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News

  • Professor Moyer on Climate Change and Global Security Panel

    February 08, 2017

    Associate Professor Liz Moyer is on a panel sponsered by the Chicago Council of Global Affairs about Climate Change and Global Security tonight, Feb. 9th. Representing the University in public forums like this is an important role of the faculty in society which Professor Moyer is particularly active in.

  • Dauphas explains Earth-Moon isotopic similarity

    January 26, 2017

    Louis Block Professor Nicolas Dauphas has published a new paper in Nature in which he shows that Earth formed from material similar to enstatite meteorites. This implies isotopic stratification in the early Solar System so that the giant impactor that formed the Moon probably had a similar isotopic composition to Earth. The isotopic similarity of Earth and the Moon had been a major mystery since calculations suggest that most of the material that forms the Moon should come from the giant impactor and before Nicolas' work there was no reason to assume that the impactor should be isotopically similar to Earth.

  • Heck uncovers meteorite source mystery

    January 24, 2017

    Associate Professor (part time) Phillip Heck, whose main appointment is at the Field Museum, has published a paper in Nature Astronomy in which his team determined that meteorites that hit Earth 466 million years ago were drastically different from those of today. This implies that recent large collisions in the astroid belt, rather than the particular astroids that cross Earth's orbit, tend to determine Earth's meteorite population. Click on the link to read NYTimes coverage of this work.

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