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Earth's Inner Core Rotation Slower Than Estimated
intellitech writes "Scientists at the University of Cambridge believe they have achieved the first accurate estimate of how much faster Earth's core is rotating compared to the rest of the planet. The rate — about one degree every million years — is much slower than previously thought and arises from the complex dynamic between Earth's inner and outer core, which generates Earth's geomagnetic field. Without our magnetic field, Earth's surface would not be protected from charged particles spewing from the Sun, and life would not be able to exist."
we have to quickly assemble a team to tunnel to the center of the Earth with nuclear bombs to restart the core's rotation!
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
My inner core rotation is much slower than it should be, especially after a biggish lunch.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
Earth's surface would not be protected from charged particles spewing from the Sun, and life would not be able to exist.
Have gnu, will travel.
It bothers me how often I hear absolutes with regards to "If not for XXX, life would not exist on Earth." Life has proven to be a lot more robust than such simple statements imply. Certainly, without a magnetic field, life on Earth would look a lot different than it does today as it would have adapted to a much different environment, but it would most certainly still exist with all other things being equal.
I've always wondered what god tastes like...
bacon, obviously
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
It's a nice way to punch up a news article or info piece. I think they may teach it in journalism school: people are really interested in death, and the apocalypse is a great way to attract eyeballs.
Scientists usually don't say such things, and the Nature article doesn't. But apparently the person who submitted it figured that a one-sentence answer "Scientists do an experiment and come up with a slightly different number from last time" didn't quite cut it.
Usually, it's the press who adds such things before it gets to Slashdot, and I suspect that the submitter got to the Nature link from some blog or news page, but decided that linking straight to Nature would be more authentic. Or maybe the submitter does read Nature and went to j-school, so knew how to add the mandatory "apocalypse" part of the story.
As the imaginary ship gets closer then the margins of error on the distance gets smaller so smaller adjustments are needed.
They build in course corrections into long space flights like this for a reason.
If you read up on the history of space probes within our Solar System, you'll see course corrections built into the mission for just this purpose.
http://www.qrg.northwestern.edu/projects/vss/docs/navigation/1-what-is-course-correction.html
One single volcanic eruption uses more core energy than all of mankind has EVER used in his entire existence in every single energy form.
Let me guess, these whacks also believe that windmills will slow down the wind and cause us to not have any more wind and weather.
DONT USE SOLAR POWER! YOU'RE MAKING THE SUN DARKER!
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Deinococcus radiodurans takes your puny solar radiation, chews on it, and spits it out as not worthy of food. Go ahead, try and kill me!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deinococcus_radiodurans
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
What the hell is an "accurate estimate"?
The opposite of a made-up fact.
Fandroids hate facts.