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By Jack Guy, CNN (CNN) — A new 3D scan has revealed previously unseen details of the wreck of Antarctic explorer Ernest Shackleton’s HMS Endurance, which was found in 2022 – more than a century after the ship sank. The scan, seen by CNN on Thursday, makes it look as though the ship, which sank

By Ashley Strickland, CNN (CNN) — Colorful auroras could be visible in areas of the United States such as Alabama and Northern California — much farther south than they typically appear — on Thursday evening due to a powerful solar flare and coronal mass ejection released from the sun, according to the National Weather Service’s

By Ashley Strickland and Taylor Nicioli, CNN (CNN) — A recently discovered comet, known as C/2023 A3 Tsuchinshan–ATLAS, will make its closest approach of Earth on Saturday. Sky-gazers won’t want to miss the event since it may be the last time the comet will be seen in the night sky for another 80,000 years. The

By Rachel Ramirez, CNN (CNN) — The exceptionally warm water of the Gulf of Mexico that supercharged deadly Helene last month was made up to 500 times more likely by human-caused climate change, which also ramped up the hurricane’s wind and rain, according to a new scientific analysis. Helene, which made landfall in Florida as

By Christian Edwards and Katie Hunt, CNN (CNN) — The 2024 Nobel Prize in chemistry has been awarded to a trio of scientists who used artificial intelligence to “crack the code” of almost all known proteins, the “chemical tools of life.” The Nobel Committee lauded David Baker, a US biochemist, for completing “the almost impossible

By Christian Edwards and Katie Hunt, CNN (CNN) — The 2024 Nobel Prize in physics has been awarded to John Hopfield and Geoffrey Hinton for their fundamental discoveries in machine learning, which paved the way for how artificial intelligence is used today. Hopfield, a professor at Princeton University and Hinton, a computer scientist at the

By Vasco Cotovio, CNN Lisbon (CNN) — For three days in mid-September, wildfires rapidly tore through parts of Portugal, turning the sky a hellish, smoky red against the rolling green hills in the north. In central Portugal, a blaze engulfed a highway, cutting off the top half of the country from the bottom. Nine people

By Ashley Strickland, CNN (CNN) — A European spacecraft and two shoebox-size satellites have launched to survey the aftermath from NASA’s DART mission, which intentionally slammed into an asteroid named Dimorphos and altered its orbit two years ago. The European Space Agency’s Hera mission lifted off aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket at 10:52 a.m. ET

By Christian Edwards and Katie Hunt, CNN (CNN) — The 2024 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine has been awarded to US scientists Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun for their work on the discovery of microRNA, a molecule that governs how cells in the body function. Their research revealed how genes, which contain the instruction

By Ashley Strickland, CNN (CNN) — Keep your eyes on the night skies to see the elusive Draconid meteor shower, expected to peak Monday evening into early Tuesday. Unlike many meteor showers, the Draconids aren’t ones you’ll have to stay up late to witness because the shower is most visible just after nightfall and throughout

By Katie Hunt, CNN (CNN) — “Jurassic Park,” and its genetically modified dinosaur escapees, is pure science fiction — it’s never going to happen. But it doesn’t mean that scientists aren’t interested in bringing the past back to life in some form. Projects to resurrect animals that have gone extinct more recently — the mammoth,

By Katie Hunt, CNN (CNN) — The best minds in science will be thrust from academic obscurity into the spotlight this week when the Nobel Prizes in physics, chemistry, and physiology or medicine are announced. The accolades, established by Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel more than a century ago, celebrate groundbreaking work that can take decades

By Issy Ronald, CNN (CNN) — For humans, flashing a smile is an easy way to avoid misunderstanding. And, according to a new study, bottlenose dolphins may use a similar tactic while playing with each other. The study, which was published Wednesday in the journal iScience, found that dolphins make an open-mouthed expression, comparable to

By Laura Paddison, CNN (CNN) — Parts of icy Antarctica are turning green with plant life at an alarming rate as the region is gripped by extreme heat events, according to new research, sparking concerns about the changing landscape on this vast continent. Scientists used satellite imagery and data to analyze vegetation levels on the

By Jackie Wattles and Ashley Strickland, CNN (CNN) — If snapshots of the dazzling “ring of fire” that danced across the skies of South America on Wednesday sparked eclipse fever, sky-gazers won’t have to wait too long for additional celestial spectacles in store for next year. While there won’t be another “ring of fire” event until 2026,

By Jack Guy, CNN (CNN) — The wreck of a US Navy destroyer known as the “Ghost Ship of the Pacific” has been found off the coast of California by undersea investigators. The USS Stewart was deliberately sunk during a US Navy exercise in May 1946 and its final resting place has now been located,

By Katie Hunt, CNN (CNN) — Botanists have grown a long-lost tree species from a 1,000-year-old seed found in a cave in the Judean Desert in the 1980s. The researchers involved in the project say they believe the tree species, which is thought to be extinct today, could have been the source of a healing

By Amy Gunia and Alkira Reinfrank, CNN (CNN) — Apollo mission astronauts who visited the moon between 1969 and 1972 found a hopping motion useful for navigating its surface, where the gravity is one-sixth of Earth’s. Today, robots are playing a leading role in space exploration, and some are taking cues from those bunny-hopping astronauts.

CNN By Steve Almasy, CNN (CNN) — A week ago, Helene was plowing into Florida, thrashing cities and towns on the Gulf Coast while millions of people ahead of the hurricane’s path were dealing with rains that preceded even more rain. Forecasters warned of impacts that would be felt far inland. In the Southeast, roads

CNN By Laura Paddison and Holly Yan, CNN (CNN) — Asheville was touted as a climate haven, a place to escape the worst ravages of extreme weather. But Hurricane Helene’s deadly path of destruction reveals this North Carolina city, like any in America, was never safe — it’s just that memories are short and the

By Jackie Wattles, CNN (CNN) — The NASA team overseeing the iconic Voyager 2 spacecraft made the decision to power down one of its science instruments in an effort to conserve energy. The probe is currently soaring through space some 13 billion miles (20.9 billion kilometers) from Earth. Mission engineers sent a command to shutter

By Laura Paddison and Holly Yan, CNN (CNN) — Asheville was touted as a climate haven, a place to escape the worst ravages of extreme weather. But Hurricane Helene’s deadly path of destruction reveals this North Carolina city, like any in America, was never safe — it’s just that memories are short and the reach

By Jack Guy, CNN London (CNN) — A medallion containing some of the original mold involved in the discovery of penicillin is expected to fetch up to $50,000 when it goes up for auction later this month. The medallion was created and inscribed by Scottish bacteriologist Alexander Fleming in the course of “one of the

By Ashley Strickland, CNN (CNN) — A solar eclipse event will create a “ring of fire” in the skies over parts of South America on Wednesday, according to NASA. Annular solar eclipses occur when the moon passes between Earth and the sun when the moon is near or at the farthest point in its orbit

By Lianne Kolirin, CNN (CNN) — Archaeologists in Denmark have unearthed more than 50 “exceptionally well preserved” skeletons in a large Viking-era burial ground in the east of the country. A team from Museum Odense have spent the last six months excavating the Åsum site, which covers about 21,500 square feet and is thought to date

By Laura Paddison, CNN (CNN) — Part of the border between Italy and Switzerland is set to be redrawn as the glaciers that mark the boundary melt, in yet another sign of how much humans are changing the world by burning planet-heating fossil fuels.. The two countries have agreed to change the border under the

By Mindy Weisberger, CNN (CNN) — Thousands of years ago in the Himalayas, a river ate a smaller river and gave an unexpected boost to Everest’s height, scientists have discovered. Mount Everest, or Chomolungma (“Goddess Mother of the World” in the Tibetan language), is one of Earth’s tallest mountains, standing 29,031.69 feet (8,848.86 meters) above

Story by Associated Press (CNN) — Britain’s last coal-fired power plant will close on Monday, ending 142 years of coal-generated electricity in the nation that sparked the Industrial Revolution. The Ratcliffe-on-Soar station in central England is to finish its final shift at midnight, after more than half a century of turning coal into power. Owner Uniper says

By Laura Paddison and Gianluca Mezzofiore, CNN (CNN) — Huge tributaries that feed the mighty Amazon River — the largest on the planet — have plunged to record-low levels, upending lives, stranding boats, and threatening endangered dolphins as drought grips Brazil. The country is currently enduring its worst drought since records began in 1950, according

