TERRADAILY.com - War on Earth and In Space

Focus On Our Magnetic Planet

Paris, France (ESA) Jan 25, 2005
Mission controllers cross their fingers whenever the Sun is stormy and their spacecraft have to fly over the South Atlantic. There, even satellites in low orbits suffer many hits by atomic bullets from the Sun.

CLIMATE SCIENCE

Sodium Lidar Set Up At India's National MST Radar Facility

Gadanki, India (SPX) Jan 24, 2005
The National MST Radar Facility at Gadanki near Thirupati, under the Department of Space, has set up a Sodium Lidar, which is a ground based instrument for studying vertical and temporal structure of mesosphere and lower thermosphere (MLT) region.

TERRA.WIRE

WATERWORLD

Arctic Rivers Discharge More Freshwater Reflecting Changing Hydrologic Cycle

WASHINGTON DC (SPX) Jan 24, 2005
Far northern rivers are discharging increasing amounts of freshwater into the Arctic Ocean, due to intensified precipitation caused by global warming, say researchers at the Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research in the United Kingdom.

New Evidence Indicates Biggest Extinction Wasn't Caused By Asteroid Or Comet

Seattle WA (SPX) Jan 24, 2005
For the last three years evidence has been building that the impact of a comet or asteroid triggered the biggest mass extinction in Earth history, but new research from a team headed by a University of Washington scientist disputes that notion.

Tibet's Karakorum Faultline On The Move

Livermore CA (SPX) Jan 24, 2005
Livermore researchers have determined the Karakorum fault in Tibet, a feature formed by the same tectonic "collision" that caused the recent tsunami, has slipped 10 millimeters per year during the last 140,000 years.

Anthropologists Find 4.5 Million-Year-Old Hominid Fossils In Ethiopia

Bloomington IN (SPX) Jan 20, 2005
Scientists from Indiana University Bloomington and seven other institutions have unearthed skeletal fossils of a human ancestor believed to have lived about 4.5 million years ago.

B-15A Iceberg's Close Encounter Monitored By Envisat

Paris, France (ESA) Jan 20, 2005
Some anticipated the 'collision of the century': the vast, drifting B15-A iceberg was apparently on collision course with the floating pier of ice known as the Drygalski ice tongue. Whatever actually happens from here, Envisat's radar vision will pierce through Antarctic clouds to give researchers a ringside seat.

Expedition Reaches Antarctic Icecap Peak

Beijing (XNA) Jan 19, 2005
A 12-man Chinese expedition surmounted the highest icecap peak in Antarctica at 3:16 a.m. Tuesday, according to the polar expedition office of the State Oceanic Administration (SOA).

New NASA Imagery Sheds Additional Perspectives On Tsunami

Pasadena CA (JPL) Jan 20, 2005
Newly released imagery from three NASA spaceborne instruments sheds valuable insights into the Indian Ocean tsunami that resulted from the magnitude 9 earthquake southwest of Sumatra on December 26.

Indian Ocean Tsunami Death Toll Approaches Quarter Million

Banda Aceh, Indonesia (AFP) Jan 19, 2005
The death toll from last month's Indian Ocean tsunami disaster rose towards a quarter of a million Wednesday while floods hampered relief efforts in worst-hit Indonesia's Aceh province.

Antarctic Demolition Is Underway

Greenbelt MD (SPX) Jan 19, 2005
Car demolition derbies last minutes, but when it comes to a giant iceberg near Antarctica it takes a bit longer. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on board the Terra and Aqua satellites captured images of iceberg B-15A steaming a steady course towards the extended Drygalski Ice Tongue and scientists expected the Long Island, NY sized berg to initiate a colossal collision by January 15.

WATERWORLD

NOAA's New Ship Targets Path-Finding Ocean Exploration And Research

WASHINGTON DC (SPX) Jan 19, 2005
A new NOAA ship will go boldly on a mission to further explore the world's oceans. "We want NOAA's newly converted ship to become the international symbol vessel for ocean exploration and research," said Stephen Hammond, acting director of the NOAA Office of Ocean Exploration.

Scientists Get To Work On Early Warning System After Tsunami Disaster

Kobe, Japan (AFP) Jan 18, 2005
Scientists from about 150 countries got to work Tuesday on an action plan to save lives during disasters through planning and warnings amid the shock over the Asian tsunami catastrophe.

Climate: The Arctic Goes Bush

Boulder CO (UPI) Jan 17, 2005
The Arctic may be undergoing a transition in its vegetation thanks to global warming. That is the conclusion of a paper in the January issue of the journal Bioscience.

WATERWORLD

Second Undersea Canyon Expedition To Study Ocean Crust Construction

Durham NC (SPX) Jan 14, 2005
The second Duke University-led expedition since 1999 to a deep underwater canyon will take geologists to another place in the eastern Pacific Ocean where new sea floor was forged out of volcanic lava within the past several million years.