The Daily Galaxy: Great Discoveries Channel

Were Antarctica and North America Once One Continent? A Single Boulder Provides Clue

The continual shifting of continents has led to the theories that, as in the cases of Pangaea and Rodinia, many, if not all of our continents were at one time or another connected. One particular theory -the SWEAT theory ( standing for southwestern United States and East Antarctica)- theorizes that the southwestern United States was at one time connected to East Antarctica.

"The Anthropocene": Are We Living in a New Geological Era? Experts Say "Yes"

No one can realistically argue that humans haven’t dramatically transformed the face of the planet. But now scientists, who love naming things, propose that humankind has so altered the Earth that that we have brought about an end to one epoch and entered a new age, as different from our recent ancestors' time as the Jurassic was from the Cambrian.

Nobel laureate Paul Crutzen calls it the Anthropocene, with "anthro" signifying humanity's biospheric impact. They suggest humans have so changed the Earth that it’s time the Holocene epoch was officially ended.

The Highest Point on the Planet (It's Not Mount Everest)

We all know that Mount Everest, at 29,035 feet above sea level, is the highest spot on our planet. Sir Edmound Hillary taught us that, right? Well, yes… that is unless we think about the word "highest" in a different way.

Think instead of that point on the planet closest to the moon and the stars, in other words to "out there."

According to Issac Newton, the centrifugal force of the Earth's spin will result in a slight flattening at the poles and bulging at the equator, which would make the planet slightly oblate. Mathematicians call this an "oblate spheroid," which means that anyone on the equator is already standing "higher," or closer to outer space, than people who aren't on the bulge.

Are Planets "Living Super-Organisms"? -A Galaxy Insight

Japan's Maruyama Shigenori, one of the world's leading geophysicists, is working on a global formula for a new field of study that would include dozens of disciplines collaborating to produce an overall picture of the Earth. As he connects the links from astronomy to life sciences, an outline emerges of an all-encompassing image of entire planets which appear as living super-organisms.

Shigenori believes that expanding the study of life sciences to the core of our world and the depths of outer space will help us find distant relatives of our own Earth -- planets that could also sustain life.

Adios L.A. - "Ring of Fire" 9.0 Megaquakes Predicted

On January the 26th, 1700, sometime around 9 p.m. in the evening local time, the Juan de Fuca segment of the planet beneath the ocean in the Pacific Northwest moved. Suddenly. It slipped some 60 feet eastward beneath the North American plate, and caused a monster quake of approximate magnitude 9. It set in motion tsunamis that struck the coast of North America and traveled to the shores of Japan

MIT Team Solves Mystery of the Pacific "Ring of Fire" (VIDEO)

Geologists have been trying for years to discover the forces that give rise to the kind of volcanoes that form the so-called "ring of fire" around the Pacific Ocean that form an arc for 40,000 kilometers in a nearly continuous series of oceanic trenches, volcanic arcs, and volcanic belts and or plate movements. The "Ring of Fire" has 452 volcanoes and is home to over 75% of the world's active and dormant volcanoes, which are produced when one of the tectonic plates that make up planet's crust plunges beneath another plate, a process called subduction.

Understanding the process that produces arc volcanoes is important because, among other things, most of the world's major deposits of such metals as silver, copper and molybdenum occur in these formations.

Antarctica's "Relic Landscape" -Yields Secrets of Earth's Interior

Antarctica's Dry Valley is an ideal place for scientists to study how the Earth's plumbing was formed; its current landscape was eroded in to existence millions of years ago, and has undergone very little subsequent erosion since. Researchers have labeled the Dry Valleys region a “relic landscape” as it is the only known location on Earth which is the same now as it was millions of years ago.

Jupiter's Io -The Volcanic Epicenter of the Solar System

Boston University researchers published the first clear evidence of how gases from Jupiter’s tiny moon Io’s volcanoes can lead to the largest visible gas cloud in the solar system. Jupiter, the largest planet in the solar system, has a moon named Io that is just 100 km larger in radius than Earth’s Moon,  with over 100 active volcanic sites on Io making it the most active place for volcanic activity known anywhere.

Are Planets Living Super-Organisms? World's Leading Expert Says "Yes"

Japan's Maruyama Shigenori, one of the world's leading geophysicists, is working on a global formula for a vast new field of study that would include dozens of disciplines collaborating to produce an overall picture of the Earth.

Were Antarctica and North America Once One Continent? A Single Boulder Says "Yes"

The continual shifting of continents has led to the theories that, as in the cases of Pangaea and Rodinia, many, if not all of our continents, were at one time or another connected. One particular theory evolving from this is the SWEAT theory, standing for southwestern United States and East Antarctica, which theorizes that the southwestern United States was at one time connected to East Antarctica.

