news from the lab

Physics/Astronomy - Earth Sciences - 21.02
Hubble Reveals a New Type of Planet
Cambridge, MA - Our solar system contains three types of planets: rocky, terrestrial worlds (Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars), gas giants (Jupiter and Saturn), and ice giants (Uranus and Neptune). Planets orbiting distant stars come in an even wider variety, including lava worlds and "hot Jupiters." Observations by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope have added a new type of planet to the mix.

Physics/Astronomy - Earth Sciences - 29.01
Astronomers solve mystery of vanishing electrons
Researchers have explained the puzzling disappearing act of energetic electrons in Earth's outer radiation belt, using data collected from a fleet of orbiting spacecraft. The team shows that the missing electrons are swept away from the planet by a tide of solar wind particles during periods of heightened solar activity.

Environmental Sciences - Earth Sciences - 25.01
Injecting sulfate particles into stratosphere won’t fully offset climate change
As the reality and the impact of climate warming have become clearer in the last decade, researchers have looked for possible engineering solutions – such as removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere or directing the sun's heat away from Earth – to help offset rising temperatures.

Physics/Astronomy - Earth Sciences - 12.01
Quasicrystal is extraterrestrial in origin, Princeton researchers find
by Catherine Zandonella A rare and exotic mineral, so unusual that it was thought impossible to exist, came to Earth on a meteorite, according to an international team of researchers led by Princeton University scientists.

Physics/Astronomy - Earth Sciences - 4.01
New Computer Model Explains Lakes and Storms on Titan
Saturn's largest moon, Titan, is an intriguing, alien world that's covered in a thick atmosphere with abundant methane. With an average surface temperature of a brisk -300 degrees Fahrenheit (about 90 kelvins) and a diameter just less than half of Earth's, Titan boasts methane clouds and fog, as well as rainstorms and plentiful lakes of liquid methane.

Environmental Sciences - Earth Sciences - 1.12.2011
CO2 levels plunged as Antarctica froze
A Yale University-led research team has found evidence that carbon dioxide levels in Earth's atmosphere plunged prior to and during the initial icing of Antarctica, about 34 million years ago. The new findings provide further evidence of atmospheric carbon dioxide's role as a major trigger of global climate change.

Earth Sciences - Environmental Sciences - 17.11.2011
Massive volcanoes, meteorite impacts delivered one-two death punch to dinosaurs
by Morgan Kelly A cosmic one-two punch of colossal volcanic eruptions and meteorite strikes likely caused the mass-extinction event at the end of the Cretaceous period that is famous for killing the dinosaurs 65 million years ago, according to two Princeton University reports that reject the prevailing theory that the extinction was caused by a single large meteorite.

Physics/Astronomy - Earth Sciences - 15.11.2011
Ancient moth’s true colors
A research team led by Yale University scientists has for the first time determined the original colors of an ancient moth, based on nearly 50 million-year-old fossils from Germany. The discovery could help scientists learn the colors of a wide variety of long-extinct creatures, including birds, fishes, and other insects, and shed light on color's function and evolution.

Environmental Sciences - Earth Sciences - 4.11.2011
Climate engineers weigh the risks of "planet hacking" projects
Research investigates how well solar radiation management would combat climate change November 3, 2011 - Let there be no doubt: sun blockers and cloud-seeding machines exist only in the future, in hypotheticals and backup plans.

Physics/Astronomy - Earth Sciences - 12.10.2011
Wet and Mild: Caltech Researchers Take the Temperature of Mars’s 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 Martian past.

Physics/Astronomy - Earth Sciences - 29.09.2011
NASA Space Telescope Finds Fewer Asteroids Near Earth
PASADENA, Calif. - New observations by NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE, show there are significantly fewer near-Earth asteroids in the mid-size range than previously thought. The findings also indicate NASA has found more than 90 percent of the largest near-Earth asteroids, meeting a goal agreed to with Congress in 1998.

Environmental Sciences - Earth Sciences - 22.09.2011
Model provides successful seasonal forecast for the fate of Arctic sea ice
Relatively accurate predictions for the extent of Arctic sea ice in a given summer can be made by assessing conditions the previous autumn, but forecasting conditions more than five years into the future depend on understanding the impact of climate trends on the ice pack, new research shows.

Chemistry - Earth Sciences - 5.08.2011
Tracking Manmade Biofuels in Atmosphere
Scientists have discovered a technique to track urban atmospheric plumes, thanks to a unique isotopic signature found in vehicle emissions. Brian Giebel, a marine and atmospheric chemistry graduate student working with University of Miami researchers Daniel Riemer and Peter Swart, discovered that ethanol mixed in vehicle fuel is not completely burned, and that ethanol released in the engine's exhaust has a higher 13C to 12C ratio when compared to natural emissions from most living plants.

Earth Sciences - Life Sciences - 19.07.2011
A toothy grin only a palaeontologist could love
McGill and University of São Paulo researchers identify new species of 70-million-year-old crocodile - with really big teeth and dog-shaped head To McGill palaeontology professor Hans Larsson, his graduate student Felipe Montefeltro and Professor Max Langer of the University of Sao Paulo, a recently discovered crocodile fossil head looks like a dog.

Chemistry - Earth Sciences - 29.06.2011
SLAC scientists discover patterns in the plumage of the first birds
Synchrotron rapid scanning x-ray fluorescence image of the calcium distribution in a fossil specimen of Confuciusornis sanctus, an ~120 million year old avian species, the oldest documented to... ( Image created by Gregory Stewart, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory.