If you’ve seen the movie “Finding Nemo”, you’ll remember the scene where Nemo’s dad Marlin and his new companion Dory get directions to Sydney from a school of moonfish and ride the East Australian Current with a group of sea turtles. That ocean current is very much like a jet stream; only it’s high up in the air, located between the troposphere and stratosphere (the first and second layers of the earth’s atmosphere).

In astronomy, a fireball is a meteor that is brighter than any of the planets seen in the sky. Consequently, any meteor that is bright enough to cast a shadow on the earth is also called a fireball. Fireballs that detonate or explode in the air or in the atmosphere (those that don’t reach the ground before exploding) are called bolides (sometimes also called as a detonating fireball) Bolides reach magnitudes of -14 or greater; while those reaching -17 and [...]

It was in 1913 when a radio-chemist named Frederick Soddy first suggested the existence of isotopes. He noticed that the periodic table of elements only allowed for 11 elements ranging from uranium to lead. However, several types of atoms which differ in radioactive properties can still occupy the same place in the table.

A jet or jet stream is a very fast current of wind found high in the atmosphere of some planets including our own. A jet usually is a westerly wind, flowing from the west to the east, its path typically meandering. It’s very much like a river or an ocean current, often as fast as 230 miles (370 km) per hour, starting as one stream, stopping, splitting into two or more parts, combining into one stream, or flowing in various [...]

If you recall your science lessons from school, you know that the earth is surrounded by several layers of air called the atmosphere, as do the other planets in the solar system. It is what allows us to breathe—it lets breathable air circulate within the boundaries it creates and even protects us from objects which may fall from outer space. The layers include: troposphere, stratosphere, mesosphere, thermosphere and exosphere. The ionosphere is comprised of the outer portion of the mesosphere, [...]