The World's Deepest Drill To Tickle Earth's Mantle [Drills]

The Chikyu research vessel is already the world's deepest drill, probing nearly 3000 feet beneath the ocean floor. But scientists hope to add another mile to the machine by 2013, allowing it to pierce Earth's mantle for the first time.

PopSci has a look at how the massive drill operates and what it will take to reach Earth's mantle, where scientists expect to find the elements and organisms that were present at our planet's early stages.

Transponders on the ocean floor keep the drill on target as it snakes its way down, with six computer-controlled propellers keeping it from drifting off course. Pipes are added one by one to extend the length of the drill, and synthetic mud is pumped down to the tip to keep it cool and to fortify it against the crushing pressure found at those depths. All the while, 30 foot-long samples of rock are collected and analyzed for various properties.

PopSci has more details on how the Chikyu operates and the measures researchers take to make sure it holds up under the extreme pressure and heat it encounters. It might not be quite as Jules Verne envisioned it, but, piece by piece, this crazy drill is on a journey to the center of the Earth.
[Gizmodo via PopSci]

Days Get Shorter Because of Chilean Earthquake [Science]

Apart from a colossal tsunami, here's another effect of the 66.6 exajoules liberated by this weekend's earthquake in Chile: NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory says that days will now be shorter because the quake shifted Earth's axis by three inches.

The change—which can only be measured thanks to computer models—will result in days that are 1.26 microseconds shorter than before. That's 0.00000126 seconds shorter. There may have been more visible changes, like islands changing its position. One of them, Santa María, may have raised two meters after the shattering land move.

This is not the first time this has happened, as every single earthquake has an effect on the planet's axis.
[Gizmodo via Business Week]

National Geographic: 50 Years of Space Exploration

Ready to lose 20 minutes of your day?
Check out this huge infograph that displays the last 50 years of space exploration. It’s awesome although it does kind of indicate that Venus is closer to earth than the Moon. The “50 Years of Space Exploration” graphic was created by Sean McNaughton and Samuel Velasco for National Geographic. I must say though, skip the interactive edition on NationalGeographic.com and check out the full size version on Flickr.
[CrunchGear via OhGizmo]

NASA's 2009 Cryosphere Video Is Really Cool, Literally [Data Visualization]

Did you know that there is something called 'cryosphere' on this little blue gem called Earth? I didn't. And I didn't know that seeing it animated from thousands of satellite high definition photographs could look so cool.

The cryosphere are the parts of the Earth's surface which are covered with water in solid form. It could be snow and ice in glaciers, permafrost, ice sheets, icebergs, and—I hope—glasses full of bourbon. Apparently, scientists are now discovering that the cryosphere plays a fundamental role in regulating Earth's temperature. But then again, we are still so clueless about how this whole Earth weather business works, that [NASA]