Hubble at 25: Successor with 25 times sharper vision could find the aliens

Hubble, a joint project of Nasa and the European Space Agency (ESA), blasted off aboard shuttle Discovery into space and orbit on 24 April, 1990Nasa

Jayalakshmi K

Hubble's successor should be a powerful telescope that can answer the biggest puzzle facing mankind today – are we alone in the universe? The powerful telescope can do this by looking for biological signatures, supporting many projects just like the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) has done for 25 years.

That is the vision of Mario Livio, an astrophysicist based at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, which operates Hubble's science programme.

Hubble has taught us that to answer the most intriguing questions in astrophysics, we must think big and put scientific ambition ahead of budgetary concerns, he says.

Planned next generation projects like the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) and the Wide Field Infrared Survey Telescope–Astrophysics Focused Telescope Assets (WFIRST/AFTA) will also be scanning the universe for molecular signatures. However, Livio believes a space telescope with a primary mirror 39 feet wide providing a vision 25 times sharper than that of Hubble would be able to image a planet next to its star and detect spectrally the presence of oxygen and other biosignatures in its atmosphere.

The main mirrors of Hubble, WFIRST/AFTA and JWST are 7.9 feet, 7.9 feet and 21.3 feet wide, respectively.

"A large sample of planets — around 50 — would have to be tested," he wrote in a Nature commentary. "Calculations show, for example, that if no biosignatures are detected in more than about three dozen Earth analogues, the probability of remotely detectable extrasolar life in our galactic neighborhood is less than about 10 percent."

Molecular signatures of life

The HST had determined for the first time the chemical composition of the atmospheres of some giant extrasolar planets, revealing spectral signatures of sodium, water and methane.

These need not be based on oxygen and water. The search for alien life will have to ask different questions when encountering atmospheres dominated by molecular hydrogen instead of nitrogen and oxygen.

Hubble, a joint project of Nasa and the European Space Agency (ESA), blasted off aboard shuttle Discovery into space and orbit on 24 April, 1990.

A larger telescope could identify vital signatures of life processes by detecting oxygen and chlorophyll, believes Livio.

By simultaneously increasing investment in the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (Seti), Livio believes the search for aliens could be accelerated to scan about 10 million stars in a decade for signals indicative of intelligent life.

His thoughts echo those of MIT astronomers Sara Seager and William Bain, who wrote a review article last month in the journal Science Advances, seeking a telescope with a wide mirror to accelerate the search for aliens.

Scientists have discovered more than 1,800 exoplanets, very different from those in our solar system.

The MIT duo spoke of how the surprising discovery was that the most common type of planet in our galaxy are those with sizes between those of Earth and Neptune, reinforcing the possibility that alien life may be quite different from life on Earth.

Life that is really alien

TESS could seek rocky planets and JWST probe the atmospheres. Ground-based telescopes can boost the search, but an instrument that can potentially run through many exoplanet atmospheres could provide the crucial numbers that will allow astronomers to do some analysis. Should many planets with unusual atmospheres be found, it could indicate that life beyond Earth exists. That is what a Hubble successor could do.

A team of researchers led by Pennsylvania State University failed to find any signs of highly advanced technological civilisations in 100,000 nearby large galaxies scanned for signs of thermal heat.

The finding has also set off discussions on whether perceptions of intelligent life are all wrong.

The study looked for heat based on assumption that advanced civilisations would use up a lot of energy.

Perhaps advanced civilisations are not wasteful, and have learnt to keep greed out? Or perhaps life is entirely different from what we are familiar with.

A proud 25 years

Perched at an altitude of about 560km, well above the atmosphere, HST can resolve objects 0.07 arc seconds apart — akin to reading the year on a dime from 3km away.

It has answered the main questions it was tasked with – on how fast the Universe is expanding, to how galaxies evolve and probed the structure of diffuse gas clouds lying between galaxies.

