3
Jun 11

One year in isolation

Source: ESA


Crew training for 'Marswalk' at the simulated martian terrain of the Mars500 experiment.
Credits: ESA / IPMB

The six men in the Mars500 facility near Moscow have been in isolation now 365 days. The European crew members have been writing in their latest letters home about the highlights, monotonous life, team spirit and determination to go on.(read more)

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3
Jun 11

New NASA map reveals patterns of tropical forest carbon storage

Source: NASA News


Map of carbon stored in Earth's tropical forests.
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/Winrock International/Colorado State University/University of Edinburgh/Applied GeoSolutions/University of Leeds/Agence Nationale des Parcs Nationaux/Wake Forest University/University of Oxford

 

A NASA-led research team has used a variety of NASA satellite data to create the most precise map ever produced depicting the amount and location of carbon stored in Earth's tropical forests.

The data are expected to provide a baseline for ongoing carbon monitoring and research and serve as a useful resource for managing the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide.

The new map, created from ground- and space-based data, shows for the first time the distribution of carbon stored in forests across more than 75 tropical countries. Most of that carbon is stored in the extensive forests of Latin America. (read more)

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3
Jun 11

How typical is the Milky Way?

Source: Space Daily


Supercomputer simulationof the density of dark matter in the Milky Way galaxy.
Image cedit: Stelios Kazantzidis, Ohio State University.

How unique is the Milky Way? To find out, a group of researchers led by Stanford University astrophysicist Risa Wechsler compared the Milky Way to similar galaxies and found that just four percent are like the galaxy Earth calls home.(read more)

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