Deborah Bloomfield

The Great Red Spot is a storm larger than our own planet. It’s been moving around Jupiter for at least a few centuries and for as long as we have seen it, we have studied it. Missions like Galileo and Juno, and observatories around the world and in space, have taken their turn to look […]

Iceland might be home to stunning glaciers, puffling tossing, and horses that’ll write your out-of-office message for you, but, like anywhere, it also has its dangers. Its volcanic activity is a given, but we’re talking about Reynisfjara, a black sand beach with a reputation for having claimed lives. Advertisement Found on Iceland’s southern coast, it’s […]

Astronomers have found a triple star system with shorter mutual orbits than any previously recorded, breaking a record that goes back almost 70 years. The system serves as an extreme laboratory for the formation and development of star systems. Advertisement Like the Sun, many stars live their lives alone, other than a collection of planets. […]

These days, we are used to having a number of robotic rovers (and briefly, a helicopter) driving and flying around the Moon and Mars, sending us back photographs of strange features and rocks. Advertisement The first robotic exploration of a body other than our own came earlier than you might think, with humans only beating […]

JWST has turned its considerable mirrors towards intriguing object 29P/Schwassmann–Wachmann 1, a highly active icy centaur that undergoes not-well-understood periodic outbursts. Advertisement Centaurs are pretty interesting space objects, which orbit the Sun between the orbits of Jupiter and Neptune. These objects are believed to be former trans-Neptunian objects that have made their way further towards […]

There are few ideas that are as spine-tinglingly iconic as wolves howling at the Moon. It’s a trope that has appeared in innumerable films, TV shows, books, art, and so on. Wolves and the Moon are inseparable in our minds, but this association is odd given that wolves don’t actually howl at the Moon. So […]

A 25-year-old woman with type 1 diabetes has been able to stop taking insulin after a groundbreaking stem cell treatment. This is the first human trial of the procedure, and while it’s too soon yet to say that the woman is “cured”, it certainly demonstrates that the approach merits a closer look. Advertisement In most […]

The Minor Planet Center of the International Astronomical Union has announced the names of many new asteroids this summer and, among them, four nuns deserved recognition among the stars. Advertisement They are Sister Emilia Ponzoni (1883-1950), Sister Regina Colombo (1885-1953), Sister Concetta Finardi (1896-1975), and Sister Luigia Panceri (1893-1982), with the first two announced in […]

A high-speed stream of solar wind from a large coronal hole is expected to cause moderate geomagnetic storms over the next few days. Advertisement The sunspot, captured in observations by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO), erupted on October 1, producing the second strongest solar flare of the current solar cycle.  “Sunspots are areas where the […]

Sometime soon, the reoccurring nova T Coronae Borealis is expected to brighten almost ten thousand-fold – but astronomers who have been anxiously watching for this exciting event would suddenly like a delay. The reason is that the Sun is now approaching Libra, the closest zodiacal constellation to Corona Borealis, meaning that if the event happens […]

The planet is thought to be home to quadrillions of ants, coming in all manner of shapes, colors, and sizes, and fit with all kinds of fascinating biology. But reader, we think we have a new favorite: turtle ants, not only because they have an excellent name, but because they also have thoroughly ridiculous-looking heads. […]

At various places around the world people have reported strange, loud banging noises that appear to be coming from the sky. Around the world they are known as “Barisal guns” in the Ganges delta and the Bay of Bengal, “yan” in Shikoku, Japan, and “mistpouffers” (fog belches) in Belgium. Advertisement For hundreds of years there […]

The cause of the gargantuan underwater eruption that occurred off the coast of Tonga in early 2022 may finally have been identified, and it’s appropriately wild. Using techniques that were developed to measure the force of underground explosions, the authors of a new study suggest that the event was triggered by a somewhat unusual process […]

Most of the major conditions required for RNA to replicate, possibly the key stage in kick-starting life, were probably met in rock pores on volcanic islands not long after Earth’s formation. The finding offers a possible explanation for one of the more puzzling aspects of life’s appearance and could shift the focus of efforts to […]

We’ve all seen the – sometimes harrowing – footage of freshly hatched turtles making the deadly dash from their nests to the sea, but what happens in the days before they make it out of the sand? For a long time, it was a bit of a mystery, but new research has lifted the lid […]

In a feat that seemed unachievable just a few short years ago, an international research consortium has today unveiled the first complete wiring diagram of an entire fruit fly brain. The map itself is accompanied by a cache of papers, demonstrating how this breakthrough is already leading to new scientific findings – and there’s much […]

Gamma rays are emitted in nuclear reactions and from the most extreme events in the universe such as supernova explosions, black holes, and more – but they can also come from closer to home. Over the last three decades, scientists have discovered that thunderstorms have the ability to create gamma rays. New research has highlighted […]

A fishing crew in southern Albania have caught a blue shark that, until then, had defied the odds. The animal had been skewered through its head by a swordfish and survived in what is the first known case of a shark living after receiving such a wound. Advertisement The shark was alive when it was […]

Dolphins open their mouths in what appears to us to be a smile when they are in the field of vision of others they like. Moreover, this smile is frequently reciprocated as a way for highly social animals to bond. The team who discovered this thinks it is no coincidence that the dolphin expression of […]

Scientists summiting Mount Po Ma Lung in Vietnam were gifted a surprise amphibian on their way back down the mountain. They were actually looking for Sterling’s toothed toad during a grueling eight-day survey of the mountain – but instead stumbled upon a new species with a bite all of its own. It’s been given the […]