earth
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Earth’s Explosive History Explains Its Strange Chemical Make-Up
The red is volatiles, the yellow is molten rock (Image: Philip J. Carter) If you made a building out of bricks and cinderblocks, then hundreds of years later you’d expect it to still be, well, a building made of bricks and cinderblocks. But planets are not buildings if you haven’t noticed. Earth, for instance, just…
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Life As We Know Could Have Come From Algae On Steroids
Image: Harsha K R/Flickr What was life really like here on planet Earth before animals were big enough to leave fossils behind? How did living things turn from dinky capsules of genetic material into the intelligent, complex organisms that do things like fart and type curse words into posts on the internet? Scientists think they…
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Scientists Think They Have Solved The Mystery Of Our Atmosphere’s Missing Xenon
Xenon is a peculiar element. It certainly has one of the most mysterious names (from the Greek xenos, or “stranger”). As a noble gas, it refuses to bond with other elements except under exotic conditions. And its uses are all about as creepy as its name: Folks use it for its eerie glow, to detect…
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Cassini Has Made Earth Feel Small, But Part Of Something Bigger
Earth is exhausting — excruciatingly so, if you’re a young curmudgeon like me. At times, performing even the most mundane tasks, like commuting on a crowded, smelly subway car, feels like an Olympic marathon designed to test one’s patience. Space compels us because it forces us to think outside this myopic view of ourselves —…