Deep beneath the surface of distant exoplanets known as super-earths, oceans of molten rock may be doing something extraordinary: powering magnetic fields strong enough to shield entire planets from dangerous […]
An international team of scientists has found the first direct evidence linking seemingly random weather systems in the ocean with climate on a global scale.
The first signs of life emerged on Earth in the form of microbes about four billion years ago. While scientists are still determining exactly when and how these microbes appeared, […]
Approximately 1,800 miles beneath our feet, swirling liquid iron in the Earth’s outer core generates our planet’s protective magnetic field. This magnetic field is invisible but is vital for life […]
The collective activity of life–all of the microbes, plants, and animals–have changed planet Earth. Take, for example, plants: plants ‘invented’ a way of undergoing photosynthesis to enhance their own survival, […]
Earth’s moon is vitally important in making Earth the planet we know today: the moon controls the length of the day and ocean tides, which affect the biological cycles of […]
Are humans unique and alone in the vast universe? This question– summed up in the famous Drake equation–has for a half-century been one of the most intractable and uncertain in […]