HST also gave the first confirmation of dark energy in 1998 from the accelerated cosmic expansion and also proved that almost all galaxies have at their heart a supermassive black hole.

Hubble Space Telescope has weighed the largest known galaxy cluster in the distant universe, catalogued as ACT-CL J0102-4915, and found it definitely lives up to its nickname -- El Gordo (Spanish for "the fat one")Nasa

How to Start a Movement: The Egyptian Principle of Ma'at

The Egyptian principle of Ma'at is a level of consciousness that revolves around a formula of Love (the heart) under will (conscious attention). In the Egyptian Book of the Dead, the feather of Ma'at is what your heart is weighed against, to see if you are worthy of passing through to "Heaven" or if you are to suffer in "Hell". If your heart is as light as a feather you can pass, otherwise you are condemned to suffering. If you view "Heaven" and "Hell" as abstract concepts, and dimensions of karmic destiny to fulfill - Heaven is ascension to another realm of consciousness, while Hell can be viewed at as another incarnation on planet Earth. 

Earth is a school, where we are taught by experience, and shaped by the programming we receive from what we surround ourselves with. We are born into this world, exactly as we should be, but we are tricked into believing we are to "become" something more, something different than who we really are. The tricks, turns, triumph and tragedy are all merely tests to see how light we can keep our hearts, even during the darkest moments of this reality. There is no permanence, aside from impermanence, and living the Ma'at principle is the preservation of this light.

The principle of complete surrender to the heart, is something that requires practice. For those who are in the midst of this awakening process, the task to remain at a high vibration can be challenging because not all hear the same "music". Ma'at teaches us (what we constantly reiterate) that being is doing, and it is not our job to force others to understand...merely be, suggest, and live your True Will.

Maat Magick: A Guide to Self-Initiation

From Ma'at Magick by Nema: 

"Once you comprehend your True Will and begin to work on it, you'll draw people to you without conscious effort. Some will have interest in action congruent with your own, others will diverge, and still others may oppose you. In all cases, you're obliged to help each one's spiritual evolution, according to individual need. This does not mean that you should do other people's work, or even imply that you could. The most you need to do is teach by example, suggest reading material, and raise as many questions as you answer."

While learning about how powerful you really are, and the true nature of The Universe is the most exciting journey to embark on, and you want to shout it from the rooftops to awaken everyone from their slumber...you must understand the importance of silence, and the power of suggestion. You can't create anyone else's reality aside from your own, and in order to facilitate change, you must live, and provide "gnosis" through suggestion, and inspiration. 

Nobody likes to be told what to do, and while it may be frustrating, you just have to let go of the attachment to other's personal karmic destiny. It's a difficult "dance", but following your own choreography will eventually inspire others to "dance" as well...and the resistance will dissolve in time. 

"The only way to Dance the Mask successfully is to remember that behind the mask there is no dancer, only dance." - Nema

All experience is initiation to a higher or lower realm based off of the lightness of your being. Adversity is the greatest teacher, and feeling good about the contrast will allow you to feel "God". Feeling goodness, is feeling "Godness"...being light, delicate, and airy, but still maintaining the strength to fly, to soar above the Earthly plane is the principle of Ma'at. The "Godness" is the magic, and the Ma'at is the magick (see: "The Difference Between Magic and Magick").


Source: http://www.evolveandascend.com/new-blog-1/2014/12/26/the-egyptian-principle-of-maat

How you can change your life by thinking: The science behind the power of thoughts

Rakhi Chakraborty

When I first came across Christie Marie Sheldon’s talk from Awesomeness Fest on Youtube titled, ‘How to change your frequency to change your reality,’ the skepticism was hard to hold back. While I try to maintain a healthy distance from lifestyle coaches, internet savvy spiritual leaders and self-help gurus of all kind- I am also aware that treating everything to be hogwash keeps me from discovering information that can be genuinely helpful and sometimes, like in this case, even life changing. Though it is best to be wary of many of her projected metrics (love vibrations?), her talk is eye opening in many ways.