By Jackie Wattles, CNN (CNN) — After their weeklong journey turned into a monthslong stay on the International Space Station, two Boeing Starliner astronauts are now within reach of the spacecraft that will eventually bring them home. The SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule, chosen by NASA to carry astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore back to

CNN By Jackie Wattles, CNN (CNN) — After their weeklong journey turned into a monthslong stay on the International Space Station, two Boeing Starliner astronauts are now within reach of the spacecraft that will eventually bring them home. The SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule, chosen by NASA to carry astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore back

By Ashley Strickland, CNN (CNN) — Today, the lush, green valley surrounding the Tollense River in northeast Germany appears to be a serene place to appreciate nature. But to archaeologists, the Tollense Valley is considered Europe’s oldest battlefield. An amateur archaeologist first spotted a bone sticking out of the riverbank in 1996. A series of

By Jackie Wattles, CNN (CNN) — A SpaceX mission due to unite the Boeing Starliner astronauts with the spacecraft that will bring them home has taken flight. NASA’s Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore have now been on the International Space Station more than 100 days longer than expected. The SpaceX mission, called Crew-9, took off

By Billy Stockwell, CNN (CNN) — Two climate activists in their early 20s were sentenced to prison by a London court Friday for throwing soup over Vincent Van Gogh’s “Sunflowers” painting during a protest against fossil fuels. Phoebe Plummer, 23, and Anna Holland, 22, from the protest group Just Stop Oil were imprisoned for two

By Katie Hunt, CNN (CNN) — Archaeologists working in Peru, assisted by artificial intelligence, have discovered 303 previously unknown giant symbols carved in the Nazca Desert. The carvings include birds, plants, spiders, humanlike figures with headdresses, decapitated heads and an orca wielding a knife. Described in study published Monday in the journal PNAS, the discovery

By Katie Hunt, CNN (CNN) — No trees have grown on the windswept Falkland Islands in the South Atlantic Ocean for tens of thousands of years — just shrubs and other low-lying vegetation. That’s why a recent arboreal discovery nearly 20 feet (6 meters) beneath the ground caught researchers’ attention. Dr. Zoë Thomas, a lecturer

By Ashley Strickland, CNN (CNN) — Some types of sea robins, a peculiar bottom-dwelling ocean fish, use taste bud-covered legs to sense and dig up prey along the seafloor, according to new research. Sea robins are so adept at rooting out prey as they walk along the ocean floor on their six leglike appendages that

By Mindy Weisberger, CNN (CNN) — It was an orca-versus-dolphin matchup, and the dolphin didn’t stand a chance. In coastal waters near Chile in 2023, a massive female killer whale walloped the much smaller dolphin, sending it flying out of the water. Within minutes, the unequal battle was over and the orca began to feed.

By Issy Ronald, CNN (CNN) — Scientists have uncovered a woolly rhino so well preserved in the Russian permafrost for more than 32,000 years that its skin and fur are still intact. This woolly rhino died when it was about four years old and that age, combined with its good state of preservation, has allowed

By Katie Hunt, CNN (CNN) — Bronze Age desert dwellers unearthed from graves in what’s now northwest China were buried with cheese scattered on their heads and necks — perhaps as a snack packed for the afterlife. A decade after the dairy discovery on strikingly intact remains mummified by the Taklamakan Desert’s arid conditions, scientists

By Ashley Strickland, CNN (CNN) — Astronomers have observed a massive pair of jets releasing from a supermassive black hole 7.5 billion light-years from Earth. The megastructure spans 23 million light-years in length, making these black hole jets the largest ever seen, according to new research. Black holes are viewed as the garbage disposals of

By Jack Guy, CNN (CNN) — Scientists have discovered a new species of ghost shark that lives in deep ocean waters near Australia and New Zealand. The Australasian Narrow-nosed Spookfish, or Harriotta avia, was found in the Chatham Rise, an area of ocean floor off the east coast of New Zealand’s South Island, by researchers

By Laura Paddison, CNN (CNN) — A mysterious type of magma found within extinct volcanoes scattered around the world could contain an abundant supply of rare earth elements, crucial ingredients for electric vehicles, wind turbines and other clean technologies, according to a report published Tuesday. Rare earth elements, such as lanthanum, neodymium and terbium, are

