As of Tuesday the Curiosity rover has been on Mars for over seven years, and this week NASA shared an interactive 360-degree panorama of the planet’s Teal Ridge. Digital Trends provides this update: Curiosity is halfway along its path through a region called the “clay-bearing unit” because the area has a high level of clay minerals. Clay minerals are of particular…
Tag: storms
Hubble’s new portrait of Jupiter
This new Hubble Space Telescope portrait of Jupiter reveals a smaller-than-usual Great Red Spot and an intense color palette in Jupiter’s swirling clouds. NASA said, “The colors, and their changes, provide important clues to ongoing processes in Jupiter’s atmosphere.” Source: https://earthsky.org/space/new-hubble-portrait-jupiter-june-august-2019…
Cold, dry planets could have a lot of hurricanes
Nearly every atmospheric science textbook ever written will say that hurricanes are an inherently wet phenomenon—they use warm, moist air for fuel. But according to new simulations, the storms can also form in very cold, dry climates. Source: https://phys.org/news/2019-07-cold-planets-lot-hurricanes.html…
Extreme U.S. Weather Brings Power Outages
“Ninety-four million people in parts of 23 states remain under excessive heat warnings and heat advisories on Sunday as one last day of scorching temperatures hits the Midwest and East Coast,” reports ABC News. “Sunday is the last day of oppressive heat, with many places in the Upper Midwest already feeling cooler Sunday morning after heat indices of 115 to 120…
Physicist studying how extreme weather in space affects satellites
A physicist at The University of Texas at Arlington is developing a new scale to measure weather storms in space that could lead to a better understanding of how those storms impact Earth. Source: https://phys.org/news/2019-07-physicist-extreme-weather-space-affects.html…
What Caused the 2019 New York Blackout? Infrastructure.
On Saturday night in New York City a power outage struck Midtown Manhattan, hitting Hell’s Kitchen north to Lincoln Center and from Fifth Avenue west to the Hudson River. The blackout darkened the huge, electric billboards of Times Square, forced Broadway shows to cancel performances, and even disabled some subway lines. But what caused it? From a report: According to reports,…
Dust storms swirl at Mars’ north pole
Over the last month, ESA’s Mars Express has been watching dust storms brew at the planet’s north pole and disperse toward the equator. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/dust-storms-mars-north-pole-images…
Dust storms swirl at the north pole of Mars
ESA’s Mars Express has been keeping an eye on local and regional dust storms brewing at the north pole of the Red Planet over the last month, watching as they disperse towards the equator. Source: https://phys.org/news/2019-07-storms-swirl-north-pole-mars.html…
Details of UK-led solar science mission revealed
Named after a Celtic goddess of the Sun, SULIS is a UK-led solar science mission, designed to answer fundamental questions about the physics of solar storms. The mission consists of a cluster of small satellites and will carefully monitor solar storms using state-of-the-art UK technology, as well as demonstrating new technologies in space. Lead Investigator on the project, Dr. Eamon Scullion…
Citizen scientists discover cyclical pattern of complexity in solar storms
Citizen scientists have discovered that solar storms become more complex as the Sun’s 11-year activity cycle reaches its maximum—a finding which could help forecasters predict which space weather events could have potentially devastating consequences for modern technologies at Earth. Source: https://phys.org/news/2019-07-citizen-scientists-cyclical-pattern-complexity.html…