Life-hunting Perseverance rover is halfway to Mars

NASA announced that its Perseverance rover mission – which will search for evidence of ancient microbial life on Mars – has now passed the halfway mark in its journey to the planet. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/perservance-rover-halfway-to-mars-nasa-astrobiology…

Climate change impacts astronomical observations

Climate changes associated with global warming can affect astronomical observations. That is the result of a study involving scientists from the University of Cologne. The international research team investigated a range of climate parameters at the Very Large Telescope (VLT) at the Paranal in the Atacama Desert in Chile, where the European Southern Observatory (ESO) operates its telescopes. Among other things,…

LIDAR over Antarctica

A laser shoots into the sky to study the atmosphere at Concordia research station in Antarctica. Source: https://earthsky.org/todays-image/lidar-antarctica-aug202-image…

Saharan-fed sunsets in the US

A massive Saharan dust plume is moving into the southeast US, bringing technicolor sunsets and suppressing tropical storms. Source: https://earthsky.org/earth/saharan-dust-cloud-us-sunsets-june2020…

What is a derecho? An atmospheric scientist explains these rare but dangerous storm systems

The derecho in the U.S. East on June 3, 2020, killed 4 people and left a million without power. A Colorado derecho on June 6 had winds in excess of 100 mph. Europe, Asia and South America also have derechos. Here’s what scientists know about them. Source: https://earthsky.org/earth/what-is-a-derecho-storm-system…

Will Dragonfly find dust devils on Titan?

Earth and Mars both are known to have swirling dust devils moving along their surfaces. Saturn’s large moon Titan might have them, too, according to a new study. If so, NASA’s planned Dragonfly mission will be able to find them. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/saturn-moon-titan-dust-devils-dragonfly…

First-ever measure of brown dwarf wind speed

Using data from both Spitzer and ground-based telescopes, scientists have been able to measure the speed of winds on a brown dwarf for the first time ever. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/brown-dwarf-wind-infrared-radio-spitzer-vla…

Astronomers measure wind speed on a brown dwarf

Astronomers have used the National Science Foundation’s Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) and NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope to make the first measurement of wind speed on a brown dwarf—an object intermediate in mass between a planet and a star. Source: https://phys.org/news/2020-04-astronomers-brown-dwarf.html…

Singapore Airlines Is Using Aeroponics To Upgrade In-Flight Meals

Antony McNeil, Singapore Airlines’ global food and beverage director, is purchasing produce from AeroFarms’ Newark facility, the world’s largest indoor vertical farm. “The 16-year-old agtech startup has taken aeroponics to an industrial scale, growing some 800 varieties of leafy greens, tubers, root crops, vine crops, and berries all without soil, sunshine, or pesticides,” reports Quartz. Thanks to this partnership, “Singapore Airlines…

How does the solar wind affect Earth?

Why should we care about the new findings – released this week – from NASA’s Parker Solar Probe? This new NASA video explains the solar wind – a stream of charged particles from the sun – affects earthly astronauts and technologies. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/solar-wind-affects-earth-video…