Universe Today » Earth

Unexpected Life Found Under Antarctic Ice (Video)

Nancy Atkinson — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 16:38:26 +0000

Researchers in Antarctica got a surprise visit from a creature in a borehole 185 meters (600 feet) below the Antarctic ice, where there is usually no light. A Lyssianasid amphipod, a shrimp-like creature can be seen swimming in this video. A NASA team had lowered a small video camera to get the first-ever photograph of the underside of an ice shelf when the curious little 7 cm (3- inch) shrimp stopped by to check out the equipment. Scientists say this could challenge the idea of where and how forms of life can survive. Anyone else thinking Europa?
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Best "Blue Marble" Images Yet

Nancy Atkinson — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 02:09:42 +0000

The Goddard Space Flight Center has a Flickr account showcasing a series of images of our own home planet. Called "Blue Marble," these spectacular images are the most detailed true-color image of the entire Earth to date. Using a collection of satellite-based observations, scientists and visualizers stitched together months of observations in 2001 of the land surface, oceans, sea ice, and clouds into a seamless, true-color mosaic of every square kilometer (.386 square mile) of our planet. Your tax dollars at work, these images are freely available to educators, scientists, museums, and the public. This record includes preview images and links to full resolution versions up to 21,600 pixels across.
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Chilean Earthquake May Have Shortened the Length of a Day on Earth

Nancy Atkinson — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 03:04:56 +0000

This view of Earth comes from NASA's Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer aboard the Terra satellite.

Yikes! Just how big was the magnitude 8.8 earthquake in Chile? One scientist says the shaking may have affected the entire planet by shifting Earth on its axis. This possibly may have shortened the length of each day on Earth by about 1.26 microseconds. Using a complex model JPL research scientist Richard Gross computed how Earth's rotation should have changed as a result of the Feb. 27, 2010 quake. If his figures are correct, the quake should have moved Earth's figure axis (the axis about which Earth's mass is balanced) by 2.7 milliarcseconds (about 8 centimeters, or 3 inches).
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© nancy for Universe Today, 2010. | Permalink | 14 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Earth, earthquake, Natural Disasters

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Does Zonal Swishing Play a Part in Earth's Magnetic Field Reversals?

Jean Tate — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 17:24:27 +0000

Zonal swishing in the Earth's outer core (Credit: Akira Kageyama, Kobe University)

Why does the Earth's magnetic field 'flip' every million years or so? Whatever the reason, or reasons, the way the liquid iron of the Earth's outer core flows – its currents, its structure, its long-term cycles – is important, either as cause, effect, or a bit of both.

The main component of the Earth's field – which defines the magnetic poles – is a dipole generated by the convection of molten nickel-iron in the outer core (the inner core is solid, so its role is secondary; remember that the Earth's core is well above the Curie temperature, so the iron is not ferromagnetic).

But what about the fine structure? Does the outer core have the equivalent of the Earth's atmosphere's jet streams, for example? Recent research by a team of geophysicists in Japan sheds some light on these questions, and so hints at what causes magnetic pole flips.
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© Jean Tate for Universe Today, 2010. | Permalink | 8 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: earth magnetic field, Earth's outer core, geomagnetic reversal, planet earth

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NASA Sun Probe rolled to Pad; 10 hours to Blast off

Ken Kremer — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 11:45:38 +0000

Launch Complex 41: Atlas rocket was rolled from VIF at left to pad at right on Feb 9, 2010. Credit: Ken Kremer

(Editor's Note: Ken Kremer is at the Kennedy Space Center for Universe Today covering the launch of SDO and Endeavour.)

