Tag: earth

How to Help Nature Recover from a Wildfire

BY MEGAN RAY NICHOLS

Wildfires are often associated with destruction. It wipes out homes, wildlife habitat, and of course trees. Areas that are damaged to that extent take time to regrow. Also, all that burning has another side effect. It releases a burst of greenhouse gasses into the air. The smoke and ash from the fire can make it difficult to breathe, especially for those prone to respiratory problems like asthma.

It goes without saying that property damage is an issue with wildfires. As long as people have enough warning, there should be no casualties. However, as climate change continues to make weather increasingly severe, human safety becomes less reliable.

However, one of the main issues comes from the lack of vegetation. After intense wildfires, there is a risk of soil erosion. If the fire is small, it may not be a big deal, but for fires that burn thousands of acres can pose serious hazards.

Continue reading How to Help Nature Recover from a Wildfire

The Tallest Mountain in Our Solar System

By Anupum Pant

Right here on earth there are really tall mountains. Mount Everest is the highest peak and then there’s Mauna Kea in Hawaii which is supposed to be the tallest. Yes, even taller than the Mt. Everest. To add to it, there’s one highest unclimbed mountain – Gangkhar Puensum – in Bhutan.

If we zoom out a little and put the whole solar system in our radar, things change. Mt Everest or even Mauna Kea are no where near the tallest mountains we have in our solar system. For instance, Olympus Mons, a shield volcano has, for a long time, been considered the highest peak in our solar system.

This is how it compares with mount Everest, for example. The peak of  Mount Everest measures 8,848 meters. It’s absolutely huge. And yet, Olympus Mons on Mars is about 2.5 times higher! It measures about 22 kilometres in height. This image clearly shows how it compares with our tallest and highest mountains…

Olympus_Mons_Side_View.svg

And yet again, even Olympus Mons, which has had the title of the tallest mountain in our solar system for several years, is believed to be no longer the tallest one.

A recently discovered peak in a proto-planet called Vesta is probably now the tallest mountain in our solar system. However, since this one – Mount Rheasilvia – is estimated to be only a few 100 meters taller than Olympus Mons, it has not very clearly dethroned Olympus Mons. Still, the data is pretty solid and can be trusted.

Rheasilvia was a peak known to researchers since 1997. But it was in 2011, when the Dawn spacecraft passed it, the data became really clear.

[Read more]

Door to Hell

By Anupum Pant

For more than 40 years now, a 250 feet hole in the ground in Turkmenistan has remained glowing with a yellow-orange flame. They call it the door to hell.

It started in the year 1971 when soviet scientists set up a rig to extract natural gas at that place, and the rig collapsed. When that happened, the scientists feared the spread of huge amounts of methane gas, and set the place on fire. They estimated that the fire would go out in a couple of hours. But it lasted, and has lasted for more than 40 years. The fire in it is still burning strong.

The hole is in a very isolated place and it’s hard to find directions to reach it. It is still a tourist place and locals do know how to reach it.

The huge blasts of hot air, and the pungent gases that emanate from the pit make it hard to stand at the edge, but mesmerized by its view people still do it.

The Highest Unclimbed Mountain

By Anupum Pant

Gangkhar Puensum, meaning three mountain siblings, is the tallest mountain in Bhutan with an elevation of 7,570 meters. Since the 80s several attempts have been made to climb this mountain – a part of which lies in Bhutan and the other part in Tibet. None of the attempts have ever been successful.

However in the year 1999, a team of climbers from Japan, after a protracted attempt to get a permit, were able to reach the top of one of the three peaks – Liankang Kangri – from the Chinese side of the mountain. Later, protests from local people in Bhutan made them stop.

So technically, the highest peak has never been climbed by anyone till date. Gangkhar Puensum remains the highest unclimbed mountain. The reason mostly is because obtaining a permit to climb it is almost impossible. It is prohibited by the government of Bhutan.

The prohibition by the government has mostly to do with the lack of rescue services at that place, and due to the local belief which considers the peak sacred – a home to holy spirits.

