All Stories by Katherine Kornei
- Oceans
Seafloor amber may hold hints of a tsunami 115 million years ago
Oddly shaped deposits of tree resin point to massive waves that struck northern Japan roughly 115 million years ago and swept a forest into the sea.
- Space
See how the Hubble Space Telescope is still revolutionizing astronomy
Hubble is still going strong 35 years after it was launched into space. Celebrate its anniversary with some out-of-this-world images.
- Planetary Science
Juno reveals dozens of lava lakes on Jupiter’s moon Io
NASA’s Juno spacecraft identifies over 40 enormous lava lakes on Io, shedding light on the extreme volcanism sculpting Jupiter’s moon.
- Anthropology
An African strontium map sheds light on the origins of enslaved people
While genetic tests can reveal the ancestry of enslaved individuals, strontium analysis can now home in on where they actually grew up.
- Earth
A weaker magnetic field may have paved the way for marine life to go big
Decreased protection from cosmic radiation may have increased oxygen levels in the atmosphere and oceans, allowing animals to grow larger.
- Planetary Science
An asteroid may have exploded over Antarctica about 2.5 million years ago
Tiny spherules of rock found in Antarctic ice may point to the oldest known “airburst,” or midair disintegration of an incoming asteroid.
- Oceans
Ocean heat waves often lurk out of sight
About 1 in 3 marine heat waves occur below the surface, a new study reports, suggesting these harmful events are more common than previously thought.
- Planetary Science
How drones are helping scientists find meteorites
Searching for fallen space rocks is labor intensive. A team of researchers in Australia is speeding things up with drones and machine learning.
- Animals
For the first time, researchers decoded the RNA of an extinct animal
The Tasmanian tiger, or thylacine, was hunted nearly to extinction. Now RNA extracted from a museum specimen reveals how its cells functioned.
- Space
India’s successful moon landing follows recent failures by other countries
The Chandrayaan-3 mission delivered a lander and rover to the moon. Attempts by other countries this year show that getting there is still a challenge.
- Environment
The most intense sunlight on Earth can be found in the Atacama Desert
On the Chilean Altiplano plateau, every square meter of the ground receives, on average, more solar power than Mount Everest and occasionally almost as much as Venus.
- Planetary Science
Granite likely lurks beneath the moon’s surface
Without plate tectonics or water, granite is hard to make. But a 50-kilometer-wide hunk sits beneath the moon’s surface, lunar orbiter data suggest.
