ammonia tagged posts

Breaking Ammonia: A New Catalyst to Generate Hydrogen from Ammonia at Low Temperatures

Ammonia, a carbon-free resource can be split into nitrogen and hydrogen gas with the help of metal catalysts like Nickel (Ni). However, these reactions often require very high operating temperatures. Now scientists have developed a highly efficient calcium imide (CaNH)-supported Ni catalyst that can decompose ammonia at temperatures 100°C lower than what conventional Ni catalysts require. This promising new catalyst can get us closer to sustainably producing hydrogen fuel.

The current global climate emergency and our rapidly receding energy resources have people looking out for cleaner alternatives like hydrogen fuel. When burnt in the presence of oxygen, hydrogen gas generates huge amounts of energy but none of the harmful greenhouse gases, unlike fossil fuels...

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First Transiting Exoplanet’s ‘Chemical Fingerprint’ reveals its Distant Birthplace

Exoplanet HD 209458b transits its star. The illuminated crescent and its colours have been exaggerated to illustrate the light spectra that the astronomers used to identify the six molecules in its atmosphere.

Astronomers have found evidence that the first exoplanet that was identified transiting its star could have migrated to a close orbit with its star from its original birthplace further away.

Analysis of the planet’s atmosphere by a team including University of Warwick scientists has identified the chemical fingerprint of a planet that formed much further away from its sun than it currently resides...

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Ammonia Sparks unexpected, exotic Lightning on Jupiter

illustration used data obtained by NASA’s Juno mission to depict high-altitude electrical storms
This illustration used data obtained by NASA’s Juno mission to depict high-altitude electrical storms on Jupiter. Juno’s sensitive Stellar Reference Unit camera detected unusual lightning flashes on the planet’s dark side during the spacecraft’s close flybys of the planet.

NASA’s Juno spacecraft – orbiting and closely observing the planet Jupiter – has unexpectedly discovered lightning in the planet’s upper atmosphere, according to a multi-institutional study led by the NASA/Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), which includes two Cornell University researchers.

Jupiter’s gaseous atmosphere seems placid from a distance, but up close the clouds roil in a turbulent, chemically dynamic realm...

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New Radio Map of Jupiter reveals what’s beneath Colorful Clouds

The VLA radio map of the region around the Great Red Spot in Jupiter's atmosphere shows complex upwellings and downwellings of ammonia gas (upper map), that shape the colorful cloud layers seen in the approximately true-color Hubble map (lower map). Two radio wavelengths are shown in blue (2 cm) and gold (3 cm), probing depths of 30-90 kilometers below the clouds. Credit: Radio: Michael H. Wong, Imke de Pater (UC Berkeley), Robert J. Sault (Univ. Melbourne). Optical: NASA, ESA, A.A. Simon (GSFC), M.H. Wong (UC Berkeley), and G.S. Orton (JPL-Caltech)

The VLA radio map of the region around the Great Red Spot in Jupiter’s atmosphere shows complex upwellings and downwellings of ammonia gas (upper map), that shape the colorful cloud layers seen in the approximately true-color Hubble map (lower map). Two radio wavelengths are shown in blue (2 cm) and gold (3 cm), probing depths of 30-90 kilometers below the clouds. Credit: Radio: Michael H. Wong, Imke de Pater (UC Berkeley), Robert J. Sault (Univ. Melbourne). Optical: NASA, ESA, A.A. Simon (GSFC), M.H. Wong (UC Berkeley), and G.S. Orton (JPL-Caltech)

Astronomers using the upgraded Karl G...

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