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<br /><br />The mission, known as <keyword id="19026307" type="General" weightage="80" keywordseo="atmospheric-perturbations" source="Orion">Atmospheric Perturbations</keyword> around the Eclipse Path or APEP, is led by <keyword id="19026308" type="General" weightage="50" keywordseo="aroh-barjatya" source="Orion">Aroh Barjatya</keyword>, will study how the sudden drop in sunlight affects our upper atmosphere, the space agency has said.<br /><br />On October 14, people viewing the annular solar eclipse will experience the sun dimming to 10 per cent its normal brightness, leaving only a bright "ring of fire" of sunlight as the moon eclipses the sun.<br /><br />Some 50 miles up and beyond, the air itself becomes electric. Scientists call this atmospheric layer the ionosphere because it is where the UV component of sunlight can pry electrons away from atoms to form a sea of high-flying ions and electrons.<br /><br />The sun's constant energy keeps these mutually attracted particles separated throughout the day. But as the sun dips below the horizon, many recombine into neutral atoms for the night, only to part ways again at sunrise.<br /><br />During a solar eclipse, the sunlight vanishes and reappears over a small part of the landscape almost at once. In a flash, ionospheric temperature and density drop, then rise again, sending waves rippling through the ionosphere.<br /><br />"If you think of the ionosphere as a pond with some gentle ripples on it, the eclipse is like a motorboat that suddenly rips through the water," said <keyword id="40286" type="General" weightage="80" keywordseo="barjatya" source="Orion">Barjatya</keyword>, a professor of engineering physics at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Florida.<br /><br />"It creates a wake immediately underneath and behind it, and then the water level momentarily goes up as it rushes back in."<br /><br />The APEP team plans to launch three rockets in succession -- one about 35 minutes before local peak eclipse, one during peak eclipse, and one 35 minutes after. They will fly just outside the path of annularity, where the moon passes directly in front of the sun.<br /><br />Each rocket will deploy four small scientific instruments that will measure changes in electric and magnetic fields, density, and temperature. If they are successful, these will be the first simultaneous measurements taken from multiple locations in the ionosphere during a solar eclipse.<br /><br />Barjatya chose sounding rockets to answer the team's science questions because they can pinpoint and measure specific regions of space with high fidelity. They can also measure changes that happen at different altitudes as the suborbital rocket ascends and falls back to Earth.<br /><br />The APEP rockets will take measurements between 70 to 325 kilometres) above the ground along their trajectory.<br /><br />In addition, a ground-based observation will collect ionospheric density and neutral wind measurements. A team from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Haystack Observatory in Westford, will run their radar to measure ionospheric perturbations farther away from the eclipse path.<br /><br />Finally, a team of students from Embry-Riddle will deploy high-altitude balloons (reaching 100,000 feet) every 20 minutes to measure weather changes as the eclipse passes by.<br /><br />The APEP rockets launched in New Mexico will be recovered and then relaunched from NASA's Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia, on April 8, 2024, when a total solar eclipse will cross the US from Texas to Maine.<br /><br />

Riding into the sun: Indian-origin NASA scientist to lead rocket mission into 2023 solar eclipse