Gangkhar Puensum is certainly one of the uncharted mysterious places in the world where no one has gone and probably never will.

The 52 Year Old Fire

By Anupum Pant

Centralia, a small town in Pennsylvania sits on massive deposits of an A-class quality of coal – Under the town, in every direction, the coal veins span across several miles (50-80 miles long). In the 50s it used to be a bustling little town of about 2000 people, and yet the population of this town has dwindled to 10 now.

Some it has to do with the fact that Centralia has a fire burning underneath. A massive fire that accidentally started more than 50 years ago, and it still continues to burn, even today.

In May 1962, five volunteers were hired to clean up the landfill for Memorial day celebrations. Unlike every other time, when landfills were located at some other places and were set to fire to clean up, this time they were on an abandoned strip-mine pit next to the Odd Fellows Cemetery. Like the fire used to die off all the time, the fire set on that day (May 27th, 1962) never got extinguished. And then entered the labyrinth of abandoned coal mines beneath Centralia. The fire still burns…

Today, Centralia is no more than a ghost town. Several places here have huge cracks in the ground spewing hot steam.

centralia coal fire

By many, the fire is believed to be the sole factor in converting this bustling 50s town into a ghost town. However there’s much more to it than just the fire. Radiolab gives a great insight on it…

Although there is a 1 hour-long documentary on Youtube about this, do not forget to have a look at this short documentary about the town. “The Unknown Cameraman”, an urban explorer presents..

The Coldest Place on Earth

By Anupum Pant

A couple of days back I wrote about the hottest place on earth. That made me think of how cold the coldest place would be. I was sure it’d be somewhere in one of the poles, but I wasn’t sure where exactly it was.

This is what Google said:

Aerial photograph of Vostok Station, the coldest directly observed location on Earth. The lowest natural temperature ever directly recorded at ground level on Earth is −89.2 °C (−128.6 °F; 184.0 K), at the Soviet Vostok Station in Antarctica, on July 21, 1983.

After a little more digging, I found that his was the old record. Turns out, the coldest place on earth now, not counting the laboratories, is still in the high ridges of the East Antarctic plateau close to Vostok station. It’s called the Dome B. And the coldest times happen when all the conditions are perfect.

When the conditions are right, the temperatures during winters can reach minus 92 degrees Celsius!

The Hottest Place on Earth – Not Death Valley!

By Anupum Pant

For years I’ve known that the death valley was the hottest place on earth. Of course, not counting the lava, laboratory furnaces, hot springs and other such smart-ass answers, the death valley has always been, in textbooks and beyond, the hottest place on our planet.

On July 10th 1913, the temperature there was measured to be around 56.7 degrees centigrade. Nowhere else has the mercury risen to such high levels since then. Or so we thought…

Until, like always, a science channel from YouTube – MinuteEarth – decided to dive in a little deeper.

This is what the weather statistics do when they measure the temperature – The temperature outdoors are measured in shade at about 1.5 meters above the ground. Of course they had a standard procedure set to do that, and there must be a solid reason for that.

But, practically, who are we kidding. Anyone who has been on a beach, barefoot on a sunny day knows how hot the surface of sand can get in the sun, right?

The data from NASA’s satellites equipped with spectroradiometers has a different story to tell. A place somewhere in the Lut desert in Iran is the winner. The temperature averaged in a 1 square kilometre by the satellite shows that temperatures here have reached a whooping 70.7 degree Celsius. The place is somewhere inside the blue circle I made on Google maps.

lut desert hottest place on earth

You could literally cook eggs in the open there. Anyway, that isn’t totally new. Mr. Sargunaraj claims to have cooked an egg on the streets of Tirunelveli District in Tamil Nadu, India too. And I’ve also seen a video of a restaurant serving eggs cooked in the open (without fuel).

