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Home / News / Tags / atmosphere
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Stories about: atmosphere |
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Planet climate engineering is a topic that draws more and more attention as of late, since the environment seems to be marching on an abrupt downward road, and none of the highly-praised latest eco-repairing solutions seems to actually change anything for the better. A lot of pollution combatants have emerged on the... |
3 October 2008
10:01 GMT |
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Out of about 20 candidates for NASA's next mission to the red planet, the organization selected the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN (MAVEN) spacecraft. The $485 million project was chosen on grounds like lowest implementation risk and best science value, and it will provide new or additional informa... |
18 September 2008
06:26 GMT |
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Based on data relayed back by the Huygens probe, part of the Cassini-Huygens mission carried out by NASA in collaboration with the European Space Agency, researchers from the University of Granada and the University of Valencia have proven for the first time that the dense atmosphere around Saturn's largest moon... |
30 July 2008
08:13 GMT |
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Mission controllers kept NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander in full operational mode during the Martian night on Monday in order to coordinate it with the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter to make detailed observations in the atmosphere of the Red Planet. The lander monitored changes in the lower atmosphere with the help of i... |
23 July 2008
03:08 GMT |
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There is no reason why other rocky planets in the universe should not be able to support life, but a considerable amount of time will pass before a planet such as our own is found in the galaxy, mostly because of its relatively small size. So far, a couple of hundred of planets have been discovered by astronomers, or... |
12 July 2008
03:56 GMT |
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We might not feel it, but Earth's atmosphere is putting a tremendous amount of pressure on our bodies every day. A column of gas some 100 kilometers tall exerts a staggering 101,353 Newtons per square meter on any surface at sea level. Our body cannot generally notice it because this pressure is exerted evenly f... |
10 July 2008
09:13 GMT |
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Venus' atmosphere is probably the most mysterious of all celestial bodies in the Solar System, presenting an intricate cloud structure which extends between 45 and 70 kilometers above the scorching hot surface. They contain high concentrations of sulphuric acid combined with other aerosols moving at fast speeds,... |
30 May 2008
10:59 GMT |
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What was until now a party of one appears to be turning into a rather crowded gathering of red spots in the Jovian atmosphere. The Great Red Spot and its little sister, the Little Red Spot anticyclone, were joined relatively recently by yet another storm that turned from bright white to red, in what astronomers like ... |
26 May 2008
03:56 GMT |
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Only two and a half years ago, if you had claimed to have seen a flash of light on the surface of the Moon, you would have been quickly catalogued as a lunatic. I guess NASA has a lot of lunatics working for it, as it claims that since 2005, it has observed at least 100 flashes of light being produced on the surface ... |
21 May 2008
10:53 GMT |
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This is the first time when hydroxyl molecules are detected outside Earth and the finding could unravel some of the secrets to how Venus' dense atmosphere works. Hydroxyl, if you still remember a little bit of chemistry from school, is a compound consisting of one atom of hydrogen and one of oxygen. This substan... |
15 May 2008
06:13 GMT |
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NASA's Phoenix Mars lander is expected to touchdown on the Red Planet on May 25 in a north polar region known as "Green Valley". In anticipation for the event, NASA has been using its Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter to make periodical observations of the designated landing spot and on April 20, the MRO spotted two d... |
8 May 2008
04:10 GMT |
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After a mission of twelve years to study the Aurora Borealis phenomenon the Polar satellite has now produced its final image, "The Broken Heart", as NASA researchers named it, a visible-light photograph of the lights generated during the interactions between solar wind, Earth's magnetic field and the upper atmos... |
29 April 2008
07:58 GMT |
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Ten years ago, researchers discovered that Earth gives off a constant humming sound, basically imperceptible to the human ear which cannot hear sounds with a frequency below 16 Hertz, and called it the Earth's hum. The sound continues to make itself heard to seismometers even when there is no seismic activity in... |
17 April 2008
08:08 GMT |
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Electric energy is crucial for Earth and its cycles. The Globe is like a huge electric circuit. The Ionosphere layer of the atmosphere is positively charged and the Earth is negatively charged. The difference is of about 250,000 volts. If we could make the connection, through a conductor, between Earth and Ionosphere... |
8 April 2008
10:48 GMT |
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Measurements conducted with ESA's Venus Express spacecraft reveal that Venus contains variable quantities of sulphur dioxide gas in the upper layers of the atmosphere, which may be evidence that Venus still has active volcanoes on its surface or some other unknown mechanism is producing this effect. Sulphur diox... |
4 April 2008
10:01 GMT |
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Meteor showers occur on Earth every year. Some individual meteors streaming through the Martian atmosphere have been observed as well, however this is the first time when a full meteor shower is detected. By tracking the paths of the comets passing through the vicinity of Mars, UK scientists believe that they can pre... |
2 April 2008
04:59 GMT |
