Atmosphere

A burst of light from a newborn black hole billions of light-years away in space and time has struck Earth with such power, it rattled the planet's upper atmosphere.The gamma-ray burst GRB 221009A shattered records as it flared in the darkness of space in October 2022 some 2.4 billion light-years from Earth, its light blazing with up to 18 teraelectronvolts of energy in what is regarded as the brightest space explosion ever recorded.Now, scientists have determined that the explosion was so powerful that it caused large…

Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) Wednesday said the cryogenic upper stage of the LVM3 M4 launch vehicle, which successfully injected the Chandrayaan-3…

While air is a gaseous delight unique to Earth, a team of astrophysicists have made a satisfying discovery: the direct observation of atomic oxygen on Venus’ dayside, confirming that the element crucial for our existence exists on both sides of the hellish planet.NASA Delays Return to Earth's Evil Twin, VenusAbout 96% of the atmosphere on the second planet from the Sun is made up of carbon dioxide, a smidge of other gasses including nitrogen, and practically no oxygen. But there is some oxygen, and some of the element was…

Sucking planet-heating carbon dioxide of the atmosphere doesn’t reverse all the effects of climate change, new research tells us. Carbon dioxide removal, as it’s called, can sound like science fiction — but many companies are already counting on it to undo some of the damage caused by their pollution.Companies might try to prevent their greenhouse gas emissions altogether, or they might try to clean it up after the fact. That’s why we’re seeing all kinds of brands, from Microsoft to the Houston Texans, saying that they’ll…

Cover of Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society (July issue). Credit: BAMS A publication on early results from the Collaborative Research Center (CRC) on climate change in the Arctic appears in Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society. The CRC Transregio, led by the meteorologist Professor Manfred Wendisch from…

Astronomers have discovered multiple rock-forming elements vaporized in the atmosphere of WASP-76b, a hot Jupiter-sized exoplanet, offering new insights into planetary formation. The detected elements, including a first-ever unambiguous detection of vanadium oxide, suggest gas giants might form similarly to star formation rather than gradual accumulation of dust and rocks. These findings could potentially revolutionize our understanding of the formation of our own Solar System’s gas giants.Chemistry of so-called ‘hot…

A solar storm this week means the Northern Lights are taking a trip south. The celestial display, also known as the Aurora Borealis, is expected to be visible in more than a dozen U.S. states on Thursday night, according to the Aurora forecast from the University of Alaska Fairbanks’ Geophysical Institute.What Is Planet Nine and Why Can’t We Find It?The Kp-index, a global measure of geomagnetic activity, goes from zero to nine. On July 13, it is expected to hit six. Anything above a four is considered a storm, and a six…

The global averageatmospheric temperature on Tuesday, July 4, was 62.9 degrees Fahrenheit, breaking the previous record of 62.6 degrees on July 3, according to data that is collected daily by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and compiled by the University of Maine. In a separate assessment released Thursday, the Copernicus Climate Change Service, a division of the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, found that June 2023 was the hottest June…

Meteor-like fireballs in the atmosphere of the Sun rain down like showers of shooting stars during the phenomenon of coronal rain, scientists have found.However, rather than the detritus of passing comets or asteroids, the Sun's "meteors" consist of balls of plasma that heat the gas in the atmosphere around them as they fall back down to the solar surface at speeds as fast as 150 kilometers (93 miles) per second.The discovery of these details, led by solar physicist Patrick Antolin of Northumbria University in the UK,…

Radiative effect of SLH on gas and aerosol SLCF. Credit: Nature (2023). DOI: 10.1038/s41586-023-06119-z An international team of chemists and climate scientists, has conducted an assessment of the impact of short-lived halogens (SLHs) on Earth's atmosphere and are suggesting that their findings indicate that such gases should be included in climate models. …