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Stringer/Reuters</span></p><p class="caption">Smoke billows from chimneys at a chemical factory in Hefei, Anhui province on March 10, 2010.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><ul class="summary-list"><li>It's unlikely that humans will stop Earth's temperature from surpassing 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, a rise that would lead to devastating climate change. </li><li>To help cool the planet, some scientists are proposing the use of solar <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/category/geoengineering">geoengineering</a>, a method in which chemicals are sprayed into the atmosphere to reflect the sun's rays back into space.</li><li>A team of Harvard scientists plans on starting a real-world solar geoengineering study in early 2019.</li><li>The scientists will release balloons containing calcium carbonate, which they expect to help lower temperatures.</li><li>Some scientists are strongly opposed to solar geoengineering, saying the method could harm ecosystems and be weaponized. </li></ul><p>To reverse rising temperatures and prevent catastrophic climate change, some scientists are turning to solar geoengineering, or the modification of Earth's atmosphere <a href="https://royalsociety.org/404/?item=%2fgeoengineering-the-climate%2f&amp;user=main%5cAnonymous&amp;site=website&amp;url=%252fgeoengineering-the-climate%252f">using tools</a> like reflective aerosols, mirrors in the atmosphere, and controlled cloud formations.</p><p>A team of scientists at Harvard University is on track to become the first to test geoengineering methods outside the laboratory. As early as spring 2019, the team will launch an outdoor sky-modifying experiment in the United States, spraying particles into a small part of the sky to help reflect some of the sun's rays back into space.</p><p>Their project, the $3 million Stratospheric Controlled Perturbation Experiment (SCoPEx), will send two balloons into the stratosphere, which stretches from 6 to 31 miles above Earth's surface. The first balloons will be filled with ice to make sure the instruments work properly. Later ones will include calcium carbonate.</p><p>SCoPEx aims to determine how these chemicals interact with the stratosphere and whether they can help lower temperatures on Earth.</p><p><em><strong>Read more:</strong> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/geoengineering-atmosphere-clouds-harvard-2018-4">How a last-ditch 'planet-hacking' plan could keep Earth habitable for longer</a></em></p><p>In a report released in October, the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/the-un-has-warned-that-we-only-have-12-years-to-curb-climate-change-2018-10">Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said</a> the world will be hit by some of the most severe effects of climate change after temperature levels exceed 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.</p><p>While stopping this is still possible, it would require a coordinated shift in the global economic system, which <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/ipcc-climate-change-report-why-2-degree-warming-is-dangerous-2018-10">is unlikely</a>. Humans would have to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions by 45% in the next 12 years, ultimately reaching zero emissions by 2050.</p><p>Without a major change in the economic system, only a new approach could stop catastrophic climate change, and the Harvard scientists believe solar geoengineering could get us there.</p><p>The proposed geoengineering solution has already been observed in nature. <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-07533-4#ref-CR1">According to Nature magazine</a>, the 1991 Mount Pinatubo eruption in the Philippines released about 20 million tons of sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere. The planet's temperature went down about 0.5 degrees Celsius after the eruption, and for 1.5 years, Earth went back to temperature levels seen before the steam engine was invented.</p><p>Harvard's scientists have chosen calcium carbonate because they expect it to heat up less than sulfate and have less of an impact on ozone, according to Nature.