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If the temperature and the pressure of the air in the Earth's atmosphere would be uniformly distributed on the surface of the planet, there would be no movement of the air. However, the reality is somehow different. The excessive heating of some areas on the surface leads to an uneven distribution of the tempera... |
31 March 2008
07:38 GMT |
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Fifty years ago, on this very day, the Unites States Navy launched the fourth artificial satellite into space, Vanguard 1, the first satellite into Earth's orbit to be powered by sunlight. Its mission was to test the capabilities of a three-staged vehicle and the effects of the space environment on artificial sa... |
17 March 2008
03:41 GMT |
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You might not know this, but in September 2007 a meteorite entered the Earth's atmosphere and eventually reached the ground in a countryside area in Peru, where it formed a small crater, right in front of the eyes of the people living nearby. And this occurred although most of the space rocks hitting our planet ... |
12 March 2008
03:49 GMT |
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On the evening of March 5, Wednesday, the Physics and Astronomy Department at Western Ontario University received a number of calls and e-mails from people claiming to have been a bright streak of light crossing the sky sometime around 10:59 p.m. EST. Luckily, the astronomy department is equipped with a network of al... |
8 March 2008
03:36 GMT |
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Have you ever noticed how both Mars and Venus are ranked as planets rather similar to Earth, but never to each other? The ESA believes it's about time it put an end to this situation and gave the task to both the Mars Express and the Venus Express, to conduct simultaneous probing investigations to establish whet... |
5 March 2008
10:32 GMT |
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The last lunar eclipse that took place on February 20th-21st, ranking 3 on the brightness scale of lunar eclipses which ranges from 0 to 4, seems to confirm that Earth's atmosphere contains light-blocking volcanic ash that could contribute to the acceleration of global warming on our planet. During the span of t... |
3 March 2008
02:43 GMT |
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Polar lights (aurorae) have been described since Antiquity. Aristotle and Pliny wrote about the fear triggered by the arctic aurora, which people thought to forecast great adversities. Often, these red lights were taken as coming from a large fire. During the Roman emperor Tiberius, Roman cohorts run to save the Osti... |
20 February 2008
08:38 GMT |
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Air friction would be something to begin with; on the other hand, multiple studies conducted over decades have shown that the electrical fields generated through this process are not able to create even a spark, not to talk about an electric disruptive discharge several hundred meters long. Even if we take into consi... |
25 January 2008
06:23 GMT |
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1.The Earth is wrapped in a layer of gas called atmosphere. Atmosphere is tied to Earth by gravitation, so that it cannot disperse in the space. It is 500 km (300 mi) thick, being made of a mix of about 10 gases, called air. The air is made by nitrogen (78 %), oxygen (21 %) and other gases (argon, carbon dioxide, he... |
14 January 2008
16:26 GMT |
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They should really get this right once and for all. Is global warming triggered by the large emission of greenhouse gases by man or not? According to a handful of scientists in the U.S., mankind cannot be held responsible for the global warming effect currently observed on Earth. Strangely enough the American experts... |
17 December 2007
05:01 GMT |
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Scientists say it did, and not once but many times, as global warming determined vast and rapid changes in clime conditions during greenhouse gas emissions resulted form the burning of fossil fuel. However, at the same time, they argue that it is not too late to reverse the process before it causes massive damage to ... |
15 December 2007
06:58 GMT |
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In 1996, the first ever when a planet outside the solar system has been detected, by measuring the wobble in the stars' position, as the planet pulled on its surface. Since then, more than 250 exoplanets have been discovered; however most of them either are gas giants, or do not present the necessary properties ... |
13 December 2007
11:21 GMT |
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Similar to its sister planet Earth, Mars has a season change, which depends on the position it occupies on its orbit, and a clime caused by the tilt the planet presented in relation to the Sun. During the southern winter, the north pole is tilted more towards the Sun, thus the south pole receives less light and cools... |
12 December 2007
07:52 GMT |
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From time to time, glowing clouds of light appear on the night sky, in certain regions of the globe, well after the Sun has passed the horizon, and are easily visible from the surface of the Earth. Previous investigation of the phenomenon that triggers these strange structures has revealed that the noctilucent or nig... |
11 December 2007
09:06 GMT |
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In the attempt to find new solar systems and Earth-like planets, or possibly other signs of life in the universe, astronomers from the University of Texas have detected what appears to be the first planet outside the solar system to present an atmosphere.The atmosphere surrounds an exoplanet that orbits the star know... |
8 December 2007
04:33 GMT |
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This is not good for life on Earth. The hole in the ozone layer over Antarctica has dropped by 30 % in size in 2007 if we compare it to 2006, as revealed by new data sent by the European Space Agency's Envisat satellite. 0.3 % of the ozone layer mass is lost annually, but fluctuations in its thickness occur thro... |
4 October 2007
03:22 GMT |
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Surprises keep coming from Venus, exposed by Venus Express, which by now has completed 500 tours around the planet in 500 Earth days. The spacecraft maintains excellent conditions, it even receives four times more sun radiation than Mars Express, as the spacecraft design seems to be the right one. With each new orbit... |
4 September 2007
06:56 GMT |