Sheldon raises some hard hitting points to being with-ones that if you are willing to be honest with yourself- will make you squirm.

“If you look at the world the way I see it, you will then be tapped into the causal plane where everything can be changed. Because everything you see in the out-picturing of your life really is the effect of your life. And everything that created it was created by all your thoughts, beliefs, ideologies and every judgement you’ve ever made. Those points of you make up your reality. That’s why your life is the way it is.”

"You fool"

To demonstrate her question, “Can you and your energy influence your environment?”, Sheldon cites Dr.  Emoto’s experiment with water crystals. In 1994 Dr. Masaru Emoto conducted an experiment with water to test out a hypothesis about how positive and negative energies affect our environment. He froze bottled water and studied the molecules under a microscope. What he saw were shapeless molecules. Subsequently he froze other bottles of water and labelled them with key phrases: ‘Love and thanks,’, ‘I hate you. You make me sick,’ ‘Joy,’, ‘You fool,’ and purportedly the most powerful of them all- ‘Gratitude.’ These images, posted by Emoto on his website, detail what the water crystals from each label look like after a few hours of refrigeration.

If your gut reaction, like mine, is to scoff then recall these words by Maria Popova, “Critical thinking without hope is cynicism. Hope without critical thinking is naiveté.” So hold on to your judgements, but don’t let it undermine your capacity for wonder. Dr. Emoto, on his website, says, “This world is filled with wonders and mysteries that get more incomprehensible if we try to think of a reason. Except for some of truly basic things, no one disagrees that there are still so many unknowns.

"Gratitude"

Everything is combination of energetic vibration. As vibration resonates, it makes some tangible objects. The photograph of crystals is neither science nor religion. Nevertheless, the world it shows is truth, and there is no doubt that many messages essential to our lives are hidden in it.”

"You disgust me"

Dr. Emoto’s findings have their own share of supporters and critics and you should form your own opinion on the veracity of his claims. Sheldon endorses them wholeheartedly and asks us to think that given the human body is made up of 70 % water, what kind of energies are we transmitting in our own lives when we go are so hard on ourselves for our mistakes (You fool) and judge others constantly. If all this seems like fantasy, then here is some hard science-not to back up Dr. Emoto’s study-but to support the ideas that he is peddling. “New studies reveal a subconscious brain that is far more active, purposeful and independent than previously known. Goals, whether to eat, mate or devour an iced latte, are like neural software programs that can only be run one at a time, and the unconscious is perfectly capable of running the program it chooses,” reports the New York Times regarding arecently concluded Yale research.

Think of yourself as a computer. The windows you browse (your consciousness), the websites you visit, what you tweet, post on Facebook or Instagram and the kind of content you consume informs your thoughts, opinions and perceptions and guide your understanding of the world. But the impressions do not stop happening once you close the tabs and switch off your browser. The programs installed in the machine continue running and it is they which ensure the efficiency of the machine.

"Peace"

The good news here is that you can choose to install what programs you like and remove the ones that are weighing you down and affecting you negatively. The earlier belief was that life is mostly predetermined for us because our temperament, attitude and outlook is influenced by our genetic and molecular makeup- a gift inherited from our parents and the gene pool they come from. It is these factors which influence our thoughts, perceptions and behaviours and ultimately our actions.

But a slew of new research shows that the truth is entirely opposite. Our thoughts, perceptions and judgements directly affect our biology. So the more self-critical and judgemental you are, the more your subconscious will work to convince you of your worthlessness. But if you make a habit of surrounding yourself with positive reminders and vibes, then the same thoughts will direct your actions towards goal orienting behaviour.Though you can’t control how your subconscious directs your actions and perceptions, you can choose what to feed it.

