CNN – World

By Ashley Strickland, CNN An unusual bright blast of light detected by multiple telescopes in December 2021 was the result of a rare cosmic explosion that created a wealth of heavy elements such as gold and platinum. The gamma-ray burst, called GRB 211211A, lasted about a minute. Gamma-ray bursts are considered among the strongest and

By Ashley Strickland, CNN More than a year and a half after its first flight on Mars, the Ingenuity helicopter has set a new record. The little 4-pound (1.8-kilogram) chopper completed its 35th flight on December 3 and reached a new altitude record of 46 feet (14 meters). The aerial excursion lasted for 52 seconds

By Katie Hunt, CNN A core of ice age sediment from northern Greenland has yielded the world’s oldest sequences of DNA. The 2 million-year-old DNA samples revealed the now largely lifeless polar region was once home to rich plant and animal life — including elephant-like mammals known as mastodons, reindeer, hares, lemmings, geese, birch trees

By Katie Hunt, CNN Dr. Mrinalini Watsa, a researcher at San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance in California, scoops up soil from a fresh paw print made by Rakan, a 4-year-old male Sumatran tiger who lives at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park, and secures it in a specimen jar. Back in her lab, Watsa analyzes

By Mariya Knight, CNN Around 2,500 endangered seals have been found dead on Russia’s Caspian coast, state-run news agency RIA Novosti reported Sunday, citing authorities in the North Caucasus region. Caspian seals, the only mammals found in the Caspian Sea, have been classified as endangered on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) red

By Manveena Suri, Jen Deaton and Heather Chen, CNN A former Iran national team football player has criticized authorities for their “silence” over the death of a man who celebrated the country’s World Cup defeat to the United States earlier this week. Mehran Samak, 27, died in Bandar Anzali city, northern Iran, during public celebrations

By Nina dos Santos, CNN Beijing has set up more than 100 so-called overseas police stations across the globe to monitor, harass and in some cases repatriate Chinese citizens living in exile, using bilateral security arrangements struck with countries in Europe and Africa to gain a widespread presence internationally, a new report shared exclusively with

By Tim Lister, Radina Gigova and Nina dos Santos, CNN A wealthy Russian businessman has been arrested as part of a “major operation” on suspicion of multiple offenses, the United Kingdom’s National Crime Agency said in a statement Saturday. The 58-year-old man was arrested Thursday at his “multi-million-pound residence in London by officers from the

By Ashley Strickland, CNN Selfies weren’t a common practice when humanity first reached the moon. Neil Armstrong was the first man and the first photographer on the lunar surface. All the photos he took, including the iconic boot print, were of fellow NASA astronaut Buzz Aldrin. But Armstrong’s face and other details of the mission

By Ashley Strickland, CNN The International Space Station will receive a power boost during a spacewalk on Saturday, as NASA astronauts Josh Cassada and Frank Rubio install a solar array outside the floating laboratory. The spacewalk is on track to begin at 7:25 a.m. ET and will last for about seven hours, with live coverage

By Mia Alberti, Lianne Kolirin and Tara Subramaniam, CNN The South Atlantic island of St. Helena is celebrating the birthday of the world’s oldest living land animal — a Seychelles giant tortoise called Jonathan, who is turning 190. The island governor’s house, where Jonathan has spent most of his life, is marking the occasion by

By Tricia Escobedo, CNN Gary Strieker had every reason to be a pessimist. People dying of hunger, brutal killings and many other horrific events that he covered as an international reporter unfolded right before his eyes. Yet Strieker never lost his optimistic spirit or his passion to shed light on critically important but often underreported

By Jackie Wattles, CNN The NASA Orion spacecraft, the core of the Artemis I mission, is making a farewell pass by the moon on its historic journey before heading home to Earth. The capsule, which has spent the past 15 days traveling into deep space and making an unprecedented trek beyond the moon, fired up

By Lauren Said-Moorhouse, Max Foster and Carolyn Sung, CNN The new Prince and Princess of Wales touched down in Boston Wednesday ahead of the second iteration of the Earthshot Prize Awards later this week, in their first trip to the United States since 2014. The couple flew into the city on a commercial flight as

By Ashley Strickland, CNN An incredibly bright flash that appeared in the night sky in February was the result of a star straying too close to a supermassive black hole, meeting its untimely end there as it was ripped to shreds. But the rare cosmic event actually occurred 8.5 billion light years away from Earth,

By Ashley Strickland, CNN The beautiful chaos of two merging galaxies shines in the latest image captured by the James Webb Space Telescope. Vice President Kamala Harris and French President Emmanuel Macron viewed the new Webb image, along with a new composite of the Pillars of Creation captured by the space observatory, during a visit

By Jackie Wattles, CNN The Orion spacecraft, which is at the core of NASA’s historic Artemis I mission, reached its farthest distance from Earth Monday afternoon, shattering the record for the maximum distance a spacecraft designed to carry humans has ever traveled. The space agency confirmed Monday evening that the Orion capsule had reached the

