Eos Magazine
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Eos is the leading source for trustworthy news and perspectives about the Earth and space sciences. Its namesake is Eos, the Greek goddess of the dawn.
Eos Magazine
19h ago
Source: Tectonics
The Greater Caucasus mountain range stretches between the Black and Caspian Seas across parts of Russia, Georgia, and Azerbaijan. These formidable peaks are the result of the subduction of the Arabian plate beneath the Eurasian plate.
The energy stored by the tectonic forces that push these two plates together is released during earthquakes, uplifting the Greater Caucasus mountains. These tectonic movements have mostly been accommodated by the Kura fold-thrust belt, which runs for approximately 275 kilometers along the southern front of the mountain range between Tbilisi, Geo ..read more
Eos Magazine
19h ago
The dwarf planets in the outer solar system aren’t all dead balls of ice. Observations by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) recently showed that the surfaces of some have been repaved by methane ice squirting up from interior oceans of liquid water. Some of that activity could have occurred in the geologically recent past and may continue today on at least one of the worlds.
JWST “is giving us a good opportunity to compare and contrast these different bodies,” said Christopher Glein, a planetary scientist at the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. Glein is the lead author of a ..read more
Eos Magazine
19h ago
Both natural and human-made events can shake the ground: Grinding tectonic plates send earthquakes through the crust, and weapons tests set off explosions. Telling the difference from afar is tricky but crucial, especially when it comes to enforcing international weapons agreements such as the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty.
In a new paper published in Geophysical Journal International, researchers present a new mathematical method that’s able to correctly classify 99% of explosions and 98% of earthquakes in a test data set of seismic events from the western United States.
It’s the lat ..read more
Eos Magazine
19h ago
Editors’ Highlights are summaries of recent papers by AGU’s journal editors. Source: Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth
Our understanding of the governing laws of seismic phenomena has advanced considerably and it is now possible to explain various features with numerical simulations using experiment-based friction laws. However, for the earthquake growth process in which a small rupture grows into a catastrophic event, various observable characteristics cannot be explained using only existing friction laws. The key to explaining these characteristics is the hierarchical heterogeneou ..read more
Eos Magazine
2d ago
It sounded as if the Streets were running
And then—the Streets stood still—
Eclipse—was all we could see at the Window
And Awe—was all we could feel.
—Emily Dickinson
Total Eclipse of the Sun
When the Moon’s shadow glides over the Sun and the world goes dark, birds call in alarm, bats emerge into the uncanny night, flowers close up their petals, and zooplankton rise to the ocean’s surface.
And humans? Humans are overcome with awe. Many accounts of total solar eclipses use the word—like the poem Emily Dickinson wrote to a friend in 1877, which probably refers to an eclipse that had passed ..read more
Eos Magazine
2d ago
Total Eclipse of the Sun
On 8 April, a total solar eclipse will cross North America from sea to shining sea—from Mexico’s Pacific coast to Canada’s Atlantic Maritimes. Scientists and skywatching enthusiasts are ready for the event with projects and programs to follow the Moon’s shadow—and you can follow them with Katherine Kornei’s “Eclipse Science Along the Path of Totality.” But you don’t need to be a researcher to be starstruck by the spectacle, as Kate Evans explains in “The Small Self and the Vast Universe: Eclipses and the Science of Awe.” If you’re in North America, grab Eos and a pa ..read more
Eos Magazine
2d ago
Total Eclipse of the Sun
In general, scientists don’t put much credence in cosmic coincidences.
But a total solar eclipse—a phenomenon made possible by the remarkable similarity between the apparent sizes of the Sun and the Moon—is likely to awe even the most data-driven researcher. And on 8 April 2024, millions of people across the United States will be treated to such a spectacle as the Moon’s umbral shadow arcs from Texas to Maine.
Researchers and educators are gearing up for the event with a plethora of scientific investigations, many of which welcome the participation of amateur scient ..read more
Eos Magazine
2d ago
Total Eclipse of the Sun
Solar eclipses are the result of a pleasant astronomical coincidence. Although the Sun’s diameter is almost 400 times that of the Moon’s, the Sun is also almost 400 times farther away, so the two bodies look nearly the same size in Earth’s sky. That allows the Moon to just cover the Sun’s disk, blocking its light but letting the silvery tendrils of the corona shine around it.
This coincidence won’t last forever, though. Earth and the Moon are moving away from each other, so the Moon will look smaller and smaller through the ages to come. Eventually, it will grow so ..read more
Eos Magazine
2d ago
Editors’ Vox is a blog from AGU’s Publications Department.
Alfvén waves are fundamental to the dynamics of space plasmas. New space missions, sophisticated rocket campaigns, and advances in radar networks and computer modeling have grown our understanding of these waves, bringing us closer to answering some of the most important questions in space physics.
A new book in AGU’s Geophysical Monograph Series, Alfvén Waves Across Heliophysics: Progress, Challenges, and Opportunities, takes an interdisciplinary approach to Alfvén waves, exploring recent and current research from the solar, planetary ..read more
Eos Magazine
2d ago
Editors’ Highlights are summaries of recent papers by AGU’s journal editors. Source: AGU Advances
Since 2007, the National Academy for Sciences Engineering and Medicine (NASEM) in the United States has recommended Earth Science research and investment priorities every ten years. The Decadal Survey balances the continuation of essential climate variable time series against unmet measurement needs and new Earth Observations made possible by technological breakthroughs.
The next survey (2027-2028, DS28) will be framed by a rapidly changing world. The climate is changing in both predicted and unex ..read more