Space Weather Resources (links)
"Space Weather studies the
environmental dynamics of
"geospace": the active (and
sometimes stormy) region above the
Earth's lower atmosphere including the
ionosphere (which often reflects AM radio
waves back to Earth) and the
magnetosphere "
-- Department of Space Physics &
Astronomy, Rice University.
Magnetosphere Textbook
Online book
-- Goddard Space Flight Center
WWW Space Physics Resources
Links
-- Space Plasma Physics Section,
Southwest Research Institute
Education and Public
Outreach
"... award-winning education and
public outreach effort of the NASA IMAGE
satellite project"
-- Imager for Magnetopause-to-Aurora
Global Exploration (IMAGE)
Jupiter Magnetosphere
Overview
"Jupiter's magnetosphere is a unique
object in the solar system. It is the
biggest object in the entire solar
system. Not only is it big enough to
contain all of Jupiter's moons, but the
sun itself could also fit inside. It
extends past the orbit of Saturn, and
Saturn itself sometimes passes through
it. If it could be seen at night, it
would be as big in the sky as the full
moon. "
-- Windows on the Universe, University of
Michigan
The Exploration of the
Earth's Magnetosphere
Online book
-- -- Goddard Space Flight Center
The Earth's Magnetosphere
" In spite of its low density, the
solar wind, and its accompanying magnet
field, is strong enough to interact with
the planets and their magnetic fields to
shape magnetospheres. A magnetosphere is
the region surrounding a planet where the
planet's magnetic field dominates.
Because the ions in the solar plasma are
charged, they interact with these
magnetic fields, and solar wind particles
are swept around planetary
magnetospheres. Life on Earth has
developed under the protection of this
magnetosphere. "
-- NASA, Cosmic and Heliospheric Learning
Center
Atmosphere & Radiation
Earth bombarded by gamma ray
burst
"
You would not want this star to be your
sun. It's extremely lethal."
-- CNN.com, 9/28/98
Gamma-ray bursts close to
home
"Gamma-ray
bursts are astronomical explosions which
produce vast quantities of high energy
light. They are moderately rare, only one
occurring per day in the entire universe,
and so tend to be a very long way away.
In April this year a gamma-ray burst
erupted from one of our neighbouring
galaxies."
-- Nature, 10/15/98
Colliding stars can destroy,
create life
"Jets
of cosmic rays from colliding stars can
produce lethal amounts of muons in the
earth's atmosphere, destroy the ozone
layer and radioactivate the environment.
... the radiation produced would also
cause mutations that create new species
in surviving life."
-- exosci.com, 7/14/98
Ozone and the Atmosphere
Main Menu
"Earth is an extraordinary planet.
Complex interactions between the land,
oceans, and atmosphere created conditions
that are favorable for life. One species,
man, has managed to alter the environment
on a global scale. In order to fully
comprehend the impact of our actions, we
must view the planet as a whole and
understand the relationship between its
basic components; land, water, and
air."
-- NASA, Goddard Space Flight Center,
Atmospheric Data and Resources
UIC - Radiation and Life
"Life on earth has developed with an
ever present background of radiation. It
is not something new, invented by the
wit of man: radiation has always been
there."
-- Uranium Information Center, Australia
Our Radiant Planet
"The Earth is bathed constantly in a
spectrum of radiant energy from the sun,
energy which is essential to support all
life. A small proportion of this spectrum
is composed of short- wavelength,
high-energy radiation including
ultraviolet light. Much of this is
filtered out, through absorption in the
atmosphere or reflection from clouds, and
life on the planet had evolved to avoid
or tolerate the small quantities which
naturally reach the Earth's surface.
"
-- Greenpeace
ScienceNOW -- 22 June 1998 -
Tar as Sunscreen for Early Life?