Cellular biologist Bruce Lipton, a leading authority in this field, has this to say: “Your mind will adjust the body’s biology and behaviour to fit with your beliefs. If you’ve been told you’ll die in six months and your mind believes it, you most likely will die in six months. That’s called the nocebo effect, the result of a negative thought, which is the opposite of the placebo effect, where healing is mediated by a positive thought.”

In fact the power of thoughts are allegedly so powerful that they not only affect ourselves but, when harnessed collectively, can change the outcomes of society as a whole. This phenomenon is termed the Maharishi Effect. First published in a paper in 1976, it was reported that when 1% of a community practiced the transcendental meditation program, the crime rate was reduced by 16% on average. In 1960 Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, the founding father of this movement, predicted that one percent of a population practicing transcendental meditation technique would produce measurable improvements in the quality of life for the whole population.

Though not without its share of skeptics and critics (who raise fair points), the Maharishi effect has nevertheless been studied under rigorous scientific methodology and has, for decades now, yielded stunning results which defy human logic.

Dr. Lipton believes that gene activity changes on a daily basis, that the perception of the mind is reflected in the chemistry of the body. Twenty first century science finally proves what Buddhist philosophers and ancient statesmen knew all along- that an individual’s full potential can only be realised when there is complete harmony between the soul and the body.

Sheldon says, “You are a living, perceiving, knowing being who is in a body. As an infinite being, there are two things that will determine your fate- choice and awareness.”

She goes on to state that choice will always overrule. That we have to choose something really powerfully. Then realize all the things that have come up that stand in the way of us carrying out that choice. “Then all you have to do is just clear those blocks one by one in your subconscious.”

Our thoughts affect our reality. If you want to change your reality, you know where to begin.

Source: http://yourstory.com/2015/04/power-of-thoughts/

The Earth is a Sentient Living Organism

Contrary to the common belief that the Earth is simply a dense planet whose only function is a resource for its inhabitants, our planet is in fact a breathing, living organism. When we think of the Earth holistically, as one living entity of its own, instead of the sum of its parts, it takes on a new meaning. Our planet functions as a single organism that maintains conditions necessary for its survival.

James Lovelock published in a book in 1979 providing many useful lessons about the interaction of physical, chemical, geological, and biological processes on Earth.

Throughout history, the concept of Mother Earth has been a part of human culture in one form or another. Everybody has heard of Mother Earth, but have you ever stopped to think who (or what) Mother Earth is?

What is Gaia?

Lovelock defined Gaia as “…a complex entity involving the Earth’s biosphere, atmosphere, oceans, and soil; the totality constituting a feedback or cybernetic system which seeks an optimal physical and chemical environment for life on this planet.”

Through Gaia, the Earth sustains a kind of homeostasis, the maintenance of relatively constant conditions.

The truly startling component of the Gaia hypothesis is the idea that the Earth is a single living entity. This idea is certainly not new. James Hutton (1726-1797), the father of geology, once described the Earth as a kind of superorganism. And right before Lovelock, Lewis Thomas, a medical doctor and skilled writer, penned these words in his famous collection of essays, The Lives of a Cell:

“Viewed from the distance of the moon, the astonishing thing about the earth, catching the breath, is that it is alive. The photographs show the dry, pounded surface of the moon in the foreground, dry as an old bone. Aloft, floating free beneath the moist, gleaming, membrane of bright blue sky, is the rising earth, the only exuberant thing in this part of the cosmos. If you could look long enough, you would see the swirling of the great drifts of white cloud, covering and uncovering the half-hidden masses of land. If you had been looking for a very long, geologic time, you could have seen the continents themselves in motion, drifting apart on their crustal plates, held afloat by the fire beneath. It has the organized, self-contained look of a live creature, full of information, marvelously skilled in handling the sun.”

