Category Astronomy/Space

About 700 million years ago, runaway glaciers covered the entire planet in ice. Harvard researchers modeled the conditions that may have led to this so-called ‘snowball Earth.’ Credit: Image courtesy of NASA

Explaining a ‘once-in-a-billion-year event’. What caused the largest glaciation event in Earth’s history, known as ‘snowball Earth’? Geologists and climate scientists have been searching for the answer for years but the root cause of the phenomenon remains elusive. Now, Harvard University researchers have a new hypothesis about what caused the runaway glaciation that covered Earth pole-to-pole in ice. Researchers have pinpointed the start of what’s known as the Sturtian snowball Earth event to about 717 million years ago – give or take a few 100,000 years...

This is a picture of the Northern Lights. Credit: University of Bath

University of Bath researchers have gained new understanding of the Northern Lights, providing an opportunity to develop better satellite technology that can negate outages caused by this natural phenomenon. Previous research has shown that the Northern Lights aka Aurora Borealis interfere with Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) signals which are heavily relied upon in the transport and civil aviation industries. The plasma turbulence within the Northern Lights was traditionally deemed responsible for causing GNSS inaccuracies. However, this latest research found that turbulence does not exist, suggesting new, unknown mechanisms are actually responsible for outages on GNSS signals.

The team observed the Northern L...

The massive black hole shown at left in this drawing is able to rapidly grow as intense radiation from a galaxy nearby shuts down star-formation in its host galaxy.
Credit: John Wise, Georgia Tech

Modeling supports one view of massive black-hole creation in early universe. The appearance of supermassive black holes at the dawn of the universe has puzzled astronomers since their discovery more than a decade ago. A supermassive black hole is thought to form over billions of years, but more than 2 dozen of these behemoths have been sighted within 800 million years of the Big Bang 13.8 billion years ago.

In a new study a team of researchers add evidence to one theory of how these ancient black holes, about a billion times heavier than our sun, may have formed and quickly put on weight...

Artist’s concept of a terraformed Mars (left) and an O’Neill Cylinder. Credit: Ittiz/Wikimedia Commons (left)/Rick Guidice/NASA Ames Research Center (right)

The idea of terraforming Mars – aka “Earth’s Twin” – is a fascinating idea. Between melting the polar ice caps, slowly creating an atmosphere, and then engineering the environment to have foliage, rivers, and standing bodies of water, there’s enough there to inspire just about anyone! But just how long would such an endeavor take, what would it cost us, and is it really an effective use of our time and energy? Such were the questions dealt with by two papers presented at NASA’s “Planetary Science Vision 2050 Workshop”...