Tag Archive for 'Earth'

The inner core of our planet has an inner core of its own, with crystals aligned in a different direction. Image credit: Lachina Publishing Services.

Inner Core of Earth Has Its Own Inner Core, Geologists Say

Feb 10, 2015 by News Staff

An international team of geologists, headed by Prof Xiaodong Song from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Nanjing University in China,...

Eruption of a deep-sea volcano. Image credit: University of Washington.

Underwater Volcanoes Play Role in Long-Term Climate

Feb 7, 2015 by News Staff

Cyclical variations in Earth’s tilt and orbit – occurring at 23,000-, 41,000- and 100,000-year intervals – are known to strongly influence...

Astronomers have reported near-infrared interferometric measurements of the angular size of Nova Delphini 2013, starting one day after the explosion and continuing with extensive time coverage during the first 43 days. The image shows Tycho's supernova remnant. Image credit: X-ray - NASA / CXC / SAO; infrared - NASA / JPL-Caltech; optical - MPIA / Calar Alto / O.Krause et al.

Interstellar Plutonium-244 in Ocean Floor Dust Could Alter Current Understanding of Supernovae

Jan 21, 2015 by News Staff

Researchers plumbing the depths of the ocean have made a finding that could change the way we understand massive stellar explosions called supernovae. The...

Anthropocene: New Geological Epoch Began on July 16, 1945

Jan 16, 2015 by News Staff

Climate change, the loss of biosphere integrity, land-system change, and altered biogeochemical cycles like phosphorus and nitrogen runoff have all passed...

This artistic rendering depicts an Earth-like exoplanet orbiting an evolved star that has formed a stunning planetary nebula; earlier in its life, this planet may have been like one of the eight newly discovered worlds orbiting in the habitable zones of their stars. Image credit: David A. Aguilar / CfA.

Kepler-438b: Astronomers Find Most Earth-Like Exoplanet Yet

Jan 8, 2015 by News Staff

An international team of astronomers led by Dr Guillermo Torres of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics has discovered eight new extrasolar...

Theta aurora over Antarctica. This image obtained in 1983 shows the auroral oval and a transpolar arc; the arc extends into the polar cap from local midnight, across the polar cap and joins with the auroral oval at local noon; motion of the transpolar arc in the dawn-dusk direction appears to be controlled by the direction of the interplanetary magnetic field along the dawn-dusk direction. Image credit: Dynamics Explorer-1 / University of Iowa.

Scientists Unravel Mystery of High-Latitude Theta Aurora

Dec 19, 2014 by News Staff

Thanks to data collected by ESA’s Cluster spacecraft and a NASA mission called the Imager for Magnetopause-to-Aurora Global Exploration (IMAGE),...

This graph displays the different values of the deuterium/ hydrogen ratio in water observed in various objects in the Solar System: the data points are grouped by color as planets and moons (blue), chondritic meteorites from the asteroid belt (grey), comets originating from the Oort cloud (purple) and Jupiter family comets (pink). Rosetta’s Jupiter-family comet is highlighted in yellow. Diamonds represent data obtained in situ; circles represent data obtained by astronomical methods. Image credit: ESA / ATG medialab / Rosetta / NavCam / Altwegg et al.

Rosetta Data Suggest Earth’s Oceans Likely Came from Asteroids

Dec 11, 2014 by News Staff

The Rosetta Orbiter Sensor for Ion and Neutral Analysis (ROSINA) instrument aboard ESA’s Rosetta spacecraft has found that the composition of the...

The near-Earth space environment is a complex interaction between the magnetic field of our planet, cool plasma moving up from its ionosphere, and hotter plasma coming in from the solar wind. Image credit: NASA's Scientific Visualization Studio.

Scientists Discover Impenetrable Barrier 11,500 km above Earth

Nov 27, 2014 by News Staff

A group of researchers headed by Prof Daniel Baker of the University of Colorado’s Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics has discovered a nearly...

Intensification of agriculture is a driver of changes in the seasonal characteristics of the global carbon cycle.

Agricultural Production Affects Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide Cycle

Nov 21, 2014 by News Staff

Crop production may generate up to a quarter of the increase in the seasonal cycle of atmospheric carbon dioxide, with corn playing a leading role, according...

