Our Earth is currently working its way toward being the exact opposite of a snowball Earth as we see glaciers and ice caps receding across the planet. This is fundamentally changing our landscape and how we as humans interact with that landscape. These changes are most evident in the northern, Arctic landscapes of Alaska, Scandinavia, and Siberia where indigenous people’s have lived in close contact with the land, and rely on permafrost for refrigeration and frozen waterways for transit. As permafrost melts weird stuff is happening. From amazing frozen animals being revealed, to...
Stars are Messy Cannibals
This image, taken with the VLT Survey Telescope hosted at ESO’s Paranal Observatory, shows the beautiful nebula NGC 6164/6165, also known as the Dragon’s Egg. The nebula is a cloud of gas and dust surrounding a pair of stars called HD 148937. Credit: ESO/VPHAS+ team....
The Dying Sun will Take Out the Earth
Clumps of debris from a disrupted planetesimal are irregularly spaced on a long and eccentric orbit around the white dwarf. Individual clouds of rubble intermittently pass in front of the white dwarf, blocking some of its light. Because of the various sizes of the...
When the Sun Zots the Trees That’s a Scary Storm, Eh?
Our planet is constantly changing under the forces of humans, geology, and even the Sun. And while we can see what humans do daily and what geology does through quakes and eruptions almost weekly, catching the Sun being its bad self is a lot harder because it’s a lot...
Unexpectedly on the Endangered List: Antarctic Meteorites
Solar radiation heating the surface of a blue ice area. Photo taken during the 2023-2024 fieldwork mission of the Instituto Antártico Chileno (INACH) to Union Glacier, Ellsworth Mountains, Antarctica. Credit: Veronica Tollenaar, Université Libre de Bruxelles. As...
Invasive Species Boldly Go Where No Plant has Gone Before
Nordenskjöld glacier viewed from where its ice front was located in 2017. Credit: Dr Pierre Tichit Global travel and trade are making it easier and easier for invasive species to make their way to new parts of the world, including places where little to no life was...
Watching Atoms Escape Venus
This image was processed from archived Mariner 10 data by JPL engineer Kevin M. Gill. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech Atmospheres are what make a planet good or evil for life. One of the questions I get asked most often is, “Can we terraform Venus to be like Earth?” Sure!...
Catch the (Alien) Rainbow
Each glory is unique, depending on the composition of the planet’s atmosphere and the colors of the light from the star that illuminates it. WASP-76 (the «Sun» of WASP-76b) is a yellow and white main sequence star like our Sun, but different stars create glories with...
Dear Future Self: Let’s Talk Climate Change
Credit: NOAA Recent research published in Science Advances and led by Madalina Vlascenu finds that when it comes to climate change, we can’t scare people straight. Stories of gloom and doom focused on the fate of our world don’t inspire people to change their ways and...
Closer Look: Following the Water Toward Climate Change
Image by Etienne Marais from Pixabay I’ve lived in my home for 17 years, which is the longest I’ve ever lived in one place. I like to garden, I participate in outdoor sports that are year-round, and this long-for-me timeline and familiarity with the outdoors means...
It’s a Star-Eat-Planet Universe Out There
Artist's impression of a terrestrial planet being captured by a twin star. Credit: intouchable, OPENVERSE Data, at the end of the day, is our first and last source of understanding. We look, build models to match what we see, predict things we haven’t seen yet, and...