The Rhea Fire in Oklahoma, seen in this image, grew to megafire size. And it wasn’t the only blaze to scorch the High Plains in April.
The Sentinel-2 satellite captured this image of a wildfire burning near Putnam, Oklahoma on April 13, 2918. (Source: Sentinel-2 satellite data from ESA processed by Pierre Markuse)
That’s right — this image of the roaring Rhea Fire in Oklahoma was captured not from an aircraft but by a satellite about 500 miles above Earth’s surface.
At ...read more
Denison Geoscience students on Ironbound Island in Maine. Erik Klemetti
I love geology. It’s what I do. It asks questions fundamental to our understanding of the planet (and beyond), questions that I feel should resonate with everyone on the planet because we live on Earth! Every day, each of us interacts with geologic processes whether we realize it or not – maybe it is the topography we travel across to get to work, maybe it is the materials we use in our daily lives, maybe it is ...read more
By: Mara Dias and Colleen Henn
The Surfrider Foundation is pleased to release its 2017 Clean Water Annual Report, which tracks the progress of our Blue Water Task Force (BWTF) and Ocean Friendly Gardens (OFG) programs during the calendar year of 2017. At a time when it can be difficult to depend on the federal agencies tasked with protecting our clean water and healthy coasts, it is encouraging to see how much a dedicated network of volunteers can accomplish in jus ...read more
But looks are deceiving: the West has seen too little of the white stuff
An astronaut aboard the International Space Station captured this photo of the western United States on March 3, 2018. The white mantling of snow is thinner than it should be at this time of year. (Source: NASA Earth Observatory)
Views of Earth like this once seemed almost profound — at least I always thought so. That’s because we weren’t accustomed to seeing ...read more
(Credit: Monkey Business Images)
If you’ve ever tried to keep up with a child on the playground, only to collapse in a panting heap, take heart. You might as well be trying to compete with a triathlete.
Researchers from France and Australia conducted a physiological test comparing 8- to 12-year-old boys with both untrained adult men and endurance athletes. The children, despite having no special training, were more comparable to the runners and triathlon competitors, the scientists say. ...read more
The planet Uranus. It smells bad here. (Credit: NASA)
Scientists confirm that Uranus’ atmosphere contains hydrogen sulfide, a compound long suspected to be swirling about in the planet’s clouds.
Using the Gemini North telescope in Hawaii, researchers from the United Kingdom analyzed Uranus using a technique known as spectroscopy to identify the elements contained within. They relied on the Near-Infrared Integral Field Spectrometer (NIFS) at Gemini for the task, which invo ...read more
A minke whale surfacing. (Credit: Graeme Snow/Shutterstock)
How do you get inside a whale’s head? With a CT-scanner made for rocket bodies, that’s how.
Researchers from San Diego State University stuck an entire juvenile minke whale inside a computed tomography (CT) scanning machine to virtually slice and dice its anatomy with X-rays. Their goal was to get a look at the structures that allow whales to hear underwater and better understand a sense that’s vital for these underw ...read more
An illustration of the scale of our solar system. Distances here are measured in astronomical units (AU). (Credit: NASA)
Click on an article about space on Discover, and you’ll likely run into a measurement in terms of light-years, solar masses, astronomical units, or arcminutes. These units are unique to astronomy, and all can be expressed in terms of other, more fundamental units, such as meters, grams, and degrees.
In a paper published April 1 in Astronomy & Geophysics, Keit ...read more
