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Lake Whillans
Lake Whillans is a subglacial lake in Antarctica. The lake is located under the Whillans Ice Stream at the southeastern edge of the Ross Ice Shelf in the west of the continent. The lake surface is beneath the surface of the ice and the lake covers an estimated area of . Lake depths measured thus far have been around . Its temperature is −0.49 °C, below 0 °C because of the high pressure. Lake Whillans, like the Whillans Ice Stream, is named for Ohio State University glaciologist Dr. Ian Whillans. Discovery The lake was first described in 2007 by Helen Fricker, a glaciologist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. Satellite laser altimeter data from NASA's ICESat had revealed the ice at that location rising and falling, leading her team to conclude the presence of the lake. Research On 28 January 2013, the Whillans Ice Stream Subglacial Access Research Drilling (WISSARD) team announced that they had reached the lake surface having drilled through the ice abov ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Subglacial Lake
A subglacial lake is a lake that is found under a glacier, typically beneath an ice cap or ice sheet. Subglacial lakes form at the boundary between ice and the underlying bedrock, where gravitational pressure decreases the pressure melting point of ice. Over time, the overlying ice gradually melts at a rate of a few millimeters per year. Meltwater flows from regions of high to low hydraulic pressure under the ice and pools, creating a body of liquid water that can be isolated from the external environment for millions of years. Since the first discoveries of subglacial lakes under the Antarctic Ice Sheet, more than 400 subglacial lakes have been discovered in Antarctica, beneath the Greenland Ice Sheet, and under Iceland's Vatnajökull ice cap. Subglacial lakes contain a substantial proportion of Earth's liquid freshwater, with the volume of Antarctic subglacial lakes alone estimated to be about 10,000 km3, or about 15% of all liquid freshwater on Earth. As ecosystems iso ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Methane
Methane ( , ) is a chemical compound with the chemical formula (one carbon atom bonded to four hydrogen atoms). It is a group-14 hydride, the simplest alkane, and the main constituent of natural gas. The relative abundance of methane on Earth makes it an economically attractive fuel, although capturing and storing it poses technical challenges due to its gaseous state under normal conditions for temperature and pressure. Naturally occurring methane is found both below ground and under the seafloor and is formed by both geological and biological processes. The largest reservoir of methane is under the seafloor in the form of methane clathrates. When methane reaches the surface and the atmosphere, it is known as atmospheric methane. The Earth's atmospheric methane concentration has increased by about 150% since 1750, and it accounts for 20% of the total radiative forcing from all of the long-lived and globally mixed greenhouse gases. It has also been detected on other pl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Christian Science Monitor
Christians () are people who follow or adhere to Christianity, a monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. The words ''Christ'' and ''Christian'' derive from the Koine Greek title ''Christós'' (Χριστός), a translation of the Biblical Hebrew term '' mashiach'' (מָשִׁיחַ) (usually rendered as ''messiah'' in English). While there are diverse interpretations of Christianity which sometimes conflict, they are united in believing that Jesus has a unique significance. The term ''Christian'' used as an adjective is descriptive of anything associated with Christianity or Christian churches, or in a proverbial sense "all that is noble, and good, and Christ-like." It does not have a meaning of 'of Christ' or 'related or pertaining to Christ'. According to a 2011 Pew Research Center survey, there were 2.2 billion Christians around the world in 2010, up from about 600 million in 1910. Today, about 37% of all Christians live in th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Amphipod
Amphipoda is an order of malacostracan crustaceans with no carapace and generally with laterally compressed bodies. Amphipods range in size from and are mostly detritivores or scavengers. There are more than 9,900 amphipod species so far described. They are mostly marine animals, but are found in almost all aquatic environments. Some 1,900 species live in fresh water, and the order also includes the terrestrial sandhoppers such as '' Talitrus saltator''. Etymology and names The name ''Amphipoda'' comes, via New Latin ', from the Greek roots 'on both/all sides' and 'foot'. This contrasts with the related Isopoda, which have a single kind of thoracic leg. Particularly among anglers, amphipods are known as ''freshwater shrimp'', ''scuds'', or ''sideswimmers''. Description Anatomy The body of an amphipod is divided into 13 segments, which can be grouped into a head, a thorax and an abdomen. The head is fused to the thorax, and bears two pairs of antennae and one pair o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Grounding Line
Marine ice sheet instability (MISI) describes the potential for ice sheets grounded below sea level to destabilize in a runaway fashion. The mechanism was first proposed in the 1970s by Johannes Weertman and was quickly identified as a means by which even gradual anthropogenic warming could lead to relatively rapid sea level rise. In Antarctica, the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, the Aurora Subglacial Basin, and the Wilkes Basin are each grounded below sea level and are inherently subject to MISI. General The term ''marine ice sheet'' describes an ice sheet whose base rests on ground below sea level, and ''marine ice sheet instability'' describes the inherent precarious nature of marine ice sheets due to Archimedes' principle. Because seawater is denser than ice, marine ice sheets can only remain stable where the ice is thick enough for its mass to exceed the mass of the seawater displaced by the ice. In other words, wherever ice exists below sea level, it is held in place only by the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Saturn
