As warming sea temperatures and pollution continue to degrade the world’s coral reefs at an unprecedented rate, scientists are investigating the feasibility of preserving them — in outer space. The idea is to store a biorepository — a biobank that stores samples of biological material cooled to temperatures low enough it is essentially suspended in […]
Sign up for CNN’s Wonder Theory science newsletter. Explore the universe with news on fascinating discoveries, scientific advancements and more. Earth’s magnetic field plays a key role in making our planet habitable. The protective bubble over the atmosphere shields the planet from solar radiation, winds, cosmic rays and wild swings in temperature. However, Earth’s magnetic field […]
Scientists may have identified a molecule that played a key role in robbing Venus of its water and turned this planet into the arid, hellish world we see today. Venus is often called “Earth’s twin” because both planets are around the same size and density; they are also both rocky planets located in the inner […]
Discovering a machine that could somehow produce thrust without releasing propellant would be a game-changer for human space travel. There’s just one problem—such a device would defy the laws of physics. This limitation has not stopped people from investigating the possibility, and the latest addition to the propellant-less club is an electrostatic design developed by […]
It would appear that the so-called “great instability” event that wreaked chaos among the planets, sending the gas giants careening through space until they settled into the orbits we know today, occurred between 60 and 100 million years after the birth of the solar system. This is the conclusion of some careful scientific detective work […]
A 3.7-billion-year-old record of our planet’s ancient magnetism has been unearthed, providing evidence that Earth’s magnetic field already existed very early in history. This discovery, however, is quite surprising. Rocks approaching 4 billion years old are hard to find; most have been recycled through Earth‘s tectonic activity, slipping into the mantle through subduction zones before […]
By Will Dunham WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Flowering plants – from corn, wheat, rice and potatoes to maple, oak, apple and cherry trees as well as roses, tulips, daisies and dandelions and even the corpse flower and voodoo lily – are cornerstones of Earth’s ecosystems and essential for humankind. New research based on genome data for […]
Earth’s “quasi-moon” was likely blasted away from the actual moon relatively recently in the solar system’s history, a new study suggests. Kamo’oalewa, a 131- to 328-foot-wide (40 to 100 meters) near-Earth object (NEO), was liberated by an asteroid impact between 1 million and 10 million years ago, a smashup that created the moon‘s 13.7-mile-wide (22 […]
Since the massive uranium enrichment buildings at the K-25 site in Oak Ridge were demolished, the memory of the place has been left to the K-25 History Center and the thousands of people who worked there. Those two repositories will come together as hundreds of former K-25 employees travel to the history center for a […]
Extraordinary footage appeared to capture Israel shooting down a ballistic missile outside of the Earth’s atmosphere as it deployed its most advanced defences against Iranian drones and rockets. Images showing what is thought to be an “exoatmospheric” interception were among visuals circulated on Sunday morning following the unprecedented barrage of missiles fired directly at Israel […]
For those of us in the northern hemisphere, the recent chirping of birds and blooming of flowers are welcome signs that spring has arrived — and a new video released by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) shows a stunning glimpse of what this change of seasons looks like from space. The high-speed video […]
The Earth is spinning slightly faster than it was a few years ago, but the rapid melt of polar ice is keeping that acceleration in check, with consequences for timekeeping, a new study finds. The planet’s solid inner core rotates unevenly, and at present it’s gaining pace, causing the Earth to spin faster. The acceleration […]