All Stories by Sid Perkins
- Earth
Contrails forecast on the horizon
Studies of the contrails generated by jets flying high over Alaska may lead to improved techniques for predicting the formation of the artificial clouds, which some scientists suggest have a warming effect on Earth's climate.
- Earth
Contrails forecast on the horizon
Studies of the contrails generated by jets flying high over Alaska may lead to improved techniques for predicting the formation of the artificial clouds, which some scientists suggest have a warming effect on Earth's climate.
- Earth
Warm arctic summer melted much ice
Satellite observations of the Arctic Ocean show that the amount of sea ice there this year was the lowest it's been in more than 20 years.
- Earth
Warm arctic summer melted much ice
Satellite observations of the Arctic Ocean show that the amount of sea ice there this year was the lowest it's been in more than 20 years.
- Planetary Science
Fresh crater found on lunar images
Scientists analyzing images of the moon's surface taken from lunar orbit believe they've identified the crater that formed when a small asteroid slammed into the moon almost 5 decades ago.
- Planetary Science
Fresh crater found on lunar images
Scientists analyzing images of the moon's surface taken from lunar orbit believe they've identified the crater that formed when a small asteroid slammed into the moon almost 5 decades ago.
- Earth
Solving Hazy Mysteries
Aerosols such as smoke, soot, and sea spray make for hazy vistas and stunning sunrises, but they also play major roles in Earth's climate and atmospheric chemistry.
- Earth
El Niños came more often in Middle Ages
Analyses of layered sediments from a South American lake suggest that the worldwide warm spells known as El Niños occurred more frequently about 1,200 years ago, when Europe was entering the Middle Ages, than they do today.
- Paleontology
Forged fossil is a fish-eating fowl
Detailed analyses of Archaeoraptor, a forged fossil once thought to be a missing link between dinosaurs and birds, reveal that the majority of that fake comes from an ancient, fish-eating bird.
- Earth
Outside-In: Clearing up how cloud droplets freeze
A fresh look at old experimental data suggests that water droplets in clouds freeze from the outside inward rather than from their core outward.
- Earth
Bursting in Air: Satellites tally small asteroid hits
On average, a small asteroid slams into Earth's atmosphere and explodes with the energy of 1,000 Hiroshima-size blasts once every thousand years or so, a rate that is less than one-third as high as scientists previously supposed.
- Earth
Once Upon a Lake
As Earth warmed at the end of the last ice age, the immense volumes of fresh water that occasionally and catastrophically spilled from Lake Agassiz—the long-defunct lake that formed as the ice sheet smothering Canada melted—may have caused global climate change and sudden rises in sea level.