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The Red Planet is full of natural phenomena that are somewhat bizarre, considering the fact that Mars' atmosphere is less than 1 percent as dense as Earth's. Mars lost its magnetosphere 4 billion years ago, so the solar wind interacts directly with the Martian ionosphere, keeping the atmosphere thinner tha... |
26 July 2007
10:46 GMT |
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A new study of the thermodynamics of clays discovered on the surface of Mars came up with surprising results, which contradict existing theories on atmospheric formation processes on the Red Planet and force scientists looking for other explanations.Vincent Chevrier of the University of Arkansas and François Poulet ... |
18 July 2007
05:04 GMT |
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For many years, Venus, the second planet from the Sun and the brightest object in the night sky, refused to let astronomers peak under its opaque layer of highly reflective clouds of sulfuric acid, preventing its surface from being seen from space in visible light.Recent pictures taken by two missions designed to st... |
16 July 2007
06:17 GMT |
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The European Space Agency's Envisat satellite captured beautiful pictures of the Mount Gamkonora, a volcano in Indonesia that erupted on July 10, 2007, after more than three centuries after the largest eruption and is now spewing hot ash and smoke into the air.The highest peak of Halmahera island, Indonesia, vi... |
12 July 2007
06:34 GMT |
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For the first time in history, an alien planet outside our solar system is proven to have water in its atmosphere. Previous theories said water vapor should be present in the atmospheres of nearly all the known extrasolar planets.Curiously, water was thought to be found in the atmosphere of one of the giant's n... |
12 July 2007
02:48 GMT |
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It seems the giant of our solar system is full of surprises. NASA's Hubble Space Telescope took some astonishing pictures of the dramatic atmospheric changes on the planets, the like of which were never seen before.The planet already had some unique atmospheric features, like the high-altitude clouds and a haze... |
29 June 2007
08:06 GMT |
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Breaking images taken by a new NASA satellite shows extremely detailed images of a mysterious kind of clouds appearing over the Arctic region and moving towards Northern Europe. These clouds shine in the night sky and are moving out of the polar regions and scientists can't explain why.They are called "noctiluc... |
29 June 2007
02:48 GMT |
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Some strange and bright flashes of light appearing on the surface of the Moon have been puzzling astronomers for centuries. The first reports of bright spots and distortions on the surface that appeared with no apparent cause and disappeared again were made in 1540.In the 1950s and 1960s, there was a huge interest f... |
27 June 2007
04:17 GMT |
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A group of scientists calls for an innovative project to terraform the Red Planet by the end of this century, so that people will be able to live and work on its surface. This technique has been presented in sci-fi productions for some time and could be put in practice by the end of the 21st century.Terraforming li... |
26 June 2007
03:38 GMT |
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Finding a planet beyond our solar system is pretty difficult, because they don't give off light and are eclipsed by the stars around which they orbit. Then how can astronomers find out if such a planet has atmosphere and what is this made of?For example, recently, the whole scientific community was ecstatic beca... |
20 June 2007
11:41 GMT |
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Finding planets orbiting stars at great distances from our solar system is not an easy job, but there seems to be many of them out there, according to recent observations. And that's a great thing, since it's actually harder than finding a needle in a hay stack. It's more like looking for a firefly fly... |
20 June 2007
11:07 GMT |
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Pollution on Earth is a very real threat to all lifeforms and its negative effects on organisms are well known, so countermeasures will have to be taken, if we all want to survive on the Blue Planet as we did before. But how do you find a source of pollution located far from where the effects are noticed?A group of ... |
20 June 2007
03:37 GMT |
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No telescope can form a perfect image. Even if a reflecting telescope could have a perfect mirror, or a refracting telescope could have a perfect lens, the effects of aperture diffraction could still not be escaped.The blurring effect from the atmosphere is among the most important distortions that affect telescopes... |
19 June 2007
15:26 GMT |
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Sprites are not only legendary elf-like creatures, like fairies, dwarves and spirits from the European folklore. They are also electrical discharges that occur high above the cumulonimbus cloud of an active thunderstorm.The mythical creatures gave their names to quick bursts of electricity that puzzled scientists fo... |
14 June 2007
03:10 GMT |
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A gigantic telescope is about to be built in Antarctica and scientists hope to be able to catch a glimpse of neutrinos, the exotic particles traveling almost at the speed of light for millions of miles through space, passing right through planets.The name of the telescope is "IceCube" because it consists of thousand... |
24 May 2007
03:37 GMT |
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It seems that the solar core rotation is slower than previous theories suggested.The core of the Sun is extending from the center to about 0.2 of the solar radius, and it's the hottest and most dense part of the Sun, having a temperature of 15 million Kelvins (the surface only has 6 000 K) and a density 150 ti... |
7 May 2007
03:07 GMT |
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On your marks! Get Set! Start knitting! NASA's Centennial Challenges will award the best spacesuit gloves project with $250,000.It's the first ever Astronaut Glove Challenge and its purpose is to find the most innovative design for more flexible spacesuit gloves, as they are probably the most important pa... |
1 May 2007
06:27 GMT |
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