Tagged: earth

The study of exoplanets has matured considerably in the last 10 years. During this time, the majority of the over 4000 exoplanets currently known were discovered. It was also during this time that the process has started to shift from the discovery to characterization. What’s...

In Michael Crichton’s 1969 novel The Andromeda Strain, a deadly alien microbe hitches a ride to Earth aboard a downed military satellite and scientists must race to contain it. While fictional, the plot explores a very real and longstanding concern shared by NASA and world...

Instead of raining water, the plasma hurricane unleashed electrons, researchers say. Somebody call the SyFy channel. We’re going to need a whole series of Spacenado movies. This week, a team of researchers unveiled the results of a study that highlights the first ever observation of...

One smart filmmaker has allowed us to watch Earth rising over the moon’s horizon. Irish filmmaker Seán Doran has a habit of putting together glorious-looking YouTube videos that reach into the glorious vistas of space. Just this month he put together a stunning video of...

The votes are in: A lake filled with blue whorls beat out star trails to claim the championship. There can be only one. NASA’s Tournament Earth competition pitted 32 astronaut photographs of Earth against each other in a March Madness-style set of brackets. Space fans...

A digital twin of our planet is to simulate the Earth system in future. It is intended to support policy-makers in taking appropriate measures to better prepare for extreme events. A new strategy paper by European scientists and ETH Zurich computer scientists shows how this...

Seen from space, the Earth is blue. The Earth has been blue for over 4 billion years because of the liquid water on its surface. How has the Earth managed to sustain liquid water on its surface for such a long time? There is only...

Where did Earth’s nitrogen come from? Rice University scientists show one primordial source of the indispensable building block for life was close to home. The isotopic signatures of nitrogen in iron meteorites reveal that Earth likely gathered its nitrogen not only from the region beyond...

Lightning strikes were just as important as meteorites in creating the perfect conditions for life to emerge on Earth, geologists say. Minerals delivered to Earth in meteorites more than 4 billion years ago have long been advocated as key ingredients for the development of life...

Earth’s second moon will make a close approach to the planet next week before drifting off into space, never to be seen again. “What second moon,” you ask? Astronomers call it 2020 SO — a small object that dropped into Earth’s orbit about halfway between...