Astronomy

AlphaProof, an AI from Google DeepMind, came close to matching the top participants in a prestigious competition for young mathematicians

AlphaProof, an AI from Google DeepMind, came close to matching the top participants in a prestigious competition for young mathematicians

Blue Origin has announced the six crewmembers for its next space tourism flight. One of them will become the youngest woman to cross the Kármán line.

Our CO2 emissions are warming the planet and making life uncomfortable and even unbearable in some regions. In July, the planet set consecutive records for the hottest day.

NASA is mapping our emissions, and while what they show us isn’t uplifting, it is visually appealing in a ghoulish way. Maybe the combination of visual appeal and ghoulishness will build momentum in the fight against climate change.

NASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio has released a video showing how wind and air currents pushed CO2 emissions around Earth’s atmosphere from January to March 2020. The video’s high-resolution zooms in and sees individual sources of CO2, including power plants and forest fires.

“As policymakers and as scientists, we’re trying to account for where carbon comes from and how that impacts the planet,” said climate scientist Lesley Ott at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “You see here how everything is interconnected by these different weather patterns.”

Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center

The video starkly shows that it doesn’t matter where CO2 emissions come from; we all deal with the outcomes. Yet there are some interesting global differences.

Above the USA, South Asia, and China, most of the carbon comes from industry, power plants, and transportation. But over Africa and South America, most of the emissions come from burning, including forest fires, agricultural burning, and land clearing. Emissions also come from fossil fuels like oil and coal.

via GIPHY

The image pulses for a couple of reasons. Forest fires tend to flare during the day and then slow down at night. Also, trees and plants photosynthesize during the day, releasing oxygen and absorbing CO2. The land masses and the oceans act as carbon sinks.

There’s more pulsing in South America and the tropics because the data was collected during their growing season.

In this version, the video zooms in on the USA, showing individual CO2 sources.

via GIPHY

These visualizations are based on GEOS, the Goddard Earth Observing System. GEOS is an integrated system for modelling Earth’s coupled atmosphere, ocean, and land systems. NASA calls it a “high-resolution weather analysis model,” and it uses supercomputers to show what’s happening in the atmosphere. GEOS is based on billions of data points, including data from the Terra satellite’s MODIS and the Suomi-NPP satellite’s VIIRS instruments. GEOS has a resolution that’s more than 100 times greater than typical weather models.

Interested users can download the visualizations at the Scientific Visualization Studio.

Image Credit for all videos, images, and clips: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center

The post Our Carbon Dioxide Emissions Have a Mesmerizing Side appeared first on Universe Today.

Muscle cells that spent a week on the International Space Station revealed changes in gene expression that suggest microgravity can speed up ageing

Muscle cells that spent a week on the International Space Station revealed changes in gene expression that suggest microgravity can speed up ageing

China has test-fired a new engine for its planned Long March 10 rocket, which is designed to take astronauts to the moon.

Video: 00:08:21

The first half of 2024 saw hundreds of people across Europe building, cajoling, shipping, lowering, integrating, securing and protecting the precious pieces and parts that came together to create Ariane 6 – Europe’s new heavy-lift rocket.

Huge engines, boosters and outer shells met tiny screws, electrical boards and masses of supercooled fuel. All this came together at Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana, for the spectacular first launch of Ariane 6 on 9 July 2024, restoring Europe’s access to space.

Get a glimpse at the teamwork, skill and care that went into this moment over many months, in this montage of Ariane 6 images, videos and timelapse photography spanning 30 January to 9 July 2024.

Access the short version of the video.

Large amounts of space debris and satellite megaconstellations in low Earth orbit are creating "an unsustainable environment in the long-term," according to a new report from the European Space Agency.

Reptile teeth have long been considered simple and cheap because the animals replace them regularly. That isn't so, Komodo dragons show

Lionsgate releases the final trailer for its new sci-fi adventure feature, "Borderlands," which arrives in theaters on Aug. 9, 2024.

An exclusive excerpt from Titan Books' new release, "Star Trek: The Illustrated Oral History" which releases on July 30, 2024.

SpaceX's workhorse Falcon 9 is one of the most reliable and prolific rockets ever flown. But it's not invulnerable, as we saw earlier this month.

Researchers are still working to understand the complicated and debilitating condition dubbed long COVID

Forests and other land ecosystems emitted almost as much carbon dioxide as they absorbed in 2023 – if this persists it will be much harder to restrict global warming to agreed targets

Forests and other land ecosystems emitted almost as much carbon dioxide as they absorbed in 2023 – if this persists it will be much harder to restrict global warming to agreed targets

Star Catcher Industries just snagged $12.25 million to develop its planned constellation of power-beaming satellites, which will service other orbiting spacecraft.

Dogs can smell when people are stressed, and it seems to make them feel downhearted

The busy beaver function is unpredictable. But now, after more than 40 years, the fifth value of the function has been revealed