News tagged with earth sciences

Greenland's current loss of ice mass

The Greenland ice sheet continues to lose mass and thus contributes at about 0.7 millimeters per year to the currently observed sea level change of about 3 mm per year. This trend increases each year by a further 0.07 millimeters ...

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

created May 29, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (5) | comments 0

Life on Mars: just add carbon and stir

The building blocks of life have been discovered on Mars ... in Martian meteorites that fell to Earth.

Space & Earth / Space Exploration

created May 29, 2012 | popularity 3.3 / 5 (3) | comments 0

Organic carbon from Mars, but not biological

(Phys.org) -- Molecules containing large chains of carbon and hydrogen--the building blocks of all life on Earth--have been the targets of missions to Mars from Viking to the present day. While these molecules ...

Space & Earth / Space Exploration

created May 24, 2012 | popularity 4.4 / 5 (5) | comments 2 | with audio podcast

On the hunt for high-altitude microorganisms

The United States Rocket Academy has announced an open call for entries in its High Altitude Astrobiology Challenge, a citizen science project that will attempt to collect samples of microbes that may be lurking ...

Space & Earth / Space Exploration

created May 21, 2012 | popularity 4 / 5 (4) | comments 2

Commercial rocket will fly to the space station

For the first time, a private company will launch a rocket to the International Space Station, sending it on a grocery run this weekend that could be the shape of things to come for America's space program.

Space & Earth / Space Exploration

created May 17, 2012 | popularity 4.7 / 5 (3) | comments 1

Black carbon, tropospheric ozone most likely driving Earth's tropical belt expansion

Black carbon aerosols and tropospheric ozone, both manmade pollutants emitted predominantly in the Northern Hemisphere's low- to mid-latitudes, are most likely pushing the boundary of the tropics further polew ...

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

created May 16, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (5) | comments 7 | with audio podcast

Nasa's new carbon-counting instrument leaves the nest

(Phys.org) -- Its construction now complete, the science instrument that is the heart of NASA's Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 (OCO-2) spacecraft - NASA's first mission dedicated to studying atmospheric carbon ...

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

created May 11, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (3) | comments 30

70 percent of beaches eroding on Hawaiian islands Kauai, Oahu, and Maui

An assessment of coastal change over the past century has found 70 percent of beaches on the islands of Kaua'i, O'ahu, and Maui are undergoing long-term erosion, according to a U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) ...

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

created May 07, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (3) | comments 0

Finding a new Earth: Holy grail of astronomy

(Phys.org) -- Determining the habitability of rocky, Earth-like planets in the universe will be crucial for us as a species, according to scientists from The Australian National University.

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Apr 27, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (2) | comments 0

NASA goes on top of the Smokies, all covered in light rain

If you walk into a cloud at the top of a mountain with a cup to slake your thirst, it might take a while for your cup to fill. The tiny, barely-there droplets are difficult to see, and for scientists they, ...

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

created Apr 24, 2012 | popularity 3 / 5 (1) | comments 0

WSU astrobiologist proposes fleet of probes to seek life on Mars

A Washington State University astrobiologist is leading a group of 20 scientists in calling for a mission to Mars with "a strong and comprehensive life detection component." At the heart of their proposal ...

Space & Earth / Space Exploration

created Apr 23, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (2) | comments 6 | with audio podcast

Satellite beacon mission suggested for asteroid Apophis

According to a Russian news story, a report just released by the Russian Academy of Sciences suggests sending a satellite with a radio beacon to asteroid 99942 Apophis for better determining its trajectory ...

Space & Earth / Space Exploration

created Apr 10, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (5) | comments 1

Scientists find slow subsidence of Earth's crust beneath the Mississippi delta

The Earth's crust beneath the Mississippi Delta sinks at a much slower rate than what had been assumed.

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

created Apr 02, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (6) | comments 8 | with audio podcast

Research brings new understanding to past global warming events

A series of global warming events called hyperthermals that occurred more than 50 million years ago had a similar origin to a much larger hyperthermal of the period, the Pelaeocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM), ...

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

created Apr 02, 2012 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (9) | comments 37 | with audio podcast

Scientists track radioactive iodine from Japan nuclear reactor meltdown

Using a new investigative methodology, Dartmouth researchers have found and tracked radioactive iodine in New Hampshire from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster.

Space & Earth / Environment

created Apr 02, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (2) | comments 0

Earth science

Earth science (also known as geoscience, the geosciences or the Earth Sciences), is an all-embracing term for the sciences related to the planet Earth. It is arguably a special case in planetary science, the Earth being the only known life-bearing planet. There are both reductionist and holistic approaches to Earth science.

There are four major disciplines in earth sciences, namely geography, geology, geophysics and geodesy. These major disciplines use physics, chemistry, biology, chronology and mathematics to build a quantitative understanding of the principal areas or spheres of the Earth system.

For more information about Earth science, read the full article at Wikipedia.
This text uses material from Wikipedia and is available under the GNU Free Documentation License.