Showing 20 articles starting at article 341

< Previous 20 articles        Next 20 articles >

Categories: Ecology: Trees, Space: The Solar System

Return to the site home page

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Two years after the striking discovery that a near-Earth asteroid could be a chunk of the moon, another UArizona research group has found that a rare pathway could have enabled this to happen.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

By analyzing tiny lunar crystals gathered by Apollo 17 astronauts in 1972, researchers recalculated the age of the Earth's Moon. Although previous assessments estimated the Moon as 4.425 billion years old, the new study discovered it is actually 4.46 billion years old -- 40 million years older than previously thought.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Using satellite images, researchers found that fires in North America's boreal forest may be changing the environment in ways that researchers didn't previously anticipate.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

NASA's James Webb Space Telescope has discovered a new, never-before-seen feature in Jupiter's atmosphere. The high-speed jet stream, which spans more than 3,000 miles (4,800 kilometers) wide, sits over Jupiter's equator above the main cloud decks. The discovery of this jet is giving insights into how the layers of Jupiter's famously turbulent atmosphere interact with each other, and how Webb is uniquely capable of tracking those features.  

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

New research unveils the cascading effects of periodical cicada emergence events on forest ecosystems ahead of an historic convergence of broods set to emerge spring of 2024.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Researchers have harnessed the power of baker's yeast to create a cost-effective and highly efficient approach for unraveling how plants synthesize medicinal compounds, and used the new method to identify key enzymes in a kratom tree.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Study creates a mosquito family tree to better understand disease transmission and host choice.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Using lake sediment cores, scientists determined how these subalpine ecosystems recovered after 4,800 years of fire.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Scientists have announced the results of an unprecedented collaboration to search for the source of the largest ever seismic event recorded on Mars. The study rules out a meteorite impact, suggesting instead that the quake was the result of enormous tectonic forces within Mars' crust.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Using tools hitched to the nose cone of their research planes and sampling more than 11 miles above the planet's surface, researchers have discovered significant amounts of metals in aerosols in the atmosphere, likely from increasingly frequent launches and returns of spacecraft and satellites. That mass of metal is changing atmospheric chemistry in ways that may impact Earth's atmosphere and ozone layer.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

By demonstrating that spaceflight doesn’t adversely affect the magnetism of moon rocks, researchers underscore the exciting potential of studying the magnetic histories stored in these samples.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

A chance social media post by an eagle-eyed amateur astronomer sparked the discovery of an explosive collision between two giant planets, which crashed into each other in a distant space system 1,800 light years away from planet Earth.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Fast radio bursts, or FRBs, are an astronomical mystery, with their exact cause and origins still unconfirmed. These intense bursts of radio energy are invisible to the human eye, but show up brightly on radio telescopes. Previous studies have noted broad similarities between the energy distribution of repeat FRBs, and that of earthquakes and solar flares. However, new research has looked at the time and energy of FRBs and found distinct differences between FRBs and solar flares, but several notable similarities between FRBs and earthquakes. This supports the theory that FRBs are caused by 'starquakes' on the surface of neutron stars. This discovery could help us better understand earthquakes, the behavior of high-density matter and aspects of nuclear physics.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Observations during two flybys by the Mio spacecraft as part of the BepiColombo International Mercury Exploration Project have revealed that chorus waves occur quite locally in the dawn sector of Mercury. Mercury's magnetic field is about 1% of that of Earth, and it was unclear whether chorus waves would be generated like on Earth. The present study reveals that the chorus waves are the driving source of Mercury's X-ray auroras, whose mechanism was not understood.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Astronomers have gotten very good at spotting the signs of planet formation around stars. But for a complete understanding of planet formation, we also need to study examples where planet formation has not yet started. Looking for something and not finding it can be even more difficult than finding it sometimes, but new detailed observations of the young star DG Taurus show that it has a smooth protoplanetary disk without signs of planet formation. This successful non-detection of planet formation may indicate that DG Taurus is on the eve of planet formation.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Scientists have detected the highest energy gamma rays ever from a dead star called a pulsar. The energy of these gamma rays clocked in at 20 tera-electronvolts, or about ten trillion times the energy of visible light. This observation is hard to reconcile with the theory of the production of such pulsed gamma rays, as the international team reports.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

A pair of theoretical physicists are reporting that the same observations inspiring the hunt for a ninth planet might instead be evidence within the solar system of a modified law of gravity originally developed to understand the rotation of galaxies.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

For decades, scientists have assumed that mammals and their relatives that survived challenging times (like those during mass extinctions) made it because they were generalists that were able to eat just about anything and adapt to whatever life threw at them. A new study into the mammal family tree through multiple mass extinctions revealed that the species that survived aren't as generic as scientists had thought: instead, having new and different traits can be the key to succeeding in the aftermath of a catastrophe.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Agriculture in Syria started with a bang 12,800 years ago as a fragmented comet slammed into the Earth’s atmosphere. The explosion and subsequent environmental changes forced hunter-gatherers in the prehistoric settlement of Abu Hureyra to adopt agricultural practices to boost their chances for survival.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

The increasingly urgent climate crisis has led to a boom in commercial tree plantations in an attempt to offset excess carbon emissions. However, authors argue that these carbon-offset plantations might come with costs for biodiversity and other ecosystem functions. Instead, the authors say we should prioritize conserving and restoring intact ecosystems.