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Photographs of drill cores from Greenland. Credit: Henrik Drake A new study shows that microorganisms lived deep within the fractured bedrock of Greenland 75 million years ago. The work is published in the journal Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems. Beneath our feet lies a habitat called the deep biosphere. In this harsh environment, without sunlight and without…
Photographs of natural rocks showing (a) hydration and (b) dehydration features. (a) Eclogite shear zone with eclogitization associated to deformation from Holsnøy, western Norway (60°35’11”N, 5°07’34”E). (b) Metamorphic olivine veins in antigorite serpentinite from the Erro Tobbio ultramafic rocks, Ligurian Alps, Italy (44°33’38.9″N, 8°48’49.5″E). Credit: Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems (2024). DOI: 10.1029/2023GC011422 In deep Earth, rocks…
Credit: Purdue University Since the first sighting of the first-discovered and largest asteroid in our solar system was made in 1801 by Giuseppe Piazzi, astronomers and planetary scientists have pondered the make-up of this asteroid/dwarf planet. Its heavily battered and dimpled surface is covered in impact craters. Scientists have long argued that visible craters on…
Process flow diagram (PFD) of wood burial project. Credit: Science (2024). DOI: 10.1126/science.adm8133 A team of researchers with varied backgrounds at the University of Maryland, working with a colleague from Ministère de l’Agriculture, des Pêcheries et de l’Alimentation, in Canada, reports the viability of burying biomass as an inexpensive way to store climate-warming carbon. In…
5σ contrast limits at J (bottom left), H (top left), and K (bottom right) from Gemini/NIRI and at 𝐾′ from Keck II/NIRC2 (top right). The combined images are shown in the insets of the panels, where Gliese 12 is at the star symbols. The maximum values of the image dynamic range were set to be 20 times…
Members of the research team collected tree ring samples at various locations in Europe, including the Balkan region. Credit: Valerie Trouet During her summer travels to her native Belgium, University of Arizona professor Valerie Trouet noticed something that turned casual curiosity into a major scientific discovery: when the sun hid behind an overcast sky and…
This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image features the spiral galaxy IC 1954. Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, D. Thilker, J. Lee and the PHANGS-HST Team This image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope features the spiral galaxy IC 1954, located 45 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Horologium. It sports a glowing bar in its…
Nearly 400 active volcanoes punctuate the Jupiter moon Io. Using flyby data from NASA’s Juno mission that examines the volcanoes, doctoral student Madeline Pettine led a group of Cornell astronomers to study a fundamental process in planetary formation and evolution: tidal heating. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS By staring into the hellish landscape of Jupiter’s moon Io—the most…
Projected area-weighted subregional changes in seasonal precipitation (2070–2099 relative to 1985–2014). Credit: npj Climate and Atmospheric Science (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s41612-024-00761-8 Most Americans can expect wetter winters in the future due to global warming, according to a new study led by a University of Illinois Chicago scientist. Using climate models to investigate how winter precipitation in…
The growth of polymetallic nodules provides a low-oxygen, organic-rich microenvironment suitable for magnetotactic bacteria. Credit: Yan Liu Polymetallic nodules are potato-sized formations on the ocean floor that are rich in minerals such as nickel, cobalt, and manganese. Their concentration of rare, economically important minerals has made the nodules the focus of controversial deep-sea mining enterprises….