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Earth’s Magnetosphere: Protecting Our Planet from Harmful Space Radiation

Schematic illustration of Earth’s magnetic field. Credit: Peter Reid, The University of Edinburgh Among the four rocky planets in our solar system, you could say that Earth’s “magnetic” personality is the envy of her interplanetary neighbors. When solar material streams strike Earth’s magnetosphere, they can become trapped and held in two donut-shaped belts around the planet called the Van Allen Belts. The belts restrain the particles to travel along Earth’s magnetic field lines, continually bouncing back and forth from pole to pole. This video illustrates changes in the shape and intensity of a cross section of the Van Allen Belts.…

Satellite Observations Near Key U.S. Ports Show Unusual Shipping Activity and Backlogs May Be Affecting Air Quality

October 1 – 23, 2021 Scientific Questions Arrive in Ports Satellite observations of nitrogen dioxide near key U.S. ports suggest that increased shipping activity and backlogs may be affecting air quality. In October 2021, natural-color images from the Landsat and Terra satellites returned striking views of record-breaking backlogs of container ships idling offshore of some of America’s largest ports. Surging demand for consumer goods, labor and equipment shortages, and an array of COVID-related supply chain snarls have contributed to the backlogs. Now atmospheric scientists are working with air pollution data collected by satellites to find out whether the unusual shipping activity is affecting air quality near…

What’s Causing the Mysterious Radio Waves Coming From the Heart of the Milky Way?

Lead Image: Artist’s impression of the oscillating, variable radio signal ASKAP J173608.2-321635 arriving at Earth from towards the center of the Milky Way. Credit: Sebastian Zentilomo/University of Sydney The center of the Milky Way is a mysterious place. Astronomers think there’s a supermassive black hole there, though it could be dark matter instead. The region is densely packed with stars, dominated by red giants. And because of all the dust between Earth and the galactic center, we can’t see anything with visible light, ultraviolet light, or low-energy x-rays. But we can detect radio waves, and there are some unexplained ones…

NASA’s Juno Probe Offers First 3D View of Jupiter’s Atmosphere, Inner Workings of Great Red Spot

Lead Image: Jupiter’s banded appearance is created by the cloud-forming “weather layer.” This composite image shows views of Jupiter in (left to right) infrared and visible light taken by the Gemini North telescope and NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, respectively. Credit: International Gemini Observatory/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/NASA/ESA, M.H. Wong and I. de Pater (UC Berkeley) et al. New findings from NASA’s Juno probe orbiting Jupiter provide a fuller picture of how the planet’s distinctive and colorful atmospheric features offer clues about the unseen processes below its clouds. The results highlight the inner workings of the belts and zones of clouds encircling Jupiter, as well…

A Particle Physics Experiment May Have Directly Observed Dark Energy

About 25 years ago, astrophysicists noticed something very interesting about the Universe. The fact that it was in a state of expansion had been known since the 1920s, thanks to the observation of Edwin Hubble. But thanks to the observations astronomers were making with the space observatory that bore his name (the Hubble Space Telescope), they began to notice how the rate of cosmic expansion was getting faster! This has led to the theory that the Universe is filled with an invisible and mysterious force, known as Dark Energy (DE). Decades after it was proposed, scientists are still trying to…