Researchers have built an algorithm that can scan old astronomical images for unnoticed space rocks, helping to detect objects that could one day imperil Earth.
Tag Archives: EARTH
The Dinosaur Age May Have Ended in Springtime
A new study examining fossils of fish suggests animals were wiped out by a massive meteor at a time when they were just emerging from hibernation and having offspring.
Astronomers Find a New Trojan Asteroid Sharing Earth’s Orbit
The Trojan asteroid 2020 XL5, which follows the same path around the sun as our planet, was revealed only after a decade of searching.
2021 Was Earth’s Fifth-Hottest Year, Scientists Say
The finding, by European researchers, fits a clear warming trend: The seven hottest years on record have been the past seven.
Give Thanks for the Winter Solstice. You Might Not Be Here Without It.
The scientific start of winter offers a moment to reflect on how we might not be here to witness the changing seasons without Earth’s particular tilt toward the sun.
Why Times Opinion Is Sounding the Climate Change Alarm
The climate crisis is now.
Earth Is Getting a ‘Black Box’ Because of Climate Change
When a plane crashes, its flight recorder is critical to piecing together the missteps that led to calamity. Now the planet is getting its own in case it self-destructs.
Dozens of Earthquakes Strike Off Oregon Coast, but Experts Say Not to Worry
At least 66 earthquakes rattled the Blanco Fracture Zone from Tuesday into Wednesday, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
Her Art Reads the Land in Deep Time
Athena LaTocha has embraced geological materials from mesas, wetlands and bluffs in her large-scale works. Now, she’s exploring what’s underfoot in New York City.
Can High-Tech Capitalism Address Climate Change?
To slow climate change, Father Profit and New Tech must innovate, fast.
Maybe It’s a Lost Piece of the Moon, but Don’t Call It a Moon
New data suggest an object known as Kamoʻoalewa was shorn off the moon by a meteor impact before becoming a quasi-satellite of our planet.
Sometimes Life Imitates Art. William Shatner Is Headed To Space With Blue Origin.
Next week, in a thoroughly modern blurring of reality and fiction, William Shatner will soar to space with Blue Origin. Do you care?
Who could know we’re here on Earth?

Enlarge / This is what Earth looks like from within the Solar System. Imaging it from a different system entirely poses some challenges. (credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute)
The search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) has primarily involved looking outward and searching nearby stars for signals that can’t be explained by known natural processes. But there has also been consideration given to the possibility that an extraterrestrial intelligence might be looking for us. Investigations have included intentional signals sent to nearby stars and calculations of how far out our civilization’s radio transmissions will reach.
A new study focuses on the question of who might be capable of detecting us and considers how we’re looking for signs of life around other stars. The study estimates that the Earth is surrounded by thousands of star systems from which hypothetical inhabitants would be able to detect our presence via the same techniques we’ve been using to search for life around other stars. And civilizations orbiting a significant number of those stars would also be able to detect things like oxygen in our atmosphere or the radio signals we have produced over the last century or so.
A shifting landscape
The new analysis, done by researchers Lisa Kaltenegger and Jacqueline Faherty, relied on data from the European Space Agency’s Gaia mission, which was put in space to generate a three-dimensional map of the Milky Way. But the Milky Way isn’t static; its stars rotate in synchrony, but they also move relative to each other. For many stars, repeated observations by Gaia also allowed an estimation of their motion relative to the Sun. This allowed Kaltenegger and Faherty to extend their analysis forward and backward in time, creating a window 10,000 years wide and centered on the present.
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A Mysterious Crater’s Age May Add Clues to the Dinosaur Extinction
Boltysh crater in Ukraine formed around the same time as the Chicxulub event, raising questions about its role in this tumultuous era.
Don’t Worry about CO2, Worry about the Earth’s ‘Energy Balance’
Giant Ice Shelf Crumbling Faster than Expected
The World’s Northernmost Town Is Changing Dramatically
Will the Next Space-Weather Season Be Stormy or Fair?
As another 11-year cycle of solar activity begins, scientists debate how violent our stellar friend is likely to be.
A Super Blood Moon Dazzles Earthlings
A supermoon and total lunar eclipse combined to put on a big red show.
World’s Largest Iceberg Breaks Off of Antarctica
Extraterrestrial Plutonium Atoms Turn Up on Ocean Bottom
The rare form of the element found on the Pacific seabed points to its violent birth in colliding stars.
Our Aliens, Ourselves
How would contact with U.F.O.s and other civilizations change ours?
Giant Mud Volcano Reveals Its Powerful Explosive Secrets
When Is China’s Rocket Supposed to Fall?: Here’s What to Know
The Long March 5B, the country’s largest rocket, is expected to come down sometime this weekend, but where and when are difficult to predict.
‘Mother Trees’ Are Intelligent: They Learn and Remember
Millions of Groundwater Wells Could Run Dry
Why Biden Must Save Bears Ears National Monument
‘We are rooted to Mother Earth through her body like the plants are rooted to the soil.’
