earth science

She and her team flew these drones while they were standing inside the crater to compare faraway atmospheric measurements with those closer to the source. They also used traditional…

The rise of powerful new technology means that humanity must confront the risk of its own demise. The invention of nuclear weaponry, for example, has already shown just how quickly…

On Wednesday, August 17, Hannah Cloke—a hydrologist at the University of Reading—was sitting in her home office when the rain started coming down. It was a welcome sight. Much of southern…

Roughly 4.5 billion years ago, a primordial version of Earth covered in molten lava orbited the sun. Barely into its newfound existence, it was struck by a smaller object the size of Mars,…

By the early ’90s, ecologists had amassed enough time-series data sets on species populations and enough computing power to test these ideas. There was just one problem: The chaos didn’t…

“Each one of those kinds of pyrite is telling us something different about our planet, its origin, about life, and how it’s changed through time,” said Hazen.For that reason, the new papers…

Around 2030, the Landsat program will launch its next satellite, called Landsat Next. It will bravely break from the numerical naming convention. It will also be an upgrade.“Even when…

Only the hardiest organisms can thrive in one of the coldest springs on earth. That’s why in the summers of 2017 and 2019, Lyle Whyte took a helicopter to Lost Hammer Spring in the…

This spring, when the teams submitted their results to IARPA, evaluator teams graded how well each one did. In June, the teams learned who was moving on to SMART’s second phase, which will…

Start at the center, with the sun. Our middle-aged star may be more placid than most, but it is otherwise unremarkable. Its planets, however, are another story.First, Mercury: More charred…