We can’t see them, but there are more microbes — tiny fungi, bacteria, worms and other living things — in a teaspoon of soil than there are people on Earth. Hungry as you and me, those microbes gobble up bits of plant and animal material. And just like you and me, soil microbes release greenhouse […]
A new radar-based volcano monitoring system developed by the University of Alaska Fairbanks and U.S. Geological Survey will expand across the U.S. and beyond. The expansion, funded by NASA, could lead to earlier detection of volcanic unrest. The Alaska Volcano Observatory at UAF has been using a prototype of this system, named VolcSARvatory, since early 2022. Its […]
Two NASA aurora research rockets launched from Poker Flat Research Range earlier this month provided good data for learning more about the fastest observable variations of the solar wind-driven light displays. One rocket gathered information about flickering aurora, and the other gathered data about fast-pulsating aurora. Flickering auroras are fast, localized and associated with higher-frequency […]
Mount Churchill stands in a white corner of the Alaska map, deceptive in its cold, windblown silence. At least twice in the last few thousand years, the peak’s ice-covered caldera has spewed ash that reached as far as Ireland and piled up to force northern animals out of the territory. The Alaska Highway and other […]