Long before we had satellites beaming terabytes of data back to Earth, we had covert spacecraft the size of school buses snapping photos on rolls of film 50 kilometers long.
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Remaking a Planet One Atom at a Time
When is a planet not a planet? Where does helium rain? How can water be solid and liquid at the same time? For answers, scientists put common planetary materials under extreme pressure and watched what happened next.
Radioactive Bookkeeping of Carbon Emissions
A new sampling method uses carbon-14 to single out which carbon dioxide molecules in the atmosphere derive from fossil fuels. The method could help track emissions goals for climate mitigation.
Podcast: Instruments of Unusual Size
Rumbling volcanoes act like giant musical instruments that researchers can study to better monitor eruptions.
Visualizing the Deep Carbon Cycle
Geoscientists have created animations to help visualize different components of Earth’s carbon cycle.
Venus Exploration Starts in the Lab
Most technology would not last a day on our planet’s evil twin. By creating Venus’s surface and atmospheric conditions here on Earth, a team of engineers is designing spacecraft technology that will last for months.
Ultrahigh Speed Movies Catch Growing Earthquake Ruptures
Comparing successive frames from ultrahigh speed videos of propagating fractures allowed laboratory researchers for the first time to capture the fine details of of a propagating earthquake rupture.
Returning Lightning Data to the Cloud
Scientists are assembling an online database with decades of low-frequency radio measurements collected worldwide to facilitate modern research about lightning, space weather, and more.
Quantifying Aerosol Effects on Climate Using Ship Track Clouds
A new methodology for measuring how human emissions influence cloud properties and radiative forcing developed by reconstructing cloud fields in maritime shipping lanes.
Edmond Dewan, Citizen Science, and the Mystery of Ball Lightning
In the early 1960s, a physicist enlisted the help of the public to study a rare atmospheric phenomenon.
