Posted by EarthSky Voices in Earth | Human World|5 hours ago
You know the old problem of how to portray the round globe of Earth on a flat map? Now a trio of map experts has worked together to solve this problem. Their new map is 2-sided and round.
To find alien life in our universe, scientists have considered searches for optical lasers or even giant energy-harvesting structures known as Dyson spheres. Now they’re suggesting a more mundane sort of search, a hunt for air pollution in exoplanet atmospheres.
A magnetic reversal 42,000 years ago helped bring about earthly extinctions, scientists said, accompanied by changes in the sky including electrical storms and widespread auroras. “It would have been scary,” they commented.
This Valentine’s Day, we find so much to love in the many heart-shaped objects created by Mother Nature that can be found right here on Earth or all the way to the deepest reaches of the sky.
Posted by Deborah Byrd in Earth | Human World|2 weeks ago
No fatalities were reported in the February 13, 2021, strong earthquake in Japan, which occurred off Japan’s east coast, near the epicenter of the 2011 9.0-magnitude Tohoku earthquake.
2021 has brought a deadly avalanche season. “We’re only halfway through the season and we’re 3/4 of the way to the number of fatalities we’d see in a typical year. The dangerous, record-breaking year keeps avalanche forecasters up at night,” one expert said.
The polar vortex is an enormous, 3-dimensional ring of winds that surrounds the North and South poles during each hemisphere’s winter. The polar vortex influences the jet stream, which can bring cold winter weather to the U.S. and Europe.
Posted by Deanna Conners in Earth | Human World|2 weeks ago
Show your love for birds by joining the 2021 Great Backyard Bird Count. It’s free and easy to participate in this 4-day global event. Find out how here.
Posted by Deborah Byrd in Astronomy Essentials | Earth|3 weeks ago
If you considered only Earth’s brightness, you could still see our world from as far away as the orbit of the 8th planet, Neptune. In practice, though, from that distance, Earth would be lost in the sun’s glare. How does Earth look from space? Spacecraft photos tell the tale.
Posted by Eleanor Imster in Earth | Human World|3 weeks ago
Watch giant pandas Mei Xiang and Tian Tian sliding and rolling around in snow in their habitat at Smithsonian’s National Zoo in Washington in this video.
The 2020 annual count of monarch butterflies in the western United States found shockingly few, confirming fears that the insect is on the brink of extinction.
In 20-million-=year-old rock off the coast of Taiwan, researchers have discovered what they think is the fossilized burrow of a giant, predatory sand worm.
The rate at which ice is disappearing across the planet has been speeding up, by 65% since the 1990s, a survey of global ice loss using European Space Agency satellite data reveals.
Posted by EarthSky Voices in Earth | Human World|1 month ago
On Trump’s way out of the White House, his administration demolished a law that protects migratory birds, putting over 1,000 species at risk. The Biden administration can still salvage it, but only if they act swiftly.
A crack on the Antarctic ice shelf grew dramatically in late 2020 into 2021. Scientists are watching to see if the rapidly accelerating crack will cause the shelf to rip apart before Antarctica’s sunlit summer season – going on now – comes to an end.