Scientists have linked melting Arctic sea ice to the emergence of a deadly virus among sea lions, ice seals, sea otters and other marine mammals. Source: https://earthsky.org/earth/arctic-ice-loss-exposes-sea-mammals-to-deadly-virus…
Tag: polar
NASA studies plan to send an orbiter to Pluto
Remember when New Horizons swept past Pluto in 2015? That was exciting! Who knew Pluto had a heart? Now scientists are proposing a new Pluto orbiter mission. It would gather details on Pluto’s heart and the rest of its youthful surface, its hazy bluish nitrogen atmosphere, and its system of 5 known moons. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/nasa-studies-plan-to-send-an-orbiter-to-pluto…
NASA Plans To Send Water-Hunting Robot To Moon Surface in 2022
NASA will send a golf cart-sized robot to the moon in 2022 to search for deposits of water below the surface, an effort to evaluate the vital resource ahead of a planned human return to the moon in 2024 to possibly use it for astronauts to drink and to make rocket fuel, the U.S. space agency said on Friday. From a…
2019 ozone hole smallest since its discovery
Thanks to abnormal weather patterns in the upper atmosphere over Antarctica, this year’s ozone hole is the smallest since the ozone hole was 1st observed in 1982. Source: https://earthsky.org/earth/2019-ozone-hole-smallest-since-its-discovery-video…
Mid-sized storms spotted on Saturn
An international team of researchers has found that mid-sized storms form near Saturn’s northern pole. In their paper published in the journal Nature Astronomy, the group describes discovering four of the mid-sized storms near the planet’s northern polar region last year and their study of them. Source: https://phys.org/news/2019-10-mid-sized-storms-saturn.html…
Did the Viking landers find life on Mars in 1976?
For a brief time in 1976, it seemed as if NASA’s Viking landers had found microbes on Mars! Those results have been soundly disputed in the years since, but the original experiment’s principal investigator, Gilbert Levin, still maintains they really did detect Martian microbes. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/viking-lander-life-on-mars-gilbert-levin…
What’s the source of the ice at the moon’s south pole?
A new study from Brown University suggests that different deposits of south polar moon ice not only have different sources, but also vary greatly in age. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/different-sources-ice-moons-south-pole…
Juno prepares to jump Jupiter’s shadow
NASA’s Juno mission to Jupiter has now successfully executed a 10.5-hour propulsive maneuver. It’ll keep Juno – a solar-powered spacecraft – out of a mission-ending shadow due to have been cast by Jupiter onto the craft in November. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/juno-maneuver-sept-avoids-jupiter-shadow-nov…
Researchers to spend a year trapped in Arctic ice
In October 2019, the research icebreaker Polarstern will drop anchor at an ice floe in the northern Laptev Sea, to spend a year investigating Earth’s Arctic. Source: https://earthsky.org/human-world/arctic-science-expedition-2019-2020-polarstern…
What climate change in the Arctic means for the rest of us
Air temperatures in the Arctic are increasing at least twice as fast as the global average. What worries climate scientists about the Arctic summer of 2019? And why does it matter for the rest of the world? Source: https://earthsky.org/earth/climate-change-warming-arctic-means-for-the-rest-of-us…