When Volcanoes Go Metal: What Lava Flows Look Like on a Planet Made of Metal
What would a volcano — and its lava flows — look like on a planetary body made primarily of metal? A pilot study from North…
Earth News
Air Pollution Over China Returning to Pre-COVID Levels
In early 2020, data from satellites were used to show a decline in air pollution coinciding with nationwide lockdowns put in place to stop the…
Lightning Strikes – Perhaps 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 of Them – May Have Sparked Life on Earth
Lightning strikes — perhaps a quintillion of them, occurring over a billion years — may have provided sparks of life for the early Earth. A…
MIT Researchers Predict the Oceans Will Start Emitting Ozone-Depleting CFCs
As atmospheric concentrations of CFC-11 drop, the global ocean should become a source of the chemical by the middle of next century. The world’s oceans…
Ol Doinyo Lengai: The Symmetric “Mountain of God” in Tanzania Is Part of the East African Rift System
Ol Doinyo Lengai—known to the local Maasai people as the “Mountain of God”—is a stratovolcano in Tanzania with unique geological characteristics. This photograph, taken by…
NASA Super Soaker Rocket Launches Reveal Water Vapor Effect in Upper Atmosphere
Results of a 2018 multirocket launch at Poker Flat Research Range north of Fairbanks will help scientists better understand the impact of more water vapor…
Scientists Stunned to Discover Plants Beneath Mile-Deep Greenland Ice – Why This Spells Trouble
Long-lost ice core provides direct evidence that giant ice sheet melted off within the last million years and is highly vulnerable to a warming climate….
Unexpected Decrease in Air Pollution Over Parts of Africa
Changes in fire patterns have led to seasonal reductions in nitrogen dioxide pollution. Despite the growing use of fossil fuels in many African countries due…
Glaciers Accelerate Into the Ocean in the Getz Region of West Antarctica, Contributing to Rising Global Sea Levels
Glaciers in West Antarctica are moving more quickly from land into the ocean, contributing to rising global sea levels. A 25-year record of satellite observations…
Oops! The “World’s Oldest Meteorite Impact Crater” Isn’t an Impact Crater After All
Several years after scientists discovered what was considered the oldest crater a meteorite made on the planet, another team found it’s actually the result of…
More Than One-Third of Corn Belt Farmland Has Completely Lost Its Carbon-Rich Topsoil
UMass Amherst researchers used remote sensing to quantify the previously underestimated erosion. More than one-third of the Corn Belt in the Midwest – nearly 30…
Gravity Explorer Mission Still Unearthing Hidden Secrets About Our Planet
Despite ESA’s GOCE mission ending over seven years ago, scientists continue to use this remarkable satellite’s gravity data to delve deep and unearth secrets about…
Exploring Earth From Space: Strait of Gibraltar
The Strait of Gibraltar is featured in this false-color image captured by the Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission. The Strait of Gibraltar connects the Mediterranean Sea with…
Torrential Downpours and Destructive Flash Floods Swamp Hawaii
Flash floods, landslides, and power outages plagued the islands after torrential rains fell. Torrential downpours and destructive flash floods swamped parts of Hawaii in March…
Traces of Earth’s Early Magma Ocean – When Earth Was Almost Entirely Molten – Identified in Greenland Rocks
New research led by the University of Cambridge has found rare evidence — preserved in the chemistry of ancient rocks from Greenland — which tells…
Ten Years After the Tsunami: One of the Hardest Hit Coastal Cities in Japan Is Still Working to Recover
On March 11, 2011, a magnitude 9.1 earthquake jolted the seafloor about 70 kilometers (45 miles) offshore of Japan’s Tohoku region. It was the largest…
Princeton Study: New Climate Models With High Climate Sensitivity Are Implausible
A recent analysis of the latest generation of climate models — known as a CMIP6 — provides a cautionary tale on interpreting climate simulations as…
Antarctica’s Magnetic Link to Ancient Neighbors: Australia, India and South Africa
For the first time, an international team of researchers has used magnetic data from ESA’s Swarm satellite mission together with aeromagnetic data to help reveal…