Space and astronomy news
One day, my Grade Nine science class got way more interesting.
Suddenly, volcanoes weren’t just something in textbooks. Though I was in neighbouring British Columbia when Mt. St. Helens erupted, there was still a layer of ash on our cars and everything else. For a teenager with a burgeoning interest in science, it was awesome.
Continue reading “40 Years Ago, Mount St. Helens Blew its Top Off”
One of the most fascinating things about planet Earth is the way that life shapes the Earth and the Earth shapes life. We only have to look back to the Great Oxygenation Event (GOE) of 2.4 billion years ago to see how lifeforms have shaped the Earth. In that event, phytoplanktons called cyanobacteria pumped the atmosphere with oxygen, extinguishing most life on Earth, and paving the way for the development of multicellular life.
Early Earth satisfied the initial conditions for life to appear, and now, lifeforms shape the atmosphere, the landscape, and the oceans in many different ways.
At the base of many of these changes is phytoplankton.
Continue reading “New Data Show How Phytoplankton Pumps Carbon Out of the Atmosphere at an Enormous Scale”
In between the Indonesian islands of Java and Sumatra lies the Sunda Strait. And in the Sunda Strait lies the much smaller island of Anak Krakatau, one of Earth’s active volcanoes. It’s erupted more than 50 times in the past 2,000 years, and now it’s doing it again.
Continue reading “Anak Krakatau Erupted a Few Days Ago. Here’s What it Looked Like From Space”
The Coronavirus shutdown has given us an unprecedented opportunity to look at our civilization a little differently. We all have our own ground-level view of life during this pandemic, but our satellites are giving us another look at this Earthly pause on a grand scale. The latest view comes from the European Space Agency’s Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission.
Continue reading “Venice From Space Looks Very Different This Year”
On Earth, one of the most important factors regulating our climate is the carbon cycle. This refers to the processes by which carbon compounds are sequestered by biological (photosynthesis) and geological processes and released through volcanic activity and organic processes (decay and respiration). For billions of years, this cycle has kept temperatures relatively stable on Earth and allowed for life to flourish.
For the past few centuries, human activity has tipped the scales to the point that some refer to the current geological epoch as the Anthropocene. According to a new study by an international team of researchers, human activity is also leading to a situation where tropical rainforests (a major sequester of carbon dioxide) are not only losing their ability to soak up carbon but could actually be adding to the problem in the coming years.
Continue reading “As Temperatures Increase, Forests are Having More Trouble Soaking up Carbon”
Rejoice! If you’ve missed your daily fix of seeing views of our rotating Earth from space, NOAA announced that its Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) is now back in action. The deep space satellite, which produces incredible full-disk images of our Blue Marble, has been offline since June 27, 2019 because of a problem with the spacecraft’s attitude control system. But NOAA and NASA engineers developed and uploaded a software patch to restore DSCOVR’s operations.
Continue reading “Phew, Earth-Watching DSCOVR is Operational Again”
Don’t worry. The oceans aren’t going to dry up. At least not any time soon, so no need to add it to the list of things to worry about.
But, what would our planet look like if they did? Dr. James O’Donoghue from JAXA decided to find out.
Continue reading “This is What the World Would Look Like if the Oceans Dried Up”
Along with all of their space-exploration, planet-hunting, and astronomy-based endeavours, NASA also keeps a very keen eye on Earth. In fact, they have 18 satellites whose job it is to look only at Earth. And those 18 advanced satellites are helping us understand Earth in unprecedented scientific detail.
And they take pretty pictures, too.
Continue reading “North and South America, At Night”
A surtseyan eruption is a volcanic eruption in shallow water. It’s named after the island Surtsey, off the coast of iceland. In 2015, a surtseyan eruption in the Tongan Archipelago created the island Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha‘apai. Despite the odds, that island is still there almost five years later.
Continue reading “A Brand New Island in the Pacific has Survived 5 Years”