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Göbekli Tepe was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2018, and it's not hard to see why. Image credit: Resul Muslu/Shutterstock.com ============================================================================ Did a cataclysmic comet impact 13,000 years ago spark the rise of civilization? That's the explosive claim behind a study of carvings at the world-famous site of Göbekli Tepe, which researchers say encode not just a catastrophic comet strike, but the world's oldest solar calendar. Located in southern Türkiye, Göbekli Tepe is a pre-pottery Neolithic complex that is estimated to be around 12,000 years old. Analyzing an intricately carved pillar at the site, the study authors propose...

The near-Earth Object 2009 FD, as seen by the ESO's Very Large Telescope (Image Credit: ESO) Every year, more than 5,000 tons of material with cosmic origins lands on Earth’s surface, with as much as 15,000 tons of this “space dust” making its way into the atmosphere but vaporizing during reentry. The resulting rain of micrometeorites that reaches our planet consists mostly of tiny objects anywhere from 30 to 200 micrometers in size, based on past studies. But what are the origins of these large volumes of material that accumulate over time as they shower the Earth throughout the year?...

The Chinese Tianwen-2 mission has captured the first imagery of a space object that some astronomers are calling Earth’s “quasi-moon.” The object was captured in images released by the China National Space Administration (CNSA), after its Tianwen-2 spacecraft reached the tiny asteroid 469219 Kamoʻoalewa. Initially discovered in 2016, the asteroid became the target of a sample return mission launched by China on 28 May 2025. Officially the CNSA’s second mission under its Planetary Exploration of China Program, Tianwen-2 aims to return close to 100 grams of samples from the surface of the small object. Earth’s Mysterious Quasi-Moons Quasi-moons are the...

The orbits of long-period comets suggest a star passed by our Sun and caused some havoc we're still seeing. Hale-Bopp, the Great Comet of 1997, is a very famous long-period comet. Image Credit: ESO/E. Slawik ================================================================= The closest star to the Sun is Proxima Centauri, about 4.2 light-years away. This has not always been the case, as all stars in the galaxies move about. Observations suggest that just 2.5 million years ago, there was a star that passed very close to the Solar System, and this passage might still have consequences we can see today. Data from the ESA Gaia...

On June 27, the asteroid will approach at a distance of around 0.01715 astronomical units. It hasn't been this close since at least 1600 CE. Potentially hazardous asteroid 152637 (1997 NC1) seen by the Virtual Telescope Project, when it was around 10.5 million kilometers (6.5 million miles) from Earth. Image credit: Gianluca Masi/The Virtual Telescope Project Potentially hazardous asteroid 152637 (1997 NC1) is about to make its closest approach in over 400 years, in an event only seen once every decade. At these distances, and given the size of the asteroid, it should be possible to view using a small...

A massive, semi-continent-sized subsurface structure has been discovered by scientists beneath Antarctica’s frozen surface. The discovery, reported by an international team of scientists, reveals the presence of an unusually shaped feature which researchers with Durham University’s Department of Geography characterize as a “vast geological structure hidden beneath the East Antarctic Ice Sheet.” The discovery was recently detailed in a study featured in Nature Geoscience. A Massive Fan-Shaped Structure Composed of several gigantic basins located beneath more than three kilometers of the southern continent’s icy exterior, the unusual structure has been dubbed the “East Antarctic Fan-shaped Basin Province.” The massive feature...

A slice of NWA 12774.The green circle is an olivine crystal, a magnesium-rich mineral. (Credit: John Kashuba) In A Nutshell A meteorite recovered from the Sahara contains crystals that could only have formed deep inside a large, now-destroyed ancient planet, giving scientists their first direct physical evidence of its enormous size. Using a newly developed pressure-measuring tool, researchers calculated the parent body was at least 1,000 kilometers in radius, far larger than any asteroid previously linked to this class of meteorite. Textural clues in the crystals suggest the planet may have been Moon-sized or even larger, though that conclusion depends...

The Sun runs on an 11-year cycle of rising and falling activity, tracked mainly by counting sunspots – the dark patches scattered across its surface. Solar Cycle 25, the current cycle, was forecast as mild, and the sunspot count agreed. But those counts read only the surface. A global network of six telescopes has listened to the Sun’s interior for nearly 40 years, and what it is now telling researchers is not what the surface suggested at all. Listening inside the Sun Scientists have a name for eavesdropping on those sound waves: helioseismology. The waves are trapped inside the Sun,...

The Battle of Qarqar, fought in 853 BCE, stands as a landmark event in the annals of military history, notable for featuring the earliest documented military alliance among a coalition of twelve kingdoms. This confederation was assembled to counter the expansive ambitions of the Assyrian Empire under King Shalmaneser III. The battle, although not decisively conclusive in its military outcomes, offers profound insights into the geopolitical dynamics of the ancient Near East and the complexities of coalition warfare. Background and Strategic Context During the early 9th century BCE, the Assyrian Empire, led by Shalmaneser III, was in a phase of...

