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Blue Planet

All articles tagged with #blue planet

space20 days ago•10 min saved

Cobalt skies, glass rain: HD 189733b’s blue hue isn’t Earth-like

HD 189733b looks like a cobalt Earth from afar, but its blue color comes from silicate hazes in a scorching gas giant atmosphere, not oceans. Molten silicate droplets condense into glass and can rain sideways driven by winds around 7,000 km/h, giving a vivid blue appearance with no solid surface. The planet is about 63 light-years away and its color was directly measured by the Hubble Space Telescope in 2013, highlighting how a blue hue can mislead about a world’s true nature.

via Space Daily|

#blue-planet #exoplanets #extreme-winds

science1 month ago•10 min saved

Pacific Ocean Dwarfs Land—and Is Quietly Shrinking

The Pacific Ocean is so vast it can swallow all Earth’s land (land area ~149 million sq km) with water to spare, with ocean-area estimates around 155–165 million sq km. A leftover water-free area of roughly 16 million sq km remains—larger than Russia. The ocean covers about two-thirds of the planet’s surface and, despite its enormity, is relatively shallow; through subduction the Pacific is slowly shrinking while the Atlantic widens, reminding us that Earth’s blue appearance is a dynamic, not fixed, fact. A common analogy even suggests Earth’s water would form a tiny sphere inside a ping-pong ball, underscoring how little of the planet is actually water relative to its size.

via Space Daily|

#blue-planet #earth-geometry #land-area