Planet Earth

“Huge anomalies” at the edge of the earth’s core

At the edge of the Earth’s core lie two gigantic blobs of ultrahot rock — and that’s about the extent to which geologists agree about them.

"Huge anomalies" at the edge of the earth's core 17 — NASA PHYSICAL OCEANOGRAPHY. DISTRIBUTED ACTIVE ARCHIVE CENTER

The mysterious blobs are on opposite sides of the planet, one hidden beneath Africa, the other in the middle of the Pacific Ocean – the Quanta Magazine compared the ‘massive anomalies’ to Princess Leia’s iconic hairstyle (Star Wars).

Scientists discovered the blobs decades ago by mapping the interior of the planet, but have not learned much since.

Some ideas

There are two main schools of thought regarding the blobs, according to Quanta. The first camp holds that they’re merely massive clusters of hot plumes.

The other argues that the blobs — so big that they would drown the planet’s surface in a lava ocean over 60 miles deep — are their own distinct entity and not just a particularly warm region of the core.

Recent evidence supports the second camp: Quanta reports that scientists found traces of unique, ancient rocks and isotopes in magma that’s flowed upward from the blobs — materials nearly as old as the Earth itself and not found elsewhere on the planet.

Persistent Mystery

Still, great mystery still surrounds the deeply-buried hotspots. One theory is that they could be fragments of a Mars-sized object that crashed into the Earth.

University of Maryland seismologist Vedran Lekić told Quanta

It would be like having an object in the sky, and asking, ‘Is that the moon?’ And people are like, no. ‘Is that the sun?’ No. ‘What is it?’ We don’t know.

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Related Topics:earth's core gigantic blobs

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Planet Earth

Space sailing ship sent amazing pictures of the Earth

The space ship LightSail 2, launched in June last year, received amazing photos of our planet.

LightSail 2 is a project of the Planetary Society; It was launched in June 2019 with the SpaceX Falcon Heavy booster rocket. Unlike other spacecraft, the solar sailboat does not rely on traditional rocket engines – it uses solar energy.

Space sailing ship sent amazing pictures of the Earth 23

The device has been operating in Earth orbit for about eight months; all in all, its mission should last about a year. According to experts who studied the work of LightSail 2, the design of a space sailboat with solar panels on only one side caused a number of technical problems, so in their opinion, future similar vehicles should have solar panels on both, Space.com reports.

Space sailing ship sent amazing pictures of the Earth 24

The Planetary Society showed several images taken by the LightSail 2 camera. The solar sail of the apparatus is partially visible on them (in general, the sail area is about 32 square meters), and our planet is also visible.

Space sailing ship sent amazing pictures of the Earth 25

Planet Earth

Immediate enormous volcanic disaster predicted

Since 1999, Tungurahua has often been active, then 25 thousand people had to be evacuated from nearby settlements

Researchers at the Cambridge Mining School in Britain have predicted an imminent catastrophe, which is associated with the eruption of a large volcano in South America.

The Tungurahua volcano in Ecuador, also known as the Black Giant, shows signs of instability on the slopes, which can lead to a huge landslide. The reason for this is the recent volcanic activity and the imbalance between the erupted and incoming magma, which led to the deformation of the western flank of the mountain and increasing stress.

Immediate enormous volcanic disaster predicted 27

Since 1999, Tungurahua has often been active, then 25 thousand people had to be evacuated from nearby settlements. The previous large eruption of the Black Giant occurred about 3 thousand years ago and provoked a partial collapse of the western flank of the volcano cone. A landslide from soil, stones, snow and water covered an area equal to 80 square meters. km Later, the cone gradually recovered, reaching a height of 5 km.

Planet Earth

A huge meteorite hit the Indian state of Rajasthan, creating a 20-meter crater and turning night into day

When it fell, the meteorite created a huge crater with a diameter of 20 and a depth of 7 meters in the factory complex at Tuesday dawn in the industrial zone of Itaran Alvara, Rajasthan.

Suddenly a rocket-like object appeared, falling from heaven to earth, changing night to day. A celestial phenomenon occurred in the Fauladpur region of Shahjahanpur in the Alvar region around 5:00 a.m. on February 12, 2020.

In the following video surveillance frames, flashes and the subsequent meteorite fall to the ground are visible. People living in the immediate vicinity were not harmed.

People living in the area woke up from weak shocks, similar to an earthquake. The birds began to scream.

Many surveillance cameras were able to record a meteorite explosion. People who witnessed the heavenly event were shocked.

Local resident Rajesh Kumar Gupta said that he felt an explosion and after leaving his house felt a gust of strong wind. Farmers in the city of Fauladpur Shahjahanpur also saw a meteorite.

Ajay Chaudhari, a resident of the Kotkashim region, said that light suddenly appeared and an object similar to a rocket appeared in the sky.

A team of scientists was sent to the crater to explore the mysterious meteorite.