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Home / News / Tags / atmosphere
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Stories about: atmosphere |
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Nitrogen is one of the important chemical for life on Earth. It composes the majority of our atmosphere, and it is an inert gas, meaning that it does not interact with other chemicals in its stable form. But the amounts of nitrogen in the air are currently changing, with the main additional sources being the burning ... |
6 November 2009
10:41 GMT |
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Gathering and studying cometary dust is arguably one of the most difficult enterprises today, as the technology to do so is still some years away. But, in 2003, the proverbial mountain came to the scientists, in the form of an Earth-crossing comet that left behind a trail of material that got experts excited. High-fl... |
3 November 2009
05:09 GMT |
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Over the past few years, lasers have become indispensable scientific instruments, which are used for a variety of tasks, ranging from measuring the distance from the Earth to the Moon and analyzing air composition, to offering a focal point for the active optics systems in modern telescopes. But, when firing a high-p... |
2 November 2009
09:48 GMT |
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According to a new scientific study, it may be that air tides, or atmospheric-pressure fluctuations, are capable of causing massive landslides. The investigation that led to this conclusion was conducted on the Slumgullion landslide, a landscape feature located in the San Juan Mountains of southwestern Colorado, and ... |
2 November 2009
01:28 GMT |
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According to experts at the American space agency, it may be that the space rock that exploded over Indonesia earlier this month is the largest to have hit the Earth since 1994. The asteroid did not exactly hit the surface, but rather exploded in the atmosphere, far away enough to not cause any damage or casualties. ... |
30 October 2009
02:28 GMT |
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While discussions over climate change are raging on back on Earth, it may be that we are not the only planet in the solar system to experience this phenomenon. According to new readings from the Hubble and Keck telescopes, Jupiter may currently be in the midst of a very violent period of global warming, as evidenced ... |
29 October 2009
14:05 GMT |
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A recently-released image, captured by the American space agency's Aqua satellite, reveals a massive cloud of pollution and haze spreading over China, one of the fastest-developing countries in the world at this time. The massive amount of chemicals that are released in the air by its massive number of fossil fu... |
29 October 2009
05:33 GMT |
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Determining if even basic life exists on any other planet or moon in the solar system, and especially on Mars, is the main goal of space exploration today. But investigating this essential question is not easy, when considering that the answers lie millions of kilometers away from our planet. Rovers, landers and orbi... |
27 October 2009
17:11 GMT |
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The Earth's natural satellite is one of the most pristine places in the Universe to study, in spite of being dotted with all types of wrecks belonging to various lunar missions. Its atmosphere is especially suited for measurements, as it always remains completely still, other than the rare instances in which an ... |
27 October 2009
05:32 GMT |
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The huge ball of fire that gives us our daily heat and allows for life to form on the planet is the last place in the solar system where someone would expect to find rain, yet a form of it does indeed occur. Now, astronomers believe that this may help explain why the temperature in the corona, the outer atmospheric l... |
22 October 2009
20:41 GMT |
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Even though it's not exactly certain at this point that life exists on other worlds, astronomers are already planning to detect advanced civilizations, maybe similar to our own in advancements. There are numerous proposed methods of scanning exoplanets for signs of life, ranging from establishing the chirality, ... |
19 October 2009
05:07 GMT |
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In a groundbreaking new study that may change the way radio signals are bounced around the world in communications networks, experts managed to create an artificial ionosphere patch in the sky, by shooting powerful radio waves into the air. The “original” ionosphere is the uppermost portion of the Earth&#... |
3 October 2009
05:07 GMT |
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New images provided by the NASA Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) show peculiar, spider-shaped formations on the ground, near the planet's south pole, experts have recently announced. The data was collected using the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera aboard the space probe, which is capa... |
1 October 2009
10:53 GMT |
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According to a new computer simulation of the conditions on the remote exoplanet COROT-7b, it may be that its atmosphere has nothing in common with our own. While we may be accustomed to rain, clouds, winds, fog and snow, we would have a very hard time finding these phenomena on another planet. COROT-7b was discovere... |
1 October 2009
05:43 GMT |
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According to a new research paper released by the European Space Agency (ESA), the ozone depletion in our atmosphere is leveling off, a direct consequence of the banning of chlorofluorocarbons (CFC) with the Montreal Protocol, signed in 1987. A fine example of how nations can come to work together when faced with a c... |
22 September 2009
04:53 GMT |
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In a special experiment, the American space agency launched Saturday night an unusual rocket into the atmosphere, with the express purpose of creating noctilucent (Latin for 'to shine at night') clouds. The result was an eerie cloud that shone in the night sky for a brief period of time, causing worried cit... |
21 September 2009
11:10 GMT |