An 8000 km Long African Man-Made Forest

By Anupum Pant

The only desert larger than Sahara is a whole continent which is a desert – Antarctica. But Antarctica, unlike Africa’s desert, isn’t becoming bigger every year. It’s only the Sahara among these two which grows as time passes.

So, the expanding Sahara desert poses a great problem for the future generations of the southern nations (Sahel region) towards which it comes creeping. At least the ones just south of the Sahara desert, as the UN suggests, must be ready to face a hard life in the future.

Unless, an extremely ambitious and selfless plan being pushed for the good life of future generations, by a group of eleven African nations becomes a success.

The eleven nations across the African continent which stand to face the peril with a solid plan in place are Senegal, Mauritania, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, Nigeria, Chad, Sudan, Eritrea, Ethiopia, and Djibouti.

They have all come together and decided to create a massive Great Green Wall of Africa – a 15 km (9 miles) wide wall of man-made forest home to millions of drought resistant trees, stretching across the continent for about 8000 km (~5000 miles)! If complete, this is what it will look like.

The great green wall of africa

Since 2008, after spending about 6 million dollars, the enterprising leaders of Senegal, were able to finish a 330 mile long man-made forest. However in other nations where “short-termism” (to feed the present families) has taken priority over long-term good (of the future generations), the project faces a problem. Other problems like rebel groups, drought and famine doesn’t let this happen very easily.

The world bank has pledged 2 billion dollars for this massive project. If this great African dream does succeed, it will carry a huge lesson for all humans across the world to learn.

I earnestly hope it does succeed.

via [AtlasObscura]

The Increasing Land Area of Finland

By Anupum Pant

Tectonic plates float at a certain elevation on Earth. This elevation is decided by what lies on the plate. So, depending on the density and thickness of the matter that is present on a tectonic plate, the plate adjusts its elevation to maintain a gravitational equilibrium between the uppermost solid mantle and the mechanically weak layer – Asthenosphere – which lies just below it. This is call Isostasy.

During the Ice age when the land masses were covered in ice sheets up to 3 kilometres thick, the landmasses got depressed. This was about 20,000 years ago (last part of the last ice age) when the massive ice weight made the mechanically weak mantle below the solid mantle, deform. Under pressure, the semi-solid-ish mantle below, started flowing to other places where the solid mantle was higher and allowed a greater place for the ductiley flowing mantle below the plates.

When this period ended, the glaciers started retreating and the landmasses started rising from depression. Now, since the mantle below is not totally liquid, it took a lot of time for it to rush back into place from where it was displaced by the primitive heavy ice covered land. In fact, at some places on Earth, this rebound is still happening – This is known as the post glacial rebound.

This can be seen in some parts of Finland, where the land around the Gulf of Bothnia rises about 1 cm each year to maintain the gravitational equilibrium between the Lithosphere (solid mass) and the Asthenosphere (the semi-solid-ish stuff below the solid mass)! As a result the land which was previously below sea, rises upwards and Finland expands in area – about 7 Square kilometres annually. This rise has been recorded by the BIFROST GPS network. And is estimated to continue for the next 10,000 years, not necessarily at the same rate.

via [Post Glacial rebound]

The Everlasting Lightning of Venezuela

By Anupum Pant

There’s a place in Venezuela which is the single greatest generator of tropospheric ozone – A basin in Venezuela where the  Catatumbo River empties into Lake Maracaibo. The basin is surrounded on three sides by mountains and is home to a very unique phenomenon which produces more tropospheric ozone than anywhere else in the world. It’s called the Catatumbo everlasting lightning.

Almost every other day (more than 200 days a year), after dusk the largest lightning show on earth begins. The whole sky strobes blue light about 260 times every hour. This lasts for about ten hours. In that span lightning strikes about 20,000 times! Nowhere on earth is lightning as persistent as this place…

This happens because of the geography of the region. Since the basin is surrounded by mountains on three sides, it’s a perfect place for the equatorial warm and moist winds to crash. As they crash the moist air condenses water and forms clouds. These charged clouds create a lot of cloud to cloud lightning about 3 kilometers above in the sky.

