Troy Oakes

Volcanism Drove Rapid Ocean Deoxygenation During the Time of the Dinosaurs

Ocean deoxygenation from volcanism during the Mesozoic Era was much more rapid than previously thought, with CO2-induced environmental warming creating ocean “dead zones” over timescales of only tens of thousands of years. The research from the University of British Columbia (UBC) and University of Hong Kong (HKU) Earth scientists paints a new picture of severe ...

Troy Oakes

An active volcano spewing ash.

‘Blue’ and ‘Gold’ Satellites Headed to Mars in 2024

Two satellites headed to Mars — dubbed “Blue” and “Gold” — led by the University of California, Berkeley, on an interplanetary mission to orbit around Mars. This program has been officially authorized to prepare for launch in October 2024. The announcement last week by NASA means that by 2026, the spacecraft will likely be exploring ...

Troy Oakes

Mars.

Martian Snow Is Dusty, Could Potentially Melt, New Study Shows

Over the last two decades, scientists have found ice in many locations on Mars. Most Martian ice has been observed from orbital satellites like NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. But determining the grain size and dust content of the ice from that far above the surface is challenging. And those aspects of the ice are crucial ...

Troy Oakes

Mars.

Unveiling a Century-Old Mystery: Where the Milky Way’s Cosmic Rays Come From

where the Milky Way’s cosmic rays come from is a step closer to being revealed. Astronomers have succeeded for the first time in quantifying the proton and electron components of cosmic rays in a supernova remnant. At least 70 percent of the very-high-energy gamma rays emitted from cosmic rays are due to relativistic protons, according ...

Troy Oakes

The Milky Way galaxy.

Interstellar Comets Like Borisov May Not Be All That Rare

In 2019, astronomers spotted something incredible in our backyard: a rogue comet from another star system. Named Borisov, the icy snowball traveled 110,000 miles per hour and marked the first and only interstellar comet ever detected by humans. But what if these interstellar visitors — comets, meteors, asteroids, and other debris from beyond our solar ...

Troy Oakes

A comet in the night sky.

Is This Nearly Pure Aluminum Artifact 300 Million Years Old?

While lighting a fire, a resident of Vladivostok found a rail-shaped piece of metal, which was later shown to be an aluminum artifact, that was pressed into a piece of coal. The resident took it to scientists of the Primorye region, which after being studied by leading experts was found to be 300 million years old. The scientists said that ...

Troy Oakes

A pile of scrap aluminum waiting to be recycled.

How Massive Saharan Dust Impacts Amazon Rainforests

The Amazon rainforest is in the northeast of South America and is a dense humid jungle, while the Sahara Desert is a mass of a nearly uninterrupted band of sand that lies on the northern part of Africa. When strong winds move across the Sahara, Saharan dust is what connects the two. A huge cloud of dust rises in ...

Troy Oakes

View of purple sunset over the Brazilian rainforest in the Amazon region.

Meng Jiangnu Weeps, a Heartbreaking Story of Love and Loss

This story is about a girl named Meng Jiangnu (孟姜女) and her beloved Fan Xiliang. Their love story is one of China’s four great folktales called Meng Jiangnu Weeps or Meng Jiangnu Bringing Down the Great Wall With Her Tears (孟姜女哭长城). A childless couple with the family name Meng, lived right next to another childless ...

Troy Oakes

A gourd vine.

Black Hole Size Revealed by Its Eating Pattern

Black hole feeding patterns offer insight into their size, researchers report. A new study revealed that the flickering in the brightness observed in actively feeding supermassive black holes is related to their mass. Supermassive black holes are millions to billions of times more massive than the sun and usually reside at the center of massive ...

Troy Oakes

An artist’s impression of an accretion disk rotating around an unseen supermassive black hole.

Small Impacts Churn Surface of Jupiter’s Moon Europa

Small impact craters on Jupiter’s moon Europa could eventually offer scientists a glimpse of possible habitability below the body’s frozen surface, a new paper on which Planetary Science Institute Senior Scientist Rebecca Ghent is an author.  Europa has a global ocean covered by an icy surface that is covered with small impacts from the past ...

Troy Oakes

Mars' moon Europa.