Earth's Systems
- Earth
Analyze This: Salt may quash lightning over the sea
Bits of airborne salt may help raindrops form, removing water from clouds before it can freeze as part of the process that makes lightning.
- Physics
How salty does the sea have to be for an egg to float?
Some objects float on top of the ocean, and other objects sink to the bottom. Why? Try this eggs-periment to find out!
- Climate
Explainer: What is decarbonization?
Lowering carbon levels in our atmosphere to stabilize the climate may start with switching from fossil fuels to greener energy sources.
- Physics
Explainer: What is friction?
The force of friction always acts to slow things down. It depends on just two factors: the surfaces and how hard they press together.
- Physics
Explainer: Radiation and radioactive decay
Like clockwork, radioactive forms of some elements shed parts of themselves as they attempt to become nonradioactive.
- Physics
Explainer: Radioactive dating helps solve mysteries
Knowing the decay rate of radioactive elements can help date ancient fossils and other artifacts.
- Earth
Fossil-fuel use is confusing some carbon-dating measurements
Carbon-14 dating of recent artifacts will soon give scientists confusing results. That’s another price society pays for its reliance on fossil fuels.
- Climate
Greenland’s inland ice is melting far faster than anyone thought
Inland melting of the Northeast Greenland Ice Stream is accelerating — and may contribute far more to sea level rise than earlier estimates suggested.
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- Earth
Analyze This: Wildfires are pumping more pollution into U.S. skies
Researchers wanted to study the health effects of wildfire smoke. But they realized they didn’t know where it was and how much exposure people had.
- Physics
Scientists Say: Neutron
Neutrons are one of the main building blocks of atoms and have no electric charge.
- Physics
Cosmic timeline: What’s happened since the Big Bang
Energy, mass and the cosmos' structure evolved a lot over the past 13.82 billion years — much of it within just the first second.
