While weather near the Earth’s surface can in principle be predicted up to about two weeks in advance, the predictability window is only about half as long in higher layers of the atmosphere. The ...

Flying high Artist’s impression of the photophoretic flyers in the mesosphere. (Courtesy: Ben Schafer and Jong-hyoung Kim) Small levitating platforms that can stay airborne indefinitely at very high ...

One of the three rockets for the TOMEX+ mission sits on a launcher at Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. Photo by Danielle Johnson/NASA Aug. 20 (UPI) --NASA is planning to launch TOMEX+ rocket ...

Aug. 20 (UPI) --NASA is planning to launch TOMEX+ rocket mission to study the turbulence where Earth's atmosphere ends and outer space begins sometime over the next two weeks. The earliest the agency ...

This artist’s impression shows multiple small devices soaring on sunlight at the edges of Earth’s atmosphere. Scientists have devised tiny featherweight disks that could float on sunlight in Earth’s ...

Scientists have devised tiny featherweight disks that could float on sunlight in Earth’s mesosphere or the thin air of Mars, theoretically even while carrying payloads. Extending about 50 to 85 ...

Most people would recognize the device in the image above, although they probably wouldn’t know it by its formal name: the Crookes radiometer. As its name implies, placing the radiometer in light ...

Earth’s mesosphere is a “no-fly zone.” The air in this layer of the upper atmosphere is too thin to support traditional aircraft. But new, lightweight devices could defy that rule, requiring only ...

Harvard SEAS researchers have tested and validated lightweight nanofabricated structures that can passively float in the mesophere, which is about 45 miles above Earth’s surface. The devices levitate ...

A picture snapped from the International Space Station (ISS) by NASA astronaut Nichole Ayers has captured a lesser-seen view of an extraordinary atmospheric phenomenon known as a red sprite. The photo ...

Noctilucent clouds over the Baltic Sea, as seen from Germany in 2019. Typically seen in polar regions, the clouds are increasingly appearing at mid- and low latitudes. Matthias Süßen via Wikimedia ...

Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. An award-winning reporter writing about stargazing and the night sky. If you're in the northern hemisphere and it's been a clear ...