NASA’s Aeronomy of Ice in the Mesosphere (AIM) satellite has captured five complete polar seasons of noctilucent (NLC) or “night-shining” clouds with an unprecedented horizontal resolution of 3 miles by 3 miles. Results show that the cloud season turns on and off like a “geophysical light bulb” and they reveal evidence that high altitude mesospheric “weather” may follow similar patterns as our ever-changing weather near the Earth’s surface. These findings were unveiled today at the Fall Meeting of the American Geophysical Union today in San Francisco.

Scientists funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and NOAA have recorded the deepest erupting volcano yet discovered–West Mata Volcano–describing high-definition video of the undersea eruption as “spectacular.”

Ethanol, often promoted as a clean-burning, renewable fuel that could help wean the nation from oil, would likely worsen health problems caused by ozone, compared with gasoline, especially in winter, according to a new study led by Stanford researchers.

An investigation by the University of Kansas’ Adrian Melott and colleagues reveals a promising new method of detecting past comet strikes upon Earth and gauging their frequency

LAWRENCE, Kan. — It’s the stuff of a Hollywood disaster epic: A comet plunges from outer space into the Earth’s atmosphere, splitting the sky with a devastating shock wave that flattens forests and shakes the countryside.