There's good news ahead for dark sky supporters – a real prescription for light pollution. It's called Resolution 516: Advocating and Support for Light Pollution Control Efforts and Glare Reduction for Both Public Safety and Energy Savings. What's it all about and how did it turn out? Then step inside… Where it's dark at last. Read more…
Filed under: Earth, Environment | 6 Comments »
Researchers have been able to determine the atmospheric carbon dioxide levels over the past 2.1 million years in the sharpest detail yet by analyzing the shells of single–celled plankton. Their findings shed new light on CO2's role in the earth's cycles of cooling and warming, confirming many researchers' suspicions that higher carbon dioxide levels coincided with warmer intervals during the study period. But it also rules out a drop in CO2 as the cause for earth's ice ages growing longer and more intense some 850,000 years ago.
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Credit: Louise Kellogg, modified by James Rustad & Qing-zhu Yin/UC Davis
Earth may have given up its innermost secrets to a pair of California geochemists, who have used extensive computer simulations to piece together the earliest history of our planet's core.
This schematic of Earth’s crust and mantle shows the results of their study, which found extreme pressures would have concentrated iron’s heavier isotopes near the bottom of the mantle as it crystallized from an ocean of magma. Read more…
Filed under: Earth, Planetary Formation | 2 Comments »
Most scientists predict that in about a billion years, the sun's ever-increasing radiation will have scorched the Earth beyond habitability. The breathable air will be toast, the carbon dioxide that serves as food for plant life will disappear, the oceans will evaporate; and all living things will disappear. Or maybe not. A group of researchers from Caltech have studied a mechanism which would cause any planet with living organisms to remain habitable longer than originally thought, perhaps doubling the lifespan. This sounds like good news for future inhabitants of Earth, but also, this mechanism could increase the chance that life elsewhere in the Universe might have the time to progress to advanced levels.
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Filed under: Earth, Extrasolar Planets | 5 Comments »
We've been following former astronaut Scott Parazynski's attempt to climb Mt. Everest, and now comes the news that he has successfully reached the summit, one year after a back injury forced him to give up his climb. "It was a wonderful experience, though and through," Parazynski said in a Skype interview with Miles O'Brien, "and certainly the most challenging thing I've ever done in my life, both physically and mentally." Parazynski brought several objects with him to the world's highest summit, including rocks from the Moon, and remembrances of fallen astronauts. Parazynski is the first astronaut to summit Mt. Everest.
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Filed under: Earth, Extreme Life | 1 Comment »
Illustration Credit: Simon Swordy (U. Chicago), NASA
People looking for new ways to explain climate change on Earth have sometimes turned to cosmic rays, showers of atomic nuclei that emanate from the Sun and other sources in the cosmos.
But new research, in press in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, says cosmic rays are puny compared to other climatic influences, including greenhouse gases — and not likely to impact Earth's climate much.
Filed under: Astronomy, Earth, Solar Astronomy | 27 Comments »
Scientists have long understood that satellites are at risk from bombardment by solar storms. Now, they've gotten a closer look at how the storms are punishing Earth's magnetosphere, leaving satellites exposed.
The movie above, and the solar flare video below, were released by the European Space Agency today, along with descriptions of two solar eruptions spotted using ESA’s four Cluster satellites and the two Chinese/ESA Double Star satellites.
Filed under: Earth, Solar Astronomy | 18 Comments »
Scott and Danru on Pumor RI with Everest Behind Them. Credit: OnOrbit.com
So submit your questions in the comments section and we'll relay them on. Questions can be about mountain climbing or space exploration. Read more…
Filed under: Earth, Extreme Life | 2 Comments »
An Alaskan wildfire engulfs woodland (John McColgan/BLM Alaska Fire Service)
As global average temperatures rise, it is widely believed the frequency of wildfires will increase. However, this may not be the case. According to analysis of sediment from lake beds in Northern Alaska, the frequency of wildfires didn't relate to changes in temperature variation over the last few thousand years. This is strange, surely a warmer climate will dry out vegetation faster, creating more fuel for fires to ignite and spread? Apparently not, there appears to be a far more potent controlling factor at play…
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Filed under: Earth | 15 Comments »
A heat map of travel-times to nearest city
According to a new study, less than 10% of the world's land is more than 48 hours of travel from the nearest city. This doesn't include air travel, it is ground-travel only (i.e. on foot, train, car, boat, bike, horse, donkey). So no matter where you are in the world, there's a good chance you can get to somewhere substantially populated within two days. At face-value, this might not seem very important, but when you look at the maps, you see many wilderness locations aren't quite as remote as we once thought they were. The Amazon Rainforest for example is surprisingly well connected (rivers are quite useful in that respect), and the remote deserts of Africa have a pretty efficient road network.
So, where is the most remote location on Earth? How long would it take to get there?
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Filed under: Earth | 21 Comments »
Wednesday is Earth Day, but all week — Monday, April 20 through Saturday, April 26 — is National Dark Sky Week in America, when people are asked to dim the lights to see more stars.
If enough people participate, backyard and professional astronomers might be treated with a week of darker, starrier skies. The bigger idea is to raise awareness about sensible lighting practices, so skies might get a little bit darker all the time. And not just for astronomy buffs. Besides aesthetics, evidence is mounting that light pollution could have far-reaching effects for the environment and even public health.
Filed under: Earth, Environment, IYA 2009 | 7 Comments »
Solar Collecting Satellite. Image courtesy of Mafic Studios.
Filed under: Earth, Satellites, Science | 31 Comments »
Caption: Banded iron formations like this from northern Michigan contain evidence of a drop in dissolved nickel in ancient oceans. Credit: Carnegie Institution for Science
Called the "Great Oxidation Event," the transition "irreversibly changed surface environments on Earth and ultimately made advanced life possible," said Dominic Papineau of the Carnegie Institution's Geophysical Laboratory.
Now, Papineau has co-authored a new study in the journal Nature, which reveals new clues to the mystery in ancient sedimentary rocks.
Filed under: Astrobiology, Earth, Evolution, Extreme Life | 4 Comments »
It was an energetic event that occurred over Tunguska, but what caused it? (Don Davis)
Although there are many theories as to how the Tunguska event may have unfolded, scientists are still divided over what kind of object could have hit the Earth from space. Now a Russian scientist believes he has uncovered the best answer yet. The Earth was glanced by a large comet, that skipped off the upper atmosphere, dropping a chunk of comet material as it did so. As the comet chunk heated up as it dropped through the atmosphere, the material, packed with volatile chemicals, exploded as the biggest chemical explosion mankind had ever seen…
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Filed under: Comets, Earth | 76 Comments »
There's less than 24 hours left before Earth Hour 2009 will begin. While you may hotly debate whether or not turning out your lights for one hour can impact our global climate – it's not about what actually happens to our planet during that hour, but about showing you care. 3,900 cities and towns in 84 countries around the world will be shutting down the lights at 8:30 pm local time in one of the biggest events in history. Even if you don't care, take the time to read just a little bit more… Where will you be when the lights go out? Read more…
Filed under: Earth | 51 Comments »
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