Harsh GT

NASA Satellites See Upper Atmosphere Cooling and Contracting Due to Climate Change The sky isn’t falling, but scientists have found that parts of the upper atmosphere are gradually contracting in response to rising human-made greenhouse gas emissions. Combined data from three NASA satellites have produced a long-term record that reveals the mesosphere, the layer of the atmosphere 30 to 50 miles above the surface, is cooling and contracting. Scientists have long predicted this effect of human-driven climate change, but it has been difficult to observe the trends over time. “You need several decades to get a handle on these trends and isolate what’s happening due to greenhouse gas emissions, solar cycle changes, and other effects,” said Scott Bailey, an atmospheric scientist at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, and lead of the study, published in the  Journal of Atmospheric and Solar-Terrestrial Physics . “We had to put together three satellites’ worth of data.” Together, the ...

New space telescope could spot potentially hazardous asteroids heading for Earth. A new space telescope that could spot potentially hazardous asteroids and comets heading for Earth is one step closer to reality. The Near-Earth Object Surveyor space telescope, or NEO Surveyor, has been approved by NASA to move forward to the design phase. The 20-foot-long (6-meter-long) infrared telescope would bolster planetary defense by helping astronomers find asteroids and comets that come within 30 million miles (48 million kilometers) of Earth's orbit. The mission's launch is currently scheduled for the first half of 2026. "NEO Surveyor will have the capability to rapidly accelerate the rate at which NASA is able to discover asteroids and comets that could pose a hazard to the Earth, and it is being designed to discover 90 percent of asteroids 140 meters (459 feet) in size or larger within a decade of being launched," said Mike Kelley, NEO Surveyor program scientist ...

Does outer space end – or go on forever? Right above you is the sky – or as scientists would call it, the atmosphere. It extends about 20 miles(32 kilometres) above the Earth. Floating around the atmosphere is a mixture of molecules – tiny bits of air so small you take in billions of them every time you breathe. Above the atmosphere is space. It’s called that because it has far fewer molecules, with lots of empty space between them. Have you ever wondered what it would be like to travel to outer space – and then keep going? What would you find? scientists like me are able to explain a lot of what you’d see. But there are some things we don’t know yet, like whether space just goes on forever. Planets, stars and galaxies At the beginning of your trip through space, you might recognize some of the sights. The Earth is part of a group of planets that all orbit the Sun – with some orbiting asteroids and comets mixed...