Throughout its long history, Earth has warmed and cooled time and again. Climate has changed when the planet received more or less sunlight due to subtle shifts in its orbit, as the atmosphere or ...

Update on March 11, 2024: This image shows Spirit Lake, located in south-central Washington, on April 26, 2023. Congratulations to Ivan Kordač for being the first to correctly identify the lake.

On our team’s last day at Kilbourne Hole, we were joined by retired astronaut Harrison “Jack” Schmitt, the lunar module pilot for Apollo 17. He is the only professional geologist to have walked on the ...

Compared to Earth, the planet Jupiter is about 11 times larger in circumference, 5 times farther from the Sun, 4 times colder, and it rotates 2.5 times faster. Based on the numbers, this gas giant ...

A few paths in life are short and direct; more of them are long and winding. The combination of measurements from the new satellite will give scientists and citizens a finely detailed look at life ...

Trees connect us scientifically, environmentally, and culturally. We all know that trees are vital to our planet’s health. As trees grow, they absorb carbon from the atmosphere, playing a vital role ...

Mangrove forests are some of the most productive ecosystems in the world, sustaining the livelihoods of millions of coastal dwellers. These unique forests sequester carbon, protect coastlines and ...

Compared to Earth, the planet Jupiter is about 11 times larger in circumference, 5 times farther from the Sun, 4 times colder, and it rotates 2.5 times faster. Based on the numbers, this gas giant ...

Two hours before SMAP’s early morning launch Saturday, Vanessa Escobar was on NASA TV, explaining a new effort to link the soil-moisture-measuring satellite with the people who will put it to use.

It might seem unlikely that vegetation can survive in a sandy coastal environment that receives little rain, but plant communities along Peru’s southern coast have found a way. In December 2016, we ...

Update on February 5, 2025: This Landsat image shows the Zavaritskogo (also called Zavaritskii) caldera in the Kuril Archipelago, between northern Japan and Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula.

Desertification. The word invokes images of sand dunes blowing over abandoned farms as some irresistible, dark force steadily transforms fertile fields into inhospitable wasteland. The United Nations’ ...