles. This area is known as the South Atlantic Anomaly and is avoided at all costs by orbiting satellites. NASA satellites that do travel in the region are shut down, or go into SAFE mode to avoid damage while passing over the Atlantic between Brazil and Africa. The electrical field around earth protects us from cosmic rays. There are two bands that trap highly charged particles circle the earth. The protons trapped...

The faster growth under Indonesia's Banda Sea hasn't left the core lopsided. Gravity evenly distributes the new growth—iron crystals that form as the molten iron cools—to maintain a spherical inner core that grows in radius by an average of 1 millimeter per year. But the enhanced growth on one side suggests that something in Earth's outer core or mantle under Indonesia is removing heat from the inner core at a faster rate than on the opposite side, under Brazil. Quicker cooling on one side would accelerate iron crystallization and inner core growth on that side. This has implications for Earth's...

Astronomers have long struggled to pin down how long a day lasts on Venus, but new research suggests the difficulty stems not from flawed measurements but from real variations in the planet's spin.In a new study, scientists used a massive radar system to bounce lightwaves off our neighboring planet over the course of more than a decade. As a result, the researchers were able to measure how tilted Venus' axis is, how big its core is, and how long it takes the planet to complete one full rotation...Between 2006 and 2020, the team used this radar system to bounce a...

The African LLSVP. (Ward et al., Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems, 2020) NATURE Vast Fragments of an Alien World Could Be Buried Deep Within Earth Itself PETER DOCKRILL24 MARCH 2021 They are among the largest and strangest of all structures on Earth: huge, mysterious blobs of dense rock lurking deep within the lowermost parts of our planet's mantle. There are two of these gigantic masses – called the large low-shear-velocity provinces (LLSVPs) – with one buried under Africa, the other below the Pacific Ocean. These anomalies are so massive, they in turn breed their own disturbances, such as the large phenomenon currently...