Were Antarctica and North America Once One Continent? A Single Boulder Provides Clue

The continual shifting of continents has led to the theories that, as in the cases of Pangaea and Rodinia, many, if not all of our continents were at one time or another connected. One particular theory -the SWEAT theory ( standing for southwestern United States and East Antarctica)- theorizes that the southwestern United States was at one time connected to East Antarctica.

"The Anthropocene": Are We Living in a New Geological Era? Experts Say "Yes"

No one can realistically argue that humans haven’t dramatically transformed the face of the planet. But now scientists, who love naming things, propose that humankind has so altered the Earth that that we have brought about an end to one epoch and entered a new age, as different from our recent ancestors' time as the Jurassic was from the Cambrian.

Nobel laureate Paul Crutzen calls it the Anthropocene, with "anthro" signifying humanity's biospheric impact. They suggest humans have so changed the Earth that it’s time the Holocene epoch was officially ended.

The Highest Point on the Planet (It's Not Mount Everest)

We all know that Mount Everest, at 29,035 feet above sea level, is the highest spot on our planet. Sir Edmound Hillary taught us that, right? Well, yes… that is unless we think about the word "highest" in a different way.

Think instead of that point on the planet closest to the moon and the stars, in other words to "out there."

According to Issac Newton, the centrifugal force of the Earth's spin will result in a slight flattening at the poles and bulging at the equator, which would make the planet slightly oblate. Mathematicians call this an "oblate spheroid," which means that anyone on the equator is already standing "higher," or closer to outer space, than people who aren't on the bulge.

Are Planets "Living Super-Organisms"? -A Galaxy Insight

Japan's Maruyama Shigenori, one of the world's leading geophysicists, is working on a global formula for a new field of study that would include dozens of disciplines collaborating to produce an overall picture of the Earth. As he connects the links from astronomy to life sciences, an outline emerges of an all-encompassing image of entire planets which appear as living super-organisms.

Shigenori believes that expanding the study of life sciences to the core of our world and the depths of outer space will help us find distant relatives of our own Earth -- planets that could also sustain life.

Adios L.A. - "Ring of Fire" 9.0 Megaquakes Predicted

On January the 26th, 1700, sometime around 9 p.m. in the evening local time, the Juan de Fuca segment of the planet beneath the ocean in the Pacific Northwest moved. Suddenly. It slipped some 60 feet eastward beneath the North American plate, and caused a monster quake of approximate magnitude 9. It set in motion tsunamis that struck the coast of North America and traveled to the shores of Japan

MIT Team Solves Mystery of the Pacific "Ring of Fire" (VIDEO)

Geologists have been trying for years to discover the forces that give rise to the kind of volcanoes that form the so-called "ring of fire" around the Pacific Ocean that form an arc for 40,000 kilometers in a nearly continuous series of oceanic trenches, volcanic arcs, and volcanic belts and or plate movements. The "Ring of Fire" has 452 volcanoes and is home to over 75% of the world's active and dormant volcanoes, which are produced when one of the tectonic plates that make up planet's crust plunges beneath another plate, a process called subduction.

Understanding the process that produces arc volcanoes is important because, among other things, most of the world's major deposits of such metals as silver, copper and molybdenum occur in these formations.

Antarctica's "Relic Landscape" -Yields Secrets of Earth's Interior

Antarctica's Dry Valley is an ideal place for scientists to study how the Earth's plumbing was formed; its current landscape was eroded in to existence millions of years ago, and has undergone very little subsequent erosion since. Researchers have labeled the Dry Valleys region a “relic landscape” as it is the only known location on Earth which is the same now as it was millions of years ago.

Jupiter's Io -The Volcanic Epicenter of the Solar System

Boston University researchers published the first clear evidence of how gases from Jupiter’s tiny moon Io’s volcanoes can lead to the largest visible gas cloud in the solar system. Jupiter, the largest planet in the solar system, has a moon named Io that is just 100 km larger in radius than Earth’s Moon,  with over 100 active volcanic sites on Io making it the most active place for volcanic activity known anywhere.

Are Planets Living Super-Organisms? World's Leading Expert Says "Yes"

Japan's Maruyama Shigenori, one of the world's leading geophysicists, is working on a global formula for a vast new field of study that would include dozens of disciplines collaborating to produce an overall picture of the Earth.

Were Antarctica and North America Once One Continent? A Single Boulder Says "Yes"

The continual shifting of continents has led to the theories that, as in the cases of Pangaea and Rodinia, many, if not all of our continents, were at one time or another connected. One particular theory evolving from this is the SWEAT theory, standing for southwestern United States and East Antarctica, which theorizes that the southwestern United States was at one time connected to East Antarctica.