A hefty, never-before-seen asteroid is racing toward Earth at around 20,000 mph (32,000 km/h) and will zoom past our planet closer than some satellites on Monday (May 18), scientists say. You can watch the unusually close encounter for yourself, even if you don't have access to stargazing equipment. The asteroid, dubbed 2026 JH2, was discovered May 10 by astronomers at the Mount Lemmon Observatory near Tucson, Arizona, who also spotted the superbright Comet Lemmon last year. The space rock, which has since been verified by other observatories across the globe, likely circles the sun every 3.7 years on an elliptical...

Just as it faces an annual hurricane season and tornado season, North America is also experiencing an annual "fireball season," according to NASA."From February through April, the appearance rate of these very bright meteors can increase by as much as 10 percent to 30 percent, especially around the weeks of the March equinox," NASA explained in a statement in late March. "Exactly why is not known. Some astronomers think the Earth passes through more large debris at this time of year, causing an uptick in fireball sightings."...The American Meteor Society, which has gathered professional and amateur meteor reports since 1911,...

Beneath a section of Chicago, there is a hidden several mile wide impact crater. This might initially seem like a crazy claim but it is true, existing underneath the city of Des Plaines. The only reason it isn't highly visible today is due to sediments emplaced during extensive glaciers during the last 2 million years. It is for this reason that I will discuss when this crater formed, what evidence we have, and what immediate effects its formation had. Thumbnail Photo Credit: Google Earth. This image was overlaid with text, and then overlaid with GeologyHub made graphics (the image border,...

The history of the Trojan horse is probably one of the most famous stories ever told. A gigantic wooden horse is loaded with Greek soldiers and presented to the Trojans as a gift. Unsuspecting, they swallow the bait and pull the horse into the city. Under cover of darkness the Greeks slip out of the horse and open the gates to their comrades. Only hours later the mighty Troy goes up in flames. But what if the myth of the horse is not true at all? New, groundbreaking findings show that one of the most famous stories of all time...

Archaeologists in Egypt recently uncovered a massive statue believed to depict King Ramses II, the pharoah believed to be a major character in the Old Testament. The statue was found at the Tel Pharaoh site in Husseiniya Center, Sharqia Governorate, the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities said on April 22. The site is in Egypt's Nile Delta, northeast of Cairo. Officials also described the statue as "remarkable" in size, weighing between 5 and 6 tons and measuring over 7 feet long. In a translated statement, the ministry described the statue as being in a "relatively poor condition of preservation,"...

In the ancient Mitanni Kingdom, an Indo-Aryan language very closely related to Sanskrit was used by the ruling class -- but only for very special occasions... Jack of All Languages explores the surprising linguistic links between ancient Indo-Aryan terms found in Syrian horse training manuals and early Sanskrit. By analyzing archaeological tablets and royal treaties, this investigation sheds light on how a prestige language influenced elite cultures in the Middle East centuries before the oldest known Vedic texts were composed. The Indo-Aryans of the Middle East | 13:16 Jack of All Languages | 7.33K subscribers | 2,142 views | April...

Long ago in a land now lost to the sea, and event happened that changed how those that lived there, saw their landscape forever. This is Doggerland, the land bridge that once connected Britain with mainland Europe. It would take an eventual slow and long sea rise to remove this world, but.. something else happened. Something that changed the landscape in one instant. More devasting than we ever could image. Paul Whitewick examines how the 6,200 BC Storegga Slide tsunami dramatically altered the landscape of Doggerland. By analyzing geological cores and ancient artifacts, they explore how this catastrophic event fundamentally...

Japanese authorities are warning that a second tsunami may be on the way after a 7.5 magnitude earthquake struck off the country's north-east coast

The Messinian Salinity Crisis / Zanclean Flood. Scientists Found Evidence Of The Biggest Event In Earth's History | 17:28 Thoughty2 | 25.68M subscribers | 971,176 views | November 17, 2025

A new study of southern Norway's Raknehaugen mound conducted by Lars Gustavsen of the Norwegian Institute for Cultural Heritage Research suggests that it does not contain a burial and may have been built in response to a landslide, according to a Phys.org report. "I actually discovered the landslide scar more or less by accident," Gustavsen said. "While investigating the visibility of the mound using LiDAR data, it suddenly appeared in one of the visualizations I was using to analyze the landscape," he said. When the mound was excavated in 1869 and 1870, no central burial mound was found. Excavations in...

Near-Earth asteroid Apophis is a potentially hazardous asteroid that will safely pass close to Earth on April 13, 2029. It will come about 20,000 miles (32,000 kilometers) from our planet’s surface — closer than the distance of many satellites in geosynchronous orbit (about 22,236 miles, or 36,000 kilometers, in altitude).