Variation and Stability in
Atmospheres of Venus, Earth, Mars
Student project
-- Sweden
Oceans
The Ocean as a Habitat
Course outline
-- Biology, Grossmont College, 9/25/95
Changes in ocean
" Ancient Corals Record Ocean
Turmoil: In corals dredged from the
bottom of the North Atlantic, scientists
have found evidence of a drastic shift in
deep currents 15,000 years ago, as the
last Ice Age began to wane. "
-- American Association for the
Advancement of Science News Service,
4/20/98
Virtual Library on
Oceanography
Links
-- School of Mathematics at the
University of East Anglia
National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration
Links
-- NOAA
Satellite Information Site
Images and data
-- University of Hawaii
NOAA National Oceanographic
Data Center
Maps and data
-- NOAA
Museum tour through the
Planet Ocean Exhibit
Images and resources
-- Smithsonian Institution
Volcanos
Volcanoes of Other
Worlds
--
Volcano World, University of North Dakota
The Volcanic Homepage
"
...part of an ongoing project to model
volcanic eruptions using a computer. This
also means that this page is
constantly undergoing changes. The
research is funded by the Japanese
Science and Technology Agency, the
Geological
Survey of Japan, and the National Science
Foundation."
-- Geological Survey of Japan
Volcanoes Page
"...aims
to provide information about volcanoes to
the public. Amongst these pages you will
find information about current global
volcanic activity, research in remote
sensing of volcanoes and their eruptive
products, hazard mitigation, "Decade
Volcanoes", links to government
agencies and research
institutions..."
-- Michigan Technological University
Volcano World
Links
-- University of North Dakota
Phenomena, Comment and
Notes:
"Life not only thrives in the heat
and violence of Earth's submarine
volcanoes, it may have started there. And
at least one other body in the Solar
System just might have eruptions on its
ocean floor."
-- Scientific American, 5/97
Galilean Volcanoes
"Until
1979, scientists thought Jupiter's moon
Io would be like our moon -- cold and
covered with impact craters. Then the
Voyager spacecraft captured images of
Io's active volcanoes."
-- Earth and Sky, 6/20/97
Volcanic evidence on Europa
and Triton
"There is speculation that much less
intense heating may exist under the
surface of Europa, which could account
for the volcanic activity of the past.
"
-- Earth and Sky, 6/20/97
Volcanoes Beyond Earth
"DB: This is Earth and Sky for
Thursday, June 19. Spacecraft exploring
the solar system have found that
volcanoes are common features on other
worlds."
-- Earth and Sky, 6/19/97
More Information on
"Volcanoes Beyond Earth"
"Generally, bodies must be larger
than Mars to still have enough heat to
drive volcanism. Exceptions are moons
that are subject to tidal forces due to
the gravity of their parent planets.
"
-- Earth and Sky, 6/19/97
Impacts
Double Whammy
"An
asteroid striking land would be
catastrophic, but the damage might be far
worse if it crashed into the sea."
-- Scientific American, 1/19/98
The Tunguska Event
"Suddenly,
a blinding flash surrounds him ... a tree
burst into flames ... The shirt on his
back seems on fire. Then he hears the
rumble of a thousand cannons. It
overtakes him from behind and blows his
house down and over him."
-- The Millennium Education Group
Tunguska Home Page
links
--Department of Physics, University of
Bologna, Italy
Tunguska
"On
June 30, 1908, a giant fireball raced
across the night sky. Then it exploded
with the force of 1,000 Hiroshima bombs
killing herds of reindeer and scorching
hundreds of miles of trees. It happened
in a remote place in Siberia called
Tunguska. The night sky had a strange
orange glow as far away as Western
Europe. The only proof that something
happened was a quiver on a seismograph
1,000 miles away in the city of
Irkutusk."
-- Private website
NASA Impact Site
The Earth orbits in a cosmic shooting
gallery, subject to occasional random
hits by comets and asteroids..."
