Large fossil discovery finally exposes origins of Welsh dragons
A large fossil discovery has helped shed light on the history of dinosaurs in Wales. The find is reported in Proceedings of the Geologists' Association.
A large fossil discovery has helped shed light on the history of dinosaurs in Wales. The find is reported in Proceedings of the Geologists' Association.
Paleontology & Fossils
May 30, 2024
20
165
In 1974 Stephen Hawking famously claimed that black holes should emit particles as well as absorb them. This so-called "Hawking radiation" has not yet been observed, but now a research group from Europe has found that Hawking ...
A team of astronomers at Nanjing University has found evidence that Mars likely has more potentially hazardous asteroids in its path than Earth. In their study, posted on the arXiv preprint server, the group investigated ...
An international team of astronomers has detected a new, Earth-sized planet just 55 light years away, orbiting an ultra-cool red dwarf star.
Planetary Sciences
May 15, 2024
0
241
Recently, Dr. Huo Zhipeng and his student Lu Yidong from Hefei Institutes of Physical Science of Chinese Academy of Sciences have created a new type of composite material for shielding against neutron and gamma radiation. ...
Plasma Physics
May 24, 2024
0
45
Deposits of designated critical minerals needed to transition the world's energy systems away from fossil fuels may, ironically enough, be co-located with coal deposits that have been mined to produce the fossil fuel most ...
Earth Sciences
May 20, 2024
0
56
Auroras lit up skies across swaths of the planet for the second night in a row on Saturday, after already dazzling Earthlings from the United States to Tasmania to the Bahamas the day before.
Planetary Sciences
May 12, 2024
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72
New discoveries about Jupiter could lead to a better understanding of Earth's own space environment and influence a long-running scientific debate about the solar system's largest planet.
Planetary Sciences
May 6, 2024
0
31
As part of NASA's efforts to expand commercial resupply in low Earth orbit, Sierra Space's uncrewed spaceplane arrived at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida ahead of its first flight to the International Space Station.
Space Exploration
May 20, 2024
0
24
Researchers using NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope may have detected an atmosphere surrounding 55 Cancri e, a rocky exoplanet 41 light-years from Earth. This is the best evidence to date for a rocky planet atmosphere ...
Astronomy
May 8, 2024
0
153
Earth is the third planet from the Sun, and the largest of the terrestrial planets in the Solar System in terms of diameter, mass and density. It is also referred to as the World, the Blue Planet, and Terra.
Home to millions of species, including humans, Earth is the only place in the universe where life is known to exist. The planet formed 4.54 billion years ago, and life appeared on its surface within a billion years. Since then, Earth's biosphere has significantly altered the atmosphere and other abiotic conditions on the planet, enabling the proliferation of aerobic organisms as well as the formation of the ozone layer which, together with Earth's magnetic field, blocks harmful radiation, permitting life on land. The physical properties of the Earth, as well as its geological history and orbit, allowed life to persist during this period. The world is expected to continue supporting life for another 1.5 billion years, after which the rising luminosity of the Sun will eliminate the biosphere.
Earth's outer surface is divided into several rigid segments, or tectonic plates, that gradually migrate across the surface over periods of many millions of years. About 71% of the surface is covered with salt-water oceans, the remainder consisting of continents and islands; liquid water, necessary for all known life, is not known to exist on any other planet's surface. Earth's interior remains active, with a thick layer of relatively solid mantle, a liquid outer core that generates a magnetic field, and a solid iron inner core.
Earth interacts with other objects in outer space, including the Sun and the Moon. At present, Earth orbits the Sun once for every roughly 366.26 times it rotates about its axis. This length of time is a sidereal year, which is equal to 365.26 solar days. The Earth's axis of rotation is tilted 23.4° away from the perpendicular to its orbital plane, producing seasonal variations on the planet's surface with a period of one tropical year (365.24 solar days). Earth's only known natural satellite, the Moon, which began orbiting it about 4.53 billion years ago, provides ocean tides, stabilizes the axial tilt and gradually slows the planet's rotation. Between approximately 4.1 and 3.8 billion years ago, asteroid impacts during the Late Heavy Bombardment caused significant changes to the surface environment.
Both the mineral resources of the planet, as well as the products of the biosphere, contribute resources that are used to support a global human population. The inhabitants are grouped into about 200 independent sovereign states, which interact through diplomacy, travel, trade and military action. Human cultures have developed many views of the planet, including personification as a deity, a belief in a flat Earth or in Earth being the center of the universe, and a modern perspective of the world as an integrated environment that requires stewardship.
This text uses material from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA