Earth’s volatile elements (H, C, and N) are essential to maintaining habitable conditions for metazoans and simpler life forms. However, identifying the sources (comets, meteorites, and trapped nebular gas) that […]
climate
Posted inMars
Unusual Greenhouse Gases – Raising Ancient Martian Temperature?
Much like the Grand Canyon, Nanedi Valles snakes across the Martian surface suggesting that liquid water once crossed the landscape, according to a team of researchers who believe that molecular […]
Posted inHabitable Zones
Evaluating Solutions to the Faint Young Sun Problem
During the Archean eon, between about 3.8 billion years ago and 2.5 billion years ago, the Sun was about 20 to 25 percent fainter than it is today. With less […]
Posted inHabitable Zones, Radiation
The Possible Effect of Cosmic Rays on Terrestrial Climate
The problem of the contribution of cosmic rays to climate change is a continuing one and one of importance. In principle, at least, the recent results from the CLOUD project […]
Posted inHabitable Zones
Planetary Runaway Greenhouse More Easily Triggered
It might be easier than previously thought for a planet to overheat into the scorchingly uninhabitable “runaway greenhouse” stage, according to new research by astronomers at the University of Washington […]
Posted inAtmospheres, Climate, Weather, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Gaia - Planetary Perspectives, Icy Worlds, Press Release
Early Earth May Have Been Prone to Deep Freezes
Two University of Colorado Boulder researchers who have adapted a three-dimensional, general circulation model of Earth’s climate to a time some 2.8 billion years ago when the sun was significantly […]
Posted inAtmospheres, Climate, Weather, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Habitable Zones, Icy Worlds, Mars, Meteorites & Asteroids, Press Release
Taking The Temperature Of Mars’ Past
Researchers at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) have directly determined the surface temperature of early Mars for the first time, providing evidence that’s consistent with a warmer and wetter […]
Posted inComets and Asteroids, Extinction events, Impact events, Press Release
Ocean Asteroid Impact Could Deplete Earth’s Protective Ozone Layer for Years
An asteroid crashing into the deep ocean could have dramatic worldwide environmental effects including depleting the Earth’s protective ozone layer for several years, a Planetary Science Institute researcher has found.