I recently had the opportunity to watch a brand new IMAX feature, called A Beautiful Planet. It features incredible views of the Earth from space, captured by astronauts aboard the International Space Station. Most of the footage was taken during Expedition 42 on the ISS, starting with the arrival of Samantha Cristoforetti, Terry Virts, and Anton Shkaplerov aboard the Soyuz TMA-15M, and ending with their departure. Much of the film was focused on the views of Earth, the scenic diversity of life and land that can only be seen from space. It was difficult to see the effects of humans during the day time,...
Our species is just now reaching the technology necessary to detect features of exoplanets, and not just the exoplanets themselves. We have seen atmospheres, aurorae, and magnetism on distant worlds, and now we can add incredibly fast winds to that list. A team of astronomers have discovered an exoplanet, classified as HD 189733b, that has wind speeds exceeding 8,500 km / h, or about 2 Km / s. Lead researcher Tom Louden, of the University of Warwick’s Astrophysics group, said: “This is the first ever weather map from outside of our solar system. Whilst we have previously known of Wind on...
This storm is a monster. It strengthened from a pretty usual category 1 hurricane to the most powerful hurricane the planet has ever seen in less than a day. This strengthening was all due to the warmer-than-usual pacific waters under the influence of el nino. Luckily the storm has weakened since making landfall and is down to a tropical depression (less than a category 1), but it still highlights the fact that warmer oceans and a shifting climate are bringing more extreme weather events our way every year.
