Latest Thermosphere Stories

CU-Boulder findings should help satellite tracking, communication forecastingA new University of Colorado at Boulder study shows the periodic "breathing" of Earth's upper atmosphere that has long puzzled scientists is due in part to cyclic solar wind disturbances, a finding that should help engineers track satellites more accurately and improve forecasts for electronic communication disruptions.Aerospace engineering sciences department Associate Professor Jeff Thayer said the outer,...

BOULDER -- Carbon dioxide emissions from the burning of fossil fuels will produce a 3 percent reduction in the density of Earth's outermost atmosphere by 2017, according to a team of scientists from the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) and The Pennsylvania State University (PSU). The research, which appears in the latest issue of Geophysical Research Letters, will be presented today at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union."We're seeing climate change...

Weather on Earth has a surprising connection to space weather occurring high in the electrically-charged upper atmosphere, known as the ionosphere, according to new results from NASA satellites."This discovery will help improve forecasts of turbulence in the ionosphere, which can disrupt radio transmissions and the reception of signals from the Global Positioning System," said Thomas Immel of the University of California, Berkeley, lead author of a paper on the research published...

(Washington, DC "¢ July 6, 2005) "” A new study, funded in part by the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) reports that exhaust from the space shuttle can create high-altitude clouds over Antarctica mere days following launch, providing valuable insight to global transport processes in the lower thermosphere. The same study also finds that the shuttle's main engine exhaust plume carries small quantities of iron that can be observed...