Science & Nature

The word "mineral" is derived from the word "mine" because most minerals are mined from the Earth's crust. There are many common minerals, such as aluminum, potassium and iron. These are fairly...

The orbit of the Earth is circular but it is not a perfectly round circle. The orbit is somewhat elliptical, with the Earth being closer to the Sun in January and furthest from it in July.

Ursa Major, a constellation that represents a bear and contains the famous Big Dipper star system, seems to change its location during the course of the evening. This is due to the rotation of the...

Earth's atmosphere is what allows life to exist on this planet. Carbon dioxide gets a lot of media coverage because of its role in global warming, but in fact, most of Earth's atmosphere is made...

Saturn is one of the few planets in the solar system that has rings. But why aren't there more ringed planets and why doesn't Earth have a ring? There are several elements, including size and...

A geologic ladder of time represents the different sections of history in rising rock layers that may be exposed, due to weatherization, by excavation. Scientists segment the different eras of...

The particular qualities of light given off by the Sun have shaped the way we see. Our eyes have evolved to take advantage of this form of energy. The sun's output, filtered by the Earth's...

Birds and tropical vacationers alike know that climate is affected by latitude. Because the earth is a sphere, the surface of the earth does not receive uniform amounts of solar radiation. This...

The sea level in Earth's oceans rises and falls twice per day. These times of high and low water are referred to as high tides and low tides and are caused by the gravitational pull of the moon...

Solar radiation has positive and negative effects on the climate, ecosystem and health of organisms living on earth. The negative effects are often associated with man-made chemical radiations;...

In order to use coal, a sedimentary rock often burned to generate electricity, it must first be extracted from the ground. This is accomplished by two methods: surface mining and underground...

Saturn, the planet sixth in order from the Sun, is a giant planet famous for the spectacular series of rings that orbit around it. Saturn possesses an atmosphere that nothing on Earth could...

Finding a whole mammoth tusk or a hominid femur is rare. You will find far more fossils with a sifter; this can be a wooden frame with a strong mesh screen, or a smaller cylindrical or square hand...

The jet stream can best be thought of as a river of wind that moves through the Earth's troposphere. Usually going from west to east, this stream of moving air can be extremely powerful, moving on...

Of all the planets and satellites in our solar system, only Earth has an atmosphere that can sustain life. No atmosphere is close to Earth's in composition, and only Venus has an atmosphere even...

Teachers frequently assign their students projects that deal with the planets in the solar system throughout grade school and even into high school. One such project is to have the student write a...

First detected by instruments aboard spacecraft in the 1950s and 1960s, the solar wind is made up of charged particles streaming away from the Sun. The solar wind originates in the Sun's corona,...

Currents of fast-moving air form the jet stream six to nine miles above the Earth's surface. These currents help weather forecasters predict the weather. Meteorologists use computer models to...

Neodymium is not one of the best-known of chemical elements, but it is one of the most useful in today's society. Neodymium is relatively safe to produce and use, exists as a common metal on the...

The periodic rise and fall of the Earth's oceans are known as tides. The major forces causing tides are the gravitational pull of the moon, the gravitational pull of the sun and the Earth's...

Planetary alignment can mean different things to different people. Some may view it as a row or close grouping of planets in the night sky, a purely visual phenomenon. A more precise definition...

The path of the earth around the sun is an elliptical shaped orbit. But it should be noted that the exact path of the planet changes slightly over time. These changes in orbit can affect certain...

Solar energy has been harnessed by humans for thousands of years for heating purposes, and more recently for electricity generation. Solar power is an extremely vast resource, but it has some...

The Earth's core is solid at its center with a liquid outside. Part of that liquid is molten iron, which, at the Earth's surface, has a magnetic tendency. Some iron compounds are naturally...

Since the dawn of space travel, scientists have concerned themselves with the effects of radiation on astronauts. Several kinds of radiation occur almost instantaneously and can cause a variety of...