By Rachel Ramirez and Tara Subramaniam, CNN The Great Barrier Reef should be added to the list of world heritage sites that are “in danger”, a team of scientists concluded after conducting a mission to the world’s largest coral reef system. In a new UN-backed report released on Monday, the scientists said that the reef

By Ashley Strickland and Jackie Wattles, CNN SpaceX is carrying a fresh haul of supplies to the International Space Station this weekend after bad weather at the launch site forced the company to wave off its first attempt. The mission took off from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida around 2:20 p.m. ET Saturday. The

By Vedika Sud, Angus Watson and Heather Chen, CNN Indian police have arrested a man in New Delhi in connection with the murder of an Australian woman found dead on a beach in 2018 — ending a four-year international manhunt for her suspected killer. The body of 24-year-old Toyah Cordingley was discovered on a beach

By Amanda Watts, CNN A Canadian airport “will be closed to commercial traffic the rest of today” after a Flair Airlines plane “exited the runway” Friday morning during its landing, the airport and the airline said in statements. Flair Airlines flight F8 501 from Vancouver to Kitchener-Waterloo, had 134 passengers onboard, plus crew, when it

By Amir Vera, CNN NASA released a selfie taken by the Orion capsule and close-up photos of the moon’s crater-marked landscape as the spacecraft continues on the Artemis 1 mission, a 25-and-a-half day journey that will take it more than 40,000 miles beyond the far side of the moon. Orion’s latest selfie — taken Wednesday,

By Katie Hunt, CNN For the first time in 13 years, the European Space Agency has announced a new class of trainee astronauts, including the world’s first “parastronaut.” The third generation of European spacefarers includes five career astronauts, 11 members of a reserve pool of astronauts and one astronaut with a physical disability, who will

By Terry Ward, CNN Today’s kids have the power and skills to change the world. But when it comes to topics like the climate crisis, reaching children in a way that sparks their interest — and empowers them to believe they can truly make a difference — can be tricky. “Kids need to hear about

By Ivana Kottasová, Ella Nilsen and Rachel Ramirez, CNN The world has failed to reach an agreement to phase out fossil fuels after marathon UN climate talks were “stonewalled” by a number of oil-producing nations. Negotiators from nearly 200 countries at the COP27 UN climate summit in Egypt took the historic step of agreeing to

By Zoe Sottile, CNN A bird thought to be extinct for 140 years has been rediscovered in the forests of Papua New Guinea. The black-naped pheasant-pigeon was documented by scientists for the first and last time in 1882, according to a news release from nonprofit Re:wild, which helped fund the search effort. Rediscovering the bird

By Scottie Andrew, CNN Despite numerous calls from astronomers to rename its powerful new telescope, NASA officials stood by the naming of the James Webb Space Telescope before its launch. With the telescope nearly a year into its stint in space, the agency has released its chief historian’s investigation into the namesake of the telescope.

By Ella Nilsen and Ivana Kottasová, CNN With just hours left to go to reach an international climate agreement, US climate envoy John Kerry has tested positive for Covid-19 at the United Nations’ COP27 climate summit in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, his spokesperson Whitney Smith said. Smith said in a statement that Kerry is “experiencing mild

By Kate Golembiewski, CNN Around the world, a parasitic fungus transforms ants into “zombies.” The fungus is like something out of a horror movie: The organism hijacks the body and brain of its ant host, mind-controlling it into abandoning its nest and climbing a nearby tree. There, the infected ant clamps its jaws around a

By Taylor Nicioli, CNN A chimpanzee doesn’t hesitate to make it clear when it wants attention. The closest cousin of humans, this species of great ape has effective ways of communicating what it needs. Researchers have often observed captive chimps pointing to an object they want their caregivers to give them or young chimps in

By Ashley Strickland, CNN When a large experimental heat shield inflated in space and faced the brutal reentry of Earth’s atmosphere last week, the aeroshell survived — and NASA officials have deemed it a “huge success.” The technology demonstration could be the foundation of landing technology that puts humans on the surface of Mars. The

By Katie Hunt, CNN The cosmic chaos caused by a very young star has been captured in the latest enchanting image from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope. The protostar the image centers around is hidden from view in the neck of a dark, hourglass-shape cloud of gas and dust. The dark line across the middle

By Kristen Rogers, CNN The reliability of our faucets providing water every time we turn them on can make water seem like a magical, never-ending resource. But abusing the availability of this finite resource can contribute to water scarcity and harm our capacity to deal with the impact of the climate crisis. “Four billion people

By Ivana Kottasová, CNN US climate envoy John Kerry confirmed to CNN that formal climate talks with China have restarted at the UN’s COP27 summit in Egypt, lifting a months-long freeze on negotiations and showing an early sign of concrete results from a meeting between US President Joe Biden and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping

