Category Archives: planets

Can we detect plate tectonics on exoplanets?

Posted on January 2, 2020 by Chris Rowan

As celebrated in this Ars Technica piece, the 2010s was ‘the decade of the exoplanet’. Largely thanks to the Kepler telescope, the past ten years has seen an explosion in exoplanet discoveries. More than 4000 planets have now been identified orbiting other stars, … Continue reading →

Categories: geology, planets, tectonics, volcanoes

Venus stays out in the cold

Posted on January 11, 2017 by Chris Rowan

We basically have a huge generation gap with Venus, and we really need something to launch in the early- to mid-2020s so we can maintain some kind of continuity.” I’m not a planetary scientist, but I’m still disappointed that two … Continue reading →

Categories: planets, tectonics

A cross-section through the Earth

Posted on September 2, 2016 by Chris Rowan

One of the first things I do in my introductory geology class is talk about the structure of the Earth. Knowing the names, composition and physical properties of the different layers is an important foundation for the rest of the … Continue reading →

Categories: basics, geology, geophysics, planets, teaching

Earthly and Unearthly Beauty

Posted on December 11, 2012 by Chris Rowan

NASA unveiled a couple of rather beautiful things at AGU last week – and despite actually being at the conference, I haven’t really had the time to sit back and appreciate them until now. The first was the ‘Black Marble’, … Continue reading →

Categories: climate science, geology, geophysics, photos, planets