Category: moon

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A Scientist Thinks the Earth Is Actually Two Planets Fused Together After Colliding

Just when you thought you knew how the world works, science throws something new at you.

There’s a ton of great research coming out of PhD programs these days–new discoveries and new ideas.

One such researcher is Qian Yuan from the School of Earth and Space Exploration at Arizona State University.

His research suggests that parts of the Earth are not actually Earth at all.

His team’s research was presented at the 52nd Lunar and Planetary Science Conference this past March.

For years it has been widely believed that a proto-planet called Theia helped to form life as we know it.

According to Popular Mechanics:

In 2016, UCLA researchers proposed that Earth could actually be two planets that fused together after colliding: itself and Theia. At the time, scientists said they believe the two planetary masses mixed together uniformly. Now, Qian Yuan of Arizona State University and his colleagues suggest the mysterious dense spots in Earth’s interior are the specific pieces of Theia that are still intact.

Theia is thought to be very similar in size and structure to Mars.

Scientists also believe that the Earth’s Moon may have formed during this impact.

You might remember from science class that the Earth is made up of 3 layers: the crust, the mantle, and the core.

The mantle itself is also made up of layers of varying density, and is at the center of Yuan’s research.

In some cases, there are massive pockets that are more dense, called “Large Low Shear Velocity Provinces” or (LLSVPs).

I honestly don’t understand most of Yuan’s science-related tweets, but he compares the Earth to chocolate, which is always a language I can understand:

The team did a lot of math, and they have been able to compare the objects of their study with the mantle on Mars, which can be examined in the form of meteorites that have landed on Earth–over 100 of them.

What the researchers found is that:

“The total mass of the moon, together with the LLSVPs, is almost perfectly matched with [Mars’s] mantle.”

Unlike the original supposition that the two planets fused completely, Yuan’s team believe that the heavier Theia material sank into the deepest part of the Earth’s mantle, closest to the core, and there it stayed, like the gritty dregs at the bottom of a cup of coffee.

Popular Mechanics explains it this way:

How have the dense Theia materials stayed intact for billions of years?

It’s a function of the way Earth’s mantle works, where convection circulates materials that are a certain temperature and density.

The Theia materials are so dense that they sank and never floated back into the convection zone.

Think of this like the stuff that accumulates in a sharp corner that’s hard to reach with the vacuum cleaner.

So now you know. The Earth is like an Easter candy egg with a vacuum cleaner hidden deep inside.

And even though Mars feels very far away, we are all technically walking on a foreign world.

Did Yuan’s research completely blow your mind like it did mine? ? Tell us in the comments.

The post A Scientist Thinks the Earth Is Actually Two Planets Fused Together After Colliding appeared first on UberFacts.

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Look at These Awe-Inspiring Photos of the Final Solar Eclipse of the Decade

On December 26, people from Saudi Arabia to Guam scrambled to take pictures of the final solar eclipse to grace the Earth this decade.

Unlike in some eclipses, you’ll notice that the moon didn’t totally black out the sun. Instead, it covered the majority of the sun, leaving a visible “ring.” This type of event is called a “ring of fire,” or annular, eclipse.

The NOAA provided more information about the moon’s path on the 26th.

Images of the eclipse are stunning, especially against the backdrop of beautiful landscapes such as these sand dunes.

A photographer in Guam was able to capture the moon’s movements against the ocean tide.

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Solar Eclipse 2019 in Guam. I still can’t believe I got to witness this eclipse. Before anything, I want to thank @natgeotraveler_korea for believing in my crazy idea. @Saerom.h will be writing a story about our experience for the magazine and can’t wait to share it with you all. It’s been a long 6 months to prep, but it was all worth it. Two years ago, I missed the solar eclipse that was passing by the US, but I finally got my opportunity, and the day couldn’t have gone any better… And a big thank you to Guam and it’s people for making my time here even more memorable. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ Eclipse Solar 2019 en Guam. Todavía no puedo creer que haya presenciado este eclipse. Antes que nada, quiero agradecer a @natgeotraveler_korea por creer en mi loca idea. @Saerom.h escribirá una historia sobre nuestra experiencia para la revista y no puedo esperar para compartirla con todos ustedes. Han sido largos 6 meses para preparar, pero valió la pena. Hace dos años, perdí la oportunidad de ver el eclipse solar que pasaba por los Estados Unidos, pero finalmente tuve mi oportunidad y el día no pudo haber sido mejor… Y también, muchas gracias a Guam y gente por haber hecho mi estadía mucho más memorable.

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This picture gives us a different point of view from India.

Some lucky travelers were able to fly right past the eclipse as well!

Residents of India, Pakistan, parts of Africa, and China will get to see the first solar eclipse of the new decade, which will pass by them in June 2020.

These images are out of this world!

Did you catch the eclipse? Share your thoughts with us below.

The post Look at These Awe-Inspiring Photos of the Final Solar Eclipse of the Decade appeared first on UberFacts.

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In an unbelievable coincidence, the moon…

In an unbelievable coincidence, the moon is exactly four hundred times smaller than the Sun but four hundred times closer to the Earth, so that both the Sun and the Moon appear to be precisely the same size in the sky – which gives us the phenomenon we call a total eclipse.

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The Apollo 11 Astronauts Were Honored with Butter Sculptures at the Ohio State Fair

To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the historic Apollo 11 moon landing, the three astronauts on that mission are being honored with life-sized sculptures made out of butter at the Ohio State Fair.

