EGU Scientific Divisions

When nature isn’t “natural”: Reflections on World Wetlands Day

Simon Clark February 2, 2023

Credit: Ragnar Sigurdsson (distributed via imaggeo.egu.eu)

In 1821, peat cutters discovered a body similar to a mummy, pinned down by two wooden stakes deep in the mud. The body’s face still held red hair and a beard, their teeth were well preserved, and a hoop of willow was wrapped around their throat. But this wasn’t the dry, hot climate of Egypt but a cold and rain-sodden bog of Ireland. Later assessment suggested that these were the remain ...[Read More]

GeoTalk: meet Martin Archer, Space Physicist and Outreach expert!

Simon Clark January 27, 2023

Martin Archer

Hi Martin. Thank you for joining me for this interview! To start, could you please tell our readers a bit about yourself and your research interests? I’m a space plasma physicist at Imperial College London, studying how the interaction between the solar wind and our magnetosphere leads to a huge amount of dynamics and waves that play a role in space weather. I’m also the Chair of EGU’s Outreach Co ...[Read More]

Tectonics on Ice…. learning about Jupiter’s Icy Moons and the JUICE mission.

Hazel Gibson January 25, 2023

Image credit: USGS Astrogeology Science Center/Wheaton/NASA/JPL-Caltech

In April this year a new mission is being launched by the European Space Agency, called JUICE, which stands for the Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer. This mission aims to make detailed observations of the giant gas planet Jupiter and its three large ocean-bearing moons – Ganymede, Callisto and Europa – with a suite of remote sensing, geophysical and in situ instruments. But beyond the excitement of a ne ...[Read More]

A touch of space weather! An EGU funded outreach project for blind and visually impaired students

Lenka Zychova January 4, 2023

This image shows four tactile images created to share space weather phenomena with blind and visually impaired learners. The image shows a representation of the magnetosphere (a small blue ball with black concentric circles surrounded by dots to the left and right, the ones on the left are smaller), aurora formation (a small blue ball with black concentric circles to the left and right with dots on the circles) and radiation belts ( a small blue ball with a yellow and brown pair of rings extended evenly to the left and the right). All the images are on a white background.

Image credit: Lenka Zychova

We can all probably agree that the Northern Lights are one of the world’s most spectacular natural displays. But how do we share this beauty with children who are blind? How do we explain the processes behind the aurora creation to the visually impaired when all the illustrations of Earth’s magnetosphere are in 2D? The Northern Lights are just one of the consequences of ‘space weather’. Space weat ...[Read More]