Research news
Find here the latest scientific news from the Institute's groups.
The logos of space laboratories, including that of Institut de physique du globe de Paris, which built the SEIS seismometer and developed its on-board software, are beginning to become visible on the flat cable connecting the seismometer to its control electronics.
After years of research, months of development, thousands of hours of work, a 485 million kilometre journey, and ‘7 minutes of terror’, the InSight probe, the result of international collaboration and carrying the SEIS seismometer designed at IPGP, landed on Mars on Monday 26 November 2018.
By combining barometry and composition of fluid inclusions trapped in lava crystals and recent enclaves of the Piton de la Fournaise, a new study has provided new insights into the evolution of CO2 from the mantel source to its degassing in the atmosphere.
In a study published in the journal Nature, researchers from Institut de physique du globe de Paris, Université Paris Diderot, CNRS and Synchrotron SOLEIL provide a first-rate argument for the latter hypothesis, and in particular for the hydrothermal theory of the origin of life, even pushing back its possible emergence in depth, well beyond the hydrothermal sources of the ocean floor.
On Saturday 5 May at 4:05 a.m. Pacific time, the Atlas V rocket took off from Vandenberg, California, sending the InSight probe to Mars. This launch, the first on the west coast of the United States for a planetary mission, was followed by scientific teams, as well as numerous media outlets and enthusiasts from around the world.
Two days before the launch of the InSight mission, NASA organised a major press conference at the Vandenberg military base. Scientists and officials from NASA, JPL, CNES, IPGP and other partners presented the various aspects of the mission and answered questions from the many media outlets present.
Glass-ceramics are now commonplace in our daily lives, despite having only been discovered for less than a century. Much still remains to be investigated and understood about these materials, both in their applications as well as in the underlying scientific concepts.
Due to their inertness, noble gases constitute powerful tracers of volatile sources (like comets, meteorites or the solar wind). Evaluating the Earth’s isotopic and elemental noble gas composition can then allow us to better understand the origin of volatiles.