By Ivana Kottasová, Rachel Ramirez and Ella Nilsen, CNN The past week has given the world a glimpse of what climate-vulnerable countries have long known: while rich countries bend over backwards to pledge their support for climate action, they are far less enthusiastic when it comes to forking over the cash. At the UN’s COP27

By Mostafa Salem and Hira Humayun, CNN Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau deleted a tweet containing false information on mass death sentences in Iran, after a viral campaign on social media circulated the fake news. Celebrities and users shared a picture on Instagram showing a woman holding an Iranian flag with the caption “Iran sentences

By Julia Kesaieva, Vasco Cotovio, Tim Lister and Sana Noor Haq, CNN Russia launched its biggest wave of missile attacks on Ukrainian cities in more than a month on Tuesday — hours after Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelensky proposed a peace plan in front of world leaders at the G20 summit in Indonesia. Air raid sirens

By Hafsa Khalil, CNN Foraging for fungi may not only mean mushrooms are on the menu. New research has shown that mushroom skins could provide a biodegradable alternative to some plastics used in batteries and computer chips, making them easier to recycle. Researchers from the Johannes Kepler University in Austria were working on flexible and

By Ashley Strickland, CNN The first in a series of end-of-the-year spacewalks kicked off Tuesday morning outside the International Space Station. First-time spacewalkers and NASA astronauts Josh Cassada and Frank Rubio began their excursion outside the space station at 9:14 a.m. ET and ended at 4:25 p.m. ET, lasting for 7 hours and 11 minutes.

By Rachel Ramirez, CNN When Hurricane Fiona slammed into Puerto Rico in September, it triggered a nearly island-wide blackout as the storm’s strong winds took down the fragile power grid. Carlos Ramos spoke to CNN as he helped his friends clean up their flood-damaged beach home in Salinas. Ramos said most of his neighbors in

By Isil Sariyuce, Sophie Tanno, Holly Yan and Sana Noor Haq, CNN The woman detained under suspicion of carrying out the deadly bomb blast in Istanbul on Sunday is a Syrian national who was trained by Kurdish militants, according to Turkish authorities. Turkish police said in a statement that the suspect entered the country through

By Katie Hunt, CNN Negative emissions. Carbon capture. Net zero. It can be daunting, and a little exhausting, keeping up with the terminology from the annual UN climate talks, known as COP27, which are taking place in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt. But CNN’s coverage can help you understand what’s at stake, what action needs to be

By Katie Hunt, CNN Four years ago, Morris J. Alexie had to move out of the house his father built in Alaska in 1969 because it was sinking into the ground and water was beginning to seep into his home. “The bogs are showing up in between houses, all over our community. There are currently

By Lianne Kolirin and Ivana Kottasová, CNN When Alice Grusová was a baby, her parents left her on a train station bench, with no idea of what would become of her. It was June 1942 and this was the last desperate act by Marta and Alexandr Knapp to save their daughter as their attempt to

CNN Editorial Research Here’s a look at the armed conflict in Ethiopia’s Tigray region, between Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s federal Ethiopian National Defense Force (ENDF) and forces of the previously dominant political party, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF). The Tigray conflict, which began in 2020, has left thousands dead, more than two million displaced

By Radina Gigova, CNN A large earthquake hit Tonga on Friday, triggering a tsunami warning and an immediate evacuation order from the government of the island nation. The government initially asked locals to flee to high ground following what it said was a 7.9 magnitude earthquake originating near the town of Neiafu, on the island

By Taylor Nicioli, CNN The Taurid “swarm” is still going strong this month, with bright meteors known as fireballs visible across the world in the night sky. The Southern Taurids peaked last week, with sightings of fireballs lasting throughout the first week of November, but it’s not over yet. The Taurid meteor shower is composed

By Jackie Wattles, CNN Explorers trudged the Atlantic Ocean searching for World War II artifacts lost at sea, but they stumbled on something else — a 20-foot-long piece of debris from the Space Shuttle Challenger, which was destroyed shortly after takeoff in 1986. The History Channel and NASA revealed Thursday that the Challenger segment was

By Taylor Nicioli, CNN For over 50 years, ecologists have studied and debated the mystery of the Namib Desert’s “fairy circles,” circular patches, mostly barren of grass, that have spread across 1,100 miles in the arid grasslands of Southern Africa. Despite their whimsical name, akin to the term “fairy rings” for circular patterns of fungi

By Ella Nilsen, CNN One of the biggest surprises at last year’s United Nations climate summit came in the form of a handshake. US climate envoy John Kerry and his China counterpart Xie Zhenhua did so at COP26 in Glasgow as they announced a commitment to cooperate on the climate crisis. The countries vowed to

By Ivana Kottasová, Allegra Goodwin, Eve Brennan, Ingrid Formanek and Ella Nilsen, CNN US climate envoy John Kerry announced a new, controversial plan Wednesday to raise cash for climate action in the developing world — by selling carbon credits to companies wishing to offset their polluting emissions. Speaking at the COP27 climate summit in Egypt,