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In a constantly expanding trend, the Do-It-Yourself (DIY) mentality is currently making its way in many walks of life, from Google's servers to people making their own clothes. Just recently, two students from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have proven that they can compete with NASA in terms of... |
16 September 2009
04:50 GMT |
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The orange-brownish-colored atmosphere of Saturn's largest moon, Titan, surrounds the only known solar system bodies, except Venus and Earth, that have a solid surface and thick atmosphere. The hazy layer of gas covering the large rock features some peculiar reactions, as evidenced by the fact that the natural s... |
15 September 2009
11:02 GMT |
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According to a newly released report from the World Wide Fund For Nature (WWF) released today, September 2nd, it would appear that the current warming trend recorded in the Arctic could have massive repercussions on our planet. The study shows that as much as one quarter of the globe's population could be floode... |
2 September 2009
01:42 GMT |
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Cosmic radiations permeate everything around us at all times of the day. Some of them are generated near us, on a radius of a few thousand light-years, while some only reach our planet after a ten- to 11-billion-year journey. They are unnoticeable to humans, but some researchers believe they may have played a crucial... |
28 August 2009
03:33 GMT |
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Astronomers have known for centuries that the Sun operates in 11-year cycles, periods of intense or less intense activity, in which variable amounts of radiations, solar flares and sunspots are produced. Now, physicists also know that these variations only change the amount of energy that our planet receives by as li... |
28 August 2009
02:32 GMT |
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The meteorite that the Mars rover Opportunity discovered a few weeks ago is shedding more and more light on the past composition and state of the atmosphere on the planet. Following thorough investigations, experts have been able to infer that the gaseous mix was a lot thicker in the past than it is now. The conclusi... |
20 August 2009
16:21 GMT |
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Studying ancient rocks, excavated from miles under the Earth's surface, can take geologists to amazing discoveries about the history of our planet, and the way the climate shifted over the billions of years of our history. Therefore, it came as little surprise to investigators when they learned that periods of g... |
13 August 2009
04:15 GMT |
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In its trek on the surface of Mars, the rover Opportunity has recently come across an ancient meteor, made almost entirely out of metal, according to investigators at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), in Pasadena, California. The peculiar formation is currently helping planetary scientists gain a deeper insight in... |
11 August 2009
20:01 GMT |
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Since 2004, when the first traces of the gas were discovered on the Red Planet, the scientific community has been in frenzy. Once thought to be an inhospitable, barren landscape filled with desert, our neighboring planet is now considered to be either occupied by life forms, or as still having volcanic activity. Rega... |
11 August 2009
06:11 GMT |
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Methane is a rather unstable gas when exposed to sunlight, and it is easily broken up into its organic constituents after moderate exposure times, chemists say. Finding it on other planets is an equally difficult task for the same reasons, and that is why astronomers could not believe their eyes when it was clearly e... |
6 August 2009
19:11 GMT |
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Over the past couple of years, as vast amounts of scientific data on the Red Planet became available to research groups, scientists were overjoyed at noticing traces of methane on the surface of our neighbor. This was important because it implied biological sources – such as decomposing organisms – could ... |
6 August 2009
17:51 GMT |
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Planetary scientists have known for a long time that several billion tons of water disappear from Earth's atmosphere each year, as if by magic. However, despite having this knowledge, explaining why this happens has turned out to be a very tricky question. Now, Technical University of Denmark (DTU) National Spac... |
1 August 2009
06:57 GMT |
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On July 19th, while looking through his amateur telescope at Venus, astronomer Frank Melillo, from Holtsville, NY, caught sight of what appeared to be a bright spot on the surface of the planet. The bright phenomenon suddenly appeared in the atmospheric clouds, and its origin left scientists completely in the dark. E... |
31 July 2009
15:01 GMT |
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The Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite, GOES-14, is the latest addition to the United State's fleet of Earth-observing satellites, placed in an orbit around 36,000 km (22,240 miles) away from the surface. The Imager is the main instrument aboard the spacecraft, and its high-resolution cameras are ... |
29 July 2009
04:39 GMT |
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In the decades since global warming started being acknowledged as a harsh reality, researchers and climatologists have often wondered how the clouds will influence the global rise in temperatures. Increasingly large amounts of greenhouse gases (GHG) can have two effects in the atmospheric formations – they can ... |
24 July 2009
03:36 GMT |
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Wind-powered electricity generators have been criticized for their unreliability since they first appeared, in that they are only able to produce variable amounts of current, when the wind flows strongest. Despite recent innovations in the technology, such as using lasers to assess wind direction and to improve wind ... |
16 June 2009
02:43 GMT |
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Astronomers have known for a long time that the Sun is currently at the middle of its life cycle, having already burnt for more than 4.6 billion years. As a yellow main sequence star, it is expected to live a full life of about 10 billion years, but naturally, during this time, it will evolve. Sadly for Earth, this i... |
13 June 2009
07:01 GMT |
