An instrument onboard the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) detected atomic oxygen in the atmosphere of Mars for the first time since the last observation 40 years ago. These atoms were found in the ...
Space Exploration
May 9, 2016
0
290
Powering a massive biosphere on Earth, photosynthesis is the light-mediated reaction that converts carbon dioxide and water to carbohydrates and oxygen. About 2.3 billion years ago, this reaction led to a dramatic oxygenation ...
Earth Sciences
Jul 12, 2019
19
156
Not long after the dawn of complex animal life, tens of millions of years before the first of the "Big Five" mass extinctions, a rash of die-offs struck the world's oceans. Then, for reasons that scientists have debated for ...
Ecology
Oct 5, 2021
1
1394
The climate in Central Asia, currently a semiarid region, has varied over the past 500,000 years. An accurate record of the past climate can help scientists understand current climate and better predict how the climate may ...
Earth Sciences
Jan 31, 2012
0
0
Oxygen has provided a breath of fresh air to the study of the Earth's evolution some 400-plus million years ago.
Earth Sciences
Nov 20, 2017
0
467
Oxygen levels in the Earth's atmosphere are likely to have "fluctuated wildly" 1 billion years ago, creating conditions that could have accelerated the development of early animal life, according to new research.
Evolution
Oct 14, 2022
1
179
Astronomers searching the atmospheres of alien worlds for gases that might be produced by life can't rely on the detection of just one type, such as oxygen, ozone, or methane, because in some cases these gases can be produced ...
Astronomy
Sep 11, 2014
4
0
Dramatic drops in oceanic oxygen, which cause mass extinctions of sea life, come to a natural end - but it takes about a million years.
Earth Sciences
May 12, 2017
0
346
Working together with space researchers, Finnish amateur photographers have discovered a new auroral form. Named "dunes" by the hobbyists, the phenomenon is believed to be caused by waves of oxygen atoms glowing due to a ...
Space Exploration
Jan 29, 2020
3
196
Scientists have long debated how much molecular oxygen was in Earth's early atmosphere. About 2.4 billion years ago, there was a rise in oxygen that transformed Earth's atmosphere and biosphere, eventually making life like ...
Earth Sciences
Sep 30, 2021
1
508
