An Ignoble Experiment: Tonga's eruption injected so much water into Earth's atmosphere that it could weaken the ozone layer

2022/08/01

Tonga's eruption injected so much water into Earth's atmosphere that it could weaken the ozone layer

Created for ignoble.experiment@arconati.us | Web Version

August 1, 2022

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Tonga's eruption injected so much water into Earth's atmosphere that it could weaken the ozone layer

(NASA Earth Observatory images and video by Joshua Stevens, using data courtesy of Kristopher Bedka and Konstantin Khlopenkov/NASA Langley Research Center, and GOES-17 imagery courtesy of NOAA and the National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service (NESDIS))

When an underwater volcano in Tonga erupted in January, it belched out more than ash and volcanic gases; it also spewed 58,000 Olympic-size swimming pools' worth of water vapor into Earth's atmosphere, a new study finds.

This water vapor could end up being the most destructive part of the volcano's eruption because it could potentially exacerbate global warming and deplete the ozone layer, according to the study.

Full Story: Live Science (8/1)

History & Archaeology

Roman 'Zodiac' coin with cancer sign unearthed in Israel

(Yaniv Berman, Israel Antiquities Authority)

Archaeologists diving into the Mediterranean sea by Israel have discovered a bronze coin on the seafloor dating to one of the Roman Empire's most peaceful eras. On one side, the coin depicts Luna (Selene in Greek), the Roman goddess of the moon, with a crab, the astrological sign of cancer, beneath her.

The team spotted the roughly 1,850-year-old bronze coin while exploring off the coast of Haifa in northern Israel.

Full Story: Live Science (8/1)

Life's Little Mysteries

Can turtles really breathe through their butts?

(Shutterstock)

Everyone knows that most mammals breathe through the mouth and nose. Frogs, meanwhile, can breathe through their skin. But what about turtles? How do these hard-shelled critters get oxygen?

You may have heard a strange rumor that turtles can breathe through their butts. But is this true?

Full Story: Live Science (7/31)

Space Exploration

Webb space telescope has just imaged another most-distant galaxy, breaking its record after a week

(NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI)

Astronomers using the James Webb Space Telescope have spotted what they think may be the farthest galaxy ever seen — a distant red smudge 35 billion light-years away.

The galaxy, named CEERS-93316, was pictured as it existed just 235 million years after the Big Bang, using Webb's Near Infrared Camera, which can peer back in time to the earliest flickerings of the very first stars.

Full Story: Live Science (8/1)

Curious Creatures

Mammal ancestor looked like a chubby lizard with a tiny head and had a hippo-like lifestyle

(Frederik Spindler)

An animal that lived before the dinosaurs looked like a rotund lizard with a very small head and had a hippo-like semiaquatic lifestyle, according to fossils that were recently excavated in France.

The amphibious animal, which represents a previously unknown genus and species of mammal ancestor, measured about 12 feet (4 meters) long, researchers reported in the October issue of the journal Palaeo Vertebrata, published online in July. They dubbed the new species Lalieudorhynchus gandi; it lived about 265 million years ago on the Pangaea supercontinent, just before the era of the dinosaurs.

Full Story: Live Science (8/1)

Europe's last pandas were giant weaklings who couldn't even eat bamboo

A pair of fossil teeth in a museum collection recently revealed when pandas last roamed Europe.

When researchers examined the teeth, which had been kept in storage for around 40 years, they discovered that the fossils belonged to a never-before-seen species of ancient European panda. The newfound species, which is a close relative of modern giant pandas, roamed the continent around 6 million years ago and was likely the last of Europe's pandas.

Full Story: Live Science (7/31)