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Earth Science
Laser-guided lightning isn't the only manmade way to create lightning.
The acceptance of our cosmic loneliness and the rarity of our planet is a wakeup call.
John Templeton Foundation
Nearly 2000 years ago, Mt. Vesuvius erupted, burying Pompeii but incinerating Herculaneum. The most lethal volcanic phenomenon is at fault.
An un-crewed sailing drone discovered the unusually shaped, slumbering seamount.
Frozen adversity set the stage for an explosion of diversity.
From up close, the cracking sound of a thunderclap dominates. From far away, it's more like a drawn-out rumble. Can science explain why?
Mercury, Venus, and Mars are all uni-plate planets, and may always have been. Here's what's known about why Earth, uniquely, has plate tectonics.
Temperatures in the Sun's core exceed 10 million degrees Celsius. But how on Earth did we actually come to know that?
Many impact craters on Earth have been erased thanks to wind, water, and plate tectonics. But scientists have clever ways to find them.
Civil engineer Martin Lebek has a brilliant plan to redress the world’s phosphorus imbalance.
All human development, from large cities to small towns, shines light into the night sky.
The Black, Caspian, and Aral Seas are the last surviving fragments of a body of water that stretched from Austria to Turkmenistan.
Two populations that are geographically separated today once mated a very long time ago.
Was it the enormous magnitude of the quake, or is the problem with the buildings?
Catastrophes are difficult to predict because they are so rare. But AI using active learning can make predictions from very small data sets.
According to Peter Ward's "Medea hypothesis," photosynthesizing organisms regularly doom most life on Earth by over-consuming carbon dioxide.
What do you call it when the Earth shakes for three decades?
Slimy biofilms made up of bacterial and eukaryotic life forms have taken over an abandoned, flooded uranium mine in Germany.
Air currents in our atmosphere limit the resolving power of giant telescopes, but computers and artificial stars can sharpen the blur.
Out of sight, but not out of mind.
What we've learning from the world’s coldest, most forbidding, and most peaceful continent.
Each year, several trillion pounds of microscopic silicon-based skeletons fall down the water column to pile up into siliceous ooze.
Why would the Earth suddenly start vomiting forth huge quantities of mud?
Passing chunks of ice can fertilize ocean waters and play a role in the planet’s carbon cycle.
In 2020, scientists took more than a kilo of moon rock and soil back to Earth for testing.
"A modern five-day forecast is as accurate as a one-day forecast in 1980."
It’s like radar, but with light. Distributed acoustic sensing — DAS — picks up tremors from volcanoes, quaking ice and deep-sea faults, as well as traffic rumbles and whale calls.
Hawaii is the most isolated volcanic hot spot on Earth, far away from any plate boundary.
Maybe bring an umbrella just in case.