Items tagged with Earth
The Gemini South telescope, commissioned over two decades ago, continues to contribute significant astronomical findings. On February 7th, it captured a new image of Asteroid 2024 YR4, which ultimately resulted in a revised projected probability of Earth impact to 1 in 48 by 2032, from the previously estimated 1 in...
Read more...
Yes, there's a chance that a recently spotted asteroid named 2024 YR4 could strike Earth in 2032, but experts are deeming the 196-foot wide small-body a low 1-in-83 strike risk, although others believe the closeness of the approach path to our planet in eight years still warrants some due caution. Still, we're usually...
Read more...
On Tuesday, January 7th, 2025, NASA announced an update to its Mars Sample Return (MSR) Program, created to help scientists understand the Red Planet by bringing home Martian rock samples. The agency is now torn between two plans for bringing the samples back to Earth: recreating a previous rocket method or getting a...
Read more...
A new research has revealed that sun-like stars in our galaxy experience one violent "superflare" approximately once every hundred years—far more often that scientists previously thought. With that, many believe that the Sun in our solar system is overdue for such a superflare, especially since the last one was back...
Read more...
Scientists are constantly on the lookout for ways to slow down climate change, such as one study that devised a $200 trillion diamond dust umbrella for Earth. They are also seeking all the possible contributors to climate change, which even includes belching cows (seriously). Now, a new study finds humans tilted the...
Read more...
Be sure not to miss the last supermoon of the year, known as the Beaver Moon, this week. This will be the last of four consecutive supermoons, and will be slightly brighter than the first of the four in mid-August.
The term supermoon, coined in 1979, refers to when a full moon coincides with the Moon’s closest...
Read more...
NASA says a bus-sized asteroid is about to make a close approach, coming within 148,000 miles of Earth. According to the space agency, the asteroid, named 2024 UQ1, measures approximately 32-feet across.
Astronomers and scientists are constantly on the lookout for large space rocks that could pose a threat to...
Read more...
Proposals to combat climate change have ranged from placing data centers in space, to a lunar missions designed to dim the Sun with Moon dust. Now, a new study suggests using $200 trillion worth of diamond dust to create an umbrella over Earth to fight climate change. The group of scientists using 3D models to compare...
Read more...
A new study suggests a meteorite the size of not one, but FOUR Mt. Everests may have aided the beginning of life on Earth. The mammoth S2 meteorite, discovered in 2014, is believed to have caused a tsunami larger than any other known in Earth’s history.
When someone thinks of a meteorite these days, it often brings...
Read more...
About 41,000 years ago, Earth’s magnetic field briefly flipped in what is known as the Laschamp event. Now, a group of scientists using data from the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Swarm mission have recreated the sound the event made, and it is sounds like something straight out of a Hollywood horror...
Read more...
A group of astronomers have discovered an exoplanet orbiting the closest single star to Earth’s Sun. The earth-like planet has at least half the mass of Venus, and a year lasts only a little over three Earth days.
Whether it be an alien planet orbiting the K-type star Epsilon Indi A, which is around the same age as...
Read more...
A comet that has not been seen from Earth in 80,000 years is about to make its grand return. Comet 2023 A3, also known as Tsuchinshan-ATLAS, will be observable with the naked eye in the northern hemisphere during two viewing periods, with the first being this week.
Back in May of this year, the Eta Aquariids meteor...
Read more...
Researchers have come across some evidence suggesting Earth had a ring system around 466 million years ago, which may have been a contributor to the global cooling event known as the Hirnantian Icehouse. The hypothesis comes from plate tectonic reconstructions for the Ordovician period, a period of unusually intense...
Read more...
ATLAS, an asteroid impact early warning system in Hawaii, spotted a small asteroid that will temporarily orbit Earth for the next two months. Asteroid 2024 PT5 is a 10-meter (33-feet) wide space rock that is expected to come as close as 1 million kilometers of Earth in an orbital path that resembles a...
Read more...
A dramatic new video shows how Earth’s surface has changed over the last 1.8 billion years. The video reconstructs Earth’s surface evolution, and is presented as a relative plate motion model in a paleomagnetic reference frame.
The video, based on the work of Xianzhi Cao from the Ocean University in China and...
Read more...
An international team of scientists reported the first successful detection of Earth’s ambipolar electric field, first hypothesized more than 60 years ago. According to NASA, the ambipolar electric field is a weak, planet-wide electric field as fundamental as Earth’s gravity and magnetic fields.
Spacecraft flying...
Read more...
New research by scientists at the Smithsonian Institute are proposing a plan to safeguard Earth’s endangered biodiversity by cryogenically preserving biological material on the moon. According to the research, the permanently shadowed craters on the moon's surface, or perhaps lunar underground caves, are cold enough...
Read more...
Scientists with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) tracked two near-Earth asteroids recently, one with a moon of its own, and the second having only been detected 13 days prior to its closest approach to Earth. The data collected during the radar observations will provide valuable practice for planetary defense...
Read more...
An asteroid the size of the Great Pyramid of Giza, discovered just two weeks ago, makes a close approach to Earth today. While the asteroid, named 2024 MK, poses no danger to Earth, it is a stark reminder of how large asteroids can escape detection until it could be too late.
The idea of a large sized asteroid...
Read more...
NASA’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office, in partnership with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), conducted the fifth biennial Planetary Defense Interagency Tabletop Exercise this week. The tabletop exercise gathering aimed “to inform and assess the ability as a nation to respond effectively to the...
Read more...
According to NASA, there are several airplane-sized asteroids hurtling toward Earth this week. The largest of the five is estimated to be 110 feet in size, while the closest will come within 447,000 miles of Earth.
It is not uncommon for large asteroids to go zipping by Earth at a safe distance. This week, however...
Read more...
The European Space Agency’s (ESA) ExoMars and Mars Express missions made an incredible find on the Red Planet recently. For the first time, water frost has been spotted near Mar’s equator, a location once thought "impossible" for frost to exist.
The exploration of Mars continues to surprise researchers. This time...
Read more...
