Earth's Place in the Universe
- Animals
Tar pit clues provide ice age news
New analyses of insects and mammals trapped in the La Brea Tar Pits point to climate surprises during the last ice age.
- Animals
When life exploded
Life exploded in diversity during the Cambrian Period. Experts are exploring what could account for this sudden change 540 million years ago.
- Planets
Picture This: Falling to a comet
After a more than decade-long ride, a robotic lander has left its spacecraft and floated down onto the surface of a comet. From there it should begin scouting for hints at how our solar system formed.
- Earth
How people have been shaping the Earth
We are the dominant force of change on Earth. Some experts propose naming our current time period the ‘Anthropocene’ to reflect our impact.
- Climate
Explainer: Understanding ice ages
Earth slowly wobbles, tilts and stretches (or contracts) as it orbits the sun. These changes may be fairly small and subtle. Still, their cumulative impacts can be huge — sometimes triggering the slow onset of an ice age or an abrupt thaw.
- Earth
Explainer: The volcano basics
Here’s an overview of what they are, where they form and the many ways they pose dangers.
- Planets
Explainer: What are asteroids?
Leftovers from the creation of the solar system, asteroids are space rocks that orbit the sun. Let’s hope the big ones never become meteorites.
- Earth
Meteorites likely wiped out Earth’s earliest life
Enormous meteorites appear to have slammed into Earth several times early in its history. Each mega-smashup would have boiled off oceans and obliterated any bit of life.
- Space
Monster collision in space
The smashup of four clusters of galaxies has sent a super-hot jet of charged particles spewing 2.5 million light-years into space!
- Planets
First mega-Earth found
Astronomers are puzzled by Kepler-10c. This exoplanet is rocky like Earth — but as massive as Neptune. And that challenges their accepted ideas about how planets form.
- Space
Sun sibling spotted
Separated at birth: Astronomers find a star 110 light-years away. It was born at the same time as our sun and from the same cloud of gas and dust.
- Planets
Distant planet may boast the longest year
On a planet far, far away, a single pass around its sun may seem to last forever.
