Atmosphere

Daniel Dolomont, Muneeb Azher, Victoria Vaters and C-CORE vice-president of remote sensing Desmond Power are just a few members of the big team behind the Killick-1 cube satellite. (Submitted by Memorial University)A team of students at Memorial University is counting down to blast-off. The group of engineers designed and built their own satellite, with a plan to monitor climate data and sea ice in Newfoundland and Labrador.Named the Killick-1, the cube satellite is about to be sent into space as part of SpaceX's mission…

By now, most people are well aware that 2023 was the hottest year on record, coming in at 1.48 C warmer than the pre-industrial average from 1850-1900. This beat out 2016's record of 1.25 C.  In climate terms, an increase in warming by 0.23 C is considerable and climate scientists are still trying to figure out why it happened.Was 2023 just a big blip on the upward trend of global warming? Perhaps. Scientists are trying to tease out all the potential contributors.But one of the things that is inarguably a contributor is…

Days after it suffered a critical malfunction, a private U.S. lunar lander ended its mission in a blaze of glory when the company operating it intentionally caused the spacecraft to break apart in Earth’s atmosphere.The lander, called Peregrine, was built and operated by the Pittsburgh-based company Astrobotic, which had hoped to make history by performing the first commercial soft landing on the lunar surface. The spacecraft flew as part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative, which has encouraged…

NASA and Astrobotic’s Peregrine lunar lander was set for a controlled re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere, having successfully collected space data despite not landing on the Moon. (Artist’s concept.) Credit: SciTechDaily.comNASA and Astrobotic’s Peregrine Mission One, initially intended for a lunar landing, was put on a controlled trajectory for re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere on Thursday at 4 p.m. EST. The re-entry point was redirected to the South Pacific to ensure safety. Despite not landing on the Moon, NASA…

The saga of Peregrine is coming to a tragic end, with the lunar lander scheduled for reentry through Earth’s atmosphere after failing to touch down on the Moon.China's Plan to Land Astronauts on the MoonAfter 10 days of journeying through space, Astrobotic has positioned its lunar lander on a trajectory towards Earth to perform a controlled re-entry over a remote area of the South Pacific on Thursday, January 18 around 4:00 p.m. ET, the company wrote in an update.Peregrine launched on January 8 on board United Launch…

A startup developing technology to take planet-heating carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere just signed a deal with a state-owned water utility in South Korea to build a pilot project that combines the new climate tech with seawater desalination. The first-of-its kind collaboration is intended to clean up some of the pollution from a giant hub for petrochemical production nearby, on top of supplying fresh water to heavy industries in the area.Depending on how you look at it, partnerships like this could be an innovative…

Artistic concept of the exoplanet WASP-107b and its parent star. Even though the rather cool host star emits a relatively small fraction of high-energy photons, they can reach deep into the planet’s fluffy atmosphere. Credit: Illustration: LUCA School of Arts, Belgium/ Klaas Verpoest (visuals), Johan Van Looveren (typography). Science: Achrène Dyrek (CEA and Université Paris Cité, France), Michiel Min (SRON, the Netherlands), Leen Decin (KU Leuven, Belgium) / European MIRI EXO GTO team / ESA / NASAObservations with JWST’s…

The crippled Peregrine Moon Lander is heading back toward Earth, and is expected to burn up in the Earth's atmosphere on January 18, 2024. This is the conclusion of the latest tracking data from Astrobotic’s Mission Control Center.Now 242,000 miles (289,000 km) from Earth, Peregrine Mission 1 continues to be one of the most successful failures in space exploration. The lift off that was also the maiden flight of a new class of heavy rocket went off flawlessly, the onboard systems and the raft of experiments are powered up…

It looks like the Peregrine lunar lander’s final resting place will be back at home where it started. The doomed spacecraft, which experienced an anomaly shortly after launch and has been leaking propellant ever since, is expected to burn up in Earth’s atmosphere, Astrobotic wrote in an update on X this weekend. The company plans to host a press conference with NASA on Thursday January 18 at 12PM ET to discuss the lander’s fate.Peregrine has so far hung on much longer than anyone thought it would after the leak was first…

The Rocky Mountains conjure up images of grey rugged peaks capped with white. But within the upper reaches of the harsh mountain landscapes, a rosier hue often blooms.Watermelon snow, also known as glacial blood, is caused by algae that turns the snow a startling shade of red.The algae blooms in summer, forming on the snowfields that linger on glaciers, frozen lakes, rugged peaks and icy valleys in the upper reaches of mountain terrain.The darker the snow, the faster it melts — and new research sheds light on the threat…