Tag Archive for 'Atmosphere'

This composite image, taken by JAXA’s Akatsuki spacecraft, shows Venus. Image credit: JAXA / ISAS / DARTS / Damia Bouic.

Venus May Have Once Had Earth-Like Plate Tectonics

Oct 26, 2023 by News Staff

Venus is the least understood of the terrestrial planets. Despite broad similarities to the Earth in mass and size, Venus has no evidence of plate tectonics...

This Webb image of Jupiter shows stunning details of the majestic planet in infrared light. In this image, brightness indicates high altitude. The numerous bright white ‘spots’ and ‘streaks’ are likely very high-altitude cloud tops of condensed convective storms. Aurorae, appearing in red in this image, extend to higher altitudes above both the northern and southern poles of the planet. By contrast, dark ribbons north of the equatorial region have little cloud cover. Image credit: NASA / ESA / CSA / STScI / Ricardo Hueso, UPV / Imke de Pater, UC Berkeley / Thierry Fouchet, Observatory of Paris / Leigh Fletcher, University of Leicester / Michael H. Wong, UC Berkeley / Joseph DePasquale, STScI.

Webb Spots High-Speed Equatorial Jet in Jupiter’s Stratosphere

Oct 19, 2023 by News Staff

The newly-discovered intense (140 m/s) jet is confined to ±3° of Jupiter’s equator, is approximately 4,800 km wide, and is located in the gas giant’s...

An artist’s impression of the hot-Jupiter WASP-17b. Image credit: NASA / ESA / CSA / Ralf Crawford, STScI.

Webb Detects Quartz Clouds in Atmosphere of WASP-17b

Oct 16, 2023 by News Staff

A transmission spectrum of WASP-17b — a hot-Jupiter exopanet around 1,300 light-years away — captured by the Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI)...

An artist’s illustration of a solar storm. Image credit: NASA.

Extreme Solar Storm Hit Our Planet 14,300 Years Ago, Subfossil Tree-Rings Show

Oct 9, 2023 by News Staff

In new research, scientists from the University of Leeds and elsewhere measured radiocarbon levels in ancient trees preserved within the eroded banks of...

The TRAPPIST-1 system is remarkable for its seven planets that are similar in size, mass, density, and stellar heating to the rocky planets Venus, Earth, and Mars in our own Solar System. This illustration shows what the rocky planet TRAPPIST-1b could look like based on the new study. Image credit: NASA / ESA / CSA / J. Olmsted, STScI.

Webb Captures Transmission Spectra of TRAPPIST-1b

Sep 27, 2023 by Natali Anderson

TRAPPIST-1 is a nearby system of seven Earth-sized, temperate, rocky exoplanets transiting a Jupiter-sized ultracool red dwarf, ideally suited for in-depth...

Pangea Ultima temperature and habitability: (a) mammalian species diversity without the influence of humans; (b) habitable regions (green area) in the Pre-industrial simulation; (c-h) cold month mean temperature (CMMT; degrees Celsius); (c,f) warm month mean temperature (WMMT; degrees Celsius); (d,g) and habitable regions (green area); (e,h) under two end members of our sensitivity analysis: low-pCO2 conditions (280 ppm) Pangea Ultima planetary configuration (in 250 million years); (c-e) and high-pCO2 conditions (1,120 ppm) Pangea Ultima configuration (in 250 million years); (f-h) with global land surface temperature (GLST) (grid-weighted) indicated. Image credit: Farnsworth et al., doi: 10.1038/s41561-023-01259-3.

Climate Extremes Likely to Drive Mass Extinction of Land Mammals in 250 Million Years

Sep 26, 2023 by News Staff

In about 250 million years, all continents will converge to form Earth’s next supercontinent, Pangea Ultima. A natural consequence of the creation...

The NASA UAP independent study team recommends that NASA plays a prominent role in the whole-of-government effort to understand UAP by leveraging its extensive expertise to contribute to a comprehensive, evidence-based approach that is rooted in the scientific method. The team members specifically recommend that NASA utilize its existing and planned Earth-observing assets to probe the local environmental conditions associated with UAP that are initially detected by other means. In so doing, NASA can directly probe whether certain environmental factors are coincident with known UAP. They further recommend that NASA explore enhancing collaborations with the U.S. commercial remote-sensing industry, which offer powerful constellations of high-resolution Earth-observing satellites. Image credit: NASA.

NASA’s UAP Study Team Releases Its Final Report

Sep 18, 2023 by News Staff

On September 14, 2023, the NASA Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena independent study team published its final report containing a series of recommendations...

An artist’s impression of the K2-18 planetary system. Image credit: NASA / ESA / CSA / J. Olmsted, STScI / N. Madhusudhan, University of Cambridge.

Astronomers Detect Carbon Dioxide and Methane in Super-Earth’s Atmosphere

Sep 11, 2023 by Natali Anderson

Astronomers using the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope have discovered carbon dioxide and methane in the atmosphere of the habitable zone exoplanet...

This image of the Sun was taken with the Extreme Ultraviolet Imager on board the ESA/NASA Solar Orbiter mission. Image credit: Auchère et al., doi: 10.1051/0004-6361/202346039.

Solar Orbiter Captures Extreme-Ultraviolet Images of Sun’s Corona

Sep 6, 2023 by News Staff

Astronomers have used the Extreme Ultraviolet Imager (EUI) instrument onboard the ESA/NASA Solar Orbiter spacecraft in a new mode of operation to observe...

An artist’s impression of a hot-Jupiter exoplanet. Image credit: ESA / ATG Medialab / CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO.

Astronomers Confirm Detection of Chromium Hydride in Atmosphere of WASP-31b

Aug 28, 2023 by Enrico de Lazaro

Chromium hydride is often used to probe atmospheric temperatures and classify objects called brown dwarfs into spectral types because it’s abundant only...

This image from the MUSE instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope shows Neptune; a dark spot can be seen to the upper-right. Image credit: ESO / Irwin et al.

VLT Observes Large Dark Spot and Its Bright Companion in Atmosphere of Neptune

Aug 24, 2023 by News Staff

Astronomers using the Multi Unit Spectroscopic Explorer (MUSE) instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) have observed a large dark spot in Neptune’s...

This sequence of Hubble images chronicles the waxing and waning of the amount of cloud cover on Neptune. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Erandi Chavez, UC Berkeley / Imke de Pater, UC Berkeley.

Astronomers Discover Connection between Neptune’s Cloudy Weather and 11-Year Solar Cycle

Aug 17, 2023 by News Staff

Neptune is the most distant planet in the Solar System, an ice-giant that boasts an active and chaotic atmosphere. Using archival near-infrared observations...

For most of the time, Saturn’s atmosphere looks hazy and featureless to the naked eye in contrast to Jupiter’s colorful and vibrant atmosphere. This picture changes when we look at Saturn using a radio eye. Despite bland looking at the visible wavelengths, different latitudes on Saturn show dramatic contrast in the radio emission. In 2015, Li et al. found substantial brightness temperature variations -- greater than the temperature increase caused by the 2010 storm -- as a function of latitude and radio wavelength based on spatially resolved radio images of Saturn, as obtained from the VLA. Via a spectral inversion study, they created a latitude-altitude map of ammonia concentration anomalies from these images and correlate the anomalies to the occurrences of past giant storms in the northern hemisphere. Image credit: S. Dagnello / NRAO / AUI / NSF / Li et al., doi: 10.1126/sciadv.adg9419.

VLA Reveals Megastorm-Centric Disruptions in Saturnian Atmosphere

Aug 14, 2023 by News Staff

Planetary-scale giant storms erupt on Saturn periodically. There have been at least six recorded occurrences of past eruptions, and the most recent one...

This artist’s illustration shows the Neptune-sized exoplanet AU Mic b passing in front of its host red dwarf star. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Joseph Olmsted, STScI.

Young Neptune-Sized Exoplanet Sporadically Burps Hydrogen as It Circles Its Parent Star

Jul 31, 2023 by Enrico de Lazaro

A process called photoevaporation is a potential explanation for several features within exoplanet demographics. Atmospheric escape observed in young Neptune-sized...

A spectroscopic map of Ganymede derived from Webb measurements shows light absorption around the poles characteristic of hydrogen peroxide; the circle outlines the surfaces of the moon. Image credit: Samantha Trumbo, Cornell University.

Webb Detects Hydrogen Peroxide on Ganymede

Jul 30, 2023 by News Staff

Jupiter’s moon Ganymede is the only satellite in the Solar System known to have an intrinsic magnetic field. Interactions between this field and the...

An artist’s impression of the two-faced white dwarf ZTF J203349.8+322901.1. Image credit: K. Miller, Caltech / IPAC.

Newfound White Dwarf Has Different Compositions on Its Opposite Faces

Jul 19, 2023 by News Staff

ZTF J203349.8+322901.1, nicknamed Janus after the two-faced Roman god of transition, is a transitioning white dwarf with two faces: one side of its atmosphere...

An artist’s impression of the early Earth. Image credit: NASA.

Earth’s Day was a Constant 19.5 Hours for Almost 1.5 Billion Years, Study Says

Jul 13, 2023 by News Staff

New research from the University of Toronto shows that from approximately 2 billion until 600 million years ago, an atmospheric tide driven by the Sun...

An artist’s impression of LTT 9779b orbiting its host star. Image credit: Ricardo Ramírez Reyes, Universidad de Chile.

Cheops Finds Metal Clouds in Atmosphere of Ultrahot Neptune

Jul 10, 2023 by Enrico de Lazaro

Aside from the Moon, the brightest object in our night sky is planet Venus, whose thick cloud layer reflects around 75% of the Sun’s light. By comparison,...

This image from the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter shows the Terra Sirenum region on Mars and its gullies. Image credit: NASA / JPL / University of Arizona.

Martian Gullies Could Have Been Formed by On-And-Off Periods of Liquid Meltwater

Jul 4, 2023 by News Staff

Some steep slopes on Mars have gullies with morphologies suggesting that they were formed by a liquid. However, the planet’s current climate is not conducive...

With a dayside temperature of roughly 380 K (107 degrees Celsius, 225 degrees Fahrenheit), TRAPPIST-1c is now the coolest rocky exoplanet ever characterized based on thermal emission. Image credit: NASA / ESA / CSA / Joseph Olmsted, STScI.

TRAPPIST-1c Has Very Thin, Carbon Dioxide-Poor Atmosphere

Jun 23, 2023 by News Staff

Seven rocky planets orbit the nearby dwarf star TRAPPIST-1, providing a unique opportunity to search for atmospheres on small planets outside the Solar...

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