By Ashley Strickland, CNN (CNN) — A new analysis of dozens of arrowheads is helping researchers piece together a clearer portrait of the warriors who clashed on Europe’s oldest known battlefield 3,250 years ago. The bronze and flint arrowheads were recovered from the Tollense Valley in northeast Germany. Researchers first uncovered the site in 1996

By Angela Dewan, CNN (CNN) — California Attorney General Rob Bonta filed a lawsuit against ExxonMobil on Monday alleging the company carried out a “decades-long campaign of deception” in which the oil and gas giant misled the public on the merits of plastic recycling. The complaint accuses the company of using slick marketing and misleading

By Ella Nilsen, CNN (CNN) — President Joe Biden will speak at Climate Week NYC on Tuesday, touting his administration’s vast climate agenda and drawing contrasts between Democratic action and Republicans who voted against his 2022 climate law, according to a White House official. Biden will appear at the Bloomberg Global Business forum, according to

By Katie Hunt, CNN (CNN) — Komodo dragons with iron-tipped teeth. Thirteen-foot-long pythons. Attacking crocs. Of the five main classes of vertebrate animals, reptiles often inspire the most fear. But reptiles deserve our sympathy — and conservation dollars — just as much as mammals, which may seem more charismatic. One in five reptile species are under

By Laura Paddison, CNN (CNN) — On a summer’s evening in 2019, Zach Sheldon watched huge chunks of ice break off Valdez Glacier in Alaska as it calved into the lake below. The following morning, the experienced tour guide led his group to a crest on the glacier to see the aftermath. But as he

By Mindy Weisberger, CNN (CNN) — “His birth was unknown, his death hidden.” So reads the headstone (translated from Latin) marking the grave of the enigmatic man known as Kaspar Hauser, who died in 1833. Nearly 200 years later, scientists have finally solved a longstanding mystery about Hauser’s suspected ties to German royalty. Hauser appeared

By Ashley Strickland, CNN (CNN) — Earth is about to gain a new “mini-moon,” but it won’t stay around for long. The newly discovered asteroid, named 2024 PT5, will temporarily be captured by Earth’s gravity and orbit our world from September 29 to November 25, according to astronomers. Then, the space rock will return to

By Rosa Rahimi, CNN London (CNN) — Scientists in the United Kingdom have stored the entire human genome on a “5D memory crystal,” in the hope that it could be used in the future as a blueprint to bring humanity back from extinction. The crystal, which was developed by a team of researchers at the

By Laura Paddison, CNN (CNN) — Scientists using ice-breaking ships and underwater robots have found the Thwaites Glacier in Antarctica is melting at an accelerating rate and could be on an irreversible path to collapse, spelling catastrophe for global sea level rise. Since 2018, a team of scientists forming the International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration, has been studying Thwaites — often

By Ashley Strickland, CNN (CNN) — As Artemis II — NASA’s mission that will send four astronauts to circumnavigate the moon as soon as next year — draws closer, a new study is revealing how well its Orion spacecraft will protect the crew. The findings are based off data from Artemis I, a 25-day journey

CNN By Kristin Fisher, CNN (CNN) — When NASA’s Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams launched to the International Space Station in June on the first crewed test flight of Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft, they were supposed to return to Earth roughly a week later, nearly five months before the US presidential election. But after the space agency

By Kristin Fisher, CNN (CNN) — When NASA’s Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams launched to the International Space Station in June on the first crewed test flight of Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft, they were supposed to return to Earth roughly a week later, nearly five months before the US presidential election. But after the space agency deemed

CNN By Michelle Cohan, CNN (CNN) — With its long, ridged horns and muscular build, the giant sable antelope is a majestic sight — and a rare one at that. This particular antelope, endemic only to Angola, in southwest Africa, is critically endangered, with a population of just a few hundred. While its situation is

By Michelle Cohan, CNN (CNN) — With its long, ridged horns and muscular build, the giant sable antelope is a majestic sight — and a rare one at that. This particular antelope, endemic only to Angola, in southwest Africa, is critically endangered, with a population of just a few hundred. While its situation is still

