Posted by Eleanor Imster in Earth | Space |
April 24, 2021
Dust shed from comets and asteroids constantly rains down on our planet. How much of this extraterrestrial material lands on Earth’s surface?
View at EarthSky Community Photos | Chirag Bachani in Marathan, Texas, captured this photo of the Geminid meteor showe on December 14, 2020. He wrote: “The Geminid meteor shower produced a spectacular show with over 100 meteors per hour at the peak around 2 am local time on December 14th. This image displays over 40 meteors captured throughout the night from a Bortle Class 1 dark sky in Marathon, Texas. Many of the meteors lasted over 2 seconds and were typically green and blue.” Thank you, Chirag!
https://www.afinalwarning.com/510297.html (Natural News) In a study published on April 15 in the journal
Tiny meteors in the form of interplanetary dust bombard Earth all the time. Some of these particles travel at exceptional speeds and turn into shooting stars in the process. Some survive the fiery trek through Earth’s atmosphere and reach the ground to become micrometeorites, which are dust-sized extraterrestrial rocks that land on the planet’s surface.
Now, by scouring Antarctica for micrometeorites, the researchers were able to quantify how much interplanetary dust hit Earth on average.
Looking for interplanetary dust in Antarctica
The solar system teems with interplanetary dust particles shed from asteroids and comets. Some of these particles get pulled into Earth’s orbit and nosedive to the planet at extreme speeds. This fallout of dust happens every day but is seldom observed because the particles measure only a few tenths to hundredths of a
Researchers from the CNRS traveled to the Antarctic to collect galactic dust. – Photo: AFP
According to a new study from the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS), every year, around 5,200 tonnes of galactic dust penetrates our atmosphere to land on planet Earth. Created by comets and asteroids, when it enters the atmosphere, the dust particles can flare up, giving rise to shooting stars.
Reaching the ground in the form of micrometeorites, the dust is a phenomenon that has always existed, but one that had yet to be quantified. Most of the time, it is composed of tiny particles, of the order of a few tenths to hundredths of a millimetre, which have managed to pass through the atmosphere to reach the surface of the planet.
Study Offers New Insights into Deep History of Mid-Miocene Antarctic Ice Sheet
In March 2021, the average concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO
2) increased to around 418 ppm, a level not observed on Earth for several million.
Anna Ruth Halberstadt. Image Credit: University of Massachusetts Amherst.
Researchers have been analyzing the deep history to predict how the future might be.
A new study by researchers from the University of Massachusetts Amherst integrates ice sheet, climate and vegetation model simulations with a range of various geologic and climatic scenarios to offer the clearest insights thus far into the deep past of the Antarctic ice sheet and what could be the future of the planet.