Feb 13th, 2026 - In a study published on Feb. 2 in Communications: Earth & Environment , an international team of researchers reveals how, in 2023, an atypical storm during Mars' northern summer lifted water into the planet's upper atmosphere, allowing hydrogen to escape. This discovery, a first of its kind, has big implications for understanding the evolution of Mars' climate. "The findings reveal the impact of this type of storm on the planet's climate evolution and opens a new path for understanding how Mars lost much of its water over time," Adrián Brines, study co-author and researcher at the ... [Read More]

Feb 13th, 2026 - Dr. Katherine Kuchenbecker, a roboticist from the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems (MPI-IS) , was walking down a hallway tapping the railings, walls, and columns with a "wand" her student, Dr. Andrew Schulz, had given her. While she tapped the wand on different surfaces, she realized she could feel the different vibrations of surfaces, without having to look at them. The vibrations felt soft and gentle at the tip of the wand and strong at the base. This wand is a "3D simulated" version that Schulz designed by mimicking the whiskers on an elephant's trunk. The goal was to ... [Read More]

Feb 12th, 2026 - These images show the location (and disappearance) of M31-2014-DS1. (A) is a color composite. The area in the yellow dashed square is the region shown in images (B), (C), and (D), where (D) is the difference between (B) and (C). Images (E) through (J) are zoomed-in shots of the star taken in the labeled years. Astronomers recently watched a massive star die, but fail to explode as a supernova. Instead, it collapsed directly into a black hole, slowly expelling its turbulent outer layers in the process. This observation of a star's ... [Read More]

Feb 12th, 2026 - Trump Administration Fails to Finalize Overdue Protections for Iconic Butterfly Two conservation groups, the Center for Biological Diversity and Center for Food Safety, today sued the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to force officials to set a binding date to finalize federal protections for monarch butterflies under the Endangered Species Act . The monarch was proposed for protection in December 2024, making the final listing due in December 2025. The groups argue the delay increases extinction risk for the nationally beloved pollinator. "Comprehensive protections are urgently needed to ... [Read More]

Feb 12th, 2026 - Wiped out in its native range by invasive pathogens, the trees may make a comeback. Very few people alive today have seen the Appalachian forests as they existed a century ago. Even as state and national parks preserved ever more of the ecosystem, fungal pathogens from Asia nearly wiped out one of the dominant species of these forests, the American chestnut, killing an estimated 3 billion trees. While new saplings continue to sprout from the stumps of the former trees, the fungus persists, killing them before they can seed a new generation. But thanks in part to trees planted in areas where ... [Read More]

Feb 12th, 2026 - Reading time 2 minutes On February 3, 1966, the Soviet Union's Luna 9 became the first human-made object to touchdown on the lunar surface and beam back a photo of the Moon. Since then, the whereabouts of the spacecraft have remained a mystery, but a team of astronomers believe they're getting close to finding the remains of the long-lost lunar probe. A team led by Lewis Pinault from the University College London designed a machine learning algorithm to scour through hundreds of images of the Moon's surface that have been captured by NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO). The ... [Read More]

Feb 12th, 2026 - Follow Earth on Google The southern right whale was once seen as proof that conservation can work. After heavy hunting pushed this giant close to extinction, protection laws helped the population slowly grow again. Many people called it a success. Now, new research shows a worrying change. Scientists say this whale may be sending an early signal about climate change in the oceans. Researchers at Flinders University and Curtin University , along with international partners in the United States and South Africa, led this new study. Decline in southern right whales Results show that southern ... [Read More]

Feb 12th, 2026 - By Stephen Beech didn't prevent rich medieval families from being buried in the most prestigious graves, reveals new research. Wealthy Danes showed off their affluence even in death by being laid to rest "closer to God" in the most expensive plots nearest to churches, according to the findings. Lepers are often portrayed as being socially stigmatized in the Middle Ages. But the new study of inequality in medieval graves also showed that stigmatized illnesses - - didn't bar people from socially prestigious burials. An international team of archaeologists used graveyards in Denmark to ... [Read More]