</p><p><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/geoengineering-technology-could-cool-the-planet-2017-7">Opponents of the method say</a> solar geoengineering could harm the ozone layer and one day lead to military use of weather-altering technology. </p><p><span><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/biggest-risks-survival-of-humanity-in-50-years-2018-10#the-management-of-solar-radiation-is-the-only-known-way-to-quickly-halt-temperature-increases-but-this-technology-is-not-advanced-enough-to-be-used-on-a-global-scale-8">According to the Global Challenges Foundation</a>, solar geoengineering could also disrupt ecosystems until food supplies are threatened. If we suddenly stopped using the method, global temperatures would quickly go back to what they are now, and <a href="https://www.carbonbrief.org/geoengineering-carries-large-risks-for-natural-world-studies-show">scientists say many species would be unable to cope</a> with such a rapid change. </span></p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Ahn Young-joon/AP</span></p><p class="caption">Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, IPCC, Chair Hoesung Lee, center, speaks during a press conference in Incheon, South Korea, on October 8, 2018. Preventing an extra single degree of heat could make a life-or-death difference in the next few decades for multitudes of people and ecosystems on this fast-warming planet, an international panel of scientists said.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>In late November, researchers at Harvard and Yale published their findings about the potential costs of implementing solar geoengineering methods. The researchers found that the most cost-effective way of releasing sulfate particles into the stratosphere would be using a high-altitude aircraft. Such a program would cost about $2 billion per year for the first 15 years of use, <a href="http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/aae98d#erlaae98ds5">according to the study published in Environmental Research Letters</a>.</p><p><span>Yale lecturer Wake Smith and Harvard lecturer Gernot Wagner, the study's authors, also determined it would be hard for anyone to deploy such a geoengineering program in secret.</span></p><p><span>The recent <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2018/11/23/health/sun-dimming-aerosols-global-warming-intl-scli/index.html">study was misreported</a> by some news outlets that claimed Smith and Wagner were advocating for the use of solar geoengineering. The scientists, however, stressed that their paper is not an endorsement.</span></p><p><span>"We don't make any judgment about the desirability of stratospheric aerosol injection," <a href="https://www.seas.harvard.edu/news/2018/11/calculating-solar-geoengineering-s-technical-costs">Wagner said in a press release</a>. "But we do show that a hypothetical deployment program starting 15 years from now, while both highly uncertain and ambitious, would be technically possible from an engineering perspective."</span></p><p><span>For now, SCoPEx will start small, as the balloons will release up to 35 ounces of calcium carbonate, which is roughly equivalent to the weight of a dictionary. Frank Keutsch, the project's lead researcher, told Nature that the experiment will help scientists understand what the presence of calcium carbonate in the stratosphere would do, since the compound does not exist there. The <a href="https://projects.iq.harvard.edu/keutschgroup/scopex">project's website</a> says the test will not endanger people or the environment in a significant way. <br /></span></p><p><span>Based on existing <keyword id="41551" type="ENTERTAINMENT" weightage="100" keywordseo="science">science</keyword>, the benefits of solar geoengineering could outweigh any potential drawbacks, </span><span>experimental physicist David Keith told Nature. Keith, who is part of the Harvard team, said a still-unpublished study of precipitation and temperature shows that a solar geoengineering program done in moderation would benefit nearly every place on Earth.</span></p><p><span>"Despite all of the concerns, we can't find any areas that would be definitely worse off," Keith told Nature. "If solar geoengineering is as good as what is shown in these models, it would be crazy not to take it seriously."</span></p><ul class="read-more-links"><li><strong>Read more about solar geoengineering:</strong></li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/geoengineering-sulfur-clouds-climate-change-2016-6" data-read-more-link="" data-e2e-name="read-more-link">This radical atmospheric hack could cool our planet super fast</a></li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/ted-talk-speakers-geoengineering-2017-4" data-read-more-link="" data-e2e-name="read-more-link">'You terrify me': TED speakers duke it out over a plan to release massive amounts of chalk into the atmosphere</a></li></ul>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/psychology-trick-curb-appetite-lose-weight-2016-8">A Harvard psychologist reveals the secret to curbing your appetite</a></h3>        <div>                    </div>    </div>