This is better known among sailors as the Beacon of Maracaibo, as it serves a nice navigational aid for them.

Mysteriously, this lightning phenomenon which had lasted continually for 104 years disappeared in January 2010. Many thought it had gone for ever, but it started again in the month of April the same year. This was the longest disappearance ever. Scientists say it was the drought which made it stop for 4 months.

via [Slate]

The Monkey Island

By Anupum Pant

Off the coast of South Carolina is an island, the Morgan island, which is home to about 4000 monkeys. Locals call it the monkey island. Approximately 750 new baby monkeys join the monkey army on Morgan island every year. However, all the monkeys living in that island  are there for a reason. These monkeys are medical test subjects – used by researchers for medical testing – for vaccine testing (Polio, AIDS etc..). That is the reason about 500 monkeys are taken away from the island every year.

No humans live on this 4000 acre remote island. Also the Monkey island is a protected area and no unauthorised people are allowed to enter it. Only authorised monkey caretakers can go in. Others who try to enter will be greeted with a monkey-shit storm – Yes, monkeys of the Monkey island pelt feces at strangers.

Thankfully, the research isn’t done at the island itself. The island is like a store for all the monkeys. So you can rest assured that you won’t run across any mutant monkeys on this island, if you some how end up there.

Where did they come from?

They were all put there by us humans. Back in the 70s the monkey colony was at La Parguera in Puerto Rico. When there were reports of infected monkeys escaping and reaching human settlements, the locals were stirred. As a result, the monkeys were all collected and had to be shifted to a remote island where no one lived – Morgan Island.

[source]

First Man-made Object in Space – A Manhole Cover?

By Anupum Pant

Edit: The first man-made object to cross the boundary of space (100 km above the sea level, or the karman line) a Nazi German V2 rocket on October 3, 1942. – As mentioned by Scott and Adolf in the comments.

Background

Odd, I know. Teachers would say Sputnik was the first ever man-made object to orbit earth, but there is a slight possibility that Sputnik might not have been it – it could have been a humble manhole cover (not so humble, read on).

Back in the year 1956 (or summer of 1957, but definitely before the launch of Sputnik which happened on 4th October 1957), scientists at Los Alamos were learning to contain a nuclear explosion. To find out, they decided to do a much much larger version of the fire-cracker-in-a-can trick…
I’m not sure if they were doing it out of a desire to loft objects in space using a novel nuclear bomb propulsion, or it was something else, it sure was madness.

The mad experiment

In a 500 feet long and 4 feet wide vertical cylindrical tunnel, they put a nuclear bomb. The top of this tunnel was sealed using a 4 inch thick man hole cover (on steroids). The lid weighed about 2 tons! They were sure that even the 2 ton lid would blow off like feather due to the nuclear explosion. However, they weren’t sure on exactly how fast it’d travel up. To measure the speed, high-speed cameras were placed near the opening.

The bomb was detonated. Some say that the high speed cameras were only able to capture the image of the lid in a single frame. Which by the way could also contribute to an enormous error margin in the speed calculation. Nevertheless, the speed was of the lid at which it flew up in the air was calculated to be 41 miles per second – approximately 6 times the escape velocity! Never before had any man made objects moved at that speed inside the earth’s atmosphere. The lid went. It was never seen again. No one knows where it is now.

It’s highly likely that the lid was burned up and never reached Space. Or, may be it did reach some place and then dropped back. Again, must have got burnt during re-entry. Nothing can be said for sure.

Another thing that could have happened is that the lid went on and started orbiting the earth – highly unlikely, still. It’s probably still floating up there. And if things weren’t worse already, think of this – the first man-made object ever to orbit the earth was a manhole cover? Or, the fastest man-made object ever to travel inside the earth’s atmosphere was a manhole lid? Damn!

[Source 1] [Source 2]

Do You Feel Alone? – By Kurzgesagt

By Anupum Pant

If you feel worthless or alone, or both, you probably are looking at things very superficially. It’s time to realize who you are and where you stand in this vast universe.