Saturn is the sixth planet from the Sun and the second-largest in the Solar System, after Jupiter. It is a gas giant with an average radius of about nine and a half times that of Earth. It has only one-eighth the average density of Earth; however, with its larger volume, Saturn is over 95 times more massive. Saturn's interior is most likely composed of a core of iron–nickel and rock (silicon and oxygen compounds). Its core is surrounded by a deep layer of metallic hydrogen, an intermediate layer of liquid hydrogen and liquid helium, and finally, a gaseous outer layer. Saturn has a pale yellow hue due to ammonia crystals in its upper atmosphere. An electrical current within the metallic hydrogen layer is thought to give rise to Saturn's planetary magnetic field, which is weaker than Earth's, but which has a magnetic moment 580 times that of Earth due to Saturn's larger size. Saturn's magnetic field strength is around one-twentieth of Jupiter's. The outer atmosphere is ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Enceladus (moon)
Enceladus is the sixth-largest moon of Saturn (19th largest in the Solar System). It is about in diameter, about a tenth of that of Saturn's largest moon, Titan. Enceladus is mostly covered by fresh, clean ice, making it one of the most reflective bodies of the Solar System. Consequently, its surface temperature at noon only reaches , far colder than a light-absorbing body would be. Despite its small size, Enceladus has a wide range of surface features, ranging from old, heavily cratered regions to young, tectonically deformed terrain. Enceladus was discovered on August 28, 1789, by William Herschel, but little was known about it until the two Voyager spacecraft, '' Voyager 1'' and '' Voyager 2'', flew by Saturn in 1980 and 1981. In 2005, the spacecraft '' Cassini'' started multiple close flybys of Enceladus, revealing its surface and environment in greater detail. In particular, ''Cassini'' discovered water-rich plumes venting from the south polar region. Cryo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jupiter
Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the largest in the Solar System. It is a gas giant with a mass more than two and a half times that of all the other planets in the Solar System combined, but slightly less than one-thousandth the mass of the Sun. Jupiter is the third brightest natural object in the Earth's night sky after the Moon and Venus, and it has been observed since prehistoric times. It was named after the Roman god Jupiter, the king of the gods. Jupiter is primarily composed of hydrogen, but helium constitutes one-quarter of its mass and one-tenth of its volume. It probably has a rocky core of heavier elements, but, like the other giant planets in the Solar System, it lacks a well-defined solid surface. The ongoing contraction of Jupiter's interior generates more heat than it receives from the Sun. Because of its rapid rotation, the planet's shape is an oblate spheroid: it has a slight but noticeable bulge around the equator. The outer atmospher ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Europa (moon)
Europa , or Jupiter II, is the smallest of the four Galilean moons orbiting Jupiter, and the sixth-closest to the planet of all the 80 known moons of Jupiter. It is also the sixth-largest moon in the Solar System. Europa was discovered in 1610 by Galileo Galilei and was named after Europa, the Phoenician mother of King Minos of Crete and lover of Zeus (the Greek equivalent of the Roman god Jupiter). Slightly smaller than Earth's Moon, Europa is primarily made of silicate rock and has a water-ice crust and probably an iron–nickel core. It has a very thin atmosphere, composed primarily of oxygen. Its white- beige surface is striated by light tan cracks and streaks, but craters are relatively few. In addition to Earth-bound telescope observations, Europa has been examined by a succession of space-probe flybys, the first occurring in the early 1970s. In September 2022, the ''Juno'' spacecraft flew within about 200 miles of Europa for a more recent close-up view. Europa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Solar System
The Solar System Capitalization of the name varies. The International Astronomical Union, the authoritative body regarding astronomical nomenclature, specifies capitalizing the names of all individual astronomical objects but uses mixed "Solar System" and "solar system" structures in theinaming guidelines document. The name is commonly rendered in lower case ('solar system'), as, for example, in the ''Oxford English Dictionary'' an''Merriam-Webster's 11th Collegiate Dictionary''. is the gravitationally bound system of the Sun and the objects that orbit it. It formed 4.6 billion years ago from the gravitational collapse of a giant interstellar molecular cloud. The vast majority (99.86%) of the system's mass is in the Sun, with most of the remaining mass contained in the planet Jupiter. The four inner system planets—Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars—are terrestrial planets, being composed primarily of rock and metal. The four giant planets of the outer system a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lake Ellsworth (Antarctica)
Lake Ellsworth is a natural freshwater liquid subglacial lake located in West Antarctica under approximately of ice. It is approximately 10 km long and is estimated to be in depth. The lake is named after the American explorer Lincoln Ellsworth. The surface of the lake itself is located over below sea level. Exploration Lake Ellsworth was discovered in 1996 by British scientist Professor Martin Siegert of the University of Bristol; it is one of 387 known subglacial Antarctic lakes and it is a target site for exploration due to the speculation that new forms of microbial life could have evolved in the unique habitats of Antarctica’s sub-glacial lakes after half a million years of isolation.Siegert, Martin J. and the Lake Ellsworth Consortium, "Exploration of Subglacial Lake Ellsworth", Poster, University of Bristol, September 2004 Life in subglacial lakes would have to adapt to total darkness, low nutrient levels, high water pressure, and isolation from the atmosphere ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lake Vostok
Lake Vostok (russian: озеро Восток, ''ozero Vostok'') is the largest of Antarctica's almost 400 known subglacial lakes. Lake Vostok is located at the southern Pole of Cold, beneath Russia's Vostok Station under the surface of the central East Antarctic Ice Sheet, which is at above mean sea level. The surface of this fresh water lake is approximately under the surface of the ice, which places it at approximately below sea level. Measuring long by wide at its widest point, it covers an area of making it the 16th largest lake by surface area. With an average depth of , it has an estimated volume of , making it the 6th largest lake by volume. The lake is divided into two deep basins by a ridge. The liquid water depth over the ridge is about , compared to roughly deep in the northern basin and deep in the southern. The lake is named after Vostok Station, which in turn is named after the '' Vostok'' (Восток), a sloop-of-war, which means "East" in Russian ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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