Planet Earth, features and articles | Educational Science

Oct 31, 2021

Human-size ammonites swam the Atlantic Ocean 80 million years ago

About 80 million years ago, human-size sea creatures with tentacle-like arms and coiled shells up to 6 feet (1.8 meters) wide glided through the Atlantic Ocean, a new study reveals. These creatures were the world's largest ammonites, a group of shelled cephalopods that went extinct roughly 66 million years ago....

Oct 31, 2021

Diamond hauled from deep inside Earth holds never-before-seen mineral

Within a diamond hauled from deep beneath Earth's surface, scientists have discovered the first example of a never-before-seen mineral. Named davemaoite after prominent geophysicist Ho-kwang (Dave) Mao, the mineral is the first example of a high-pressure calcium silicate perovskite (CaSiO3) found on Earth. Another form of CaSiO3, known as wollastonite,...

Sep 30, 2021

Climate change is making Earth dimmer

Earth is reflecting less light as its climate continues to change, new research suggests. A beautiful phenomenon connects climate and brightness: clouds. Clouds are a notoriously complicated piece of the climate puzzle — scientists struggle to model how clouds will respond to climate change and how those responses in turn...

Sep 30, 2021

Halloween northern lights from huge solar flare thrill skywatchers

A huge solar flare from the sun has spawned an eerie green glow over some parts of Earth in a Halloween northern lights show that has stargazers over the moon. A powerful X1 solar flare from the sun on Thursday (Oct. 28) unleashed a wave of charged particles that reached...

Aug 31, 2021

99 million-year-old spider mummies reveal moms cared for teeny spiderlings

Big-eyed spiders were likely guarding their egg sacs and possibly caring for already hatched spiderlings when they were trapped in sticky tree resin some 99 million years ago. That resin hardened, locking up those arachnid mamas in four chunks of amber recently mined in Myanmar, and now considered the oldest...

Jul 31, 2021

Dixie Fire becomes largest in California history

Burning through parched fuel like matchsticks, the Dixie Fire in Northern California has mushroomed in size this week to become the largest single wildfire in the state's history, according to news reports. The fire, which covers large parts of Butte and Plumas Counties, ignited around midnight on July 14 and...

Jul 31, 2021

July 2021 was officially the hottest month ever

July 2021 was officially the hottest month in recorded history, according to new data released Friday (Aug. 13) by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Last month, the combined land and ocean-surface temperature was 1.67 degrees Fahrenheit (0.93 degrees Celsius) higher than the 20th-century average, blowing past the previous...

Jun 30, 2021

Why do nuclear bombs form mushroom clouds?

When a bomb goes off, energy is shot out indiscriminately in all directions. So, instead of an expanding ball of fire, why do nuclear explosions result in mushroom clouds? Although the outburst of energy does initially form a sphere of hot air, that's only the beginning of the story, according...

Jun 30, 2021

Perfectly preserved 310-million-year-old fossilized brain found

Researchers have uncovered a never-before-seen fossilized brain from a 310 million-year-old horseshoe crab, revealing some surprises about the evolution of these wannabe crustaceans, according to a new study. The fossilized brain, which belongs to the extinct species Euproops danae, was discovered at Mazon Creek in Illinois, where the conditions were...

May 31, 2021

Climate 'tipping points' could push us past the point-of-no-return after less than 2 degrees of warming

As climate change continues to heat the planet, ice sheets and ocean currents could destabilize each other, leading to a climate domino effect impacting 40% of the world’s population, according to new research. And these effects could be seen at way lower temperatures than previously thought. Scientists ran 3 million...

May 31, 2021

Earth has a 'pulse' of 27.5 million years

Most major geological events in Earth's recent history have clustered in 27.5-million-year intervals — a pattern that scientists are now calling the pulse of the Earth, according to a new study. Over the past 260 million years, dozens of major geological events, from sea level changes to volcanic eruptions, seem...

May 31, 2021

A dangerous 'Omega block' is trapping scorching hot air over the US and Canada

The Northwestern United States and Pacific Canada are in the grips of a heat wave that the National Weather Service called historic and dangerous in a bulletin on Sunday (June 27). A weather anomaly called a heat dome is partially to blame. In the last few days, multiple cities across...

Mar 31, 2021

5,200 tons of extraterrestrial dust fall on Earth each year

Every year, 5,200 tons of extraterrestrial dust fall to Earth. This gentle rain of bits of comets and asteroids far outweighs larger meteorites that hit the planet, according to research to be published April 15 in the journal Earth & Planetary Science Letters. Only about 10 tons (9 metric tons)...

Feb 28, 2021

Top-secret Cold War military project found perfectly preserved fossil plants under Greenland ice

Frozen soil that was collected in Greenland during the Cold War by a secret military operation hid another secret: buried fossils that could be a million years old. Recent analysis revealed plants that were so well-preserved they look like they died yesterday, researchers said. U.S. Army scientists dug up the...

Feb 28, 2021

Spring returns with a not-so-equal vernal equinox of 2021

Spring will officially arrive on Saturday morning (March 20) with the occurrence of the vernal equinox. That occurs when the sun will be positioned directly over the Earth's equator at 09:37 Universal Time; 5:37 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time or 2:37 a.m. Pacific Daylight Time. At that particular moment, the sun...