John Nelson illustrated the “Breathing Earth,” (below) which are two animated GIFs he designed to visualize what a year’s worth of Earth’s seasonal transformations look like from outer space. Nelson–a data visualizer, stitched together from NASA’s website 12 cloud-free satellite photographs taken each month over the course of a year. Once the images were put together in a sequence, the mesmerizing animations showed what Nelson describes as “the annual pulse of vegetation and land ice.”



As the climate changes, the planet comes alive. Earth appears to breathe when ice cover grows and melts–in and out, in and out.

White frost radiates out from the top of the globe and creeps south in all directions. It travels through Siberia, Canada, and northern Europe, heading towards the equator located around the circle’s edge, but ends before the top of Africa. The Mediterranean Sea is the visible body of water on the top left hand side, and the Great Lakes make up a small network of dark blue shapes on the land mass to the right.

The Earth acts as a single system – it is a coherent, self-regulated, assemblage of physical, chemical, geological, and biological forces that interact to maintain a unified whole balanced between the input of energy from the sun and the thermal sink of energy into space.

In its most basic configuration, the Earth acts to regulate flows of energy and recycling of materials. The input of energy from the sun occurs at a constant rate and for all practical purposes is unlimited. This energy is captured by the Earth as heat or photosynthetic processes, and returned to space as long-wave radiation. On the other hand, the mass of the Earth, its material possessions, are limited (except for the occasional input of mass provided as meteors strike the planet). Thus, while energy flows through the Earth (sun to Earth to space), matter cycles within the Earth.

The idea of the Earth acting as a single system as put forth in the Gaia hypothesis has stimulated a new awareness of the connectedness of all things on our planet and the impact that man has on global processes. No longer can we think of separate components or parts of the Earth as distinct. No longer can we think of man’s actions in one part of the planet as independent. Everything that happens on the planet – the deforestation/reforestation of trees, the increase/decrease of emissions of carbon dioxide, the removal or planting of croplands – all have an affect on our planet. The most difficult part of this idea is how to qualify these effects, i.e. to determine whether these effects are positive or negative. If the Earth is indeed self-regulating, then it will adjust to the impacts of man. However, as we will see, these adjustments may act to exclude man, much as the introduction of oxygen into the atmosphere by photosynthetic bacteria acted to exclude anaerobic bacteria. This is the crux of the Gaia hypothesis.

One of the early predictions of this hypothesis was that there should be a sulfur compound made by organisms in the oceans that was stable enough against oxidation in water to allow its transfer to the air. Either the sulfur compound itself, or its atmospheric oxidation product, would have to return sulfur from the sea to the land surfaces. The most likely candidate for this role was deemed to be dimethyl sulfide.

Published work done at the University of Maryland by first author Harry Oduro, together with UMD geochemist James Farquhar and marine biologist Kathryn Van Alstyne of Western Washington University, provides a tool for tracing and measuring the movement of sulfur through ocean organisms, the atmosphere and the land in ways that may help prove or disprove the controversial Gaia theory. Their study appears in this week’s Online Early Edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

The Story of Water by Alick Bartholomew, is another unique publication in that it reflects the author’s deep knowledge of the principles of whole geophysical systems, which helps us understand the Earth as an integrated Gaia system that sustains us. The book begins by describing our usual view of water based on Western science and then deftly moves on to the frontier sciences that embrace water as the source of life in terms of biological systems, quantum energy fields, etheric fields, spirals, vortices, and as a medium for communications and memory. An understanding of these principles can lead to strategies for treating our water in ways that guarantee a sustainable future for humankind.

How Does Gaia Work?

The homeostasis regulated by the Earth is much like the internal maintenance of our own bodies; processes within our body insure a constant temperature, blood pH, electrochemical balance, etc. The inner workings of Gaia, therefore, can be viewed as a study of the physiology of the Earth, where the oceans and rivers are the Earth’s blood, the atmosphere is the Earth’s lungs, the land is the Earth’s bones, and the living organisms are the Earth’s senses. Lovelock calls this the science of geophysiology – the physiology of the Earth (or any other planet).

