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Meteorite is 'hard drive' from space
Anonymous Kritter Show this Post

01-22-2015, 12:36 PM #1
Anonymous Kritter Incognito Quote:From bbc.com Researchers have decoded ancient recordings from fragments of an asteroid dating back billions of years to the start of the Solar System.

They found tiny "space magnets" in meteorites which retain a memory of the birth and death of the asteroid's core.

Like the data recorded on the surface of a computer hard drive, the magnetic signals written in the space rock reveal how Earth's own metallic core and magnetic field may one day die.

The work appears in Nature journal.

Using a giant X-ray microscope, called a synchrotron, the team was able to read the signals that formed more than four-and-a-half billion years ago, soon after the birth of the Solar System.

More at the link, and it's beautiful to look at. it concludes by stating the Earth's magnetic field will likely die off when the core completely freezes, and Earth will no longer be protected from the Sun's radiation.
But "There's no need to panic" said Dr Harrison. "The core won't completely freeze for billions of years, and chances are, the Sun will get us first."
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JUXTAPOSE Show this Post

01-22-2015, 12:53 PM #2 nice find
JayRodney Show this Post

01-22-2015, 01:39 PM #3
JayRodney ⓐⓛⓘⓔⓝ Posts:30,185 Threads:1,485 Joined:Feb 2011
Interesting how this can tell us more about earths magnetic core, of which a lot of "knowns" were actually nothing more than hypothesis up till this point.
I still think there's a gigantic gerbil on a magnetic wheel inside.