The idea of dinosaurs being wiped out by a killer asteroid is a very new one.  It captured the public’s imagination and became so well known that we sometimes forget that it hasn’t yet had time to be fully tested and proven, no matter how much its proponents claim otherwise (Scientists are only human, after all!).  Until recently, the leading alternative theory was super-volcanic eruptions, which would have similar effects (massive devastation, clouds of ash and dust blotting out the … Continue reading →

Richard Gross, research scientist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), calculates that the recent magnitude 8.8 earthquake in Chile was so violent that it shoved the earth’s axis a full eight centimetres from it’s original location.  Additionally, the resulting change to the Earth’s Moment of Inertia would have slowed its rotation down, to make the day several microseconds longer!   Earthquakes are caused by plate tectonics.  Plates grinding past each other tend to stick, and when they finally break loose, … Continue reading →

Back in 2008, the HiRISE camera on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter returned an astonishing photo showing Mars to be a dynamic and active environment.  The approaching martian summer had melted ground ice, and weakened part of one 700m high wall of the canyon, which had collapsed in a dusty avalanche just as HiRISE was passing over.  Now, Bernhard Braun has released his own images of the event, the result of intensive 3D processing to produce a beautiful visualisation of what … Continue reading →