To understand how the Earth is living, let’s take a look at what defines life. Physicists define life as a system of locally reduced entropy (life is the battle against entropy). Molecular biologists view life as replicating strands of DNA that compete for survival and evolve to optimize their survival in changing surroundings. Physiologists might view life as a biochemical system that us able to use energy from external sources to grow and reproduce. According to Lovelock, the geophysiologist sees life as a system open to the flux of matter and energy but that maintains an internal steady-state.
Beyond the scientific importance of what we have discussed here, we might do well to consider some of the more poetical thoughts of the originator of the theory:

“If Gaia exists, the relationship between her and man, a dominant animal species in the complex living system, and the possibly shifting balance of power between them, are questions of obvious importance… The Gaia hypothesis is for those who like to walk or simply stand and stare, to wonder about the Earth and the life it bears, and to speculate about the consequences of our own presence here. It is an alternative to that pessimistic view which sees nature as a primitive force to be subdued and conquered. It is also an alternative to that equally depressing picture of our planet as a demented spaceship, forever traveling, driverless and purposeless, around an inner circle of the sun.”

The strong Gaia hypothesis states that life creates conditions on Earth to suit itself. Life created the planet Earth, not the other way around. As we explore the solar system and galaxies beyond, it may one day be possible to design an experiment to test whether life indeed manipulates planetary processes for its own purposes or whether life is just an evolutionary processes that occurs in response to changes in the non-living world.

About the Author

Liz Bentley is a graduate in geology, professional photographer and freelance journalist with an acute insight into fossil records and climatology.

Sources: 
nationalgeographic.com
bibliotecapleyades.net
phys.org

Credits: PreventDisease, where this was originally featured.

7 things we've learned about Earth since the last Earth Day

A whole lot has changed since the first Earth Day on April 22, 1970.

Back then, the most urgent environmental problems facing the United States were air and water pollution. In the decades since, we've made huge progress mopping that up, only to discover entirely new headaches, like global warming and ocean acidification.

Not only that, but our understanding of the Earth itself — and the ways we're transforming it — keeps evolving. We've uncovered entirely new geological features and ecosystems. We've brought endangered species back from the edge of extinction. We've altered the atmosphere, both for better and worse. Here's a list of some of the most surprising, encouraging, and worrisome things we've learned since last Earth Day:

1) Scientists discovered thousands of new mountains — on the ocean floor

Seamount discovered near the Johnson Atoll in the Pacific Ocean. Three-dimensional view of the southwest side of the seamount with 23-degree slopes. (University of New Hampshire)

Nothing illustrates how much we still have to learn about our home planet like the fact that we're still discovering new mountains. Thousands of them, in fact.

"MOST OF THE PLACES ... HAVE NEVER BEEN MAPPED BEFORE"

In August 2014, scientists were mapping a largely unexplored swath of ocean floor near the Johnson Atoll in the Pacific Ocean when they suddenly stumbled on an entire mountain, some 3,300 feet high, that no one had ever seen before (shown above). "These seamounts are very common, but we don't know about them because most of the places that we go out and map have never been mapped before," explainedJames Gardner, who led the mapping effort.

That was just the beginning. A few months later, a team of researchers announced they'd identified another 15,000 new seamounts — in addition to the 5,000 or so already been discovered. The scientists used satellite measurements and gravity modeling to publish the most detailed maps ever of the ocean floor.

2) Scientists also discovered a few bizarre new species

At this point, scientists have described about 1.5 million different species on the Earth. Thatsounds like a lot, yes, but estimates suggest there are another 4 million species still waiting to be discovered.

Every year churns up more surprises. Sometimes these discoveries are incremental. Last year, for instance, scientists announced that the Araguaian river dolphin in Brazil was actually a distinct species from the well-known Amazon river dolphin.

