NASA’s Van Allen Probes mission has discovered a previously unknown third radiation belt around Earth, revealing the existence of unexpected structures and processes within these hazardous regions of space.
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On Nov. 9, 2012, NASA renamed the Radiation Belt Storm Probes to the Van Allen Probes. The probes, shown here in an artist’s rendition, will help scientists study two giant belts …
Gravity is one of the fundamental forces of nature, its invisible grip governing our planet – from the rocks inside to the seas on the surface.
In this edition of Space, we begin our adventure in a massive cave in northern Italy, a space beneath the surface of the Earth that is so big it has an effect on the … Read the rest of this article
On December 5th, at the American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco, scientists unveiled an unprecedented new look at our planet at night. A global composite image, constructed using cloud-free night images from a new NASA and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) satellite, shows the glow of natural and human-built phenomena across Earth in greater detail than ever before.… Read the rest of this article
Nearly 65 feet beneath the icy surface of a remote Antarctic lake, scientists from NASA, the Desert Research Institute (DRI) in Reno, Nev., the University of Illinois at Chicago, and nine other institutions, have uncovered a community of bacteria existing in one of Earth’s darkest, saltiest and coldest habitats.
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Scanning electron micrograph of very small and numerous bacterial cells inhabiting …
After two decades of satellite observations, an international team of experts brought together by ESA and NASA has produced the most accurate assessment of ice losses from Antarctica and Greenland to date. This study finds that the combined rate of ice sheet melting is increasing.
The new research shows that melting of the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets has added … Read the rest of this article
ESA’s quartet of satellites studying Earth’s magnetosphere, Cluster, has discovered that our protective magnetic bubble lets the solar wind in under a wider range of conditions than previously believed.
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When Earth’s magnetic field and the interplanetary magnetic field are aligned, for example in a northward orientation as indicated by the white arrow in this graphic, Kelvin–Helmholtz waves are generated at …
In space, they say, no one can hear you scream.
Nobody ever said anything about singing, though. A NASA spacecraft has just beamed back a beautiful song sung by our own planet. Play the audio.
A NASA spacecraft has recorded eerie-sounding radio emissions coming from our own planet. These beautiful “songs of Earth” could, ironically, be responsible for the … Read the rest of this article
Anyone who’s ever seen a noctilucent cloud or “NLC” would agree: They look alien. The electric-blue ripples and pale tendrils of NLCs reaching across the night sky resemble something from another world.
Researchers say that’s not far off. A key ingredient for the mysterious clouds comes from outer space.
“We’ve detected bits of ‘meteor smoke’ imbedded in noctilucent clouds,” reports … Read the rest of this article
A favorite theme of science fiction is “the portal”–an extraordinary opening in space or time that connects travelers to distant realms. A good portal is a shortcut, a guide, a door into the unknown. If only they actually existed….
It turns out that they do, sort of, and a NASA-funded researcher at the University of Iowa has figured out how … Read the rest of this article
The Sun Now (Visible light)
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The Sun Now (H-Alpha light)
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Aurora Oval
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Aurora Oval
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