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Deserts such as Sahara, Atacama, or Gobi, are so dry, that water cannot be found for hundreds of miles. The ground is cracked over miles and miles, and little to no vegetation endures. Cacti are almost the sole forms of life, together with snakes and other creatures adapted to the demands of living without water.... |
8 June 2009
04:42 GMT |
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Mercury, the closest planet to the Sun in our solar system, is regarded by many as a dead rock. Not many people know that the small planet houses a very thin atmosphere, which shouldn't be there at all, if we are to believe theories. With surface temperatures of about 450 degrees Celsius (800 degrees Fahrenheit)... |
4 June 2009
09:23 GMT |
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According to previous estimates of how long life will last on Earth, all living creatures should be gone 1 billion years from now. But a new research comes to show that the “deadline” may be 2.3 billion years away, which means that the planet might be inhabitable for almost half of the Sun's life cyc... |
2 June 2009
01:58 GMT |
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Almost two decades ago, telescopes around the world and in orbit began to send back the first pictures of extra-solar planets (exoplanets), located outside our solar system, and everyone was amazed to find that there actually were such objects in the Universe. Most people suspected that planets had to exist elsewhere... |
26 May 2009
09:47 GMT |
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Astronomers at the University of Delaware have recently launched a new observation balloon in Sweden, which will fly at the high edge of the Earth's atmosphere, above the Atlantic Ocean, and will attempt to collect readings on cosmic radiation at high altitude. The instrument, which is longer than a football fie... |
22 May 2009
04:23 GMT |
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The 193 nations that signed together the 1989 Montreal Protocol showed, at the time, the level of cooperation that could be achieved at an international level, if the faith of the planet was at stake. Thanks to these nations, chemicals such as chlorofluorocarbons (CFC) and other dangerous substances were entirely pha... |
21 May 2009
18:31 GMT |
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Everyone knows that one of the most distinctive features of any desert is the sand dune, a large pile of sand that gives the location its wave-like aspect. These dunes regularly grow to be from a few feet to tens of feet in height, but some of them, the giant sand dunes, can even reach 1,600 feet (590 meters), or eve... |
18 May 2009
14:01 GMT |
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The CALIPSO (Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observations) weather-observing satellite has been in orbit since April 2006, and has continuously fired its laser at the planet's atmosphere ever since. Still, after three years of performing admirably, especially as part of the “A-Train&r... |
8 May 2009
05:22 GMT |
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The Clouds and the Earth's Radiant Energy System (CERES) observation system is one of NASA's ongoing projects that is related to understanding the role of clouds in the atmosphere and the energy cycle in a global climate change. The satellite is part of the agency's Earth Observing System (EOS), alongs... |
4 May 2009
14:01 GMT |
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An international cooperation between researchers from the United States, Switzerland and Germany has recently proven that lead coming from human activities is able to drastically influence the formation of clouds. The way it does that is by altering the manner in which ice crystals – the main trigger of clouds ... |
21 April 2009
06:48 GMT |
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We all know that outer space is beyond Earth, but at what precise height it begins exactly has been a subject of intense debate among astronomers until now. Some have tried to find arbitrary definitions, such as the limit of the upper layers of our atmosphere, while others have pressed for a commonly decided limit. I... |
10 April 2009
05:43 GMT |
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The quest for life in other parts of the Universe has to start with finding the right star, experts say, referring to the fact that exoplanets need to have an “indulgent neighbor,” if they are to stand any chance of developing an atmosphere, and maybe even liquid water. That is to say, they have to be wit... |
10 April 2009
02:28 GMT |
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Since the beginning of time, mankind has noticed that skies somehow appear to be a lot brighter on portions around clouds, even much more so than perfectly clear skies elsewhere. Thus far, climatologists and planetary scientists have been unable to say exactly why this is happening, but now they believe that the phen... |
31 March 2009
08:27 GMT |
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Purdue University School of Aeronautics and Astronautics professor Steven Schneider worked together with NASA on installing a new scientific experiment aboard the Discovery space shuttle, as it was launched towards the International Space Station (ISS), on its 13-day mission. Among the thousand of tiles that made up ... |
24 March 2009
09:58 GMT |
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The Precambrian Age, which spanned from the formation of our planet, some 4,500 million years ago to approximately 542 million years ago, is perhaps the most important in terms of planetary evolution. That is to say, at that time, bacteria, microbes, and other microorganisms developed the ability to synthesize oxygen... |
21 March 2009
06:50 GMT |
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Pluto is one of the smallest planets in the solar system, and it's located very far away from the Sun, beyond the orbit of Neptune. It's one of the dwarf celestial bodies, having a diameter of only one fifth that of the Earth. But, unlike our planet, it's made almost entirely out of rock and ice, and f... |
3 March 2009
04:58 GMT |
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As a consequence of the fact that the Earth is currently getting warmer, the interactions between the biosystems of our planet are starting to deteriorate and to shift, a fact that could have negative, long-lasting implications on all life here. So now, researchers find themselves in a position where they have to sta... |
2 March 2009
08:51 GMT |
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