Planet Earth, features and articles | Educational Science

Jan 10, 2024

'Superstructure' bigger than Idaho has been growing on the seafloor by Fiji since the dinosaur age

An undersea plateau in the Pacific Ocean that is bigger than Idaho first started forming with volcanic eruptions during the Cretaceous period (145 to 66 million years ago), and it is still growing today. In fact, the Melanesian Border Plateau, located east of the Solomon Islands, formed through four separate...

Jan 14, 2024

5 stories making science news this week: A Pacific 'superstructure' and an ancient Roman bullet

This week's science news has revealed an enormous superstructure bigger than Idaho growing on the seafloor, an ancient bullet inscribed with the name of Julius Caesar, and an extinct hypercarnivorous grizzly bear that was actually mostly vegetarian. 'Superstructure' growing on the Pacific seafloor since the dinosaur age An undersea plateau...

Jan 16, 2024

Lost 'Atlantis' continent off Australia may have been home for half a million humans 70,000 years ago

About 70,000 years ago, a vast swathe of land that's now submerged off the coast of Australia could once have supported a population of half a million people. The undersea territory was so large it could have functioned as a stepping stone for migration from modern-day Indonesia to Australia, finds...

Jan 16, 2024

More than duodecillion cells have existed on Earth in its history, scientists estimate

All organisms are made of living cells. While it is difficult to pinpoint exactly when the first cells came to exist, geologists' best estimates suggest at least as early as 3.8 billion years ago. But how much life has inhabited this planet since the first cell on Earth? And how...

Jan 22, 2024

Will the Doomsday Clock stand still or creep closer to midnight? Here's how to watch the reveal on Tuesday.

UPDATE: On Jan. 2 it was announced that the Doomsday Clock would remain at just 90 seconds to midnight, with the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists citing the threat of nuclear escalation in Ukraine, climate change and disruptive technologies as reasons to keep the clock teetering on the doorstep of...

Jan 23, 2024

Doomsday Clock hovers at 90 seconds to midnight for 2nd year in a row

The Doomsday Clock, whose hypothetical hands strike the minutes and seconds left until a human-made apocalypse destroys the world as we know it, has remained at just 90 seconds to midnight. The clock moved to 90 seconds to midnight for the first time ever last year, after hovering at 100...

Jan 26, 2024

City-sized holes on Antarctica's ice shelves offer tantalizing 'window' into the frozen continent's underworld

Enormous, city-size holes that open up on Antarctica's ice shelf may be linked to the formation of giant icebergs that calve off of the frozen continent, a new study has found. These windows into the sub-shelf environment could offer clues about how the ice is melting deep beneath the surface,...

Jan 30, 2024

A perfect storm of factors is causing major East Coast cities to sink. What are they, and can we do anything about it?

The idea of our major cities gradually sinking into the earth sounds like the plot of a science fiction movie. But research shows that some of the most densely populated urban areas in the United States, like New York City and Miami, are descending into the ground at an alarming...

Jan 30, 2024

Mass starvation after nuclear war could be partially averted with one specific food — seaweed

Scientists have discovered a surprising alternate food source that could save a huge number of lives in the aftermath of a catastrophic nuclear war — seaweed. A Nuclear war would plunge our planet into a deep nuclear winter. In the worst-case scenario, a nuclear exchange between the U.S. and Russia...

Feb 2, 2024

Major 'magnetic anomaly' discovered deep below New Zealand's Lake Rotorua

New maps have revealed a hidden hydrothermal system beneath a legendary lake in New Zealand, which serves as the setting for a famous Māori love story. Lake Rotorua sits at the heart of a massive ancient crater of a dormant volcano on New Zealand's North Island. The lake has a...

Feb 21, 2024

27 weirdest things on Google Earth

There are many, many weird things seen on Google Earth. The service, which was launched in 2005, compiles images from various sources, from satellites in geosynchronous orbit that snap low-resolution photos from tens of thousands of miles above Earth, to satellites closer to Earth that capture higher-resolution shots, and even...

Feb 23, 2024

Thawing Arctic permafrost could release radioactive, cancer-causing radon

Thawing permafrost in the Arctic could release radon, a radioactive gas that has the potential to cause cancer, scientists have warned. The permafrost that keeps the ground frozen year-round in the Arctic acts like a cap that prevents a variety of gases from bubbling up into the atmosphere. The most...

Feb 29, 2024

Striking new satellite images show Indonesia's new jungle capital taking shape

Striking NASA images capture the birth of Indonesia's new jungle city on Borneo as the country looks to move its sinking capital. The satellite shots from April 2022 and February 2024 show a network of new roads on the landscape and the construction of buildings in eastern Kalimantan, where Indonesia...

Mar 1, 2024

Weird dent in Earth's magnetic field is messing with auroras in the Southern Hemisphere

A bizarre dent in Earth's magnetic field above the southern Atlantic Ocean weakens the southern lights, new research finds. The South Atlantic Anomaly is a large, oval-shaped region over South America and the southern Atlantic Ocean where Earth's magnetic field is weakest. The anomaly is already well known for allowing...

Mar 1, 2024

East Coast cities are sinking at a shocking rate, NASA images show

NASA satellite images show the shocking speed at which the land is sinking beneath major U.S. cities, including Baltimore, New York and Charleston. The images, revealed by NASA Earth Observatory on Feb. 20, show land movement across the East Coast, with areas in dark blue sinking at the fastest rate....