By Katie Hunt, CNN (CNN) — The dappled starlight and swirling clouds of Vincent van Gogh’s “The Starry Night” are thought to reflect the artist’s tumultuous state of mind when he painted the work in 1889. Now, a new analysis by physicists based in China and France suggests the artist had a deep, intuitive understanding

By Angela Dewan and Ella Nilsen, CNN (CNN) — The bustling city of Shanghai marks national celebrations with world-famous light shows, illuminating its skyscrapers with dazzling colors, like beacons of Chinese innovation. It is here that scientists and engineers work around the clock to pursue the next big thing in global tech, from 6G internet

By Mindy Weisberger, CNN (CNN) — In a Costa Rican rainforest, a small, semiaquatic lizard called a diving anole leaps into a stream. Minutes pass, but the anole doesn’t surface for air, as these lizards typically do. Instead, the submerged lizard crouches on a river rock, a small air bubble atop its head expanding like a balloon

By Issy Ronald and Eyad Kourdi, CNN (CNN) — Archaeologists have unearthed the ancient remains of an Egyptian army barracks and the artifacts left there, including a still-shiny bronze sword engraved with the name of King Ramses II in hieroglyphics. The complex consisted of warehouses to store weapons and food, as well as barracks to

By Ashley Strickland, CNN (CNN) — Sky-gazers around the world were able to glimpse a partial lunar eclipse while September’s full harvest moon shone brightly Tuesday night. The moon peaked at its fullest at 10:35 p.m. ET Tuesday, but will appear full through Thursday morning, according to NASA. If you viewed the moon on Tuesday

By Ashley Strickland, CNN (CNN) — Engineers at NASA have successfully fired up a set of thrusters Voyager 1 hasn’t used in decades to solve an issue that could keep the 47-year-old spacecraft from communicating with Earth from billions of miles away. When Voyager 1 lifted off to space on September 5, 1977, no one

By Nimi Princewill, CNN (CNN) — Zimbabwe has authorized a mass slaughter of elephants to feed citizens left hungry by its worst drought in decades. With nearly half of the country’s population facing the risk of acute hunger, “we are targeting to cull 200 elephants,” Tinashe Farawo, a spokesperson for the Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Authority,

By Ella Nilsen and CNN Chief Climate Correspondent Bill Weir Becker, Minnesota (CNN) — The smokestacks on the aging Sherco coal power plant tower over gleaming solar panels that stretch across thousands of acres of farmland. The polluting coal plant is on its way out, scheduled for retirement in the next five years. It’s generated

CNN By Andrew Torgan and Daniel Wine, CNN (CNN) — When you think deeply about pizza — and who doesn’t — do you think of the frozen food aisle of the grocery store? The delivery guy who was supposed to be there in 30 minutes? Or do you envision Naples, pizza’s ancestral home? Surely Italy

By Jackie Wattles, CNN (CNN) — SpaceX’s Polaris Dawn crew is home, capping off a five-day mission to orbit — which included the world’s first commercial spacewalk — by splashing down in the Gulf of Mexico. The Crew Dragon capsule carrying four astronauts landed off the coast of Dry Tortugas, Florida, at 3:37 a.m. ET

By Ashley Strickland, CNN (CNN) — Some chapters of human history are more poignant to revisit than others. The Battle of Waterloo ended a 23-year war, but thousands were killed on June 18, 1815, when allied armies led by the Duke of Wellington and Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher defeated Napoleon Bonaparte and his forces south

CNN By Laura Paddison, CNN (CNN) — It started with a melting glacier that set off a huge landslide, which triggered a 650-foot high mega-tsunami in Greenland last September. Then came something inexplicable: a mysterious vibration that shook the planet for nine days. Over the past year, dozens of scientists across the world have been trying to

By Katie Hunt, CNN (CNN) — Rapa Nui, also known as Easter Island, never experienced a ruinous population collapse, according to an analysis of ancient DNA from 15 former inhabitants of the remote island in the Pacific Ocean. The analysis also suggested that inhabitants of the island, which lies about 3,700 kilometers (2,300 miles) from