When early astronomers discovered Saturn, they found a large planet with rings. Modern research has led to some startling facts about one of the solar system's largest planets.

Ever since the dawn of time, man has wondered about his origins. How did we get here? Were we crafted by an intelligent creator or created by an evolutionary process? Scientists today still argue...

Kyanite, a pale-blue mineral, receives its name from the Greek word Kyanos, "dark blue", but can also be white, gray, green or black. With a density similar to that of diamonds, its appearance is...

The alkaline earth metals are reactive metals that share similar properties. They are arranged together on the periodic table and have similar configurations.

The moon circles Earth once every 29.5 days, which is known as the lunar cycle. One complete orbit of the moon around the sun is known as a lunation. The lunar phases refer to how the moon appears...

With a set of rings composed of ice and rock and dozens of moons circling it, Saturn is the sixth planet from the sun. It is the second largest in our solar system, eclipsed in size only by the...

The autumnal equinox, a traditionally observed event, inaugurates the first day of fall. Since this event occurs when the Earth's north pole and south pole rest at an equal position from the sun,...

Mercury is the planet closest to the Sun and it completes about four orbits of the Sun by the time Earth finishes just one. For this reason, the ancient Romans named it after the swift messenger...

Neptune's discovery came about by using mathematics to predict where this distant world--which is 30 times further from the Sun than Earth--would be and then finding it with the use of a...

Currents in the ocean circulate areas of cold and warm water to regulate the climates around the globe. These currents move based upon the density of the water. Cold water with a higher salt...

Saturn is a planet that was named after the Roman god of agriculture. Saturn is known for its brilliant reddish colors as well as its rings. While the planet itself can be seen without a...

Fossils are the remains or traces of past geological life preserved in rocks. The Earth's sedimentary layers, or strata, turn to rock through the process of lithification. During fossilization,...

When people talk about tides, they usually mean the regular rise and fall of large bodies of water which occur periodically and at predictable times that revolve around 12 hour cycles. However,...

Neptune is a distant planet with 13 moons that is so far from the Sun that astronomers on Earth did not detect it until 1846. Neptune's size dwarfs the Earth, but life as we know it could not...

As the Earth exerts gravitational force upon the moon, so does the moon's gravity affect the Earth. Although relatively weak by comparison, the force of the moon's pull is sufficient to influence...

As climate change becomes more of a reality worldwide, it is beneficial to understand the differences between weather and climate and what each affects. People's everyday lives are affected by the...

The alkaline earth metals are a group of elements on the periodic table that are highly reactive and share common traits. These metals, which are found in common compounds like marble and chalk,...

It is the mixture of wildness and serenity that brings thousands of visitors to Yellowstone National Park year after year. But under the feet of the free-roaming wildlife, hikers, sightseers,...

Since the 1950s, countries around the world have launched satellites into space. These satellites transmit signals for television and radio, provide information about weather systems and spy on...

Mars is a rocky planet, smaller than Earth, measuring 4,221 miles in diameter, making it slightly more than half the size of Earth. An orbit occurs when one object travels around another object. ...

Science is humanity's quest to understand the universe in which we live. Science is constantly evolving. The Earth, after all, was once thought to be flat. It is highly unlikely, though, that...

It was impossible for the ancient civilizations on Earth to have any concept of how far away the stars were. Modern science however knows that the stars, even the closest and some of the brightest...

Diatomaceous earth is the shells of diatoms, from thousands of years ago. They are the microscopic remains of these one-celled plants, and they are mined from deposits in underwater beds or from...

Created by radioactive decay and in the cores of stars, helium gas is a valuable commodity on Earth. Though used to float party balloons and Thanksgiving Day Parade characters, it also supercools...

A combustible substance is a substance that can be burned. Usually this means burned in the open air or atmosphere. If nitrogen could burn, all life on earth would have been destroyed long ago,...