College of Natural & Agricultural Sciences

NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC - When inspecting the cosmos for potentially habitable worlds, scientists have long looked for the color green. Green is the fundamental color of life on Earth, after all. But what if life on faraway planets wasn’t green at all? In fact, what if it were purple? Signatures of habitable worlds Astronomers look for...

COSMOS MAGAZINE - A new paper argues that the search for life outside our planet could be aided by looking in an unexpected place: the extremely hot, toxic planet Venus. Venus is uninhabitable. It’s like our planet’s evil twin, with a diameter only 5% smaller than Earth’s. But the average surface temperature on Venus is...

EARTH.COM - Despite its extreme conditions, featuring surface temperatures that can melt lead, volcanoes that spew lava, and thick clouds of sulfuric acid, Venus provides invaluable insights into the search for life on other planets, according to a new study from UC Riverside. “We often assume that Earth is the model of habitability, but if...

FORBES - To paraphrase Winston Churchill, our sister planet Venus remains a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma. Remarkably similar in size, mass, and bulk makeup, today, Earth and Venus couldn't be more different. Earth is an ecological utopia while Venus is a poster child for planetary desolation. The conventional view is that...

UNIVERSE TODAY - Can tidal forces cause an exoplanet’s surface to radiate heat? This is what a recent study accepted to The Astronomical Journal hopes to address as a team of international researchers used data collected from ground-based instruments to confirm the existence of a second exoplanet residing within the exoplanetary system, HD 104067, along...

EARTH.COM - We tend to think of wildfires as being caused by hot weather and drought. And for good reason – those weather conditions make plants tinder-dry. But a new study from the University of California, Riverside is flipping that idea on its head. Turns out, the biggest culprit in mega wildfires might be something...

FORBES - With spring in the Northern Hemisphere in full bloom, forests are again beckoning hikers onto paths that wend their way through thousands of acres of old growth trees. Such forests not only offer salve for the soul, but their role in Earth’s ecology is arguably crucial to the health of our planet. But...

SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN - Is our solar system quotidian or quirky? It’s one of the greatest questions in astronomy, and scientists are getting a little bit of a handle on it as they examine the more than 5,500 exoplanets (and counting) discovered around other stars. Reaching an answer is, however, confounded by a rather dramatic problem...

POPULAR SCIENCE - We’re used to thunder and lightning here on Earth. But what might they be like on another planet? We know other worlds in the solar system have lightning strikes, for example, high in the clouds of Jupiter or during dust storms on Mars. Now, astronomers are thinking about lightning on planets beyond...

SMITHSONIAN MAGAZINE - One of the main arguments for studying other planets is for what they can tell us about Earth. Did or do they harbor life? What clues can they offer about our planet’s past? If scientists want to investigate an Earth-like planet, one convenient opportunity is Venus. The similar size and planetary composition...