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By Laura Paddison, CNN (CNN) — It’s official: 2024 was the hottest year on record, breaking the previous record set in 2023 and pushing the world over a critical climate threshold, according to new data from Europe’s climate monitoring agency Copernicus. Last year was 1.6 degrees hotter than the period before humans began burning large

By Mary Gilbert and Angela Fritz, CNN (CNN) — Southern California was under water less than a year ago. A siege of torrential rain from atmospheric rivers started in December and reached a crescendo in early February when nearly a foot fell in Los Angeles. It was a deadly winter of storms that flooded roads,

By Julianna Bragg, CNN (CNN) — Scientists have unearthed nearly 200 dinosaur footprints, dating back 166 million years to the Middle Jurassic Period, at Dewars Farm Quarry in Oxfordshire, England. The remarkable find, first spied in 2023 when quarry worker Gary Johnson sensed “unusual bumps” on the ground while extracting limestone for road construction, has

By Ashley Strickland, CNN (CNN) — Two new potential strategies for returning crucial samples from Mars to Earth by the 2030s are now on the table, according to NASA. The proposals present alternatives to the original Mars Sample Return program. Designed by NASA and the European Space Agency, the initial plan was deemed unwieldy after

By Laura Paddison, CNN (CNN) — On Tuesday, Donald Trump Jr. landed in Greenland, the Arctic island his father, President-elect Donald Trump, has expressed a strong desire to purchase, despite sharp statements from Greenland that it is not for sale. Trump Jr. framed the trip as “a little bit of fun,” telling CNN, “as an

By Julianna Bragg, CNN (CNN) — Tahlequah, the mother orca denoted as J35 who captured hearts worldwide in 2018 by carrying her dead calf for 17 days and over 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometers), is once again displaying a similar act of mourning. Her newest calf, a female known as J61 to researchers, was first spotted

By Ella Nilsen, CNN (CNN) — President Joe Biden will declare two new national monuments in California on Tuesday in what will be one of his final, legacy-cementing actions to protect American land and water before he cedes the White House to President-elect Donald Trump. Biden will establish the Chuckwalla National Monument in Southern California

By Laura Paddison, CNN (CNN) — A group of potentially toxic “forever chemicals,” mostly coming from prescribed drugs, may be contaminating drinking water for millions of Americans, as wastewater treatment plants fail to remove them — and climate change may be making the situation even worse, according to a new report. Scientists analyzed water samples

By Jackie Wattles, CNN (CNN) — On a Florida launchpad that has been dormant for almost two decades, a new, roughly 320-foot (98-meter) rocket — developed by Jeff Bezos’ company Blue Origin — is poised for its maiden flight. The uncrewed launch vehicle, called New Glenn, will mark Blue Origin’s first attempt to send a

By Ashley Strickland, CNN (CNN) — Exploring space has opened our eyes to numerous wonders, but these cosmic feats haven’t come without challenges. Each SpaceX Starship launch from South Texas creates a stunning spectacle, previewing maneuvers that could one day be used to carry humans to Mars. But the most powerful rocket ever built also

By Ashley Strickland, CNN (CNN) — The new year kicks off with the peak of the Quadrantids, one of the strongest meteor showers of the year, according to NASA. But keep your eyes peeled because with a peak only lasting about six hours, as opposed to multiple days, the Quadrantids are also one of the

By Ashley Strickland, CNN (CNN) — With the arrival of a new year comes plenty of opportunities to witness a bevy of celestial events that will brighten the night sky. Each month, keep an eye out for a gleaming full moon, weather permitting, and there may even be chances to glimpse solar and lunar eclipses.

By Katie Hunt, CNN (CNN) — A toothy toadstool. A vegetarian piranha with a distinctive mark. And a pygmy pipehorse floating in the Indian Ocean shallows. These wild wonders were among the hundreds of previously unknown species of animals, plants and fungi that scientists named and described for the first time in 2024, expanding our

By Amanda Schupak, CNN (CNN) — Late one summer night in 2023, Kei Jokura entered the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, excitedly carrying a blob in a beaker. The biologist had just come from the first floor, where tanks held a colony of gelatinous comb jellies. The blob was bigger than others, and

By Ella Nilsen, CNN (CNN) — The first time Laura Muckenhoupt felt a glimmer of hope after the death of her 22-year-old son Miles was the drive home from the Washington state facility that had turned his body into hundreds of pounds of soil. There was an empty seat in the family pickup truck where

By Julianna Bragg, CNN (CNN) — A marine heat wave has killed approximately half of Alaska’s common murre population, marking the largest recorded die-off of a single species in modern history, research has found. The catastrophic loss points to broader changes in marine environments driven by warming ocean temperatures, which are rapidly and severely restructuring

By Ashley Strickland, CNN (CNN) — This year, scientists were able to pull back the curtain on mysteries surrounding figures across history, both known and unknown, to reveal more about their unique stories. In some cases, analysis of ancient DNA helped fill knowledge gaps and change preconceived notions. A prime example is how aDNA research

By Jackie Wattles, CNN (CNN) — A SpaceX Super Heavy rocket booster as tall as a 20-story building reappeared in the skies over South Texas minutes after blastoff in October, blazing up its engines to slow its fall back toward Earth. In an unprecedented feat, the booster wowed audiences with a precision midair landing in

By Laura Paddison, CNN (CNN) — Mount Tambora changed the world. In 1815, the Indonesian volcano exploded in the most powerful eruption in recorded history, sending an enormous plume of tiny sun-reflecting particles high into the atmosphere, cooling the planet and ushering in disaster. What followed was called the “year without a summer:” global temperatures