ash

NASA Says Tonga Eruption Sent Up Highest Ash Plumes Ever Captured by Satellite

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When a volcano in Tonga erupted on January 15, it gave satellites their first glimpse at a plume of volcanic ash shooting into the mesosphere, the third layer of Earth’s atmosphere.   According to NASA, the Tonga event was the largest volcanic eruption since satellites began monitoring our planet. As the Pacific volcano shot a burst of ash … Read more

White dwarf stars: Astronomers find unusually hot stars covered in ash

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An unusual pair of stars may have been formed in a rare type of stellar merger when a helium star eats another one made of carbon and oxygen Space 15 February 2022 By Leah Crane Artist’s impression of a merger between two white dwarf stars Nicole Reindl, University of Potsdam Two strange stars that researchers … Read more

Ash from Tonga eruption reaches record altitude but climate cooling unlikely

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The volcanic eruption that destroyed a small island in Polynesia on Saturday (Jan. 15) injected a huge amount of ash into a record altitude but won’t cause any disruption to Earth’s climate, experts said. Satellites detected the ash cloud, which has already spread over Australia, at over 24 miles (39 kilometers) above Earth’s surface, Oxford … Read more

Tonga volcano: Massive eruption was a once-in-a-millennium event

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The underwater Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai eruption has already triggered a tsunami, a sonic boom and thousands of lightning bolts, and could now lead to acid rain Earth 17 January 2022 By Alice Klein Satellite photo of the eruption CIRA/NOAA/Handout via REUTERS The massive explosion of Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai volcano in Tonga on Saturday was its … Read more

The Earliest Unequivocal Evidence of Our Species May Be Even Older Than We Realized

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The course of human evolution never did run smooth. The emergence of hominins on the continent of Africa is full of twists, turns, gaps, and dead ends, which makes it all the more difficult to retrace the rise of our own species.   Today, we still don’t really know when or where the first Homo … Read more

Volcanic disaster settles a blanket of ash across La Palma

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By Gege Li Emilio Morenatti/AP/Shutterstock Photographer Emilio Morenatti Agency AP/Shutterstock THIS apparently wintery scene seems fitting for many at this time of year, if somewhat extreme. Yet this isn’t snow. It is a deep layer of ash deposited by the Cumbre Vieja volcano on the island of La Palma in Spain’s Canary Islands. The image … Read more