Humans pump thousands of tons of vapor from the metallic element mercury into the atmosphere each year, and it can remain suspended for long periods before being changed into a form that is easily removed from the atmosphere.
New research shows that the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere work to transform elemental mercury into oxidized mercury, which can easily be deposited into aquatic ecosystems and ultimately enter the food chain. (more…)
ANN ARBOR, Mich.— The solar wind sandblasts the surface of planet Mercury at its poles, according to new data from a University of Michigan instrument on board NASA’s MESSENGER spacecraft.
The sodium and oxygen particles the blistering solar wind kicks up are the primary components of Mercury’s wispy atmosphere, or “exosphere,” the new findings assert. Through interacting with the solar wind, they become charged in a mechanism that’s similar to the one that generates the Aurora Borealis on Earth. (more…)
Astronomers at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa have discovered a new comet that they expect will be visible to the naked eye in early 2013.
Originally found by the Pan-STARRS 1 telescope on Haleakala, Maui, on the night of June 5-6, it was confirmed to be a comet by UH Mānoa astronomer Richard Wainscoat and graduate student Marco Micheli the following night using the Canada-France-Hawaiʻi Telescope on Mauna Kea.(more…)
The dyes which are injected into the skin to create tattoos move with time – permanently altering the look of a given design. In this month’s Mathematics Today Dr Ian Eames, a Reader in Fluid Mechanics at UCL, publishes a mathematical model enabling us to estimate the movement of these ink particles and predict how specific tattoo designs will look several years in the future.
“Tattoos are incredibly popular worldwide with more than a third of 18-25 year olds in the USA sporting at least one design,” says Dr Eames. “A great deal of work has already been done on the short term fate of ink particles in the skin, tracking them over periods of just a few months – but much less is known about how these particles move over longer periods of time. (more…)
AUSTIN, Texas — Four of the five planets visible to the unaided eye huddle quite close together in the pre-dawn sky next week, according to the editors of StarDate magazine.
On the morning of May 10, Venus and Jupiter will stand side by side, quite low in the east, as dawn brightens. If you have a horizon clear of buildings and trees, they will be easy to spot. They are the brightest objects in the night sky after the moon. Venus is the brighter of the two. Jupiter is to its left. (more…)
*First such levels measured outside polar regions*
In Hebrew, the Dead Sea is called Yam ha-Melah, the “sea of salt.” Now measurements show that the sea’s salt has profound effects on the chemistry of the air above its surface.
The atmosphere over the Dead Sea, researchers have found, is laden with oxidized mercury. Some of the highest levels of oxidized mercury ever observed outside the polar regions exist there. (more…)
