Earth Archives

January 29, 2019January 29, 2019 by Evan Gough

Without the Impact that Formed the Moon, We Might Not Have Life on Earth

The chemicals that made life possible on Earth may have come from another planet that collided with Earth, forming the Moon. Image Credit: Rice University

The Earth wasn’t formed containing the necessary chemicals for life to begin. One well-supported theory, called the “late veneer theory”, suggests that the volatile chemicals needed for life arrived long after the Earth formed, brought here by meteorites. But a new study challenges the late veneer theory.

Evidence shows that the Moon was created when a Mars-sized planet named Theia collided with the Earth. The impact created a debris ring out of which the Moon formed. Now, this new study says that same impact may have delivered the necessary chemicals for life to the young Earth.

January 17, 2019January 17, 2019 by Evan Gough

Astronomers Aren’t Pleased About a Russian Plan to Put Billboards in Space

A screen capture from StartRocket's promotional video for their Orbital Display. Image Credit: StartRocket.

It was bound to happen.

While the rest of us look up at the night sky, and wonder at what we’re seeing, ponder how it all fits together, and strain ourselves trying to understand how our origins are intertwined with all that we see, others don’t. They look up at the magnitude of the night sky and think none of these things.

Instead they think, “Hmmm…that’s a big, empty billboard. How can I make money from it?”

December 18, 2018 by Evan Gough

Did You Know that the Earth Loses Several Hundred Tons of Atmosphere to Space Every Day?

A pair of sounding rockets took aim at the aurora over Svalbard, Norway, to help scientists understand how Earth's atmosphere loses oxygen into space. Even though it's Earth's day side in the image, the launch location is so far north there's no daylight. Image Credit: Allison Stancil-Ervin of NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility.

Scientists have known for some time that Earth’s atmosphere loses several hundred tons of oxygen each day. They understand how this oxygen loss happens on Earth’s night side, but they’re not sure how it happens on the day side. They do know one thing though; they happen during auroras.

According to a press release from NASA’s Earth Observatory, no two oxygen outflow events are exactly the same, which makes understanding them a challenge. They call the events ‘fountains of gas’ that escape the Earth during auroral activity, and the Earth Observatory has a mission dedicated to understanding them.
Continue reading “Did You Know that the Earth Loses Several Hundred Tons of Atmosphere to Space Every Day?”

December 13, 2018 by Evan Gough

There’s a Surprising Amount of Life Deep Inside the Earth. Hundreds of Times More Mass than All of Humanity

A nematode (eukaryote) in a biofilm of microorganisms. This unidentified nematode (Poikilolaimus sp.) from Kopanang gold mine in South Africa, lives 1.4 km below the surface. Image courtesy of Gaetan Borgonie (Extreme Life Isyensya, Belgium).

Scientists with the Deep Carbon Observatory (DCO) are transforming our understanding of life deep inside the Earth, and maybe on other worlds. Their discoveries suggest that abundant life could exist in the sub-surface of other planets and moons, even where temperatures are extreme, and energy and nutrients are scarce. They’ve also discovered that all of the life hidden in the deep Earth contains hundreds of times more carbon than all of humanity, and that the deep biosphere is almost twice the volume of all Earth’s oceans.

“Existing models of the carbon cycle … are still a work in progress.” – Dr. Mark Lever, DCO Deep Life Community Steering Committee.”

The DCO is not a facility, but a group of over 1,000 scientist from 52 countries, including geologists, chemists, physicists, and biologists. They’re nearing the end of a 10-year project to investigate how the Deep Carbon Cycle affects Earth. 90 % of Earth’s carbon is inside the planet, and the DCO is our first effort to really understand it.

Continue reading “There’s a Surprising Amount of Life Deep Inside the Earth. Hundreds of Times More Mass than All of Humanity”

December 12, 2018 by Evan Gough

A Supernova 2.6 Million Years Ago Could Have Wiped Out the Ocean’s Large Animals

Artist's impression of a Type II supernova. Credit: ESO

For many years, scientists have been studying how supernovae could affect life on Earth. Supernovae are extremely powerful events, and depending on how close they are to Earth, they could have consequences ranging from the cataclysmic to the inconsequential. But now, the scientists behind a new paper say they have specific evidence linking one or more supernova to an extinction event 2.6 million years ago.

About 2.6 million years ago, one or more supernovae exploded about 50 parsecs, or about 160 light years, away from Earth. At that same time, there was also an extinction event on Earth, called the Pliocene marine megafauna extinction. Up to a third of the large marine species on Earth were wiped out at the time, most of them living in shallow coastal waters.

“This time, it’s different. We have evidence of nearby events at a specific time.” – Dr. Adrian Melott, University of Kansas.

Continue reading “A Supernova 2.6 Million Years Ago Could Have Wiped Out the Ocean’s Large Animals”

December 10, 2018 by Evan Gough

A Rapid Rise in Temperature Led to the Worst Extinction in our Planet’s History

This illustration shows the percentage of marine animals that went extinct during Earth's worst extinction at the end of the Permian era by latitude, from the model (black line) and from the fossil record (blue dots).A greater percentage of marine animals survived in the tropics than at the poles. The color of the water shows the temperature change, with red being most severe warming and yellow less warming. At the top is the supercontinent Pangaea, with massive volcanic eruptions emitting carbon dioxide. The images below the line represent some of the 96 percent of marine species that died during the event. [Includes fossil drawings by Ernst Haeckel/Wikimedia; Blue crab photo by Wendy Kaveney/Flickr; Atlantic cod photo by Hans-Petter Fjeld/Wikimedia; Chambered nautilus photo by John White/CalPhotos.]Justin Penn and Curtis Deutsch/University of Washington

Everyone knows about the extinction of the dinosaurs. A cataclysmic asteroid strike about 66 million years ago (mya) caused the Death of the Dinosaurs. But there’ve been several mass extinctions in the Earth’s history, and they didn’t involve killer asteroids. The worst extinction was caused by a rapid rise in temperature.

Earth’s most severe extinction occurred long before the killer asteroid impact that wiped out the dinosaurs. It happened some 252 mya, and it marked the end of what’s called the Permian Period. The extinction is known as the Permian-Triassic Extinction Event, the End-Permian Extinction, or more simply, “The Great Dying.” Up to 70% of terrestrial vertebrates and up to 96% of all marine species were extinguished during The Great Dying.

How did it happen? Could it happen again?

Continue reading “A Rapid Rise in Temperature Led to the Worst Extinction in our Planet’s History”

December 6, 2018 by Evan Gough

Ice loss in Greenland is Accelerating

25 years of satellite data from the European Space Agency show the rate at which Earth is losing its ice speeding up. Image Credit: ESA

The rate at which Greenland is losing its ice is accelerating. This unsurprising conclusion comes from a new study based on 25 years of satellite data from the European Space Agency. The new study was published in Earth and Planetary Science Letters.
Continue reading “Ice loss in Greenland is Accelerating”

December 4, 2018 by Evan Gough

A Meteor may have Exploded in the Air 3,700 Years Ago, Obliterating Communities Near the Dead Sea

Artist's conception of a comet exploding in the Earth’s atmosphere above Egypt. Credit: Terry Bakker

A meteor that exploded in the air near the Dead Sea 3,700 years ago may have wiped out communities, killed tens of thousands of people, and provided the kernel of truth to an old Bible story. The area is in modern-day Jordan, in a 25 km wide circular plain called Middle Ghor. Most of the evidence for this event comes from archaeological evidence excavated at the Bronze Age city of Tall el-Hammam located in that area, which some scholars say is the city of Sodom from the Bible.

Continue reading “A Meteor may have Exploded in the Air 3,700 Years Ago, Obliterating Communities Near the Dead Sea”

November 28, 2018 by Evan Gough

We Have the Technology. Airplanes Could Spray Particles into the Atmosphere to Battle Climate Change. But Should We?

Our beautiful, precious, life-supporting Earth as seen on July 6, 2015 from a distance of one million miles by a NASA scientific camera aboard the Deep Space Climate Observatory spacecraft. Credits: NASA

If climate change models are correct, humanity is working itself—and dragging the rest of life on Earth with it—into a corner. Scientific pleas to control emissions and battle climate change are starting to have some effect, but not enough. So now we have some tough decisions looming.

Continue reading “We Have the Technology. Airplanes Could Spray Particles into the Atmosphere to Battle Climate Change. But Should We?”

November 25, 2018 by Matt Williams

The Earth’s Wandering Poles Could Have Caused the Ice Age

Artist's impression of ice age Earth at glacial maximum. Credit: Wikipedia Commons/Ittiz

Earth’s last great ice age, known as the Quaternay Glaciation, began roughly 3.2 million years ago. This period was characterized by the expansion of ice sheets out of Antarctica and Greenland, as well as the fluctuation of the Laurentian ice sheet, which covered most of Canada and the United States. The retreat of this glacier is responsible for the creation of millions of standing bodies of water across North America, including the Great Lakes.

While the causes of ice ages have been attributed to a combination of astronomical cycles, atmospheric conditions, ocean currents and plate tectonics, a complete explanation has been lacking thus far. However, according to a new research findings by a team of Rice University geophysicists, Earth’s last ice age may have been caused by shifts in the Earth relative to its spin axis that caused its poles to wander.

Continue reading “The Earth’s Wandering Poles Could Have Caused the Ice Age”