Topic: Nature Geoscience

NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter confirms Liquid Flowing Water on Mars

September 29, 2015 |

Written by Guy Webster / DC Agle
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Pasadena, CA – New findings from NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) provide the strongest evidence yet that liquid water flows intermittently on present-day Mars.

Using an imaging spectrometer on MRO, researchers detected signatures of hydrated minerals on slopes where mysterious streaks are seen on the Red Planet. These darkish streaks appear to ebb and flow over time.

They darken and appear to flow down steep slopes during warm seasons, and then fade in cooler seasons. They appear in several locations on Mars when temperatures are above minus 10 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 23 Celsius), and disappear at colder times.

Dark, narrow streaks on Martian slopes such as these at Hale Crater are inferred to be formed by seasonal flow of water on contemporary Mars. The streaks are roughly the length of a football field. (NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona)

«Read the rest of this article»

NASA’s Mars Curiosity rover measurements of Weather, Soil reveals possibility of Liquid Brine on Mars

April 16, 2015 |

Written by Guy Webster

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Pasadena, CA – Martian weather and soil conditions that NASA’s Curiosity rover has measured, together with a type of salt found in Martian soil, could put liquid brine in the soil at night.

Perchlorate identified in Martian soil by the Curiosity mission, and previously by NASA’s Phoenix Mars Lander mission, has properties of absorbing water vapor from the atmosphere and lowering the freezing temperature of water. This has been proposed for years as a mechanism for possible existence of transient liquid brines at higher latitudes on modern Mars, despite the Red Planet’s cold and dry conditions.

The Rover Environmental Monitoring Station (REMS) on NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover includes temperature and humidity sensors mounted on the rover’s mast. One of the REMS booms extends to the left from the mast in this view. (NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS)

«Read the rest of this article»

NASA’s Cassini spacecraft data helps Scientists solve mystery behind Saturn’s Storms

April 15, 2015 |

Written by Preston Dyches
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Pasadena, CA – The long-standing mystery of why Saturn seethes with enormous storms every 30 years may have been solved by scientists working with data from NASA’s Cassini mission. The tempests, which can grow into bright bands that encircle the entire planet, are on a natural timer that is reset by each subsequent storm, the researchers report.

In 140 years of telescope observations, great storms have erupted on Saturn six times. Cassini and observers on Earth tracked the most recent of these storms from December 2010 to August 2011. During that time, the storm exploded through the clouds, eventually winding its way around Saturn.

This series of images from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft shows the development of a huge storm of the type that erupts about every 30 years on Saturn. (NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI)

«Read the rest of this article»

NASA and University of Texas researchers find two seafloor troughs that could threaten East Antarctica Glacier

March 17, 2015 |

Written by Alan Buis
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Pasadena, CA – Researchers at the University of Texas at Austin, NASA and other research organizations have discovered two seafloor troughs that could allow warm ocean water to reach the base of Totten Glacier, East Antarctica’s largest and most rapidly thinning glacier.

The discovery likely explains the glacier’s extreme thinning and raises concern about its impact on sea level rise.

This is the East Antarctic coastline. Icebergs are highlighted by the sunlight, and the open ocean appears black. (NASA)

«Read the rest of this article»

NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter discovers younger than expected Volcanic Activity on the Moon

October 14, 2014 |

Written by Tony Phillips
Science at NASA

Washington, D.C. – NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) has provided researchers strong evidence the moon’s volcanic activity slowed gradually instead of stopping abruptly a billion years ago. Scores of distinctive rock deposits observed by LRO are estimated to be less than 100 million years old.

This time period corresponds to Earth’s Cretaceous period, the heyday of dinosaurs. Some areas may be less than 50 million years old.

“This finding is the kind of science that is literally going to make geologists rewrite the textbooks about the moon,” said John Keller, LRO project scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

The feature called Maskelyne is one of many newly discovered young volcanic deposits on the Moon. Called irregular mare patches, these areas are thought to be remnants of small basaltic eruptions that occurred much later than the commonly accepted end of lunar volcanism, 1 to 1.5 billion years ago. (NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University)

«Read the rest of this article»

NASA’s Galileo spacecraft images give scientists evidence of plate tectonics on Jupiter’s moon Europa

September 9, 2014 |

Written by Preston Dyches
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Pasadena, CA – Scientists have found evidence of plate tectonics on Jupiter’s moon Europa. This indicates the first sign of this type of surface-shifting geological activity on a world other than Earth.

