Earth Archives

May 23, 2019May 23, 2019 by Evan Gough

The Collision that Created the Moon Might Have Also Brought Water to the Early Earth

It is believed that 4.4 billion years ago, a celestial body (Theia) slammed into Earth and produced the Moon. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Scientists at the University of Munster have discovered that Earth got its water from a collision with Theia. Theia was the ancient body that collided with Earth and formed the Moon. Their discovery shows that Earth’s water is much more ancient than previously thought.

May 16, 2019May 16, 2019 by Evan Gough

Today is the Highest Concentration of Atmospheric CO2 in Human History. 415 Parts Per Million. Last Time it Was This High, There Were Trees at the South Pole

Think about this for a minute: We humans and our emissions are helping turn back the climatological clock by 2 or 3 million years, possibly more. Not since that time, called the Pliocene Epoch, has the CO2 ppm risen above 400.

Way back then, the CO2 helped keep the Earth’s temperature 2 to 3 degrees C warmer than it is now. And the Earth was a much different place back then.

May 1, 2019May 1, 2019 by Evan Gough

The World’s Space Agencies are Responding to a Hypothetical Asteroid Impact. You Can Watch it all Unfold Online.

One of the many PHOs (Potentially Hazardous Objects) that we're keeping an eye on. Image Credit: NASA

Remember when Orson Welles’ 1938 radio show called “The War of the Worlds” fooled people into thinking that Earth was actually being invaded? That was fun.

Now, the ESA (European Space Agency) is tempting fate by live-tweeting the hypothetical approach of the hypothetical asteroid 2019PDC and hypothetically planning a hypothetical response to this hypothetically destructive asteroid. In their hypothetical scenario, 2019 PDC has a 1 in 10 chance of striking Earth in 2029. And you can follow the action on Twitter.

April 10, 2019April 10, 2019 by Evan Gough

Space Weather Forecasts can now give Satellites One Whole Day of Warning when a Killer Solar Storm is Inbound

An artist’s rendering of the Van Allen radiation belts surrounding Earth. The purple, concentric shells represent the inner and outer belts. They completely encircle Earth, but have been cut away in this image to show detail. Image Credit: NASA’s Conceptual Image Lab/Walt Feimer

Earth’s fleet of satellites is in a vulnerable position. When solar activity increases, high-energy particles are directed toward Earth. Our large fleet is in the direct path of all that energy, which can damage them or render them inoperable. But now we have another tool to help us protect our satellites.

April 9, 2019April 9, 2019 by Evan Gough

The World’s Glaciers are Down by 9 Trillion Tonnes of Ice in the Last Half Century

This graphic shows the change in cumulative ice mass over the last 50 years in different glacial regions on Earth. Image Credit: ESA, adapted from Zemp et al. (2019) Nature, and data courtesy of World Glacier Monitoring Service

Things are not looking good for Earth’s glaciers. Usually, when it comes to climate change and melting ice, we think of the Earth’s polar regions. But they’re not the only important ice formations, and they’re not the only ice that’s melting due to climate change.

March 12, 2019March 12, 2019 by Evan Gough

Jupiter or Earth? Which One’s Which, and Why Do They Look so Similar?

Though Jupiter and Earth are wildly differing places, some things are the same on both worlds. Image Credit: NASA

Jupiter: a massive, lifeless gas giant out there on the other side of the asteroid belt. It’s a behemoth, containing 2.5 times as much mass as all the other planets combined. To top it off, it’s named after the Roman God of War.

Earth: a tiny rocky world, almost too close to the Sun, where life rises and falls, punctuated repeatedly by extinctions. Compared to Jupiter, it’s a gum-drop world: Jupiter is 317.8 times the mass of Earth. And Earth is named after a goddess in German paganism, or so we think.

“Out of all the complexity flows beauty…”
Norman Kuring, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.

February 25, 2019February 25, 2019 by Evan Gough

Massive Volcanic Eruptions 66 Million Years Ago Happened Almost Exactly When the Dinosaurs Died Off

The Deccan traps are an area of igneous rock in India that formed during a time of intense volcanic activity about 65 million years ago. Image Credit: Gerta Keller, Department of Geosciences, Princeton University

Everyone knows an asteroid strike wiped out the dinosaurs, right? Lots of evidence shows that the Chicxulub impact event had terrible consequences for the dinosaurs. But the picture is a little more complicated than that. Extreme volcanic activity may have contributed to the extinction.

February 21, 2019February 21, 2019 by Evan Gough

Antarctica is About to Unleash an Iceberg Twice the Size of New York City

The Brunt Ice Shelf is about to calve an ice berg more than twice as large as New York City. Image: British Antarctic Survey.

An ice shelf in Antarctica is about to give birth to a baby. This baby is a giant, spawned by growing cracks in the Brunt Ice Shelf. It’s not clear what this’ll mean to the scientific infrastructure in the area, and to the human presence, which were both established in the 1950s.

February 13, 2019February 13, 2019 by Evan Gough

Another Enormous Crater Found Under the Ice in Greenland

The possible impact crater. Image Credit: NASA Scientific Visualization Studio

A glaciologist has discovered another enormous impact crater under more than a mile of ice in Greenland. This is on the heels of the November 2019 discovery of an impact crater in the same area under the Hiawatha Glacier. The November discovery was the first-ever crater found under ice on Earth.

January 30, 2019January 30, 2019 by Matt Williams

One of the Oldest Earth Rocks Turned up on the Moon, of all Places

An artist's rendering of the early Moon and Earth, which sustained many asteroid impacts. Many of those asteroids and possibly dark comets contributed their water to the infant Earth. As it cooled, the water outgassed as vapor. Credit: Simone Marchi (SwRI)/SSERVI/NASA

According the Giant Impact Hypothesis, the Earth-Moon system was created roughly 4.5 billion years ago when a Mars-sized object collided with Earth. This impact led to the release of massive amounts of material that eventually coalesced to form the Earth and Moon. Over time, the Moon gradually migrated away from Earth and assumed its current orbit.

Since then, there have been regular exchanges between the Earth and the Moon due to impacts on their surfaces. According to a recent study, an impact that took place during the Hadean Eon (roughly 4 billion years ago) may have been responsible for sending the Earth’s oldest sample of rock to the Moon, where it was retrieved by the Apollo 14 astronauts.