-- NASA
Colliding stars can destroy,
create life
"Jets
of cosmic rays from colliding stars can
produce lethal amounts of muons in the
earth's atmosphere, destroy the ozone
layer and radioactivate the environment
...proposed that some of the earth's
great extinctions were caused by such
events ... now propose that the radiation
produced would also cause mutations that
create new species in surviving
life"
-- exoSci.com, 7/14/98
Early Life Lasted a Little
Longer
"The first multicellular organisms
on Earth, called Ediacarans, were a
strange menagerie of leaf-shaped fronds
and blobs. These creatures seemed to
disappear at the end of the Precambrian
some 544 million years ago, perhaps
driven to extinction as more modern
organisms began to evolve. In today's
issue of Nature, however, paleontologists
report that two species of Ediacarans, at
least, appear to have survived into
Cambrian times. "
-- American Association for the
Advancement of Science News Servicel,
7/9/98
Asteroids Shrug Off Nuclear
Missiles
" Even nukes would have trouble
diverting a killer asteroid zeroing in on
Earth. The results of a computer model,
reported in tomorrow's Nature, indicate
that asteroids made of rubble will soak
up the force of a nuclear explosion with
only a minor change of course."
-- American Association for the
Advancement of Science News Service,
6/3/98
Biggest Extinction Looks
Catastrophic
"The worst ecological disaster in
Earth's history--some 85% of ocean
species went extinct at the end of the
Permian period 250 million years ago--may
have had a catastrophic cause, such as
massive global warming. New results,
reported in today's Science, show that a
shift in the ratio of carbon isotopes
recorded in marine rocks--an event
intimately tied to the
extinctions--lasted perhaps as little as
10,000 years. "
-- American Association for the
Advancement of Science News Service,
5/15/98
K-T extinction event mystery
may be solved
"The North American continent and
many of its creatures were barbecued 65
million years ago in an immense,
white-hot 'corridor of incineration'
resulting from an asteroid impact in
Mexico, scientists say. "
-- Dinosauria.com
Colliding stars can destroy,
create life
" Jets of cosmic rays from colliding
stars can produce lethal amounts of muons
in the earth's atmosphere, destroy the
ozone layer and radioactivate the
environment ... the radiation produced
would also cause mutations that create
new species in surviving life. "
-- exoSci.com, 7/9/98
Trilobite's End
" New research on the molting habits
of the trilobite sheds light on the
possible causes of the demise of this
arthropod that lived on Earth for twice
as long as the dinosaurs. "
-- Access Excellence (Genentech, Inc.,
sole sponsor), national educational
program for biology, 5/29/97
Meteor Dino Death Link
" Geochemical studies of the element
iridium are providing new insights into
the hypothetical link between meteors and
the mass extinctions of prehistory."
-- Access Excellence (Genentech, Inc.,
sole sponsor), national educational
program for biology, 9/24/96
Ancient Asteroid Blew Marine
Life Out of Water
"Few scientists doubt that a giant
meteorite slammed into the waters
southwest of Mexico's Yucatán Coast. But
the impact's aftermath --whether it
actually caused the demise of dinosaurs
and untold other species 65 million years
ago-- is a subject of fierce debate. Now
there's new evidence that the meteorite
was indeed a killer, at least in the sea:
A core of ancient sea-floor sediment
shows that the impact and the extinctions
occurred at the same geologic moment--and
so apparently convicts the impact of
slaughtering most of the extinction's
marine victims. "
-- American Association for the
Advancement of Science Science News
Service, 2/28/97
Extinct Without Impact?
"You might not always need a
catastrophic asteroid collision to
explain a mass extinction. In today's
issue of Nature, an international group
of scientists argues for a simpler, less
dramatic explanation for many
extinctions: They may be the periodic,
natural result of biological forces such
as competition. "
-- American Association for the
Advancement of Science Science News
Service, 8/21/97
Comet Shower May Have
Battered Earth
"... researchers have unearthed
evidence that waves of comets swept
through the inner solar system about 35
million years ago."
-- American Association for the
Advancement of Science Science News
Service, 3/22/98
Cryptic Craters
Cause Controversy
"...
a string of eight circular depressions
across the midwestern United States ...
dating to about 320 million years
ago"
-- American Association for the
Advancement of Science Science News
Service,4/24/98
System
The Earth System [TESY]
"This
site is intended to provide a learning
environment for college level students
interested in learning about the Earth
and how the Earth system works."
-- Department of Earth and Environmental
Sciences, Columbia University