Biden Promises to Slash Greenhouse Gas Emissions by 50 Percent by 2030
A Healthy Environment as a Human Right
Lyrid Meteor Shower 2021: How to Watch
Meteor showers can light up night skies from dusk to dawn, and if you’re lucky you might be able to catch a glimpse.
Glacier Is Surging Down Denali Mountain in Alaska
Heat-Trapping Methane Surged in 2020
Nations Claim Large Overlapping Sections of Arctic Seafloor
Seagrass Forests Counteract Ocean Acidification
Brazil’s iFood outlines sustainability initiatives aiming to reduce its carbon footprint
The Brazilian-based pan-Latin American food delivery startup iFood has announced a series of initiatives designed to reduce the company’s environmental impact as consumers push companies to focus more on sustainability.
The program has two main components — one focused on plastic pollution and waste and another aiming to become carbon neutral in its operations by 2025.
Perhaps the most ambitious, and surely the most capital intensive of the company’s waste reduction initiatives is the development of a semi-automated recycling facility in Sao Paulo.
“We want to transform the entire supply chain for plastic-free packaging in Brazil. By controlling the national supply chain, from production to marketing and logistics, we can offer more competitive pricing for packaging to industries that already exist but do not have a scale of production and demand today,” said Gustavo Vitti, the chief people and sustainability officer at iFood.
The company has also created an in-app option that allows customers to decline plastic cutlery when they’re getting their food delivered.
“These initiatives will contribute to reducing the consumption of plastic items, which are often sent without being requested and end up going unused into the garbage bin,” said Vitti. “In the first tests that we did, 90 percent of consumers used the resource, which resulted in the reduction of tens of thousands of plastic cutlery and shows our consumers’ desire to receive less waste in their homes.”
On the emissions front, the company will work with Moss.Earth, a technology company in the carbon market, which developed the GHG inventory to offset its emissions by buying credits tied to environmental preservation and reforestation projects.
But the company is also working Tembici, a provider of electric bikes in Brazil to move its delivery fleet off of internal combustion powered mopeds or scooters.
“We know that compensation alone is not enough. It is necessary to think of innovative ways to reduce CO2 emissions. In October last year, we launched the iFood Pedal program, in partnership with Tembici, a project developed exclusively for couriers that offers affordable plans for renting electric bikes,” said Vitti. “Currently, more than 2,000 couriers are registered and are sharing 1,000 electric bikes in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro in addition to the educational aspect of program that we have contemplated. With good adherence indicators, our plan is to gradually expand the project, taking it to other cities and, thus, increase our percentage of clean deliveries.”
The Brazilian electric motorcycle company, Voltz Motors is also working with iFood, which ordered 30 electric motorcycles for use by some of its delivery partners. The company hopes to roll out more than 10,000 motorcycles over the next 12 months.
Coupled with internal facing initiatives to improve water reuse, deploy renewable energy and develop a green roof at its Osasco headquarters, iFood is hoping to hit sustainability goals that can improve the environment across Brazil and beyond.
“We know that we have a long way to go, but we trust that together with important partners and this set of initiatives, in addition to others that are under development, it will be possible to reduce plastic generation and CO2 emissions impact on the environment. Our relevance and presence in the lives of Brazilian families further reinforces the importance of these environmental commitments for the planet,” said Vitti.
Sunlight Changes Unequally All Year Long
How We Can Better Predict Weather Catastrophes
We need to develop an early warning system to forecast climate-induced extreme weather events.
How We Can Better Predict Weather Catastrophes
We need to develop an early warning system to forecast climate-induced extreme weather events.
New World Map Tries to Fix Distorted Views of Earth
You’re going to need some double-sided tape.
A Hitchhiker’s Guide to an Ancient Geomagnetic Disruption
A shift in Earth’s poles 42,000 years ago may have drastically altered the planet’s climate, scientists have found — and they’re naming the period after the author Douglas Adams.
What NASA’s Perseverance Rover Hopes to Find on Mars
Our early days on Earth have almost entirely disappeared, but on Mars, the past is entombed.
Where Did the Dinosaur-Killing Impactor Come From?
A new study blames a comet fragment for the death of the dinosaurs 66 million years ago. But most experts maintain that an asteroid caused this cataclysmic event.
The Coming Technology Boom
Politics is grim but science is working.
Whales’ Long, Loud Calls Reveal Structure beneath Ocean Floor
Watch This Billion-Year Journey of Earth’s Tectonic Plates
A new simulation offers a different view of how the continents we live on drifted into their current configuration.
Earth Has Lost 28 Trillion Tons of Ice since the Mid-1990s
Warming May Push Ecosystems to Release Carbon, Instead of Absorbing It
Earth’s Biodiversity Bursts Do Not Follow Expected Pattern
Mountain Water Supply to Two Billion People Could Change
Inside the C.I.A., She Became a Spy for Planet Earth
Linda Zall is disclosing how she toiled anonymously within the intelligence agency to help scientists intensify their studies of a changing planet.