Science

US space agency NASA has released three million photos of Earth’s surface from their internal database, taken over the course of 17 years. While all of the photos could be seen by anyone for a small fee before last week, they are now on the web for free. For the last decade and a half the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission …

Long before the historic flyby of Pluto last summer by the New Horizons mission, the spacecraft was busy collecting reams of data, and a new study resulting from its epic voyage is shedding new light on deep space weather. NASA scientists have published New Horizons’ observations in a study appearing in The Astrophysical Journal Supplement. The study revealed, among other …

An image of the Nile River was captured by the new Sentinel-3A satellite and it appears to show the river running red with blood. The photo conjures up images ripped straight from the bible. Turning water into blood was one of 10 horrible plagues God struck down upon the cruel Egyptians to coerce them to free the Israelites from slavery. …

Vancouver Aquarium officials say an adult male California sea lion is being treated at their Marine Mammal Rescue Centre after being rescued from Salt Spring Island. Veterinarians with the Vancouver Aquarium were alerted about a sea lion in rough shape and headed out for the rescue.

Rovers on Mars have captured images of dust devils before, but this might be the best one we’ve ever seen. The photo shows the six-wheeled robot’s tracks in the foreground, leading up the north-facing slope of “Knudsen Ridge”, which forms part of the southern edge of “Marathon Valley”.

The population of the world’s largest primate, Grauer’s gorilla, found only in the conflict-plagued Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), has declined by 77 percent in 20 years according to a new report. Grauer’s gorillas – the world’s largest gorilla subspecies weighing up to 400 pounds – are closely related to the better known mountain gorilla. The subspecies is restricted …

Archaeologists from The Australian National University (ANU) are shedding light on an ancient civilisation after unearthing an Iron Age burial ground in Laos’s mysterious ‘Plain of Jars.’ The team led by Dr Dougald O’Reilly of the ANU School of Archaeology and Anthropology, discovered human remains estimated to be 2,500 years old which they hope will shed some light on those …

Monarch butterflies could face quasi-extinction in the next 20 years, according to Iowa State University scientist John Pleasants. Despite a favorable summer last year that helped the monarch population grow, the iconic butterflies still face jeopardy, said John Pleasants, an adjunct assistant professor of ecology, evolution and organismal biology at Iowa State. The eastern migratory monarch population declined 84 percent …

Summer of 2030 heat wave could kill 11K White House says. Climate change will contribute to a wide array of public health issues in the United States in the coming decades, including everything from the spread of vector borne illness to the diminished nutritional content of food, according to a new White House report. The report, the product of a …

Blue Origin, a private space company owned by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, was able to launch and land its reusable rocket last year. To show that it really is a reusable rocket, the company fired it up again and sent it back up and it made a second successful landing. The spacecraft—consisting of a booster and an unmanned capsule—completed this …

An irish amateur astronomer has captured brilliant footage of what is thought to be a comet or asteroid crashing into Jupiter. John Mckeon posted a time-lapse video online which shows the moment of impact. Mckeon was one of two people who captured the incredible scenes – the other being Austrian Gerrit Kernbauer.