Science

The sun could be sending a storm to Earth over the next few days. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, our fiery star spit out a series of bursts on Sunday that are headed in the direction of our planet and could trigger a strong geomagnetic storm. One of those bursts, called a coronal mass ejection, or CME,…

Is it Possible to Bring Back Extinct Animal Species? View a higher resolution version of this infographic. Humanity has been tinkering with natural life for thousands of years. We’ve become remarkably good at it, too—to date, we’ve modified bacteria to produce drugs, created crops…

We’re discovering new things about the Earth all the time – just like scientists recently found water is slowly leaking down there from the surface, and people only just realising that there’s a massive ocean hidden under the Earth’s crust.Now, experts have found that the Earth’s axis appears to be shifting for a reason no-one saw…

Evidence that Earth’s continents were formed by giant meteorite impacts has been uncovered in new research.New research has uncovered the strongest evidence yet that Earth’s continents were formed by giant meteorite impacts, which were especially common during the first billion years or so of our planet’s four-and-a-half-billion-year history.…

Two cosmonauts conducting a spacewalk outside the International Space Station (ISS) on Wednesday (Oct. 25) got an up-close view of a coolant leak that was first observed flowing from an external radiator earlier this month.Oleg Kononenko came so close to the growing "blob" or "droplet" — as the pooling ammonia was described — that one of his…

On the one-year anniversary of achieving a yield of more than 1.3 megajoules at LLNL’s National Ignition Facility, the scientific results of this record experiment have been published in three peer-reviewed papers: one in Physical Review Letters and two in Physical Review E. This stylized image shows a cryogenic target used for these…

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — It's make or break time for NASA's new moon rocket. With 8.8 million pounds of thrust, the rocket — called the Space Launch System (SLS) — is designed to be mightier than NASA's mighty Saturn V. Its Orion space capsule outsizes its Apollo ancestor by one-third. Yet neither spacecraft has passed the ultimate test: a trip…

Enlarge / A stunning view of the Barnard 150 nebula.Tom Carrico Welcome to the Daily Telescope. There is a little too much darkness in this world and not enough light, a little too much pseudoscience and not enough science. We'll let other publications offer you a daily horoscope. At Ars Technica, we're going to take a different…

A colossal comet, three times larger than Mount Everest and known as 12P/Pons-Brooks, has experienced another explosive event as it makes its way toward Earth. This ‘cold volcano’ comet, approximately 18 miles in diameter, is notorious for its violent ejections of ice and gas. This activity creates a trail resembling devil horns, making it a…

Probably the most famous of the annual meteor showers will soon be reaching its maximum: The Leonids. These ultrafast meteors are due to reach their peak on Saturday morning (Nov.  18). The Leonid meteor shower is known for producing some of the most amazing meteor displays in the annals of astronomy. Most notable are meteor storms such as in…