Future of Earth the ozone layer that protects the surface from ultraviolet (UV) radiation from the Sun. An increase in UV-B radiation of only 10–30% is sufficient to cause a significant impact to life; particularly to the phytoplankton that form the base of the oceanic food chain. A supernova explosion at a distance of 26 light years will reduce the ozone column density by half. On average, a supernova explosion occurs within 32 light years once every few hundred million years, resulting in a depletion of the ozone layer lasting several centuries. Over the next two billion years, there will be about 20
Earth Radiation Budget Satellite was one of three satellites in the ERBE and it carried two instruments as part of that effort. The ERBE scanner was a set of three detectors that studied longwave radiation, shortwave radiation and total energy radiating from the Earth along a line of the satellite's path. The ERBE non-scanner was a set of five detectors that measured the total energy from the Sun, and the shortwave and total energy from the entire Earth disk and the area beneath the satellite. The other two ERBE missions were included on the NOAA-9 satellite when it was launched in January 1985, and