Earth & Climate

$130 million space mission to monitor Earth’s energy budget

CU Boulder will soon play a significant role in estimating the withdrawals from Earth’s energy bank account. This week, NASA declared that it has given the green light to Libera, a new space mission that will record how a lot of energy leaves the planet’s atmosphere on a step by step premiseā€”information that can give […]

Earth & Climate

Pluto’s well-known heart powers icy breezes on the dwarf planet

The dwarf planet’s well known heart-shaped feature, which NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft found during its epic July 2015 flyby, drives atmospheric circulation patterns on Pluto, another investigation recommends. The vast majority of the activity comes courtesy of the heart’s left lobe, a 600-mile-wide (1,000 kilometers) nitrogen-ice plain called Sputnik Planitia. This exotic ice vaporizes during […]

Earth & Climate

Mars once had salt lakes like those on Earth

Mars once had salt lakes that are like those on Earth and has experienced wet and dry periods, as indicated by an international group of researchers that incorporates a Texas A&M University College of Geosciences analyst. Marion Nachon, a postdoctoral research partner in the Department of Geology and Geophysics at Texas A&M, and colleagues have […]