Tag Archives: Earth

This article was originally published at The Conversation. The publication contributed the article to Space.com’s Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights. Our first meeting was a bit awkward. One of us is an archaeologist who studies how past peoples interacted with their environments. Two of us are geophysicists who investigate interactions between solar activity and Earth’s magnetic field. When we first …

Earth is spinning so fast that global timekeepers are considering something that’s never been done before: adding a negative leap second. So far this year, July 9 and July 22 have been unusually short — by about 1.3 and 1.4 milliseconds, respectively. However, Aug. 5 is expected to be even shorter, losing roughly 1.5 milliseconds, according to timeanddate.com. This follows …

An asteroid the size of the Leaning Tower of Pisa has been spotted just days before it screams past Earth in the latest near-miss astronomers have tracked. NASA has announced that asteroid 2025 OW is expected to pass within 393,000 miles of Earth on Monday, July 28. It’s actually one of five asteroids NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) making a close …

It is the ultimate mystery of biology: How did life begin? A team of Harvard scientists has brought us closer to an answer by creating artificial cell-like chemical systems that simulate metabolism, reproduction, and evolution — the essential features of life. The results were published recently in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. “This is the first time, …

It’s hard to believe, but about 700m years ago it’s thought that our planet completely froze over with little to no liquid ocean or lakes exposed to the atmosphere, even in the tropics. But what tipped Earth’s climate into “Snowball Earth” state? A new study suggests a cold climate and massive volcanic eruptions set the scene. The Franklin eruptions – …

This article was originally published at The Conversation. The publication contributed the article to Space.com’s Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights I was preparing for my early morning class back in January 2025 when I received a notice regarding an asteroid called 2024 YR4. It said the probability it could hit Earth was unusually high. As defending Earth from unexpected intruders …

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A team of scientists has found the recently discovered “interstellar invader” comet 3I/ATLAS is teeming with water ice. This water could have been sealed in the comet for 7 billion years, which would make it older than the solar system itself. The team also found a mixture of organic molecules, silicates and carbon based minerals on the object, meaning 3I/ATLAS …

If you thought the Earth only had one moon, think again. Researchers have revealed that our planet may actually have an entire collection orbiting us at any given time. A new study has found that Earth has at least six ‘minimoons’ in orbit on a regular basis, with most of them being smaller pieces of the actual moon we see …

In a serendipitous turn of events, scientists have discovered that Japan’s Himawari-8 and Himawari-9 weather satellites, designed to monitor storms and climate patterns here on Earth, have also been quietly collecting valuable data on Venus for nearly a decade. Although meteorological satellites orbit Earth and scan the skies around it, their imaging range extends into space, allowing them to occasionally …