NASA’s Discovery Program has selected two projects, both with Arizona ties, to delve into the ancient history of the solar system.
One craft, Psyche, will head to the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. The other, Lucy, will explore six asteroids that share an orbit with Jupiter. Scientists believe that the targets embody different aspects of early solar system history.
Read/listen to my full story at KJZZ’s Arizona Science Desk:
NASA Funds 2 Asteroid Missions With Arizona Ties
The risk of a severe, multi-decade drought hitting the Southwest United States by the end of the century could reach as high as 99 percent if greenhouse gas emissions continue along current lines, says a paper by a team of scientists from Cornell University, Columbia University and NASA.
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Worst Case: Megadrought Risk Near 99 Percent Under Current Greenhouse Emissions
Using a technique called satellite radar interferometry, researchers have spotted millimeter-scale ground uplift surrounding four high-pressure injection wells near the eastern Texas city of Timpson. Two of the wells were located directly above a spate of record quakes that struck Timpson in 2012, topping out with a 4.8 magnitude quake on May 17. The other two were located within six miles of the quakes.
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ASU Researcher: Satellite Radar Links Wastewater Pumping To Earthquakes
A 200-mile lightning flash and another flash lasting nearly eight seconds have redefined experts’ notions of what is possible for such events.
The new data prompted a World Meteorological Organization committee to recommend revising the definition of lightning discharges.
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Record-Breaking Lightning Flashes Help Change Definition Of Lightning Events
Scientists studying dwarf planet Ceres have found that a 13,000-foot volcano there arose not from silicic magma, but from muddy, salty ice that rose to the ~160 K surface and quick-froze like Smucker’s® Magic Shell.
Finding such a dramatic cryovolcanic process this close to the sun – in the inner asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter – is unusual, and bolsters the idea that Ceres might have originated in the outer solar system. It also lends credence to the notion that asteroids and comets might be more closely related than once thought.
Read/listen to my full story at KJZZ’s Arizona Science Desk:
13,000-Foot Mountain On Dwarf Planet Ceres May Be An Ice Volcano
