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…
Earth Science News
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 (900 meters) beneath the ocean surface lie the warm, bubbling springs of a…
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…
NASA’s GRACE-FO Spacecraft Ready to Launch
Twin satellites that will monitor Earth’s water cycle are scheduled to launch from Vandenberg Air Force Base in Central California on Tuesday, May 22, in…
NASA’s GRACE Mission Reveals Major Shifts in Global Freshwater
In a first-of-its-kind study, scientists have combined an array of NASA satellite observations of Earth with data on human activities to map locations where freshwater…
Scientists Demonstrate How Primordial Life on Earth Replicated
Scientists have created a new type of genetic replication system which demonstrates how the first life on Earth – in the form of RNA –…
CubeSat Captures First Global Picture of Small Frozen Particles Inside Clouds
Looking at Earth from the International Space Station, astronauts see big, white clouds spreading across the planet. They cannot distinguish a gray rain cloud from…
Scientists Discover New Magnetic Process in Turbulent Space
Though close to home, the space immediately around Earth is full of hidden secrets and invisible processes. In a new discovery reported in the journal…
How Energy Dissipates Outside Earth’s Magnetic Field
Earth’s magnetic field provides an invisible but crucial barrier that protects Earth from the solar wind–a stream of charged particles launched from the sun’s outer…
GEDI Laser Instrument Moves Toward Launch to Space Station
A first-of-its-kind laser instrument designed to map the world’s forests in 3-D is moving toward an earlier launch to the International Space Station than previously…
MIT Study Shows Health Benefits Will Offset Cost of China’s Climate Policy
A new MIT study reports that, if China follows through with its international pledge to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, every one of its provinces will…
DopplerScatt Doubles Scientists’ View of Ocean-Air Interactions
NASA scientists are hard at work trying to unlock mysteries of our planet’s ocean surface currents and winds using a new Earth science radar instrument…
23 Stunning Specimens of California Gold on Display
The Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History is having a gold rush — one in which prospectors can gaze at glittering specimens of radiating golden…
