By Dharma Niles, CNN (CNN) — October’s full moon will grace the sky this weekend — and those with a keen eye may also catch a glimpse of Saturn. Just a month after the fall equinox, the full moon will rise particularly early, becoming visible at sunset and reaching peak illumination at 12:12 a.m. ET
Continue ReadingBy Amarachi Orie, CNN (CNN) — For more than a century, Vincent van Gogh’s “The Starry Night” was believed to have been the result of imagination, previous drawings and memories of scenes he had seen outside his barred asylum bedroom window in France. However, the 1889 artwork was probably rooted much more in observation than
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By Jackie Wattles, CNN (CNN) — NASA offered new details Friday about a mad dash to get two lunar landers — built by competing companies Blue Origin and SpaceX — and the space agency’s own rocket and spacecraft ready for a crucial test mission next year. “We will not delude ourselves into believing that more
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By Mindy Weisberger, CNN (CNN) — As the reign of the dinosaurs crumbled about 65 million years ago, new royalty rose from the ashes: a king among fungi. Scientists recently identified Dianjunus rex, a gigantic species of fungus in what’s now China that shares part of its name with Tyrannosaurus rex, the renowned dinosaur “king.”
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By Paula Hancocks, CNN Abu Dhabi (CNN) — The conflict in the Middle East is shaping up to be yet another US war with a toxic legacy. Bombs and missiles have released heavy metals and harmful chemicals into the atmosphere. US-Israeli and Iranian strikes have hit oil facilities, igniting fires that covered Tehran in thick
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By Laura Paddison, CNN (CNN) — More than 50,000 people are estimated to have died across Europe’s cities during the brutal heat waves that roiled the continent this summer — making this year’s heat the region’s deadliest on record, according to a new analysis. About two-thirds of the deaths, more than 32,600, are directly attributed
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By Jack Guy (CNN) — An image of ink droplets inside a printer has won first prize at the Nikon Small World photomicrography competition, which focuses on images taken through a microscope. Ole Bielfeldt, a student and experimental photographer from Germany, took the photo using an imaging rig he built himself, according to a statement
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By Jacopo Prisco, CNN (CNN) — The Stanford Prison Experiment lasted less than a week in 1971, but its claims about human nature endured for decades. Now, a new Netflix series is bringing one of psychology’s most controversial studies, and some of the biggest concerns surrounding it, back into the spotlight. Organized by American psychologist
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By Ashley Strickland, CNN (CNN) — The Orionid meteor shower creates one of the most brilliant displays in the night sky each fall — but this year’s celestial event may have a dimmer showing due to a bright moon. Unlike the recent Draconid meteor shower, a treat for early sleepers, the Orionids will reward those
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By Andrew Freedman, CNN (CNN) — A UN climate report released Wednesday finds the globe will unavoidably slip past the Paris Climate Agreement’s 1.5-degree Celsius warming target in the next few years. The task now, the report states, is to make the period of warming “overshoot” as limited as possible, eventually bringing global average temperatures
Continue ReadingBy Laura Paddison, CNN (CNN) — The United States’ two largest reservoirs have dropped to unprecedented lows this year as drought grips the Southwest, but below the ground there’s another water crisis playing out — one that’s much less visible, but no less alarming. The amount of groundwater in the Colorado River Basin is declining
Continue ReadingBy Jackie Wattles, CNN (CNN) — A rare move by a Russian-made satellite may have brought it within less than a mile of a commercial Earth-observation satellite that may be used to provide national security services to countries such as Ukraine. It’s not clear what, exactly, the Russian satellite, called Kosmos 2612 or Cosmos 2612,
Continue ReadingBy Ashley Strickland, CNN (CNN) — Mars’ largely unexplored moons are getting their moment in the spotlight now that a first-of-its-kind mission has taken flight. The red planet has many unsolved riddles, but the Japanese-led Martian Moons eXploration project will focus solely on two of the biggest curiosities orbiting nearby. Phobos and Deimos have long
Continue ReadingBy Katie Hunt, Alex Stambaugh, CNN (CNN) — A recent expedition to a remote South Pacific island to search for wreckage from Amelia Earhart’s lost plane has come up empty. Researchers said Monday they found “no conclusive evidence” that the famed aviator landed her Lockheed 10E Electra aircraft on or near the small atoll south
Continue ReadingBy Jack Guy and Lauren J. Young, CNN (CNN) — Astronomers analyzing white dwarf stars have for the first time found a star that would appear green to human eyes, according to a new study. While for most stars, color is temperature-dependent and limited to a few hues, white dwarfs, which are the dense remnants
Continue ReadingBy Laura Paddison, CNN (CNN) — The staggering rise of AI has become a political flashpoint, especially when it comes to the data centers needed to train and operate it. As the industry booms, many people are increasingly worried about the environmental impacts of these hulking buildings, from their seemingly insatiable demand for water and
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By Katie Hunt, CNN (CNN) — Archaeologists have unearthed the remains of a Neanderthal whose life came to a brutal end 75,000 years ago when a sharpened wooden spear plunged into the individual’s chest in one of the earliest known examples of a possible homicide. A neat, circular hole in the hominin’s shoulder blade suggested
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By Laura Paddison, CNN (CNN) — The planet’s widest glacier is melting “more aggressively” than previously projected, meaning its impacts on global sea level rise could be double current estimates, according to new research by a team of glaciologists. Thwaites Glacier in West Antarctica — nicknamed the Doomsday Glacier because of the catastrophe its collapse
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By Jack Guy, CNN (CNN) — Archaeologists working off the coast of Turkey have found a shipwreck dating back around 4,700 years, making it the oldest in the world. A number of ancient storage vessels known as amphorae were recovered during excavations at the wreck, which was found at a depth of around 100 feet
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By Andrew Freedman, CNN (CNN) — As the near-certainty of a record-breaking super El Niño has become clear, the scientists who predict and study it have been inundated by inquiries from the press and public. While there seems to be widespread recognition of what the term “El Niño” means, many people are confused about how
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