Researchers have clear visual evidence of Europa’s icy crust expanding. However, they could not find areas where the old crust was destroyed to make room for the new.

Scientists have found evidence of plate tectonics on Jupiter’s moon Europa. This conceptual illustration of the subduction process (where one plate is forced under another) shows how a cold, brittle, outer portion of Europa’s 20-30 kilometer-thick (roughly 10-20 mile) ice shell moved into the warmer shell interior and was ultimately subsumed. A low-relief subsumption band was created at the surface in the overriding plate, alongside which cryolavas may have erupted. (Noah Kroese, I.NK)

«Read the rest of this article»

NASA’s Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) satellites data reveals River Areas Flood Potential

July 14, 2014 |

Written by Alan Buis
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Pasadena, CA – Every year, river flooding takes a heavy toll of lives and property damage in the United States. A new study has found that the potential of a river basin to flood can be assessed months in advance of flood season by using data from NASA’s Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) twin satellites. The new finding could eventually lead to longer lead times for flood warnings.

“Case studies of the catastrophic Missouri River floods of 2011 show that flood-potential early warning times could be increased by a couple of seasons using these satellite data,” said co-author Jay Famiglietti.

The flooded confluence of the Nishnabotna and Missouri Rivers in Iowa, June 2011. A study of the 2011 Missouri River Basin floods has shown that NASA satellite data can help predict the potential of a river basin to flood as much as 11 months in advance of flood season. (U.S. Army Corps of Engineers)

«Read the rest of this article»

NASA scientists study changes to Earth’s Ozone levels

April 28, 2014 |

Written by Alan Buis
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Pasadena, CA – New NASA research on natural ozone cycles suggests ozone levels in the lowest part of Earth’s atmosphere probably won’t be affected much by projected future strengthening of the circulating winds that transport ozone between Earth’s two lowest atmospheric layers.

The finding is good news, since human and plant health are harmed by exposure to ozone near the ground. Significant increases in ozone in Earth’s lowest atmospheric layer, the troposphere, would also lead to additional climate warming because ozone is a greenhouse gas.

Astronauts aboard the International Space Station captured this photograph of Earth’s atmospheric layers on July 31, 2011, revealing the troposphere (orange-red) to the stratosphere and above. Earth-observing instruments in space allow scientists to better understand the chemistry and dynamics occurring within and between these layers. (NASA/JSC Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth)

«Read the rest of this article»

Global ocean currents explain why the Northern Hemisphere is the soggier one

By Bill Larson | October 21, 2013 |

A quick glance at a world precipitation map shows that most tropical rain falls in the Northern Hemisphere. The Palmyra Atoll, at 6 degrees north, gets 175 inches of rain a year, while an equal distance on the opposite side of the equator gets only 45 inches. Scientists long believed that this was a quirk of the Earth’s geometry – that the ocean basins tilting diagonally while the planet spins pushed tropical rain bands north of the equator. But a new University of Washington study shows that the pattern arises from ocean currents originating from the poles, thousands of miles away.

The findings, published Oct. 20 in Nature Geoscience, explain a fundamental feature of the planet’s climate, and show that icy waters affect seasonal rains that are crucial for growing crops in such places as Africa’s Sahel region and southern India.

At the left is observations of average annual precipitation. The right is simulated precipitation with ocean conveyor-belt circulation turned off. (D. Frierson/UW)

«Read the rest of this article»

Lunar Research funded by NASA detects Water on Moon’s Surface and possible Water underneath

August 31, 2013 |

Pasadena, CA – NASA-funded lunar research has yielded evidence of water locked in mineral grains on the surface of the moon from an unknown source deep beneath the surface.

Using data from NASA’s Moon Mineralogy Mapper (M3) instrument aboard the Indian Space Research Organization’s Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft, scientists remotely detected magmatic water, or water that originates from deep within the moon’s interior, on the surface of the moon.

This image of the moon was generated by data collected by NASA’s Moon Mineralogy Mapper on the Indian Space Research Organization’s Chandrayaan-1 mission. It is a three-color composite of reflected near-infrared radiation from the sun, and illustrates the extent to which different materials are mapped across the side of the moon that faces Earth. (Image credit: ISRO/NASA/JPL-Caltech/Brown Univ./USGS)

«Read the rest of this article»

© 2006-2021 Clarksville, TN Online is owned and operated by residents of Clarksville Tennessee.
» We are Hosted by Compu-Net Enterprises; In Partnership with Discover Clarksville and Discover Paris