Page 126 - Planetary Sciences News Today

Understanding how magma behaves could help researchers forecast volcanic eruptions

Earth scientists have compiled a comprehensive record of latitudinal sea-surface temperature (SST) gradients over the last 95 million years of the Earth’s history. The results from this study help bridge the gap between empirical observations and existing climate models.

Its arms may have the first known suckers.

The new species, identified by researchers at Yale and the American Museum of Natural History, is the earliest known relative of octopuses and vampire squid.

When we look at the Moon, we’re seeing a snapshot of it as it is, and as it has been for quite some time. The Moon is, for the most part, geologically dead. It isn’t experiencing the same kinds of erosion and tectonic activity we’re used to, allowing us to peer back into its past relatively easily. The Earth, by comparison, is cycling its surface materials all the time.

Led by physicist Alex Meshik in Arts & Sciences, Washington University scientists designed and built the device that NASA is using to extract gases from a lunar sample from the Apollo 17 mission.

Of the nine critical planetary boundaries that humanity is transgressing, climate change is the best known and understood, while atmospheric aerosol pollution may be the least, but aerosols are already having climate impacts and polluting Earth’s skies, killing millions.

University of New Mexico climatologist David Gutzler presents a talk as part of a Physics and Astronomy Colloquium on the recently released Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Volume 2, assessing impacts of climate change and strategies for...

Atmospheric chemists at MIT have found that the smoke from Australia’s “Black Summer” wildfires set off chemical reactions in the stratosphere that contributed to the destruction of ozone. The study is the first to establish a chemical link between wildfire smoke and ozone depletion.

The Australian wildfires in 2019 and 2020 were historic for how far and fast they spread, and for how long and powerfully they burned. All told, the devastating "Black Summer" fires blazed across more than 43 million acres of land, and extinguished or displaced nearly 3 billion animals.