But other times, researchers come across something truly unexpected. In December 2014, scientists exploring the Mariana Trench found what they believed to be a brand new species of snailfish living 26,715 feet below sea level. That's the deepest fish ever recorded. (See video above.)

We also discovered a new stick insect in Vietnam (the second-longest insect ever seen), aMoroccan flic-flac spider with a bizarre method of leaping about, a new species of wild banana in India, and two new species of venomous jellyfish off western Australia's central coast. See here for a longer list.

3) But we also learned we've wiped out 50% of wildlife since 1970

A mountain gorilla in northwestern Rwanda. There are about 880 left in the wild — but due to conservation, they're the only ape whose numbers are increasing. (Geordie Mott/Flickr)

Of course, at the same we're discovering new species we're also imperiling existing ones. And we got a stark reminder of that in September 2014.

BUT WE'VE ALSO MANAGED TO HELP SOME SPECIES REBOUND

A major study by the World Wildlife Fundestimated that the overall number of mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians and fish declined 52 percent between 1970 and 2010 — which was far more than anyone realized. (Note: that doesn't mean we've wiped out half of all species. It means that, on average, the world's vertebrate species populations are about half the size they were in 1970.)

The main culprits? Humans, who have been wiping out other animals through hunting, fishing, deforestation, pollution, and various forms of habitat destruction. Freshwater species were suffering a particularly steep decline.

That said, it wasn't unrelentingly bad news. The report also documented a few conservation success stories. The tiger population in Nepal has been rebounding after the Nepalese government cracked down on poaching. And mountain gorillas are rebounding sharply in Rwanda, Uganda, and the Democratic of Congo, thanks to a thriving new "gorilla tourism" industry.

4) Every single ocean now has a massive swirling plastic garbage patch

Concentrations of plastic debris in surface waters of the global ocean. Colored circles indicate mass concentrations (legend on top right). (Cozar et al., 2014.)

Plastic has become an unavoidable feature of modern life. But where does it go when we throw it out? Some ends up in landfills. Some gets recycled. But this past year, we learned that a surprising amount ends up in the ocean.

Most people have already heard of the Great Pacific garbage patch — a giant patch of plastic trash that's accumulated in a swirling subtropical gyre in the northern Pacific Ocean. Well, in July 2014, we learned that there are at least five of these floating garbage patches around the world.

These patches aren't visible from space — or even necessarily from a passing boat. Over time, the plastic bits get broken down into ever smaller pieces as they get battered by waves and degraded by the sun, and many of the pieces are bobbing just below the surface. But they're there.

Another recent study in Science calculated that between 5 million and 13 million metric tons of our plastic waste makes it into the ocean each year. Surprisingly, we still don't know where it all goes — only about 1 percent ends up in those patches. One possibility is that marine creatures are eating the rest of the plastic and it's somehow entering the food chain, possibly with adverse effects on marine life. But it's a genuine mystery.

5) Antarctica is now melting faster than expected

Iceberg floating off the western Antarctic peninsula, Antarctica, Southern Ocean. (Steven Kazlowski/
Barcroft Media/Getty Images)

Scientists have known for decades that humans are warming the planet by adding greenhouse gases to the atmosphere through the process of burning fossil fuels, cutting down trees, and expanding agriculture. The consequences, however, are still coming as a surprise.

Over the last year, for instance, a number of studies have indicated that the massive ice sheet that sits atop Antarctica is now melting faster than we'd previously realized. In March 2015, a major survey revealed that the ice shelves that keep those massive ice sheets hemmed in are now thinning at an alarming rate, eroded by warm water underneath.

What's more, a set of studies last year indicated that at least six of West Antarctica's glaciers appear to be melting irreversibly. That is, even if we stopped emitting carbon-dioxide tomorrow, some of that ice appears destined to slide into the sea over the coming centuries. That will push up global ocean levels, possibly by several feet or more. But exactly how much sea levels rise, and how quickly, largely depends on whether we continue to speed up global warming — or stop it.

