Browsing: Earths
Atmosphere: The outer layer of gas that surrounds Earth or another planet or moon. Aurora: A light show in the sky caused by high-energy particles from…
With the abundance of news stories, one might believe that humanity is on a path to self-destruction due to pollution, microplastics, and harmful chemicals. Reports of…
First hypothesized over 60 years ago Bipolar electric field Polar winds are the primary driver of a constant outflow of charged particles into space above the…
The Earth is greatly influenced by the presence of the Moon. One of the most evident effects is the tides, although the sun also plays a…
Bees are winged insects that feed on nectar and pollen from flowers and sometimes produce honey. There are around 20,000 species of honeybees, of which 270…
Iceland’s lava caves are just a small part of the vast underground habitats on Earth. Tommy Oh Photography/Getty Images Stefano Mammola was standing in a mossy forest overlooking the Po plain in northern Italy. In a moment, he was disappearing into the forest floor through a hole a little wider than his body. With less
A rock sample from Earth’s mantle viewed under a microscope Johan Lissenberg In the middle of the North Atlantic, geologists have drilled 1,268 metres below the…
Have you ever wondered why the “stable” parts of continents gradually rise up to form some of the largest landforms on Earth, like the vast plateau…
Shackleton Crater on the south pole of the moon is an area in permanent shadowLROC/Shadowcam/NASA/KARI/ASU A backup of Earth-based life could be safely stored in a…
The unusual wall-less cells can create structures (main image) similar to those found in 3.4 billion-year-old rocks from South Africa’s Back Reef (inset)Dheeraj Kanaparti et al.…
A recent study reveals that climate change is fundamentally reshaping the Earth, impacting its core. The melting of polar ice caps and glaciers due to global…
Solar power plantYaor Shen/Getty Images Things are a bit shaky right now, both environmentally and politically, so I decided to call up some experts to find…
You may be surprised by how little we actually know about the inner workings of the Earth. While we have a good grasp of how the…
Fossil and molecular evidence suggests that complex multicellular organisms arose and proliferated during the Neoproterozoic Era (1-541 million years ago). An extreme glacial period during the…
This story is part of our “Cosmic Perspective” series, which confronts the incredible vastness of the universe and our place in it. Read the rest of…
The movement of Earth’s inner core has been a topic of debate in the scientific community for the past 20 years, with some studies suggesting that…
Physicists at the University of Vienna have used a maximally entangled quantum state of light paths in a large interferometer to experimentally measure the speed of…
 Dead Planets Society is a podcast that takes some crazy ideas for how to tinker with the universe and tests their effects against the laws…
In recent decades, scientists have observed a decrease in atmospheric moisture leading to drying soils, water-starved plants, withering vegetation, and increased forest fires. This phenomenon is…
Much of the sun’s heat is trapped in the Earth’s atmosphereMurataruto/Shutterstock Earth’s atmosphere currently traps more than twice as much excess heat as it did in…
Considered one of West Antarctica’s most infamous glaciers, the “doomsday glacier” has earned its nickname due to the potentially significant rise in sea levels it could…
Life on Earth is dependent on the ozone layer in the stratosphere, which protects living organisms from the harmful ultraviolet rays of the sun. However, the…
Researchers at Washington University in St. Louis and the Lunar and Planetary Institute have utilized mathematical models and high-resolution images from NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft to…
On March 8, 2024, Florida resident Alejandro Otero experienced a strange incident when a 0.7 kg metal object fell from the sky, crashing through his home,…
An ultra-weak Earth’s magnetic field between 591 million and 565 million years ago (the Ediacaran period) coincided with a significant increase in oxygen levels in the…
What creates the Earth’s magnetic field? Magnetic fields are generated by the movement of charges. In a bar magnet, the charges in motion are electrons orbiting…
You might be surprised to learn that the moon we see in the night sky is not the only one orbiting Earth. Some people have started…
Accurate assessments of global river flows and water storage are important to inform water management practices, but current estimates of global river flows represent a significant…
In her new book, entropy photographer Diane Taft explores the damage a warmer climate is doing to bodies of water. Utah’s Great Salt Lake (pictured above) is a notable example. Here, as temperatures rise due to climate change, demand for fresh water from industry and agriculture has slowed the flow of mountain streams, and the
Recovering ancient records of the Earth's magnetic field is difficult because the magnetization of rocks is often reset by heating during burial due to tectonic movements…
Fiber-optic cables designed to carry telecommunications can also be used to map the Earth’s interior. Connect World/Shutterstock Offline communication cables called “dark fibers” can be used…
In the realm of earthquakes, one should always anticipate the unexpected. This is the message conveyed by seismologists Professor Eric Curry from Ecole Normale SupĂ©rieure (ENS)…
Global warming is causing the Earth’s rotation to slow slightly, which could affect the way we measure time. A study published Wednesday found that the melting…
Australian and French geoscientists have used the geological record of Earth's deep ocean to discover a link between our home planet and the orbit of Mars.…
The planets are doing a gravitational dance around the sun Shutterstock/Johan Swanepoel Mars’ gravitational pull could be strong enough to shake up Earth’s oceans and shift…
Once the first life settled on Earth, it began to influence the climate Shutterstock/Silvae The story of the Earth’s climate revealed through 25 discoveries Donald R.…
From a detailed analysis of Mimas’s orbital motion based on data from NASA’s Cassini mission, planetary researchers from the Sorbonne, the University of Nantes, Queen Mary…
Deep underground in the heart of Asia, two giant plates are colliding with each other. Violent, slow-motion collisions between the geological plates are continuously shaping the…
Launch of the Peregrine Lunar Module on a Vulcan rocket on January 8thAPFootage / Alamy Stock Photo The mission of the Hayabusa lander is over. The…
After more than a week in space, the doomed lunar lander met a violent end Thursday as it burned up in Earth’s atmosphere, ending its mission.A…
