Category Environment/Geology

The inner core is Earth’s deepest layer. It is a ball of solid iron just larger than Pluto which is surrounded by a liquid outer core. The inner core is a relatively recent addition to our planet and establishing when it was formed is a topic of vigorous scientific debate with estimates ranging from 0.5 billion to 2 billion years ago.
Credit: Kay Lancaster, Department of Earth, Ocean and Ecological Sciences

The inner core is Earth’s deepest layer. It is a ball of solid iron just larger than Pluto which is surrounded by a liquid outer core. Liverpool University’s School of Environmental Sciences analysed magnetic records from ancient igneous rocks and found that there was a sharp increase in the strength of the Earth’s magnetic field between 1 and 1.5 billion years ago.

This increased magn...

Mars appears to have had a more massive atmosphere billions of years ago than it does today, with an active hydrosphere capable of storing water in long-lived lakes. The MSL team has concluded that this water helped to fill Gale Crater, the MSL rover Curiosity’s landing site, with sediment deposited as layers that formed the foundation for the mountain found in the middle of the crater today.

Curiosity has been exploring Gale Crater, which is estimated to be between 3.8 billion and 3.6 billion years old, since August 2012. In mid-Sept 2014, the rover reached the foothills of Aeolis Mons, a 3 mile high layered mountain aka “Mount Sharp”. Curiosity has been exploring the base since then...

This image shows: (a) Main components of micro PSC; (b) unassembled micro PSC model; (c) assembled proposed micro PSC model; (d) schematic of micro PSC tested; (e) schematic of experimental set up; and (f) experimental measurement set up. Credit: TECHNOLOGY

A novel micro-technology, which captures the electrical power generated by the photosynthesis and respiration of blue-green algae, has been created by Optical Bio Microsystem scientists. This scalable technology enables economical ways of generating clean energy, and may be the superlative, carbon-free power source for the mitigation and eventual erasure of global warming.

Both photosynthesis and respiration, which take place in plants cells, involve electron transfer chains...

Petrographic thin section made from core sample is shown. This 30 micron thin slice of rock allows a view of the types of features thought to be microbial. Here, the blue layers are an epoxy added in to see void-space in the rock and the grey is sediment. The morphology of the orangey-brown layers are suggestive of microbial activity, such as they way they roll over themselves in the bottom left and smoothly drape over the triangular feature. This type of deposition demonstrates that the sediment had to have a degree of cohesive stickiness, such as that provided by the presence of microbial mats. Credit: USGS Core Research Center

As NASA has confirmed flowing saltwater on the surface of Mars, the hunt for life on the Red Planet has new momentum...