Harvard scientists will soon send chemicals into the atmosphere to see if a last-ditch planet-hacking plan could keep Earth habitable

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Astronomers discovered a <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-james-webb-space-telescope-image-rare-pre-supernova-star-2023-3">distant star</a> swallowing a <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/when-how-see-planetary-alignment-five-planets-visible-march-sky-2023-3">planet</a> for the first time ever.</li><li>It's a glimpse of the future: In 5 billion years, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/sun-more-active-solar-storms-auroras-power-outages-grounded-flights-2023-2">the sun</a> will swell to engulf Earth.</li></ul><p>A distant, Jupiter-sized planet found itself in serious trouble when its star began to die — <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/what-can-kill-planet-earth-2016-3">the same fate Earth will eventually face.</a></p><p>As the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/space-photos-black-holes-planets-stars-galaxies-discoveries-2022-11">alien star</a> burned through the last of its hydrogen fuel, it swelled to 100 times its original size, its atmosphere ballooning outward toward the orbiting planet. That world, meanwhile, was spiraling closer and closer to the swollen star with each orbit.</p><p>Finally, the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-hubble-space-telescope-watches-distant-star-explode-and-die-2022-11">dying star's</a> atmosphere engulfed the planet, then pulled it into its core. Swallowing the planet whole produced a burst of energy that expelled the star's outer layers, causing it to expand and brighten rapidly.</p><p>The gas from the star's ejected layers then cooled and condensed into a cloud of dust — the only remaining evidence that <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-james-webb-space-telescope-detects-sand-storms-distant-planet-2023-3">a planet</a> was ever there.</p><p>That's what astronomers have determined after watching the star, 12,000 light-years away, suddenly burst with white-hot light, growing 100 times brighter in just 10 days, before quickly fading and turning cold.</p><p>This is exactly how Earth will die. In about 5 billion years, when <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/coronal-hole-on-sun-blasts-solar-wind-toward-earth-2023-3">the sun</a> burns out and swells, it will devour all the inner planets: Mercury, Venus, and Earth.</p><div type="image" title="The sun in a particularly active phase is letting off solar flares and is covered in sunspots." height="1500" width="2000" msid="99967268" hostid="261"></div><p>"We are seeing the future of the Earth," Kishalay De, a postdoctoral fellow at MIT's Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research, who led the discovery, said in a press release. "If some other civilization was observing us from 10,000 light-years away while the sun was engulfing the Earth, they would see the sun suddenly brighten as it ejects some material, then form dust around it, before settling back to what it was."</p><p>De and his colleagues at Harvard University, Caltech, and other institutions <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41586-023-05842-x" target="_blank" rel="noopener">published</a> their findings in the journal Nature on Wednesday.</p><h2>Swallowing Earth will be a 'minor' feat for the sun</h2><div type="image" title="sun rising pierces blackness of space against the dark curvature of the earth with thin blue line of daytime atmosphere on the horizon" height="1499" width="1999" msid="99967269" hostid="261"></div><p>Scientists think that most planets will die this way. This is the first time they've seen it happen live, thanks to lucky timing and the sheer size of the planet.</p><p>Even for that giant world, though, it was "almost like the star ate that planet and forgot about it completely," De said in a briefing with journalists on Tuesday.</p><p>Except for a veneer of dust, the star pretty much looked the same as it had before, one year after devouring its planet.</p><p>For the sun, swallowing <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/earth-inner-core-may-have-stopped-spinning-reversed-direction-study-2023-1">Earth</a> will be even more insignificant. The distant planet that just got absorbed by its star was about the size of Jupiter, which is more than 1,300 Earths.</p><div type="image" title="jupiter" height="1440" width="1920" msid="99967270" hostid="261"></div><p>By comparison, Mercury, Venus, and Earth will probably be "really minor perturbations to the power output of the sun," Morgan MacLeod, a postdoc at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, and a co-author of the new study, said in the briefing.</p><p>"When the sun evolves and swallows the solar system planets, it might not really disturb that future sun at all," he said.</p><p>Luckily, humans — and probably all other life forms — won't be around to see that. At that point, Earth will have been inhospitable for tens of thousands of years. As the sun swells toward it, all the planet's water will likely evaporate and it will become too hot for life as we know it.</p><h2>Three clues pointed to the first glimpse of a star absorbing a planet</h2><p>De first spotted the dying star while he was looking for novae — stars that devour so much gas from a neighboring star that it causes a nuclear explosion, erupting thousands of times brighter in a period of just weeks.</p><div type="image" title="a bright purple and orange eruption in space like fireworks from a bright star" height="1439" width="1918" msid="99967272" hostid="261"></div><p>For any potential nova he spotted, he looked again with the Keck Observatory in Hawaii, which breaks down the wavelengths of light emitting from the star, to determine its chemical composition.</p><p>That's when he began to scratch his head about this one star 12,000 light-years away. It was full of molecules that can only exist at very cold temperatures. That was the first clue that something was unusual about this star.</p><p>"That's when we realized that it was nothing like a nova at all," De said.</p><p>A nova should be surrounded by hot gas. This star was sitting in cold gas — which would be bright in infrared light. So De and his colleagues pointed an infrared camera at the star.</p><p>There was clue number two: It was blindingly bright in infrared, suggesting the star was surrounded in dust. It must have ejected that dust as part of the bright outburst that first drew De's attention.</p><p>How long had the dust been there? NASA's infrared space telescope, NEOWISE, would have a record of it. So De went back through its data.</p><p>That's where they found the third clue: Dust had been clouding around the star for months before its bright outburst. This was definitely not a star eating another star. (It later turned out, this pre-eruption dust was material from the planet skimming the atmosphere of the star as it orbited closer and closer.)</p><p>They calculated the total energy output from all this dust and expelled gas from the star, and determined that the object the star was eating must be about 1,000 times smaller than a star — about the size of a planet.</p><p>"Since we've known that there are planets around other stars, it's been almost an inevitable prediction that stars must engulf their planets as they evolve," De said. "What we've never really seen before is the impact of the engulfment itself. And that was the missing piece in this entire puzzle."</p><p><em>This post has been updated. It was originally published on May 3, 2023.</em></p>