NASA’s nearly $1 Billion hi tech sun probe, the Solar Dynamics Observatory or SDO, was rolled out today (Feb 9) to Launch Pad 41 on a rainy day here in Florida at 1 day from blast off. SDO will be carried aloft atop an Atlas V rocket at 10:26 AM EST on Feb 10 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. The launch window extends for 1 hour. The current weather prediction is only 40% “GO”. The primary concerns for launch day are ground winds with gusts and thick clouds.(...)
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NASA advanced Solar Observatory nearing February launch; will send IMAX like movies daily

Ken Kremer — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 03:50:16 +0000

SDO and two piece payload fairing inside “clean room” at Astrotech Spaceflight facility near KSC on Jan 21. Fairing protects spacecraft during ascent through earths atmosphere. Credit: Ben Cooper/Spaceflight Now

NASA’s new solar science satellite, dubbed the Solar Dynamics Observatory, or SDO, moved an important step closer to launch when it was encapsulated inside its two piece payload fairing on Thursday (Jan 21) at the Astrotech Space Operations Facility nearby to the Kennedy Space Center (KSC). SDO is the most sophisticated spacecraft ever designed and constructed to study the sun and its dynamic behavior. (...)
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Deep, Fiery Undersea Volcano Captured on Video

Nancy Atkinson — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 16:34:11 +0000

Ever seen fire and smoke under water before? Oceanographers using a remotely operated underwater vehicle discovered and recorded the first video and still images of the deepest underwater volcano actively erupting molten lava on the seafloor. The ROV Jason vehicle captured the powerful event nearly 1.2 km (4,000 feet) below the surface of the Pacific Ocean, in the "Ring of Fire" region, near Fiji, Tonga and Samoa. "It was very exciting. We've never seen anything like that on the ocean floor," said Bob Embley, a marine geologist with NOAA, who described the event an underwater Fourth of July. "When we started to see red flashes of light, everyone was extremely excited. Then we had to get down to the work of actually understanding of what we were seeing."
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Earth's Atmosphere Came from Outer Space

Nancy Atkinson — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 21:38:59 +0000

Artist impression of the Late Heavy Bombardment period. Credit: NASA

A new study finds the gases which formed the Earth's atmosphere – as well as its oceans – did not come from inside the Earth but from comets and meteorites hitting Earth during the Late Heavy Bombardment period. A research team tested volcanic gases to uncover the new evidence. "We found a clear meteorite signature in volcanic gases," said Dr. Greg Holland the project's lead scientist. "From that we now know that the volcanic gases could not have contributed in any significant way to the Earth's atmosphere. Therefore the atmosphere and oceans must have come from somewhere else, possibly from a late bombardment of gas and water rich materials similar to comets."
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Jupiter – Our Silent Guardian?

Jon Voisey — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 18:15:34 +0000

Jupiter photo. Image credit: NASA/SSI

We live in a cosmic shooting gallery. In Phil Plait's Death From the Skies, he lays out the dangers of a massive impact: destructive shockwaves, tsunamis, flash fires, atmospheric darkening…. The scenario isn't pretty should a big one come our way. Fortunately, we may have a silent guardian: Jupiter.

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© jvois for Universe Today, 2009. | Permalink | 5 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: abiogenesis, Earth impact, Jupiter, Solar System

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What If Earth Had Rings?

Nancy Atkinson — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 18:10:26 +0000

While we're on the subject of Saturn…. I came across this video, and it poses — and answers — the interesting question, what would Earth look like if it had rings like Saturn? This animation was done by Roy Prol, and it shows not only how the rings would look from space, but also the view Earthlings would have of the rings. Prol says the ring views from Earth's surface were created according to the location's latitude and the viewer's orientation, and that the size of the rings was calculated respecting the Roche limit for the Earth. A very intriguing concept, and the video is very well done. The only bad thing about Earth having rings is that we probably wouldn't have our Moon, and we wouldn't have just found water on it!

You can read a very old discussion in the BAUT forum on the prospect of Earth having rings.

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The Stats Are In: No Global Cooling

Nancy Atkinson — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 04:11:33 +0000

Global Temperature graph. Credit: National Climatic Data Center, via the Associated Press.

The idea that the world is now cooling has been repeated in opinion columns, talk radio, pundit television and more. After a poll was released last week indicating that only 57 percent of Americans now believe there is strong scientific evidence for global warming, which is down from 77 percent in 2006, Seth Borenstein from the Associated Press decided to check out what the statistics are really saying about global warming or cooling. In a blind test, Borenstein sent accumulated ground temperature data from the past 130 years to four independent statisticians. He disguised the sources (NASA, NOAA and British meteorological data) and didn't tell the statisticians what the numbers represented; he asked them to just look for trends in the data. The experts found no true temperature declines over time; additionally, the last ten years comprise not only the highest data set in the record, but they also have a continued, positive trend.
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Heat-Shocked Diamonds Provide New Clue of Horse-Killing Impact

Anne Minard — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 18:55:05 +0000

California's Channel Islands, where heat-shocked soot and diamonds are suggesting a killing comsic impact. Courtesy NOAA and UC Santa Barbara

Archeologists have been divided about whether an extraterrestiral impact blasted North America about 12,900 years ago, wreaking havoc on Earth's surface and sending scores of species — including a pygmy mammoth and the horse — into oblivion.