By Jackie Wattles, CNN (CNN) — SpaceX’s Polaris Dawn crew is beginning its fifth day in orbit, having marked a few record-setting milestones on a historic journey — including the world’s first commercial spacewalk. Conducting a spacewalk is nothing new. NASA has been carrying out the endeavors in outer space since 1965, when the Gemini

By Kara Fox, CNN London (CNN) — As right-wing rioters attacked communities with racist violence across parts of the UK last month, 22-year-old climate activist Cressie Gethin sat in a prison cell. Her crime? Organizing a disruptive protest against new government-granted licenses to drill for oil — a planet-heating fossil fuel — in the North

By Jackie Wattles, CNN (CNN) — The two NASA astronauts who piloted the first crewed test flight of Boeing’s Starliner capsule — and were left behind on the space station as the beleaguered spacecraft returned to Earth — took questions on Friday for the first time in weeks. Butch Wilmore, a Tennessee native and former

By Ashley Strickland, CNN (CNN) — In the hopes of solving one of the enduring mysteries about the iconic monolith, geologists have shifted the search for the origins of Stonehenge’s central Altar Stone to Scotland after recent research redirected the quest from Wales. But in a surprising twist, a new analysis suggests that the stone

By Mindy Weisberger, CNN (CNN) — When you’re a predatory fish, sometimes the lunch you gobbled up doesn’t agree with you. Rather than accepting its fate, the still-living meal escapes your stomach and flees through the nearest orifice. Dark sleeper fish (Odontobutis obscura) can gulp down young Japanese eels (Anguilla japonica) whole, but the swallowed

By Issy Ronald, CNN (CNN) — The world still holds many unanswered questions. But thanks to the efforts of the research teams awarded the IG Nobel Prize on Thursday, some of these questions – which you might not even have thought existed – now have answers. We now know that many mammals can breathe through

By Laura Paddison, CNN (CNN) — It started with a melting glacier that set off a huge landslide, which triggered a 650-foot high mega-tsunami in Greenland last September. Then came something inexplicable: a mysterious vibration that shook the planet for nine days. Over the past year, dozens of scientists across the world have been trying to figure

By Simone McCarthy, CNN Hong Kong (CNN) — A Chinese “reusable experimental spacecraft” believed to be the country’s secretive space plane has landed back on Earth after more than eight months in orbit – the latest development in a largely covert race between the United States and China to hone such technology. China’s spacecraft blasted

By Jack Guy, CNN (CNN) — The phases of Venus, the Aurora Australis and the International Space Station transiting the Sun all feature as category winners in the Astronomy Photographer of the Year competition. Ryan Imperio was named the overall winner for his photograph capturing the progression of Baily’s beads during the 2023 annular eclipse,

By Katie Hunt, CNN (CNN) — A cataclysm engulfed the planet some 252 million years ago, wiping out more than 90% of all life. Known as the Great Dying, the mass extinction that ended the Permian geological period was the worst of the five global catastrophic events in Earth’s history, more devastating, than the one

By Katie Hunt, CNN (CNN) — When archaeologist Ludovic Slimak unearthed five teeth in a rock shelter in France’s Rhône Valley in 2015, it was immediately obvious that they belonged to a Neanderthal, the first intact remains of the ancient species to be discovered in that country since 1979. However, the once-in-a-lifetime find, nicknamed Thorin

CNN By Jackie Wattles and Ashley Strickland, CNN (CNN) — A four-person crew of civilians on board SpaceX’s Polaris Dawn mission unlocked the hatch of their capsule and made history as the first group of non-government astronauts to conduct a spacewalk. SpaceX hosted a live webcast of the event — also known as an extravehicular

By Lianne Kolirin, CNN (CNN) — A pile of amputated limbs and the remains of several military horses have been excavated at the site of the Battle of Waterloo. The gruesome discovery was made at a farm in Belgium by Waterloo Uncovered, a UK charity that combines archaeology with veteran care. The epic battle was

By Jackie Wattles and Ashley Strickland, CNN (CNN) — A four-person crew of civilians on board SpaceX’s Polaris Dawn mission unlocked the hatch of their capsule and made history as the first group of non-government astronauts to conduct a spacewalk. SpaceX hosted a live webcast of the event — also known as an extravehicular activity