Astronomers spot a sneak peek of Earth's death &mdash; a star swallowing a planet whole &mdash; for the first time

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>(Photo by VCG/Getty Images)</span></p></div><p></p></div></div></p><ul class="summary-list"><li>Using wind power to generate the electricity the US needs could cause a surprising amount of local warming, according to a new study.</li><li>But wind power would still help the world stop pumping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, which would fight <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/category/climate-change">climate change</a> and <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/category/global-warming">global warming</a>.</li><li>There's concern that fossil fuel interests might misuse this idea to argue that renewables aren't as essential as scientists who study climate say they are.</li><li>But it's important to fully understand the strengths and weaknesses of renewables to make the transition away from fossil fuels go as smoothly as possible. </li></ul><p>If the world is going to avoid <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/global-warming-point-of-no-return-temperature-2018-8">catastrophic climate change</a>, we need to stop consuming fossil fuels and start getting power from renewable energy sources - including geothermal energy, biofuels, hydropower, solar farms, and wind - as soon as possible. </p><p>Wind is particularly appealing, as it's <a href="https://about.bnef.com/blog/tumbling-costs-wind-solar-batteries-squeezing-fossil-fuels/">one of the cheapest</a> and most efficient ways to generate electricity. But that doesn't mean wind power doesn't cause any potentially concerning side effects, according to a <a href="https://www.cell.com/joule/fulltext/S2542-4351(18)30446-X">study published today</a> in the journal Joule.</p><p>If we were to build enough wind plants to supply all the electricity used in the US - the power we use when we flick on a light switch or charge our phones, though not what's used to fuel cars or make steel - all those churning turbines would actually change the flow of the atmosphere above.</p><p>That heat redistribution could warm the regions near the wind farms by about .24 degrees Celsius. It's a significant amount.</p><p>In other words, generating power with wind still has effects on climate. But that doesn't mean it's causing climate change, according to <a href="https://keith.seas.harvard.edu/people/lee-miller">Lee Miller</a>, a postdoctoral fellow working with the <a href="https://keith.seas.harvard.edu/home">Keith Group at Harvard</a> and the coauthor of the new study, along with climate and geoengineering researcher David Keith.</p><p>This warming effect is a local effect, as Miller told Business Insider. That's different from the global warming and climate change caused by burning fossil fuels.</p><p>"Even with renewable technologies there are some climatic impacts," Miller said. Still, he said this is not a reason to stick with fossil fuels - and he fears that people who deny climate change could misuse the new study.</p><p>"I have no doubt that these results will be misconstrued and misinterpreted," he said.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span><a href="https://www.cell.com/joule/fulltext/S2542-4351(18)30446-X">Miller and Keith, Joule, 2018</a></span></p><p class="caption">Wind turbines would disturb the atmosphere, causing warming in some places and cooling in others. Maps are 3-year mean of perturbed minus 3-year mean of control for 2-m air temperatures, showing (A) entire period, (B) daytime, and (C) nighttime. The wind farm region is outlined in black, and, for reference, presently operational wind farms are shown as open circles in (A).