A mega-comet—potentially the largest ever discovered—is heading from the Oort Cloud towards our direction. Estimated to be 100–200 kilometers across, the unusual celestial wanderer will make its closest approach to ...
Astronomy
Oct 15, 2021
0
80
For decades, scientists have debated the impact of human-made and environmental particles in the atmosphere, called aerosols, on severe weather. Climate studies suggest aerosols may help shape and even strengthen elements ...
Earth Sciences
Oct 13, 2021
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9
A team of researchers affiliated with several institutions in Germany and two in France has set a new record for the lowest temperature ever recorded in a lab setting—38 picokelvins. In their paper published in the journal ...
This is the result of a new study by researchers from DTU Space at the Technical University of Denmark (DTU) and of The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, who have traced the consequences of eruptions on the Sun on clouds and ...
Earth Sciences
Oct 12, 2021
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689
Stand on the ocean's shore and take a big whiff of the salt spray and you'll smell the unmistakably pungent scent of the sea. That ripe, almost rotting smell? That's sulfur.
Earth Sciences
Oct 11, 2021
2
540
The airport on the Spanish island of La Palma shut down again Thursday due to ashfall from a volcano that has been erupting for almost three weeks.
Environment
Oct 07, 2021
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10
New data analysis has found that the sunlight filtering through Venus' clouds could support Earth-like photosynthesis in the cloud layers and that chemical conditions are potentially amenable to the growth of microorganisms.
Astrobiology
Sep 29, 2021
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128
A team of atmospheric scientists from around the nation is descending on the Houston, Texas, area for the next 14 months to seek answers to a vexing question: Do tiny specks of soot, dust, smoke, and other particles suspended ...
Earth Sciences
Sep 27, 2021
2
214
The airport on the Spanish island of La Palma shut down Saturday because of an ash cloud spewing out of a volcano that has been erupting for a week, and scientists said another volcanic vent opened up, exposing islanders ...
Environment
Sep 25, 2021
0
36
Brighter clouds reduce the amount of solar radiation reaching the Earth's surface, thereby cooling the surface. Emissions of organic compounds from vegetation increase with increasing temperature, thus having the capability ...
Environment
Sep 24, 2021
46
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A cloud is a visible mass of droplets or frozen crystals suspended in the atmosphere above the surface of the Earth or another planetary body. A cloud is also a visible mass attracted by gravity, such as masses of material in space called interstellar clouds and nebulae. Clouds are studied in the nephology or cloud physics branch of meteorology.
On Earth the condensing substance is typically water vapor, which forms small droplets or ice crystals, typically 0.01 mm in diameter. When surrounded by billions of other droplets or crystals they become visible as clouds. Dense deep clouds exhibit a high reflectance (70% to 95%) throughout the visible range of wavelengths. They thus appear white, at least from the top. Cloud droplets tend to scatter light efficiently, so that the intensity of the solar radiation decreases with depth into the gases, hence the gray or even sometimes dark appearance at the base. Thin clouds may appear to have acquired the color of their environment or background and clouds illuminated by non-white light, such as during sunrise or sunset, may appear colored accordingly. In the near-infrared range, clouds look darker because the water that constitutes the cloud droplets strongly absorbs solar radiation at those wavelengths.
This text uses material from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA
