Earth’s Minimoons Provide Exciting Opportunities for Science and Technology
The detection of “minimoons” — small asteroids temporarily captured in orbit around Earth — will vastly improve our scientific understanding of asteroids and the Earth-Moon…
Earth Science
Scientists Provide Evidence for Why Earth’s Early Climate Was More Stable and Warmer
Yale researchers have provided a new explanation for why Earth’s early climate was more stable and warmer than it is today. When life first evolved…
NASA Views One of the Most Rapidly Changing Glaciers in the World
The Columbia Glacier descends from an ice field 10,000 feet (3,050 meters) above sea level, down the flanks of the Chugach Mountains, and into a narrow inlet that…
Arctic Boreal Vulnerability Experiment Shows Arctic Carbon Cycle is Speeding Up
When people think of the Arctic, snow, ice and polar bears come to mind. Trees? Not so much. At least not yet. A new NASA-led…
Carbon Filled Oceans Affect Tiny But Important Organism
They’re impossible to see with the naked eye. They’re difficult to pronounce. But coccolithophores, a single-celled plankton, have an outsized effect on oceans due to…
Planetary Defense Has Unexpected Support From a New Satellite
NASA’s efforts to better understand asteroid impacts has found unexpected support from a new satellite sensor designed to detect lightning. New research published in the…
Geologists Find Anomalies, Pieces of Mantle Found Rising Under Cascadia Fault
New seismic data provide structural basis for strong earthquakes that strike at both ends of the Pacific Northwest fault zone. With four years of data…
Landsat 8 Views Striking Patterns of Blue and Green in the Chukchi Sea
Regardless of the amount of winter ice cover, the waters off of the Alaskan coast usually come alive each spring with blooms of phytoplankton. These…
Scientists Reveal Diamond Cache Deep in Earth’s Interior
New study shows that 1–2 percent of Earth’s oldest mantle rocks are made from diamond. There may be more than a quadrillion tons of diamond…
Evolution of Earth’s First Animals Caused Global Warming
The evolution of Earth’s first animals more than 500 million years ago caused global warming, new research shows. Some 520-540 million years ago, animal life…
Microbial Continental Ecosystems Helped Seed Ancient Seas
Like our oceans, today’s continents are brimming with life. Yet billions of years ago, before the advent of plants, continents would have appeared barren. These…
Scientists Reveal How And Why Antarctica’s Glaciers Are Changing
New research review provides insights into the continent’s response to climate warming. Scientists from the University of Maryland, the University of Leeds and the University…
Chemical Studies Trace Interstellar Dust Back to Solar System’s Formation
Experiments conducted at the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) helped to confirm that samples of interplanetary particles – collected from Earth’s…
IBEX Reveals How Solar Wind Changes Our Heliosphere
What happens when the solar wind suddenly starts to blow significantly harder? According to two recent studies, the boundaries of our entire solar system balloon…
NASA’s Worldview Puts 20 Years of Earth Data at Your Fingertips
Powerful Earth-observing instruments aboard NASA’s Terra and Aqua satellites, launched in 1999 and 2002, respectively, have observed nearly two decades of planetary change. Now, for…
Deep-Sea Volcanic Springs Aid the Search for Extraterrestrial Life
Off the coast of Hawaii’s Big Island and more than 3,000 feet beneath the ocean surface lie the warm, bubbling springs of a volcano —…
Space Storm Hunter Captures First Images and Data
As the International Space Station flew over the Indonesian coast of Sumatra on an April night, lightning from a thunderstorm reached the upper layers of…
NASA Image of the Day – GRACE-FO Mission Liftoff
The GRACE-FO, or Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment Follow-On, mission lifted off on Tuesday, May 22, 2018, from Space Launch Complex 4E at Vandenberg Air…