This Alien World Is Evaporating Faster Than Any Known Planet
“In only a few billion years from now, half of the planet may be gone.” Continue reading This Alien World Is Evaporating Faster Than Any Known Planet
Tag Archives: Atmosphere
China’s Construction Industry Is Putting Earth’s Ozone Layer Back At Risk
A rise in atmospheric levels of CFC-11, a substance banned by the Montreal Protocol, prompted environmental investigators to find the source. Continue reading China’s Construction Industry Is Putting Earth’s Ozone Layer Back At Risk
The Atmosphere of Venus Is So Thick It Pushes On Mountains to Change How Fast the Planet Spins
Venus’ varying rotational period has always been a mystery for astronomers, but computer simulations show that it may have to do with the planet’s viscous atmosphere on mountains. Continue reading The Atmosphere of Venus Is So Thick It Pushes On Mountains to Change How Fast the Planet Spins
Scientists Successfully Test an Air-Breathing Satellite Thruster
How to make atmospheric drag work for satellites, instead of against them. Continue reading Scientists Successfully Test an Air-Breathing Satellite Thruster
Scientists Successfully Test an Air-Breathing Satellite Thruster
How to make atmospheric drag work for satellites, instead of against them. Continue reading Scientists Successfully Test an Air-Breathing Satellite Thruster
Gaze Deeply Into This NASA Visualization of Global Aerosol Movements
Turns out Earth is just a big lava lamp. Continue reading Gaze Deeply Into This NASA Visualization of Global Aerosol Movements
DIY Barometer: It’s For Your Health!
[Taciuc Marius] and his colleague noticed that days with low atmospheric pressure plus caffeine in their system meant a spike in blood pressure. Considering how this might impact his cardiovascular health, he decided to make a relative pressure barometer out of a jar to help him decide whether he should really have another cup of coffee.
Aside from a 3D printer, you’ll need to assemble a small jar with a lid, some screws, lock washers, nuts, and a flexible membrane — a piece of a rubber glove or balloon will do nicely. [Marius] details the build process on …read more
Crowdsourcing The Study Of An Eclipse’s Effect On Radio Propagation
If you are an American, you’ll probably now find yourself in one of three camps. People who are going to see the upcoming solar eclipse that will traverse your continent, people who aren’t going to see the eclipse, and people who wish everyone would just stop going on incessantly about the damn eclipse.
Whichever of those groups you are in though, there is an interesting project that you can be a part of, an effort from the University of Massachusetts Boston to crowdsource scientific observation of the effect a solar eclipse will have on the upper atmosphere, and in particular …read more
Continue reading Crowdsourcing The Study Of An Eclipse’s Effect On Radio Propagation
Living on Mars: the Stuff You Never Thought About
In The Martian we saw what kind of hacking was needed to stay alive for a relatively short while on Mars, but what if you were trying to live there permanently? Mars’ hostile environment would affect your house, your transportation, even how you communicate. So here’s a fun thought experiment about how you’d live on Mars as part of a larger community.
Not Your Normal House
Radiation on Mars comes from the solar energy particles (SEP) and galactic cosmic radiation (GCR). Mars One, the organization planning one-way trips to Mars talks about covering their habitats in several meters of regolith, …read more
Continue reading Living on Mars: the Stuff You Never Thought About
Growing Plants on Mars… on Earth
One of the biggest challenges of traveling to Mars is that it’s far away. That might seem obvious, but that comes with its own set of problems when compared to traveling to something relatively close like the Moon. The core issue is weight, and this becomes a big deal when you have to feed several astronauts for months or years. If food could be grown on Mars, however, this would make the trip easier to make. This is exactly the problem that [Clinton] is working on with his Martian terrarium, or “marsarium”.
The first task was to obtain some soil …read more
