Tag: NASA

Frozen Water on Mercury, NASA Confirms

by | 11.29.2012 at 6:50pm
mercurypole

Mercury, the planet closest to the Sun, may hold at least 100 billion tons of ice in permanently shaded craters near its north pole, NASA scientists announced Thursday. The findings come as NASA’s MESSENGER spacecraft nears its second year of orbit around Mercury. MESSENGER’s lead investigator, Sean Solomon, is director of Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory.

The Intersection of Population and Elevation Examined

The estimated number of people in 2010 living at different elevation levels across several Southern Asian countries.

This map shows the estimated number of people in 2010 living at different elevation levels across several Southern Asian countries. The database it’s taken from lets users without specialized geospatial training or software compare populations in various environmental contexts in different countries.

Fresh Evidence of Life on Mars?

by | 5.30.2012 at 12:17pm | 4 Comments
The Viking 1 Lander "sampling arm" dug up soil samples for biology experiments on Mars. PHOTO: Roel van der Hoorn

In a landscape shaped by wind and water, is it possible that microbial life was found on Mars in 1976? A new paper indicates life may be present, and a new mission to Mars may confirm the results.

The Indiana Jones of Climate Modeling

by | 6.8.2011 at 5:07pm
IMG_Ben_Cook_2

By JD Capuano Benjamin Cook is a climate modeler at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, part of the Earth Institute at Columbia University. Cook completed his Ph.D. in environmental science at the University of Virginia in 2007. He was among a select group of scientists awarded a Climate and Global Change Postdoctoral Fellowship by the National Oceanic [...]