</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><h2>Wind versus coal - and why seeing the benefit could take some time</h2><p>Right now, global temperatures are climbing because fossil fuel use pumps carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. This modified atmosphere acts like a blanket, trapping more heat on the planet. As that process continues, scientists expect serious consequences, including the extinction of species, searing deadly heat waves, ocean acidification, more intense and rainy storms, and rising sea levels - all reasons to move away from fossil fuels.</p><p>For their new study, Miller and Keith used data collected from existing wind farms to design a model that assesses the effects of more wind power. To generate current US electricity needs, about one-sixth of all energy use in the US, Miller said we would need about 16 times the wind power we use now.</p><p>But putting wind farms in ideal places (as seen in the map above) and having them all running simultaneously would perturb the atmosphere above. The changes in circulation would lead to temperatures immediately overhead about .24 degrees C warmer. That's about 10 times the effect you'd see if you got that power from solar farms, the authors calculated.</p><p>Still, since these changes redistribute heat (not adding heat to the system like burning fossil fuels), other regions might see cooler temperatures on average.</p><p>The overall effects would be a mixture of good and bad.</p><p>In the wind farm region, the growing season might be extended by a couple of weeks, because nighttime freezes would be less likely. But pests might also start to emerge earlier and disappear later in the season. There might be more evaporation, but also more precipitation. And there could be ways to offset some changes too, like not running turbines as frequently at night, when they'd cause more warming.</p><p>"Even with renewable technologies, there are some climatic impacts. If we can understand those climatic impacts before deployment, maybe there's a way adjust them or amend them," said Milller. "Ideally we know as much about them beforehand, and then learn as we build out."</p><p>Turn all those turbines on immediately, and there are warmer temperatures. But over time, the benefits start to build. For every year people are drawing power from turbines instead of fossil fuels, less CO2 is pumped into the atmosphere. That has a long term benefit for future generations.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Matt Cardy/Getty Images</span></p></div><p></p></div></div></p><h2>Winds of controversy</h2><p>The issue with publishing research like this is that fossil fuel interests might try to use it as evidence that switching to renewables isn't as urgent or important as the vast majority of experts think it is. </p><p>"It's a huge concern," said Miller.</p><p>His argument is that we should fully understand the positives and negatives of every source of energy we use, and that shouldn't take away from the understanding that moving away from fossil fuels needs to happen. That's not unlike scientists who believe that vaccines are safe, effective, and important, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/04/opinion/sunday/anti-vaccine-activists-have-taken-vaccine-science-hostage.html">but still conduct controversial studies</a> to try to improve them, sometimes highlighting side effects or weaknesses.</p><p>"All forms of energy have externalities, they have their pluses, they have their minuses," said Joshua Rhodes, a research fellow at the Energy Institute and the Webber Energy Group at the University of Texas at Austin. "We should look at strengths and weaknesses."</p><p>As Miller explains it, we need all the information we can get if we're going to make the transition to renewables work.</p><p>"Hitting these big renewable energy targets I think is going to be a lot more challenging than most people appreciate ... there's a lot to be learned as we head down that path," he said.</p>      <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/what-caffeine-does-body-brain-2017-3">Here's what caffeine does to your body and brain</a></h3>        <div>                    </div>    </div>

A new study on the side effects of wind energy is almost begging to be misused by climate change deniers