6) Good news: The ozone layer is finally starting to heal

(NASA Earth Observatory)

Not everything we learned last year was dire. We also got encouraging news about the ozone layer, a reminder that it's possible to stop environmental catastrophes before it's too late.

Back in the 1970s, scientists first realized we were rapidly depleting Earth's stratospheric ozone layer, which protects us from the sun's harmful ultraviolet rays. The culprit? Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) — chemicals that were widely used in refrigerators and air conditioners.

Between 1979 and 2013 these chemicals had chewed a massive "hole" in the ozone layer above Antarctica, and the damage was poised to spread further north. Without the ozone layer's protection, more and more people would be exposed to UV rays, and skin cancer rates in many places might have soared.

Happily, this apocalyptic scenario never came to pass. Scientists uncovered the problem in time. Under the 1987 Montreal Protocol, world leaders agreed to phase out CFCs, and eventually the hole in the ozone layer stopped expanding. Last year, a UN assessment found that the ozone layer was finally starting to heal — and should be back to its 1980 levels by 2050 or so.

7) We learned humans have been radically altering the Earth for longer than we thought

File photo dated 1971 of a nuclear explosion at Mururoa atoll. (AFP/Getty Images)

There's little question that humans are now the dominant force shaping Earth. But in recent years, scientists have been wondering when we became so dominant. Was it when we began exploding nuclear bombs? Was it the Industrial Revolution? Or was it earlier?

Increasingly, many researchers are pushing for an earlier date to mark the start of the "Anthropocene," the proposed term for the epoch when humans became the dominant force of change to the planet. Back in March 2015, in a paper for Nature, two scientist argued that the year 1610 was a good place to mark the start of when human influence was first felt globally.

Why 1610? That year, greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere dipped drastically, by 7 to 10 parts per million. This was driven by sweeping changes that followed Columbus's landing in North America. New species were being introduced irreversibly into both continents.European diseases like smallpox killed tens of millions of people in North America. Agriculture collapsed, and forests were making a comeback, absorbing more carbon dioxide. Humans were having a truly global impact.

Not everyone agrees with that start date for the Anthropocene, however. In a commentary inScience in April 2015, a team of four researchers countered that we were radically altering the planet long before that. Humans were clearing forests for agriculture 7,000 years ago, leading to meaningful rises in carbon dioxide emissions. Likewise, the spread of rice farming 5,000 years ago appears to have led to significant rises in methane emissions.

There continues to be a lot of debate about when, exactly, we should mark the start of the Anthropocene. But it's a good reminder that while Earth Day — and environmentalism — are modern phenomena, the issues they describe go back many centuries, if not longer.

CARD 10 OF 24LAUNCH CARDS

What is ocean acidification?

When humans burn fossil fuels, the oceans absorb roughly one-third of that additional carbon dioxide. This process staves off (some) global warming, but it also makes the seas more acidic, as the carbon dissolves in water to form carbonic acid. That's ocean acidification.

Since the Industrial Revolution, the oceans have become 30 percent more acidic (that is, the pH of ocean surface water has dropped from roughly 8.18 to 8.07). And that process is expected to continue if humans continue emitting greenhouse gases, with the rate of change expected to be the fastest in 300 million years.

IPCC

More acidic seawater can chew away at coral reefs and kill oysters by making it harder for them to form protective shells. Acidification can also interfere with the food supply for key species like Alaska's salmon. One study in the journal Climatic Change estimated that the loss of mollusks alone could cost the world as much as $100 billion per year by the end of the century.

Scientists are still trying to understand exactly how acidification will affect different species and the marine food chain, through both lab experiments and by looking at past acidification events. About 55 million years ago, during the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, the oceans became warmer and more acidic. As a result, coral reefs became scarcer and the food chain had difficulty supporting larger predators.

Source: http://www.vox.com/2015/4/22/8467111/earth-day