Planet Earth, features and articles | Educational Science

Mar 5, 2024

Equinox: Definition, facts & when the next equinox begins

The March equinox is almost upon us, with spring about to begin in the Northern Hemisphere, and fall commencing in the Southern Hemisphere. Equinoxes occur twice a year, with daylight and darkness being about the same length in both the Southern and Northern Hemispheres. This phenomenon's name comes from the...

Mar 8, 2024

Amazon wildfires could burn at unprecedented scale as El Niño and drought make rainforest 'more flammable'

The Amazon may experience unprecedented wildfires this year that could severely damage its vital ecosystems, experts have warned. Record-high temperatures, severe drought conditions and the El Niño weather phenomenon have combined to make the Amazon more flammable, Bernardo Flores, a researcher at Brazils Federal University of Santa Catarina, told Live...

Mar 14, 2024

'Imagine a lush tropical island slipping beneath the waves': Drowned island the size of Iceland found off Brazil

In 2018, Brazilian and British scientists were exploring the seafloor around a volcanic plateau known as the Rio Grande Rise when they spotted rocks that looked like they belonged on dry land. Watching video relayed from their remotely operated submersible 650 meters (2,100 feet) below the surface, unusual red clay...

Mar 15, 2024

Oldest evidence of earthquakes found in strange jumble of 3.3 billion-year-old rocks from Africa

Scientists have found signs of some of the earliest known earthquakes in 3.3 billion-year-old rocks. The rocks provide early evidence of plate tectonics, which explains Earth's crust as split into large plates that glide across the mantle. The rocks also point to what conditions may have been like when life...

Jun 17, 2021

'Heat dome' scorches western US with record-breaking temps

Temperatures in Death Valley, California, hit a scorching 122 degrees Fahrenheit (50 degrees Celsius) Tuesday (June 15), short of the all-time record for this spot at the lowest elevation in North America but more than 10 degrees hotter than the average high temperature at this time of year. The broiling...

Jun 21, 2021

Why is humidity so uncomfortable?

On hot and humid days, your skin might feel sticky and overheated, and the air can feel so heavy that breathing becomes a chore. But what is it about humidity that can make the outdoors feel so stifling? The answer is that high humidity can make us feel hotter than...

Jul 7, 2021

June 2021 smashed heat records in North America

If the melting power cables in Portland, Oregon, weren't enough of an indication, new satellite data confirms what many sweat-drenched Americans could have guessed: June 2021 was the single hottest June on record in North America. The new data comes courtesy of the European Union's Copernicus program, which produced climate...

Jul 10, 2021

Death Valley hits 130 degrees, nearly breaking heat record

Death Valley is more than earning its morbid name this weekend, as temperatures in the California desert reached a near-record-breaking 130 degrees Fahrenheit (54.4 degrees Celsius), according to news reports That makes it a tie for the hottest temperature ever verified on Earth since the mercury hit 131 F (55...

Sep 29, 2021

'Mad Max'-like dust storm envelops Brazilian city in cloud of doom

A towering wave of orange dust filled the horizon and whooshed over a neighborhood in a recent video of a rare sandstorm in northwestern São Paulo, Brazil. As the choking cloud rushed past the camera, it transformed the city skyline into a scene that would have looked right at home...

Oct 24, 2021

A 'bomb cyclone' is battering much of California

A bomb cyclone in the Pacific is dumping extreme rain and several feet of snow on California. The wild weather follows a summer of extreme drought and wildfires, and it could bring flooding, mudslides and debris flow to the parched and wildfire-scarred Golden State. The term bomb cyclone refers to...

Dec 11, 2021

How the 'deadly December tornado' carved a 250-mile path through 4 states

Damage from the tornadoes that ripped through the Midwest overnight Friday (Dec. 10) is still being assessed, but the violent storms will go down in history as some of the deadliest and longest-lasting, according to meteorologists. More than 30 tornadoes were reported across six states overnight — Arkansas, Illinois, Kentucky,...

Jan 10, 2022

Geoengineering: Can we control the weather?

Geoengineering is the term used to describe the manipulation of weather to combat the effects of global warming, according to the Oxford Geoengineering Programme. These methods are generally split into two categories — carbon dioxide removal and solar geoengineering. Removing greenhouse gases from the atmosphere helps to prevent the sun’s...

Jan 28, 2022

'Bomb cyclone' set to bring blizzards and hurricane-force winds to the Northeast on Friday: Here's why.

Meteorologists predict that a bomb cyclone will bring severe, blizzard-like conditions to much of the Northeast U.S., starting Friday night (Jan. 28). But what's behind this explosive weather and why is the storm's path so up in the air? Currently, forecasts show the storm will drop at least a foot...

Jan 29, 2022

1st sighting of 'ball lightning' in England uncovered

On June 7, 1195, a fiery spinning ball emerged from a dark cloud in an erstwhile sunny sky close to the London lodgings of the bishop of Norwich. Witnesses could never have known that the natural phenomenon that they were seeing would defy scientific explanation for more than 800 years....

Feb 1, 2022

Lightning bolt breaks record for longest ever recorded

Two storms in 2020 set two new records for lightning, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) announced today (Feb. 1). One record was for longest single bolt, a record captured by a flash of lightning that stretched for about 477 miles (168 kilometers) from Texas to Mississippi during a storm on...