New clues from California's Channel Islands should put any doubt to rest, says an international team of researchers.

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Solar Cycle Triggers La Nina, El Nino-like Climate Shifts

Anne Minard — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 02:57:19 +0000

Credit: National Center for Atmospheric Research

Researchers have discovered a link between the 11-year solar cycle and tropical Pacific weather patterns that resemble La Niña and El Niño events.

When it comes to influencing Earth's climate, the Sun's variability pales in recent decades compared to greehouse gases – but the new research shows it still plays a distinguishable part.
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Ancient Domes Reveal 3.45-billion-year-old Life History

Anne Minard — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 20:27:32 +0000

Rare, paleosurface view of how conical stromatolites would appear if one snorkeled in the shallows of a reef. Credit: Abigail Allwood

Ancient, dome-like rock structures contain clues that life was active on Earth 3.45 billion years ago, according to new research — and the findings could help shed light on life's history on Earth and other planets, including Mars.
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Prescription For Light Pollution

Tammy Plotner — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 19:43:13 +0000

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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. (...)
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More Atmospheric CO2 Today Than in the Past 2.1 Millions Years

Nancy Atkinson — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 18:05:33 +0000

Earth from space. Credit: NASA

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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History of Iron Yields New Insight Into Earth's Deepest Reaches

Anne Minard — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 21:23:14 +0000

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.(...)
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Life on Earth — and Other Worlds — Could Last Longer Than Expected

Nancy Atkinson — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 00:10:35 +0000

Earth. Credit: NASA

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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With Moon Rocks in Hand, Parazynski Reaches Mt. Everest Peak

Nancy Atkinson — Thu, 21 May 2009 12:46:41 +0000

As the sun rises on Mt. Everest, former astronaut Scott Parazynski holds rocks from the Moon that he brought to the summit. Credit: OnOrbit.com

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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Cosmic Rays too Wimpy to Influence Climate

Anne Minard — Fri, 01 May 2009 18:31:48 +0000

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.

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European, Chinese Satellites Watch Solar Storms Pummel Earth

Anne Minard — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 14:48:09 +0000

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.

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Submit Your Questions for Scott Parazynski and Keith Cowing

Nancy Atkinson — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 22:33:08 +0000

Scott and Danru on Pumor RI with Everest Behind Them. Credit: OnOrbit.com

Former astronaut Scott Parazynski is making an attempt to climb Mt. Everest, and has been sharing his adventures via Twitter, and his blog on OnOrbit.com. As we reported in in our article about Parazynski in March, he wants to share his experiences with as many people as possible. Earlier today, his "media sherpa," Keith Cowing from NASA Watch.com joined Parazynski at base camp and both Cowing and Parazynski have agreed to take questions from readers of Universe Today and answer them during their time on Mt. Everest. Parazynski has been blogging and Twittering during his preparations for the climb, and he even wants to Twitter from the summit. “I want to tell the story of exploration here on Earth and the corollaries it has with space exploration,” Parazynski told Universe Today before he left for Kathmandu, Nepal. “The intent is to share the story with as many people as we can, particularly young people.”

So submit your questions in the comments section and we'll relay them on. Questions can be about mountain climbing or space exploration. (...)
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Despite Global Warming, Wildfire Frequency Does Not Increase

Ian O'Neill — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 04:16:21 +0000

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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Where is the Most Remote Location on Earth?

Ian O'Neill — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 04:27:38 +0000

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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A Day for Earth, but a Whole Week for Dark Skies

Anne Minard — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 20:50:51 +0000

Artificial light pollution around the world as viewed from space. This data was compiled from October 1994 to March 1995. Credit: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio.

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.

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