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planetary scientist

Planetary scientist has ‘modest proposal’ for sending probe to Earth’s core

Dave Stevenson has spent his career working on “swing-by” missions to the other planets. Now he has a modest proposal he’d like to swing by some government agency with a few billion dollars in available funding. According to Stevenson’s calculations, it should be possible to send a probe all the way to Earth’s core by combining several proven technologies with a few well-grounded scientific assumptions about the workings of the planet. The probe would sink straight to the core in an envelope of molten iron, sending temperature readings, compositional information, and other data along the way.

Worried About Asteroid-Ocean Impacts? Don't Sweat the Small Stuff

The idea that even small asteroids can create hazardous tsunamis may at last be pretty well washed up. Small asteroids do not make great ocean waves that will devastate coastal areas for miles inland, according to both a recently released 1968 U.S. Naval Research report on explosion-generated tsunamis and terrestrial evidence. University of Arizona planetary scientist H. Jay Melosh is talking about it today at the 34th annual Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in League City, Texas. His talk, “Impact-Generated Tsunamis: an Over-Rated Hazard,” is part of the session, “Poking Holes: Terrestrial Impacts.”