Greenbelt MD (SPX) Jan 19, 2023 After 30 years in orbit, mission operations for the joint NASA-JAXA Geotail spacecraft have ended, after the failure of the spacecraft’s remaining data recorder. Since its launch on July 24, 1992, Geotail orbited Earth, gathering an immense dataset on the structure and dynamics of the magnetosphere, Earth’s protective magnetic bubble. Geotail was originally slated for a four-year run, buthttp://dlvr.it/ShB1jn Continue reading Geotail operations come to an end after 30 years

On The Shanghai-Wuhan Train, China (AFP) Jan 20, 2023 Piling onto a packed train, factory owner Wang Chunfeng was among millions of Chinese looking to make up for lost time this Lunar New Year after years of pandemic-enforced separation from his family. China will this weekend usher in the Year of the Rabbit, kicking off “Spring Festival” and the most important annual family gathering. With … Continue reading ‘We can’t wait!’: Jubilant Chinese head home for Lunar New Year

Beijing (XNA) Jan 18, 2023 China’s Ministry of Science and Technology issued a 2022 annual report on the remote sensing monitoring of the global ecological environment on Tuesday in Beijing. The report contains two topics of “ice, snow, and vegetation change in the Arctic region” and “the production situation of global bulk grain and oil crops and the contribution of multiple cropping and irrigation.” The … Continue reading China releases report on remote sensing monitoring for global ecology

Toulouse, France (SPX) Jan 19, 2023 The impact of climate change is one of the most severe challenges of the 21st century. It is therefore of high importance to understand the underlying processes and causalities. A powerful tool to gain this vital knowledge on a global scale is the satellite-based observation of changes in Earth’s mass distribution e.g. from melting glaciers or loss of groundwater. … Continue reading Towards climate studies using quantum technologies

Providence RI (SPX) Jan 19, 2023 When the rigid plates that make up the Earth’s lithosphere brush against one another, they often form visible boundaries, known as faults, on the planet’s surface. Strike-slip faults, such as the San Andreas Fault in California or the Denali Fault in Alaska, are among the most well-known and capable of seriously powerful seismic activity. Studying these faults can help … Continue reading Researchers uncover secrets on how Alaska’s Denali Fault formed

Los Angeles (AFP) Jan 18, 2023 A polar bear killed a young woman and her baby son in a remote area of Alaska, police said, in a rare attack by an animal battling the worst effects of human-caused climate change. Police said the bear roamed into the tiny community of Wales on the far western coast of America’s wildest state, where it began chasing people. … Continue reading Polar bear kills woman and baby in remote Alaskan village

Talagante, Chile (AFP) Jan 18, 2023 Alhue and Mailen were born in captivity but conservationists hope to free the chicks soon as part of a project to boost Chile’s ailing population of Andean condors. The Andean condor, a type of vulture, is the largest flying bird in the world but its population is considered “vulnerable” by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature’s Red … Continue reading Chile preparing threatened condor chicks for release into wild

Los Angeles CA (SPX) Jan 18, 2023 A new study shows that global atmospheric dust – microscopic airborne particles from desert dust storms – has a slight overall cooling effect on the planet that has hidden the full amount of warming caused by greenhouse gases. The UCLA research, published in Nature Reviews Earth and Environment, found that the amount of desert dust has grown roughly … Continue reading Increased atmospheric dust is masking greenhouse gases’ warming effect

Trondheim, Norway (SPX) Jan 17, 2023 The more-than 1.2 million km of fibre-optic cables that criss-cross the planet carry the world’s phone calls, internet signals and data. But this summer, researchers published the eerie sounds of blue and fin whales detected by a fibre-optic cable on the west coast of Svalbard – a first. Now the researchers want to eavesdrop on an even larger beast … Continue reading Eavesdropping on the Earth itself

Cambridge UK (SPX) Jan 17, 2023 An international team of researchers has combined satellite imagery and climate and ocean records to obtain the most detailed understanding yet of how the West Antarctic Ice Sheet – which contains enough ice to raise global sea level by 3.3 metres – is responding to climate change. The researchers, from the University of Cambridge, the University of Edinburgh and … Continue reading Runaway West Antarctic ice retreat can be slowed by climate-driven ocean temps