Today, I’m just going to leave you with a brilliantly animated, science + philosophical video by Kurzgesagt.

(Just that because I’m too tired to write and happened to stumble upon this amazing video which I felt like sharing)

Also, don’t forget to check out their other videos. All of them are brilliant. Yes, I’ve watched them all. [Channel link]

A Miniature Planet Inside a Planet

By Anupum Pant

A couple of months back I wrote about a miniature sealed self-sustaining ecosystem that an old man has been running successfully for more than 53 years now. The whole ecosystem surviving out of itself in a completely closed system for such a long time is really fascinating. It’s like a little planet.

What if I tell you, there’s a much larger version of this completely sealed biosphere in Arizona. Much larger than the bottle, but way too smaller than our planet, and yet it works like a little planet inside a planet.

They call it the Biosphere 2 (Biosphere 1 is the plane earth’s biosphere). It is a completely closed 3-acre facility, currently owned by the University of Arizona, which doesn’t allow any matter to go in or out. There’s just energy moving in and out of this little planet that is the size of 3 football fields. Exactly like a miniature version of our pale blue dot.

Think about it this way. If you had to make a pizza in a place like that, it could take you two months or more, assuming you had everything needed to make a pizza (goats/cows for the cheese etc…). Just thinking about it makes you appreciate the fact that we’ve come so far. So far, that we’re able to get a pizza right on our door step in under 30 minutes.

The Biosphere 2 was designed to get a deeper understanding on how the earth’s biosphere actually works. Also, its aim was to try and create a prototype space base for Mars – Something like a little planet earth where we could live in and could carry it with us on a trip to other planets.

In the Biosphere 2 are areas that are meant for humans to live. Besides that there is a miniature rainforest, a savannah, a desert, a marsh, and a little mini-ocean in there!

Jane Poynter, with her team, walked into this biosphere when she was 29 years old. She lived in there for about 2 years and then came out. The world felt like a completely different place to her. It is really interesting to hear her talk in this TEDx talk…

The Greenest Invader in the History

By Anupum Pant

Background

The impact of human activities on climate change is by no means new. It is not an 1800s or 1900s thing. It did not start happening when we started burning huge amounts of coal or oil. In fact, human impact on the climate has been here for a long long time now. It started happening about thousands of years ago when our ancestors started clearing forests to make land for cultivation. The impact was less back then, but it had started.

So, basically an overly simplified equation has been like this – more humans, more cleared forests (for cultivation), more carbon emissions.

All these years humans have also been hit by some very unfortunate historical events which have resulted in the death of a great number of people.  Of course these events like the fall of Ming dynasty,  Black death and Conquest of America were sad events. They resulted in a massive wipe-out of human population which we would not wish to see ever again.

However, the huge number of deaths that happened due to these unfortunate events did have a common salubrious effect on our planet. Huge tracts of cultivated lands turned back into forests. As a result, great amounts of carbon dioxide got absorbed and there was effectively a global cooling happening.

The Mongol Invasion

Among all these historical events, one stands out – The Mongol invasion which lasted for about 150 years and covered more than 20% of Earth’s surface.

After founding the Mongol empire, Genghis Khan has been believed to have started these Mongol invasions. Time and again he was involved in the decimation of huge settlements. It is estimated that these invasions led by Genghis Khan resulted in the death of a whopping 40 Million people!

Death of so many people meant that the cultivated lands of settlements started turning back into forests and these forests ended up absorbing huge amounts of carbon dioxide from the air. Result – Global cooling (kinda).

It is estimated that the Genghis Khan invasions helped remove about 700 Million tons of carbon from the atmosphere. That about the same as a whole year of carbon that is being put back into the air due to burning of petrol today, in this industrialised world!

Genghis Khan has been branded the greenest invader in history.

Random Genghis Khan fact:
1 in 200 men are direct descendants of Genghis Khan – [Source]

Hit like if you learnt something today.