<p class="source"><span>Disney</span></p><p class="caption">"Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2."</p>For the most part, Marvel Studios has created movies that follow a uniform story structure and tone that appease the mass audiences who eat them up. But "Guardians of the Galaxy" has tweaked that model slightly, and it's a great thing.<p>The franchise starring the now-genuine movie star Chris Pratt as Peter "Star-Lord" Quill - and featuring the likes of Bradley Cooper as the perturbed raccoon Rocket, Dave Bautista as Drax, Zoe Saldana as Gamora, and Vin Diesel as Groot - is arguably the greatest payoff yet for Marvel.</p><p>After the first movie did better than anyone expected in 2014, the sequel, "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2" (opening Friday), keeps the mix of a sarcastic tone and an excellent soundtrack that helped the original earn <a href="http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=marvel2014a.htm" target="_blank">over $770 million</a> worldwide while adding some new elements that elevate the franchise.</p><p>Major kudos must go to writer-director James Gunn, who in an era when tentpole movies (especially superhero ones) have to be everything to everyone has been able to harness an atmosphere in the "Galaxy" movies that would soften even the most snobbish anti-Hollywood moviegoer.</p><p>Though "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2" (opening Friday) has great action and a story that will keep you from drifting off until the next exciting fight sequence, the chemistry of the cast is what really makes it move. There are new additions to the Guardians this time around: Nebula (Karen Gillan), the sister of Gamora; Elizabeth Debicki as the evil Ayesha; and Kurt Russell as Peter's father, Ego.</p><p class="source"><span>Disney</span></p><p class="caption">Chris Pratt (L) and Kurt Russell in "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2."</p>And that last part is where the plot really lies. Ego suddenly comes into Star-Lord's life and persuades him to go back to his planet. Ego, it turns out, is a living planet who has taken a human form to communicate with Peter. All the dots connect to explain Peter's past.<p>Meanwhile, after the Guardians stole from Ayesha, she hires space pirate Yondu (Michael Rooker), who you may or may not remember from the first movie was the one who raised Peter, to track down the Guardians and reclaim Ayesha's property.</p><p>The movie isn't short on subplots. There's Gamora and Nebula working out their differences, Drax's hilarious sexual tension with Ego's telepathic sidekick Mantis (Pom Klementieff), and Baby Groot doing adorable Baby Groot things. The ending is wrapped up nicely, highlighted by Rooker's Yondu, who shines.</p><p>I'll leave it up to the super-fans to determine if this is better than the original "Guardians" movie or not (honestly, I think both are equally fun), but what can't be argued is that under Gunn's watchful eye, this franchise is becoming a unique piece of counterprogramming from Marvel Studios. It sets itself apart from the Captain America and Iron Man movies with its colorful language and its insistence on not taking itself too seriously, which goes a long way.</p><p>Sometimes it really pays off to be the oddball in the group. </p>            <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/storylines-plot-game-of-thrones-season-7-jon-snow-cersei-daenerys-2017-4">7 storylines we hope are resolved in season 7 of 'Game of Thrones'</a></h3>                                    Please enable Javascript to watch this video

You Searched For "atmospheric perturbations" and got 5 results

Riding into the sun: Indian-origin NASA scientist to lead rocket mission into 2023 solar eclipse

IANS

Harvard scientists will soon send chemicals into the atmosphere to see if a last-ditch planet-hacking plan could keep Earth habitable

Peter Kotecki,Peter Kotecki

Astronomers spot a sneak peek of Earth's death a star swallowing a planet whole — for the first time

Morgan McFall-Johnsen

A new study on the side effects of wind energy is almost begging to be misused by climate change deniers

Kevin Loria

'Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2' lives up to what made the original movie so fun

Jason Guerrasio

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You Searched For "atmospheric perturbations" and got 5 results

Riding into the sun: Indian-origin NASA scientist to lead rocket mission into 2023 solar eclipse

IANS

Harvard scientists will soon send chemicals into the atmosphere to see if a last-ditch planet-hacking plan could keep Earth habitable

Peter Kotecki,Peter Kotecki

Astronomers spot a sneak peek of Earth's death a star swallowing a planet whole &mdash; for the first time

Morgan McFall-Johnsen

A new study on the side effects of wind energy is almost begging to be misused by climate change deniers

Kevin Loria

'Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2' lives up to what made the original movie so fun

Jason Guerrasio

Popular Keywords

Buying Guides

Astronomers spot a sneak peek of Earth's death a star swallowing a planet whole — for the first time