Another strong quake strikes Nepal

 Science News, May 2015

A magnitude 7.3 earthquake rattled eastern Nepal near Mount Everest on May 12, hitting just 17 days after one that killed more than 8,000 people in the region. The latest quake is the largest aftershock to date of the April 25 Nepal earthquake, which struck around 150 kilometers to the west, the U.S. Geological Survey reports.

Supersized sunspot is largest in decades

 Science News, October 2014

A colossal sunspot large enough to be seen with the naked eye now blemishes the nearside of the sun, covering an area wide enough to comfortably fit 10 Earths side by side. The new sunspot, dubbed AR 12192, is the largest observed since 1990.

Making Martian clouds on Earth

 American Geophysical Union, October 2013

If you want to understand the atmosphere of a planet, it helps to think big. That’s just what climate scientist Dan Cziczo and his colleagues did recently when they created conditions in the world’s largest cloud chamber mimicking those in the thin veil of gases that surrounds Mars.

The National Academies Contemplate Geoengineering

 American Geophysical Union, September 2013

The ideas seem lifted from a James Bond super villain’s dastardly plot: carpeting the Earth with whitened clouds, constructing giant solar reflectors in space, using chemicals to change the makeup of the atmosphere. But with scientific models predicting potentially devastating changes in the world’s climate, seemingly impractical and improbable geoengineering solutions become more and more alluring.