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This offers renewed hope for Svensmark’s theory of cosmic ray modulation of earth’s cloud cover. Here is an interesting correlation published just yesterday in GRL. Cosmic rays detected deep underground reveal secrets of the upper atmosphere Watch the video animation here (MPEG video will play in your media player) Published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters and led by scientists from the UK’s National Centre for Atmospheric Science (NCAS) and the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC), this remarkable study shows how the number of high-energy cosmic-rays reaching a detector deep underground, closely matches temperature measurements in the upper atmosphere...

Proton discovery may cast doubt on dark-matter theories. The Milagro detector has seen cosmic-ray hot-spots.Milagro / U. Maryland / LANL Hot on the heels of speculation that cosmic rays may have revealed the signature of elusive dark matter in space, new observations could challenge that idea and reinforce an alternative explanation.A seven-year-long experiment at the Milagro cosmic-ray detector near Los Alamos, New Mexico, has revealed 'bright patches' of high-energy cosmic rays in the sky1 – something incompatible with a dark-matter source.Cosmic rays are charged particles, mostly protons and electrons, that are produced in space and generally have a characteristic energy...

References: Dergachev, V.A., Dmitriev, P.B., Raspopov, O.M. and Jungner, H. 2006. Cosmic ray flux variations, modulated by the solar and earth's magnetic fields, and climate changes. 1. Time interval from the present to 10-12 ka ago (the Holocene Epoch). Geomagnetizm i Aeronomiya 46: 123-134. What was done The authors review what they deem to be the salient features of the interacting effects of variations in solar activity and earth's magnetic field on the flux of galactic cosmic rays, together with the likelihood of their potential impact on earth's climate, based on "direct and indirect data on variations in cosmic rays,...

I confess I was afflicted by a profound world-weariness following the release yesterday of the latest gloomy machinations from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The U.N.'s global-warming caravanserai, founded in 1988 by the World Meteorological Organization and the United Nations Environment Program, had this time pitched camp in Paris, in order to issue the "Summary for Policy Makers" relating to Working Group One of its "Fourth Assessment Report: Climate Change 2007." This is the group that focuses on "The Physical Science Basis" of climate change, and its summary was greeted with the usual razzmatazz, the Eiffel Tower's 20,000...

Earth's recent warming trend might in part be due to a lack of starlight reaching our planet, a new study suggests. But other scientists are not so sure. According to a theory proposed a decade ago, when a star explodes far away in the Milky Way, cosmic rays—high-speed atomic particles—go through the Earth’s atmosphere and produce ions and free electrons. The released electrons act as catalysts and accelerate the formation of small clusters of sulfuric acid and water molecules, the building blocks of clouds. Therefore, cosmic rays would increase cloud cover on Earth, reflecting sunlight and keeping the planet relatively...

Sept. 21, 2006: Almost every day, the great antennas of NASA's Deep Space Network turn to a blank patch of sky in the constellation Ophiuchus. Pointing at nothing, or so it seems, they invariably pick up a signal, faint but full of intelligence. The source is beyond Neptune, beyond Pluto, on the verge of the stars themselves. It's Voyager 1. The spacecraft left Earth in 1977 on a mission to visit Jupiter and Saturn. Almost 30 years later, with the gas giants long ago seen and done, Voyager 1 is still going and encountering some strange things....

OTTAWA - Stars, not greenhouse gases, are heating up the Earth. So says prominent University of Ottawa science professor Jan Veizer. He knows challenging the accepted climate-change theory may lead to a nasty fight. It's a politically and economically loaded topic. Yet, he is speaking out about his published research. "Look, maybe I'm wrong," he said. "But I'm saying, at least let's look at this and discuss it. "Every one of these things (parts of his theory) has its problems. But so does every other model" of how Earth's climate behaves. Veizer says high-energy rays from distant parts of space...

LONDON (Reuters) - An international team of astronomers believe they have solved a mystery that has been perplexing scientists for 100 years -- the origin of cosmic rays. Scientists first discovered the energetic particles that bombard the Earth nearly a century ago but where they come from has been one of the big questions in astrophysics. Using an array of four telescopes in Africa, the scientists produced the first image showing that the source of cosmic rays could be the remnant of a supernova, a powerful explosion of a star at the end of its life. "This is the first...

Controversial climate claim exonerates carbon dioxide. The impact of cosmic rays on our climate might outweigh that of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide, a controversial new report suggests1. "It's no excuse to ignore sensible resource use," says one of the report's authors, physicist Nir Shaviv of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in Israel. "But the bottom line is that carbon dioxide is not the bad boy that people claim it is." The suggestion has met with scepticism, however: "I don't buy it," says climate-change expert Wallace Broecker of Columbia University in New York. Shaviv and climatologist Ján Veizer of...

<p>SAN JOSE, Calif.(AP) - The space shuttle Columbia broke up in a mysterious area of the upper atmosphere once so little understood and difficult to study that scientists dubbed it the "ignorosphere."</p> <p>On Friday, NASA said it has asked outside atmospheric scientists for their opinion on whether some sort of electrical discharge could have occurred as the shuttle screamed toward touchdown at Kennedy Space Center in Florida.</p>

Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2002 March 15 Neutron Mars Credit: Mars Odyssey, GRS Team, ASU/LPL, NASA Explanation: Looking for water on Mars, researchers using detectors on board the orbiting Mars Odyssey spacecraft have created this false-color global map of energetic neutrons from the otherwise Red Planet. What do neutrons have to do with water? As cosmic rays from interplanetary space penetrate the thin martian atmosphere and reach the surface they interact with...