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A small fragment of the Campo del Cielo iron meteorite. The same intense heat that partially melted the meteorite to produce the smooth surface visible here would have also evaporated and ablated iron, creating tiny, nanometer-sized particles. These particles could have acted as catalysts for producing the building blocks of life on the early Earth….
Artist impression showing the exoplanet LP 890-9c’s potential evolution from a hot Earth to a desiccated Venus. Credit: Carl Sagan Institute/R. Payne How close can a rocky planet be to a star, and still sustain water and life? A recently discovered exoplanet may be key to solving that mystery, providing important insights about conditions at…
Plastiglomerate of coral rubble held together by melted plastic debris. This artificial “rock” can endanger the environment through greater decomposition into microplastics and higher pollution levels. Credit: Birgit Mohr Plastic waste is a problem on our beaches. Hence, it is largely removed in a coordinated manner within a few weeks. However, it can litter other…
Credit: Jorge Rebolo-Iglesias. Background image: NASA/Spitzer Space Telescope (CC BY 4.0) Using data from the Spitzer space observatory, Dr. Susana Iglesias-Groth, a researcher from The Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC), has found evidence for the existence of the amino acid tryptophan in the interstellar material in a nearby star-forming region. The research is published…
Schematic diagrams of ocean-atmosphere interactions under a) normal conditions in the South Pacific; b) positive phase of Pacific Decadal Oscillation when there are reduced equatorial winds and upwelling causing a decline in overall ocean overturning circulation; and c) projected anthropogenic warming effects with significantly reduced tropical-subtropical cells but intensified trade winds increasing western boundary current…
Maps of Ganymede’s 3.5 μm H2O2 absorption compared to those of the 3.1 μm Fresnel peaks of water ice and corresponding projections of the U.S. Geological Survey Voyager–Galileo imaging mosaic. H2O2 appears constrained to the upper latitudes, particularly on the leading hemisphere, which exhibits sharp boundaries at approximately ±30° to 35° latitude. These boundaries are…
Radiation pattern of a typical mobile tower antenna. Credit: Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (2023). DOI: 10.1093/mnras/stad378 Aliens on nearby stars could detect Earth through radio signals leaked from the planet, new research suggests. Scientists from The University of Manchester and the University of Mauritius used crowd sourced data to simulate radio leakage…
Earthquakes and GPS stations used in the study.(Top) Distribution and focal mechanisms (beachball plots) of the 90 Mw ≥ 7 earthquakes with 2 days of 5-min GPS records (with no gap and no noticeable foreshock) available within a 500-km radius of the epicenters. Mechanism sizes are indicative of event magnitudes. Colors indicate the number of…
Mountain glacier in China. Credit: Gene Taylor via Unsplash. Earth has experienced significant changes in its climate over the past ~2.6 million years (the Quaternary) with a series of glacial and interglacial cycles that have transformed our landscapes. This involves erosive action directly from glaciers moving across the area, as well as fluvial erosion from…
Artist’s concept of Early Earth. Credit: NASA The first building blocks of life on Earth may have formed thanks to eruptions from our sun, a new study finds. A series of chemical experiments show how solar particles, colliding with gases in Earth’s early atmosphere, can form amino acids and carboxylic acids, the basic building blocks…