Earlier this month, one corner of the internet got a little bit greener, thanks to a first-of-its-kind geothermal operation in the northern Nevada desert. Project Red, developed by a geothermal startup called Fervo, began pushing electrons onto a local grid that includes data centers operated by Google. The search company invested in the project two …
An artistic illustration shows Theia impacting the proto-Earth. Artwork by Hernan Canellas/image courtesy of ASU Deep inside our planet are two giant “blobs,” the leftovers of an ancient world that collided with Earth. The blobs, which are in the mantle near the center of the Earth beneath Africa and the Pacific Ocean, have been known …
Faruk Tokluoğlu/Pexels Powerful earthquakes in urban areas can cause a shocking amount of devastation, with lives lost and buildings destroyed. Indeed, more than 60,000 people have already died in such events in this year alone. Ever since scientists discovered what causes these awful catastrophes, they’ve also been trying to predict them in a bid to …
/https://tf-cmsv2-smithsonianmag-media.s3.amazonaws.com/filer_public/55/2d/552dd7c3-d231-49ef-a8e3-575e95e8b519/geochemist-blake-dyer_web.jpg "Scientists Look to Ancient Hawaiian Reefs for Clues About Future Sea-Level Rise | Science")
Along the shores of the Hawaiian island of Molokai, dynamic summer winds swipe the surface of the sea, churning up the waters that surround the island. In the ocean, a sea turtle hastily dips back below the surface after coming up for air. On land, a team of researchers trod through sun-scorched dunes like ducklings …
Princess Buma-At. Princess Buma-At. A curious palaeontologist delved into the mysteries hidden within rock formations, unraveling important clues about early life on Earth and the potential for life on Mars. “Being the first person to uncover a 66-million-year-old ammonite by cracking open a rock with a hammer will always excite me,” expresses Princess Aira Buma-at, …
The reason why our planet has a 24-hour day rather than a 60-hour day is due to a billion-year pause in the slowing of Earth’s rotation… [+] 24-hour day rather than a 60-hour day. getty The length of a day on Earth is gradually increasing. Over millions of years, the moon’s tidal pull on our …
Did you ever wonder what seismic activity or ocean pollution sounds like? Scientists have found that patterns in data can be transformed into sound and even music. This week, two different performances demonstrated how patterns in data can sometimes become more interesting when they’re presented as music. Old Faithful was one of the sources of …
/https://tf-cmsv2-smithsonianmag-media.s3.amazonaws.com/filer_public/6a/0e/6a0ee306-9e5d-4314-9a96-e7d03d962867/opener-skiiers.jpg "Mapping Alaska’s Glaciers: A 75-Year Study Involving These Students | Science")
Ben Huff’s photographs and text feature college student Abby Watts from Juneau, Alaska, standing on a nunatak, an exposed ridge above the Juneau Icefield. Accompanied by Fabienne Meier, a student from Zurich, Switzerland, Watts studies enormous boulders in varying shades of gray. They record data in a waterproof yellow notebook, measuring the rocks in centimeters. …