On July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins landed on the moon and changed the course of history. The state of Ohio has a strong kinship with space travel: Neil Armstrong was an Ohio native and so was John Glenn, the first American to orbit the Earth. Ohio also has a long history of dairy production. Combine all those factors together and you get the magnificent butter display at this year’s Ohio State Fair.

If you are lucky enough to be able to go to the Ohio State Fair in Columbus, don’t miss the traditional “cow made out of…

Posted by Suellen Brady-Nugent on Thursday, July 25, 2019

Dairy farmers donated over 2,000 pounds of butter to help create the sculptures. An artist from Cincinnati named Paul Brooke and a team of sculptors spent 400-500 hours creating the buttery tributes in a cooler set at 46 degrees to prevent the pieces from melting.

Here’s a cool time-lapse video of the butter being sculpted:

Alexander Balz, one of the artists, said, “The space suits were a real challenge, to be honest. It’s easy to sculpt things that you know. When you sculpt a human being you memorize it, so this was a challenge.”

Roughly 500,000 people are expected to have attended the State Fair in late July and early August. Here’s a video with some great footage of the display.

What a unique and cool way to honor a pivotal event in American, and human, history!

And, by the way, I’m really hoping that this butter sculpting catches on more widely because it is fabulous.

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The ‘Moon Selfie’: 11 People Took Pics with Toilet Paper Rolls and They’re Hilarious

Hey, this is pretty fun!

Every month there seems to be some kind of big “moon” even happening, so recently, r/JokeInks posted this photo on Reddit inviting others to join in on the fun of becoming one!

Photo Credit: Reddit, r/JokeInks

Did Reddit respond?

You’re damn right they did!

Here are the best moon selfies ever in the history of moon selfies!

10. Mean Moon

Photo Credit: Reddit, r/hedgelinghog

9. Full Moon

Photo Credit: Reddit, r/SisterResister

 8. Pensive Moon

Photo Credit: Reddit, r/laurasaurus

7. Sleepy Moon

Photo Credit: Reddit, r/UncleFishies

6. Happy Moon

Photo Credit: Reddit, r/Xenokiller101

5. Orbiting moon

Photo Credit: Reddit, r/Aeolyon

4. 246 days of Moon

3. Thoughtful Moon

Photo Credit: Reddit, r/flashmanMRP

2. Mustache Moon

Photo Credit: Wokesloth.com

1. Grumpy Moon

Photo Credit: Wokesloth.com

Want to try it out? Take a snap and post it in the comments!

You know you want to…

The post The ‘Moon Selfie’: 11 People Took Pics with Toilet Paper Rolls and They’re Hilarious appeared first on UberFacts.

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The bishop of Orlando is also…

The bishop of Orlando is also bishop of the moon, due to a canon law that says “any newly discovered territory would fall under the bishopric from whence the discovering expedition departed.” His is therefore the largest Catholic diocese, at over 14,000,000 square miles.

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Scientists Discovered a Giant Structure Under the Surface of the Moon

Space keeps getting less and less mysterious every day, doesn’t it?

This most recent discovery concerns the South Pole-Aitken Basin on the moon, one of the largest preserved impact craters in the Solar System. The US and China, among others, have been particularly interested in the area, and now NASA’s Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory mission has discovered something truly massive beneath it.

The structure weighs 2.18 billion kilograms and stretches more than 186 miles deep, suggesting that it might be leftover from the asteroid that formed the crater, says lead author Peter B. James.

“Imagine taking a pile of metal five times larger than the Big Island of Hawaii and burying it underground. That’s roughly how much unexpected mass we detected.”

The mission was out to measure subtle changes in the gravitational field of the moon, then use the observations to study the moon’s internal composition, but what they discovered was a surprise to everyone involved.

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“The vast loneliness up here of the Moon is awe-inspiring, and it makes you realize just what you have back there on Earth. The Earth from here is a grand oasis to the big vastness of space.” — Apollo 8 astronaut Jim Lovell Fifty years ago today, this iconic 'Earthrise' photo was taken aboard Apollo 8 by Bill Anders. Before humanity ventured to the Moon, our view of our home planet consisted of what we could see from horizon to horizon. It was not until this stunning photo (along with many others) came back to Earth with the three Apollo 8 astronauts in December 1968 that we saw Earth as a vibrant, delicate, blue and white globe framed by the velvety blackness of space. This iconic picture shows Earth peeking out from beyond the lunar surface as the first crewed spacecraft circumnavigated the Moon. Image credit: NASA #space #earth #nasa #earthrise #moon #lunar #earth #iconic #picoftheday #1968 #apollo8 #apollo #astronaut #astronomy #planet #science

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“When we combined that [data] with lunar topography data from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, we discovered the unexpectedly large amount of mass hundreds of miles underneath the South Pole-Aitken basin. One of the explanations of this extra mass is that the metal from the asteroid that formed this crater is still embedded in the Moon’s mantle.”

The team isn’t sure exactly what they’ve found at this point, though computer simulations indicate it is possible that when an asteroid hit the moon roughly 4 billion years ago it embedded itself in the mantle, never sinking into the moon’s core.

Another theory is that the mass formed when the moon was still solidifying – as the magma of the moon cooled and hardened, perhaps a concentration of oxides may have developed.

More research will follow, but anything we learn from the unique basin should help scientists understand how and when the moon formed, as well as give us an idea as to how it might weather an impact from an asteroid in the future.

And when it comes to space, the more information we have, the better.

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