Fine-tuning cloud models for improved climate predictions

Arctic clouds are widespread and play an important role in climate, but different models have produced widely varying predictions about the properties of these clouds. This study analyzes simulations of Arctic clouds by 11 ...

Soot suspect in puzzling mid-1800s Alps glacier retreat

Scientists have uncovered strong evidence that soot, or black carbon, sent into the air by a rapidly industrializing Europe, likely caused the abrupt retreat of mountain glaciers in the European Alps.

Metamorphosis of moon's water ice explained

Using data gathered by NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) mission, scientists believe they have solved a mystery from one of the solar system's coldest regions—a permanently shadowed crater on the moon. They have ...

Cassini finds hints of activity at Saturn moon Dione

(Phys.org) —From a distance, most of the Saturnian moon Dione resembles a bland cueball. Thanks to close-up images of a 500-mile-long (800-kilometer-long) mountain on the moon from NASA's Cassini spacecraft, scientists ...

Hubble brings faraway comet into view

(Phys.org) —The NASA Hubble Space Telescope has given astronomers their clearest view yet of Comet ISON, a newly-discovered sun grazer comet that may light up the sky later this year, or come so close to the Sun that it ...

Measuring the seeds of noctilucent clouds

(Phys.org) —A constant stream of space debris flows toward Earth from the rest of the solar system. Large meteors can sometimes survive the intense friction and heat upon entering Earth's atmosphere, but by and large the ...

NASA Goddard lab works at extreme edge of cosmic ice

(Phys.org) —Behind locked doors, in a lab built like a bomb shelter, Perry Gerakines makes something ordinary yet truly alien: ice. This isn't the ice of snowflakes or ice cubes. No, this ice needs such intense cold and ...

page 8 from 11