News tagged with atmosphere
Voyager 1 hits new region at solar system edge
(PhysOrg.com) -- NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft has entered a new region between our solar system and interstellar space. Data obtained from Voyager over the last year reveal this new region to be a kind of cosmic ...
Space & Earth / Space Exploration
Dec 05, 2011 |
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Huge tornadoes discovered on the Sun
(PhysOrg.com) -- Solar tornadoes several times as wide as the Earth can be generated in the solar atmosphere, say researchers in the UK. A solar tornado was discovered using the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly ...
Space & Earth / Space Exploration
Mar 29, 2012 |
4.8 / 5 (37) |
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In distance space, a water world: Hubble reveals a new class of extrasolar planet
(PhysOrg.com) -- An international team of astronomers led by Zachory Berta of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) made the observations of the planet GJ 1214b.
Feb 21, 2012 |
4.8 / 5 (24) |
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A new kind of metal in the deep Earth
(PhysOrg.com) -- The crushing pressures and intense temperatures in Earth's deep interior squeeze atoms and electrons so closely together that they interact very differently. With depth materials change. New ...
Dec 19, 2011 |
4.9 / 5 (21) |
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Bus-sized asteroid shaves by Earth
An asteroid about the size of a bus shaved by Earth on Friday in what spacewatchers described as a "near-miss," though experts were not concerned about the possibility of an impact.
Space & Earth / Space Exploration
Jan 28, 2012 |
4.6 / 5 (21) |
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Start of 2012, March shatter US heat records
(AP) -- It has been so warm in the United States this year, especially in March, that national records were not just broken, they were deep-fried.
Apr 09, 2012 |
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Climate sensitivity to CO2 more limited than extreme projections: research
A new study suggests that the rate of global warming from doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide may be less than the most dire estimates of some previous studies – and, in fact, may be less severe than projected by ...
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Nov 24, 2011 |
4.8 / 5 (16) |
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Life possible on 'large parts' of Mars: study
Australian scientists who modelled conditions on Mars to examine how much of the red planet was habitable said that "large regions" could sustain life.
Space & Earth / Space Exploration
Dec 12, 2011 |
4.8 / 5 (16) |
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Food crops damaged by pollution crossing continents
(PhysOrg.com) -- Man-made air pollution from North America causes Europe to lose 1.2 million tonnes of wheat a year, a new study has found.
Jan 30, 2012 |
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Study: Arctic sea ice decline may be driving snowy winters seen in recent years
A new study led by the Georgia Institute of Technology provides further evidence of a relationship between melting ice in the Arctic regions and widespread cold outbreaks in the Northern Hemisphere. The study's ...
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Feb 27, 2012 |
4.1 / 5 (18) |
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AVIATR: An Airplane Mission for Titan
It has been said that the atmosphere on Titan is so dense that a person could strap a pair of wings on their back and soar through its skies.
Space & Earth / Space Exploration
Jan 03, 2012 |
4.8 / 5 (15) |
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Dog skull dates back 33,000 years
If you think a Chihuahua doesn't have much in common with a Rottweiler, you might be on to something.
Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils
Jan 23, 2012 |
4.7 / 5 (15) |
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Laser lightning rod: Guiding bursts of electricity with a flash of light
Lightning is a fascinating but dangerous atmospheric phenomenon. New research reveals that brief bursts of intense laser light can redirect these high-power electrical discharges.
Mar 13, 2012 |
4.7 / 5 (14) |
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Thawing tundra a new climate threat
(PhysOrg.com) -- A significant source of greenhouse gases has started leaking into the Earth's atmosphere from an unlikely place. Above the Arctic Circle, land frozen for tens of thousands of years has begun ...
Jan 20, 2012 |
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Scattered light could reveal alien atmospheres
The light scattered off distant worlds could help reveal details about their atmospheres that no other method could uncover, scientists find.
Feb 20, 2012 |
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Atmosphere
An atmosphere (from Greek ατμός - atmos, 'vapor' + σφαίρα - sphaira, 'sphere') is a layer of gases that may surround a material body of sufficient mass, by the gravity of the body, and are retained for a longer duration if gravity is high and the atmosphere's temperature is low. Some planets consist mainly of various gases, but only their outer layer is their atmosphere (see gas giants).
The term stellar atmosphere describes the outer region of a star, and typically includes the portion starting from the opaque photosphere outwards. Relatively low-temperature stars may form compound molecules in their outer atmosphere. Earth's atmosphere, which contains oxygen used by most organisms for respiration and carbon dioxide used by plants, algae and cyanobacteria for photosynthesis, also protects living organisms from genetic damage by solar ultraviolet radiation. Its current composition is the product of billions of years of biochemical modification of the paleoatmosphere by living organisms.
For more information about Atmosphere, read the full article at
Wikipedia.
This text uses material from Wikipedia and is available under the GNU Free Documentation License.