Thunderstorms can produce an exotic kind of electrical breakdown that involves high-energy electrons and their anti-matter equivalent called positrons (University of Minnesota)

Sun’s Magnetic Field Triggers Lightning Strikes on Earth

Nov 20, 2014 by News Staff

The Sun plays a significant role in the generation of lightning strikes on Earth, according to a new study that found that over a 5-year period the United...

GEOS-5 has given researchers a stunning new look at how CO2 in the atmosphere travels around the globe. Image credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center / K. Sharghi.

GEOS-5 Computer Model Provides High-Resolution Look at Key Greenhouse Gas

Nov 19, 2014 by News Staff

A new computer model called GEOS-5 has provided a high-resolution look at how carbon dioxide (CO2) – the key driver of global warming – moves...

In this illustration of the early Solar System, the dashed white line represents the snow line - the transition from the hotter inner Solar System, where water ice is not stable (brown) to the outer Solar System, where water ice is stable (blue). Image credit: Jack Cook / Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

Study Sheds More Light on Origin of Earth’s Oceans

Oct 31, 2014 by News Staff

According to a team of researchers led by Dr Brian Monteleone of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Earth’s oceans have likely existed since...

Schematic illustration of Earth's magnetic field. Image credit: Peter Reid / University of Edinburgh.

Researchers Shed New Light on Earth’s Magnetic Field Reversal 786,000 Years Ago

Oct 16, 2014 by News Staff

A team of scientists led by Dr Leonardo Sagnotti of National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology in Rome, Italy, has found evidence that the most recent...

North Atlantic; red dots are earthquakes. Image credit: David Sandwell / SIO.

New Map of World’s Seafloor Exposes Thousands of Previously Unseen Undersea Mountains

Oct 3, 2014 by News Staff

Using data from NASA’s and European Space Agency’s satellites that measure variations in gravitational field, a multinational team of researchers...

Global wildlife populations have declined by more than half in just 40 years as measured in the Living Planet Report 2014.

Earth’s Wildlife Populations Dropped by More than Half in 40 Years – WWF Report

Sep 30, 2014 by News Staff

According to WWF’s Living Planet Report 2014, global wildlife populations have declined by 52 per cent in 40 years. Global wildlife populations have...

An illustration of water in our Solar System through time from before the formation of the Sun through the creation of the planets. Image credit: Bill Saxton / NSF / AUI / NRAO.

Half of Water on Earth Older than Sun, Scientists Say

Sep 26, 2014 by News Staff

Half of the water on our planet predates the formation of the Sun, according to a groundbreaking study carried out by a team of researchers from the United...

The top panel shows total world population projected to 2100; dotted lines are the range or error using the older scenario method, while shaded regions are the uncertainties using statistical methods; the darker shading is the 80 % confidence bars, and the lighter shading shows the 95 % confidence bars; at the bottom are the population projections for each continent. Image credit: Adrian Raftery / University of Washington.

Earth’s Population Could Reach 12.3 Billion by 2100, Scientists Say

Sep 19, 2014 by News Staff

A team of researchers led by Dr John Wilmoth of the U.N. Department of Economic and Social Affairs announced yesterday in the journal Science that, according...

This image shows a fragment of the 4.5 billion-year-old Tenham meteorite that contains tiny crystals of bridgmanite. Image credit: Chi Ma.

Bridgmanite: Earth’s Most Abundant Mineral Named after Nobel Physicist

Jun 18, 2014 by News Staff

A new mineral, believed to be the most abundant on our planet, has been named after U.S. physicist Percy Williams Bridgman (1882 – 1961), who won the...

This is an artist's depiction of a catastrophic collision between two celestial bodies; such an impact between the proto-Earth and Theia likely formed the Moon. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech.

New Evidence for Protoplanet Theia Found in Moon Rocks

Jun 6, 2014 by News Staff

A study published in the journal Science provides new evidence that the Moon formed from the catastrophic collision of the proto-Earth with a hypothetical...

HD views of Earth are now only a click away. Image credit: NASA.

NASA Launches Live HD Streaming of Earth from ISS

May 9, 2014 by Enrico de Lazaro

NASA’s High Definition Earth Viewing experiment (HDEV) is now live-streaming views of our planet from space captured by HD cameras. HDEV placed four...

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