News about PaperPanda, Open Access, and Research
Scientists would be able to discover much more about what lies underground if our planet could be sliced open and viewed as a cross-section – but as that’s not really possible, they have to rely on a variety of other methods instead. One new approach has just been proven in the field: A recently … Read more
Earth’s last major ice age locked up gargantuan amounts of water in vast glaciers. Once they melted, it was a spectacle to behold as tremendous floods gouged channels into the face of the planet. The remnants of one of the largest of these ancient deluges are still visible in eastern Washington, in an area … Read more
Nothing on Earth can live without water. The origin of water on Earth, therefore, is the origin of life in the Solar System (and the Universe) as we know it. Figuring out where and how our world obtained its water might be key to finding life on other worlds, but the truth is we don’t … Read more
Deep below the crust of Earth, past the thick mantle and liquid outer core, lies a 1,220-kilometer (760 mile) ball of solid inner core. But a new study has suggested that the inner core is not solid at all, instead forming a ‘superionic state’ with hydrogen, oxygen, and carbon, making it unlike either a liquid … Read more
A SpaceX rocket’s upper stage appears to have broken up safely over Mexico, five years after sending a satellite into space. Local reports on Twitter indicated that a part of the Falcon 9 that sent the Echostar 23 mission aloft in March 2017 met its demise Saturday (Feb. 6) after falling into the Earth’s atmosphere. … Read more
This article was originally published at The Conversation. The publication contributed the article to Space.com’s Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights. David Rothery, Professor of Planetary Geosciences, The Open University Research has shown that the Earth trails an asteroid barely a kilometer across in its orbit about the sun — only the second such body to have ever been … Read more
At a point some 12,800 years ago, a tenth of Earth’s surface suddenly became covered in roaring fires. The firestorm rivalled the one that wiped out the dinosaurs, and it was likely caused by fragments of a comet that would have measured around 100 kilometers (62 miles) across. As dust clouds smothered Earth, they … Read more
Once, there were giants. Mountain ranges that rivaled the Himalayas in height used to stretch thousands upon thousands of kilometers across the seams of merging supercontinents, billions of years in the past. Like the teeth of decrepit old gods, they’ve long been worn down to their roots by time and decay. But in those … Read more
We don’t know how life emerged on Earth, but one thing is certain: life as we know it on our planet wouldn’t exist without the water that wraps around the surface, runs in rivulets, and falls from the sky. Our planet is the only one known to have life, and the only one on … Read more
Earth has officially been joined in its orbit around the Sun by a new trojan asteroid. Named 2020 XL5, this chunk of rock is only the second object of its type ever to have been conclusively identified. Its discovery suggests that perhaps Earth trojans may be more common than we knew, and offers new insights … Read more