Lifeboat Foundation

Dr. Adomas Valantinas: “What we’re seeing may be a remnant of an ancient climate cycle on modern Mars, where you had precipitation and maybe even snowfall on these volcanoes in the past.”

How unique is the climate of Mars compared to Earth? This is what a recent study published in Nature Geoscience hopes to address as a team of international researchers investigated how frost could form on the summits of volcanoes that comprise the Tharsis volcanic province on Mars. This study holds the potential to help researchers better understand the present-day water cycle on the Red Planet and could have implications for harnessing some of it for future human exploration, as well.

For the study, the researchers used more than 30,000 images from the European Space Agency’s Trace Gas orbiter and the European Space Agency’s Mars Express orbiter to analyze morning frost on the summits of Olympus Mons (Mars’ tallest volcano and the tallest planetary mountain in the solar system), Arsia and Ascraeus Montes, and Ceraunius Tholus. Additionally, the researchers used climate model simulations to ascertain if water could condense and form at these summits, as well.

Continue reading “First Detection of Frost on Mars’ Equatorial Volcanoes” »

Around two million years ago, Earth was a very different place, with our early human ancestors living alongside saber-toothed tigers, mastodons, and enormous rodents. And, depending on where they were, they may have been cold: Earth had fallen into a deep freeze, with multiple ice ages coming and going until about 12,000 years ago.

Scientists theorize that ice ages occur for a number of reasons, including the planet’s tilt and rotation, shifting plate tectonics, volcanic eruptions, and carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere. But what if drastic changes like these are not only a result of Earth’s environment, but also the sun’s location in the galaxy?

In a new paper published in Nature Astronomy, lead author and astrophysicist Merav Opher—an astronomy professor at Boston University and fellow at Harvard Radcliffe Institute— found evidence that some two million years ago, the solar system encountered an interstellar cloud so dense that it could have interfered with the sun’s solar wind. Opher and her co-authors believe this shows that the sun’s location in space might shape Earth’s history more than previously considered.

Tourists normally have to pay big money and brave cold climates for a chance to see an aurora, but last weekend many people around the world simply had to look up to see these colorful displays dance across the sky.

Usually banished to the poles of Earth, the auroras strayed as far as Mexico, southern Europe and South Africa on the evening of May 10, delighting skygazers and filling social media with images of exuberant pinks, greens and purples.

But for those charged with protecting Earth from powerful solar storms such as the one that caused the auroras, a threat lurks beneath the stunning colors.

New astrophysical research highlights a significant cosmic event two million years ago when the solar system passed through a dense interstellar cloud. This possibly altered Earth’s climate by exposing it to enhanced cosmic radiation, supported by increased isotopes found in geological records.

Earth was a very different place around two million years ago, with our early human ancestors living alongside saber-toothed tigers, mastodons, and enormous rodents. And, depending on where they were, they may have been cold: Earth had fallen into a deep freeze, with multiple ice ages coming and going until about 12,000 years ago. Scientists theorize that ice ages occur for a number of reasons, including the planet’s tilt and rotation, shifting plate tectonics, volcanic eruptions, and carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere.

But what if drastic changes like these are not only a result of Earth’s environment, but also the sun’s location in the galaxy?

Japanese electronics company Toshiba has developed a new kind of cobalt-free battery that could lead to cheaper, more sustainable EVs in the future.

The challenge: Road transportation is a significant contributor to climate change, accounting for 12% of global greenhouse gas emissions, so transitioning from fossil fuel-powered cars and trucks to electric vehicles (EVs) is crucial to meeting our climate goals.

The lithium-ion batteries used in most of today’s EVs have several problems, though, and a big one is that their cathodes are made of cobalt, a rare and expensive metal often mined using child labor and environmentally destructive practices.

Turns out growing food in the dry, rocky dirt of Mars holds valuable insights for growing crops in the climate-ravaged soil here on Earth.

Vortices are a common physical phenomenon. You find them in the structure of galaxies, tornadoes and hurricanes, as well as in a cup of tea, or water as it drains from the bathtub.

Imagine if the world’s response to climate change relied solely on speculative predictions from pundits and CEOs, rather than the rigorous—though still imperfect—models of climate science. “Two degrees of warming will arrive soon-ish but will change the world less than we all think,” one might say. “Two degrees of warming is not just around the corner. This is going to take a long time,” another could counter.

This is more or less the world we’re in with artificial intelligence, with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman saying that AI systems that can do any task a human can will be developed in the “reasonably close-ish future,” while Yann LeCun, Chief AI Scientist at Facebook, argues that human-level AI systems are “going to take a long time.”

Jaime Sevilla, a 28-year-old Spanish researcher, is trying to change that. It is far from clear whether and how the capabilities of the most advanced AI systems will continue to rapidly progress, and what the effects of those systems will be on society. But given how important AI already is, it’s worth trying to bring a little of the rigor that characterizes climate science to predicting the future of AI, says Sevilla. “Even if AI innovation stopped, this is already a technology that’s going to affect many people’s lives,” he says. “That should be enough of an excuse for us to get serious about it.”

Statistical properties of fluctuations of certain parameters describing a complex system can reveal when that system is approaching a tipping point.