Science

Roughly 124 miles (200 kilometers) beneath the Appalachian Mountains in New England lies the aptly named Northern Appalachian Anomaly (NAA), a mysterious 218-mile-wide (350-km) region of unusually hot rock. Researchers have long believed that the NAA resulted from the plate tectonic movement that broke North America off northwest Africa 180 million years ago. In a new study published Tuesday in …

Here’s what you’ll learn when you read this story: Zealandia, considered a candidate for the Earth’s eighth continent, was mostly lost to the sea. Geologists say they’ve now mapped the entire nearly two million square miles of the underwater land mass. The research team used rock samples from the seabed to analyze and date the undersea geology of North Zealandia, …

The energy needed for thunderstorms could come from an avalanche of electrons seeded by extraterrestrial cosmic rays, a new study claims. Scientists already knew that lightning is an electrical discharge between thunderclouds and Earth’s surface, but exactly how storm clouds obtain an electric field powerful enough to hurl a bolt has remained a mystery for centuries. Now, a new study …

A planetary scientist whose research revealed the possibility of extraterrestrial life on one of Saturn’s moons has been made the first female astronomer royal. Prof Michele Dougherty, a leading space physicist who was a researcher for the Nasa Cassini mission, has been awarded the 350-year-old honorary title. In 2021, Catherine Heymans, a professor of astrophysics at the University of Edinburgh, …

Around the world, international borders are hardening. Nations are competing for resources, technology and even orbits. But in Vienna this June, a different vision took center stage. One where space is shared, data is open and no satellite orbits Earth on its own. At the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Living Planet Symposium 2025, the “Breaking Barriers” plenary presentation delivered the …

A new study has rewritten a key chapter in the story of vertebrate evolution. Researchers from the University of São Paulo (USP) in Brazil and the Smithsonian Institution in the United States have revealed that many of the muscles once believed to define the anatomy of the coelacanth, a fish often described as a “living fossil,” were in fact misidentified …

When NASA launched Opportunity and its twin Spirit in 2003, the mission team was aiming for a three-month journey on Mars. According to NASA’s own historical records, each rover was built to function for just 90 sols (about 92 Earth days). Opportunity landed in Meridiani Planum, a site scientists picked because it showed signs of a watery past—minerals called hematite, …

IN A NUTSHELL 🌌 Researchers have developed a new method using soft X-rays to measure the reconnection rate of solar wind energy into Earth’s magnetosphere. 🔬 The team used Japan’s Fugaku supercomputer to simulate coronal mass ejections and analyzed V-shaped X-ray emissions from a Moon-distance perspective. 🌎 This approach bridges the gap between local observations and global reconnection rates, offering …

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, topped with Crew Dragon Endeavour, stands at Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. The rocket will launch the Crew-11 mission to the International Space Station. Image: Michael Cain/Spaceflight Now A group of astronauts and a cosmonaut originally slated to fly on other missions are finally getting their ticket to ride. The quartet, led …

A major fault in the Yukon, Canada, that has been quiet for at least 12,000 years may be capable of giving off earthquakes of at least magnitude 7.5, new research suggests. Based on the amount of strain the Tintina fault has accumulated over the past 2.6 million years, it is now under an amount of stress that could lead to …