By Ashley Strickland, CNN (CNN) — Astronomers have observed the detailed motions of giant gas bubbles on the surface of a nearby star for the first time, which rise and fall like the inside of a lava lamp. The massive hot gas bubbles are 75 times the size of the sun, and they appear to

By Jackie Wattles, CNN (CNN) — SpaceX’s Polaris Dawn mission kicked off early Tuesday, launching a four-person crew of civilian astronauts into orbit. And hours later they have already made history: reaching the highest orbit around Earth and surpassing a record set during NASA’s earliest days. The company confirmed that the SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft

By Ashley Strickland, CNN (CNN) — Two telescopes have spotted the closest pair of supermassive black holes to date. The duo, only about 300 light-years apart, were observed in different wavelengths of light using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and the Hubble Space Telescope. While black holes are invisible against the dark void of space, these

By Mindy Weisberger, CNN (CNN) — Picture a clock ticking so steadily that it doesn’t lose a second, even after running for 1 billion years. Scientists are now closer than ever to realizing that level of timekeeping precision, new research has revealed. Such a device would greatly surpass the capabilities of atomic clocks, which define the span

CNN By Jackie Wattles, CNN (CNN) — SpaceX’s latest mission — a bold and risky trek into Earth’s Van Allen radiation belts by a four-person crew of civilians who will also aim to conduct the first commercial spacewalk — just took flight. The mission, dubbed Polaris Dawn, lifted off at 5:23 a.m. ET. SpaceX livestreamed

By Jackie Wattles, CNN (CNN) — SpaceX’s latest mission — a bold and risky trek into Earth’s Van Allen radiation belts by a four-person crew of civilians who will also aim to conduct the first commercial spacewalk — just took flight. The mission, dubbed Polaris Dawn, lifted off at 5:23 a.m. ET. SpaceX livestreamed the

By Ashley Strickland, CNN (CNN) — The Europa Clipper spacecraft passed a key milestone on Monday and is on track to launch next month to explore and seek signs of habitability on one of Jupiter’s moons, according to NASA. The launch window for its journey opens on October 10. The mission passed Key Decision Point

By Ashley Strickland, CNN (CNN) — Well-preserved fossils of ancient large reptiles called pterosaurs have revealed that some species flew by flapping their wings, while others soared like vultures, according to a new study. Pterosaurs dominated the skies during the time of the dinosaurs and met the same deadly fate 66 million years ago after

By Ella Nilsen, CNN (CNN) — Inside a highly classified facility in Oak Ridge, Tennessee — the same facility that enriched uranium for the first atomic bomb in the era of the Manhattan Project — workers are turning old, unexploded warheads into fuel that will power cities. The recipe to create advanced reactor fuel involves

By Laura Paddison, CNN (CNN) — Ties van der Hoeven’s ambitions are nothing if not grand. The Dutch engineer wants to transform a huge stretch of inhospitable desert into green, fertile land teeming with wildlife. His sights are set on Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, an arid, triangle-shaped expanse that connects Africa with Asia. Thousands of years

By Ashley Strickland, CNN (CNN) — As astronauts and engineers are fond of saying, space is hard. But that has never stopped bright minds from dreaming big. A Seattle-based company has resurrected NASA’s plans for a space plane, abandoned in 2001 due to technical difficulties. Radian Aerospace wants to replace vertical rocket launches with planes that

KABC, KCAL, KCBS, KCRA, CNN By Laura Paddison, CNN (CNN) — The deep landslides beneath the multimillion-dollar homes in Rancho Palos Verdes moved at an almost glacial pace, until they didn’t. This affluent coastal city in Southern California, around 30 miles south of Los Angeles, has long enticed people with its Pacific Ocean views and

By Laura Paddison, CNN (CNN) — The deep landslides beneath the multimillion-dollar homes in Rancho Palos Verdes moved at an almost glacial pace, until they didn’t. This affluent coastal city in Southern California, around 30 miles south of Los Angeles, has long enticed people with its Pacific Ocean views and lush greenery. But it sits

CNN By Ashley Strickland, CNN (CNN) — As astronauts and engineers are fond of saying, space is hard. But that has never stopped bright minds from dreaming big. A Seattle-based company has resurrected NASA’s plans for a space plane, abandoned in 2001 due to technical difficulties. Radian Aerospace wants to replace vertical rocket launches with planes