Julia K Cole

Using  NASA ’s Hubble Space Telescope, two research teams have discovered thick layers of high-altitude clouds covering the atmospheres of two relatively nearby exoplanets: a super-Earth and a "warm Neptune." Scientists are beginning to get a handle on how to study the atmospheres on alien planets, and have even found  green clouds  on the super-Jupiter planet, Kepler-7b. But the findings, published in the journal Nature this week, show that clouds can cover smaller planets too — including two of the most common types of planets found in the Milky Way. Neither of the planets, GJ 436b and GJ 1214b, are quite like anything found in our solar system. GJ 436b is a warm Neptune that’s slightly larger than Neptune and much closer to its host star. Thus unlike our own distant, gassy ice giant, GJ 436b’s surface temperature sits about a blistering 980 degrees Fahrenheit. It is 36 light-years from Earth in the constellation Leo. GJ 1214b, a super-Earth whose radius is 2.7 ...

Bring the expanding deserts of western Peru, "the driest place on Earth," back to life. The Peruvian city of Ica was once surrounded by huarango, a tree that gave life to the famous Nazca society. This mesquite relative is as beautiful as it is useful. Huarango pods can be used as fodder for livestock, ground into flour for human consumption, sweetened into molasses, or even fermented into beer. The light yellow flowers are a haven for bees, and the tree itself helps capture seasonal floodwaters on their way from the Andes to the Pacific, supporting humans, animals, and plants. But the struggling people of Ica turned in desperation to the trees, cutting them down for charcoal to sell and use in the cities. Now, 98% of the great forest is gone. Without the life-giving properties of the trees, the cleared land is fast becoming uninhabitable desert. The soil has degraded for lack of nutrients that the trees once provided, and is unable to support most plant life. Without the...