Michelle Ernest

Mr.Youell

Grade 9 Science

February 2016

Reflection on 2015 Science News

2015 was full of terrorist attacks, had a major refugee outbreak and had sensational celebrity gossip. There were many rough events last year however in the science department most went well including many beneficial discoveries. NASA was able to get a closer view of the mysterious planet Pluto and gather more evidence of water on Mars. There is however a environmental issue on global warming making 2015 one of the hottest recorded year. These are the most significant scientific events that appeared in 2015, where we got a lot of information on the plants in our solar system.

Science News mentioned how Cathy Olkin said, "Seeing a new world for the first time, I mean that's huge,". Both scientist and non-scientist are impressed by the unfamiliar landscape of Pluto and its moons. In January 2006, the New Horizons Pluto Mission was launched, and in 2015 it was due to arrive at Pluto. New Horizons is an interstellar space probe, which was launched as a part of NASA New Frontiers program. This program will give us a clearer understanding and view of the icy world at the end of our solar systems and show how Pluto is a world unlike any other orbiting the sun.
After more than 8 decades of its discovery, Pluto became more than a unremarkable point of light. Shown in Figure 1, from 1994 to 2015 there was a major change. During 2015 we've been given more details on this mysterious planet. A variety of new and old terrains (some 10 million years old, others as old as the planet) covers the ground, fields of frozen nitrogen and methane under mountains of water ice tower and ice volcanoes, all are details that we can see by data that was sent from the New Horizons.

Figure 1: This image shows the difference between Hubble telescope and the New Horizon, as well as the transformation of how we can see Pluto through time.

NASA announced its Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft has spotted hydrated salt minerals on the Red Planet, Mars (shown in figure 2). In the past, water on Mars has been recorded, however each discovery provides more detail on the scientists' photographs. The discovery of the brine is the most detailed evidence proving the water flow on Mars's surface. Water on Mars led to the thought whether or not life could exist on it.

Figure 2: Agency's planetary scientist have identified signatures of hydrated minerals on warm slopes where attacks seasonal flows, called recurring slope lineae, by using an imaging spectrometer on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

As part of NASA's Mars Science Laboratory mission, a car-sized robotic rover, called the Curiosity, is Exploring Gale Crater on Mars since 2012. A discovery made by the Curiosity, was a form of nitrogen in Martian rocks that on Earth are used to construct biological molecules. By asteroid impacts, six Martian meteorites blasted into space. Studies reveal that they contain methane, which is a source of food for microbes on Earth.

"Knowing whether there really is life on Mars - or ever was - will have to wait until at least 2020, when NASA plans to launch a rover to collect and store rocks that would end up being flown back to Earth for analysis." With the development of technology, life on Mars will be emphasized. Not much can be told yet, however soon the technology will give the answers needed.

Both Pluto and Mars had a positive year, while Earth was (and still is) going through a major environmental issue. The term global warming, is used to describe a moderate increase in the average temperature of the Earth's atmosphere and its oceans. The changes causing global warming is believed to be permanently changing the Earth's climate.

Figure 3: shows a photo of a factory with burning fossil fuels. This is a good example of a cause of global warming.

The average of the Earth's temperature has increased by 0.4 to 0.8 degrees Celsius over the past 100 year. The primary sources of global warming over the past 50 years are from the increase of volume of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases released by the burning of fossil fuels (shown in figure 3), agriculture, land clearing, and other human activities. 

Figure 4: shows how El Niño has been expanding over time in the middle East (the red-white parts). 

El Niño is the warm part of the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and is corresponding with a band of warm ocean water that evolves in the central and east- central equatorial Pacific 

Ocean. Shown in figure 4, El Niño is expanding which is a big cause of global warming.

"It looks very likely that globally 2014, 2015, and 2016 will all be amongst the very warmest years ever recorded," said Rowan Sutton of the National Centre for Atmospheric Science. A prediction made by Scientists from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate, is that by the year of 2100, the average global temperatures could increase between 1.4 and 5.8 degrees Celsius. The sea level rising can be a result from global warming due to the melting of polar ice caps, and also increase of occurrence of storms and other severe weather events.

In conclusion, 2015 had an interesting year in the scientific compartment. Now we are looking beyond our planet, Earth because of its environmental issues. Scientist are now seeing if there is a possibility to go out of Earth's atmosphere, and if there can be life on certain planets such as Mars. While technology is improving, scientists are discovering more and more, so who knows what will come in the up coming years.