Space and astronomy news
Which camp are you in: volcanoes? Or asteroids?
When it comes to the extinction of the dinosaurs, science has whittled it down to those two possibilities. The asteroid strike has been the leading candidate for quite some time now, but those darn volcanoes refuse to stand down.
A new study is presenting even more evidence that it was the impact that wiped out the dinosaurs, and not volcanoes.
Continue reading “The Evidence is Leaning More and More Towards an Asteroid Ending the Dinosaurs”
NASA and the NOAA just announced that 2019 was the second hottest year on record. It barely edged out 2016, the previous warmest year. And both 2019 and 2016 are part of the global warming trend: the last five years have been the warmest five years on record. And the last decade was the warmest decade.
Continue reading “According to NASA, 2019 Was the Second Hottest Year on Record”
The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) says their underwater robot has just completed the first-ever automated underwater sampling operation. The robot is called Nereid Under Ice (NEI) and it collected the sample in Greece. WHOI is developing Nereid in association with NASA’s Planetary Science and Technology from Analog Research (PSTAR) program.
Continue reading “Underwater Robot Captures its First Sample 500 Meters Below the Surface of the Ocean”
20% of the surface of Earth’s Eastern Hemisphere is littered with a certain kind of rock. Black, glossy blobs called tektites are spread throughout Australasia. Scientists know they’re from a meteorite strike, but they’ve never been able to locate the crater where it struck Earth.
Now a team of scientists seems to have found it.
Continue reading “Almost 800,000 Years Ago, an Enormous Meteorite Struck Earth. Now We Know Where.”
Scientists theorize that within Earth’s interior, conditions are extremely hot and extremely pressurized. This is what allows for the primarily iron and nickel core to be divided between a solid inner region and liquid outer region. The dynamics of this core are believed to be responsible for driving our planet’s protective magnetosphere, which is why scientists are determined to improve their understanding of it.
Thanks to new research conducted by an international team of scientists, it appears that the core region also gets its fair share of “snow”! To put it another way, their research showed that within the outer core, tiny particles of iron solidify and fall to form piles up to 320 km (200 mi) thick on top of the outer core. These findings could vastly improve our understanding of the forces that affect the entire planet.
Continue reading “It’s Snowing Iron Near the Earth’s Core”
Check out this image of the Canadian Space Agency’s (CSA) Canadarm2 on the International Space Station. The CSA’s Dextre is attached to one end of the arm. The Canadarm2 played a vital role in assembling the ISS, while Dextre helps maintain the ISS, freeing astronauts from routine yet dangerous spacewalks, and allowing them to focus on science.
Continue reading “Cool Photo of Canadarm2 With its Dextre Hand. Oh and the Earth. That’s Nice Too.”
The last few years has seen an explosion of exoplanet discoveries. Some of those worlds are in what we deem the “habitable zone,” at least in preliminary observations. But how many of them will have life-supporting, oxygen-rich atmospheres in the same vein as Earth’s?
A new study suggests that breathable atmospheres might not be as rare as we thought on planets as old as Earth.
Continue reading “Science Fiction Might Be Right After All. There Might Be Breathable Atmospheres Across the Universe”
Along with all of their space-exploration, planet-hunting, and astronomy-based endeavours, NASA also keeps a very keen eye on Earth. In fact, they have 18 satellites whose job it is to look only at Earth. And those 18 advanced satellites are helping us understand Earth in unprecedented scientific detail.
And they take pretty pictures, too.
Continue reading “North and South America, At Night”
We’ve all heard this one: when you drink a glass of water, that water has already been through a bunch of other people’s digestive tracts. Maybe Attila the Hun’s or Vlad the Impaler’s; maybe even a Tyrannosaurus Rex’s.
Well, the same thing is true of stars and matter. All the matter we see around us here on Earth, even our own bodies, has gone through at least one cycle of stellar birth and death, maybe more. But which type of star?
That’s what a team of researchers at ETH Zurich (Ecole polytechnique federale de Zurich) wanted to know.
Continue reading “We Know We’re Made of Stardust. But Did it Come From Red Giants?”
The Mars Desert Research Station (MDRS) is a simulated Martian habitat in Utah. It’s owned by the Mars Society, and it’s the society’s second such station. The MDRS is a research facility, and while there, scientists must live as if they were on Mars, including wearing simulated space suits.
One group of visitors wasn’t there for science, but for interior design. Two years ago, a trio of Ikea designers spent three days at the MDRS to develop Ikea products for small spaces. As it turns out, they ended up using their experience at the MDRS to help outfit the MDRS itself.
Continue reading “IKEA’s New Collection is Inspired by the Challenges of Living on Mars”