Earth’s orbit creates more than a leap year
The Earth’s orbital behaviors are responsible for more than just presenting us with a leap year every four years. According to Michael E. Wysession, Ph.D., associate professor of earth and planetary sciences in Arts & Sciences, parameters such as planetary gravitational attractions, the Earth’s elliptical orbit around the sun and the degree of tilt of our planet’s axis with respect to its path around the sun, have implications for climate change and the advent of ice ages.
Earth’s orbit creates more than a leap year
Image courtesy of NASAThe Earth’s orbital behaviors are responsible for more than just presenting us with a leap year every four years. According to Michael E. Wysession, Ph.D., associate professor of earth and planetary sciences in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, parameters such as planetary gravitational attractions, the Earth’s elliptical orbit around the sun and the degree of tilt of our planet’s axis with respect to its path around the sun, have implications for climate change and the advent of ice ages.
Scientists ponder plant life on extrasolar Earthlike planets
Plants on extrasolar planets resembling Earth could be as black as these eggplants.Washington University biology and chemistry professor Robert Blankenship and his colleagues are seeking clues to life on extrasolar planets by studying various biosignatures found in the light spectrum leaking out to Earth. They are speculating on what kind of photosynthesis might occur on such planets and what the extrasolar plants might look like.
Computer models suggest planetary and extrasolar planet atmospheres
What’s beyond the solar system? Astronomers say there are planets similar to ours “out there”.The world is abuzz with the discovery of an extrasolar, Earth-like planet around the star Gliese 581 that is relatively close to our Earth at 20 light years away in the constellation Libra. Bruce Fegley, Jr., Ph.D., professor of earth and planetary sciences in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, has worked on computer models that can provide hints to what comprises the atmosphere of such planets and better-known celestial bodies in our own solar system. New computer models, from both Earth-based spectroscopy and space mission data, are providing space scientists compelling evidence for a better understanding of planetary atmospheric chemistry.
Space scientist proposes new model for Jupiter’s core
Jupiter: a core of tar.After eleven months of politics, now it’s time for some real “core values” – not those of the candidates but those of the great gas giant planet, Jupiter. Katharina Lodders, Ph.D., Washington University in St. Louis research associate professor in Earth and Planetary Sciences in Arts & Sciences, studying data from the Galileo probe of Jupiter, proposes a new mechanism by which the planet formed 4.5 billion years ago.