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The sun has unleashed an enormous X-class solar flare, temporarily triggering a radio blackout above parts of the U.S. and unleashing a hefty coronal mass ejection (CME) that will likely slam into our planet, potentially triggering vibrant aurora displays later this week. The X-class solar flare — the most powerful type the sun can produce — exploded outward from sunspot AR3842 near the solar equator at around 6 p.m. ET on Tuesday (Oct. 1). The flare had a magnitude of X7.1, making it the second most powerful solar explosion of the current solar cycle, Solar Cycle 25, which began in...

Could this be the Perfect Geo-storm? October is off to a hot start: The sun unleashed a massive X-class solar flare — the “strongest of its kind,” according to Space.com — that has the potential to pummel our planet with a powerful geomagnetic storm this week. The supercharged sunburst erupted from sunspot AR3842 on Tuesday evening. It clocked in at X7.1, making it the second most powerful in the last seven years after the monster X8.7 magnitude in May, Live Science reported. This also triggered a coronal mass ejection (CME) — when plasma and magnetic particles burst forth from the...

The crater lies deep beneath the Atlantic Ocean and was formed around 66 million years ago – making it a contemporary of Chicxulub. It is thought that the asteroid hit Earth at around 72,000 kilometers (44,700 miles) per hour. Image credit: muratart/Shutterstock.com Some 66 million years ago, a massive asteroid slammed into Earth. The Chicxulub impactor, as it is called, famously wiped out the non-avian dinosaurs and left a huge crater at the edge of the Yucatán peninsula – but it may not have acted alone. New research has revealed that a second, smaller space rock smashed into our planet...

A team of astronomers is making a bold forecast: A binary star found in the summer constellation Cygnus the swan will burst into a red nova sometime in 2022. When the two stars in the binary system crash into one another, they will create a brick-red beacon so bright that sky gazers will see it with the naked eye, Larry Molnar of Calvin College said Friday at the American Astronomical Society meeting in Grapevine, Tex. As the constellation Cygnus glides gracefully along the Milky Way every late spring and summer, the cosmic bird’s left wing houses a faint binary star...

A potential 370-mile-wide crater in Australia, known as MAPCIS, may reshape our understanding of Earth’s geological history. Researchers found geological evidence, including shocked minerals and melt rock, suggesting a massive impact at the end of the Ediacaran period. (Artist’s concept.) Credit: SciTechDaily.com =========================================================================== Research team is delving into history, exploring events that occurred hundreds of millions of years ago. A potential crater over 370 miles (600 kilometers) wide in central Australia may transform our knowledge of Earth’s geological past. Researcher Daniel Connelly and Virginia Commonwealth University’s Arif Sikder, Ph.D., believe they have found evidence to support the existence of MAPCIS...

A storm could be-fall us. Colorful leaves and cooler temperatures aren’t the only thing autumn is potentially bringing. Meteorologists predict that Earth could be blasted by a geomagnetic storm on Wednesday due to its timing with the autumnal equinox. A coronal mass ejection (CME) — when plasma and magnetic particles burst forth from the sun’s surface — occurred on Sunday, the same day as the official start of fall, Space.com reported. It reportedly occurred when a sunspot called AR3835 unexpectedly spouted an M-class solar flare — something scientists hadn’t predicted as said sunspot had appeared stable.

Scientists are reporting that a “horned” comet three times bigger than Mount Everest is hurtling toward Earth after encountering a large explosion. The blast originated on October 5 from 12P/Pons-Brooks a cryovolcanic — or cold volcano — comet. According to Live Science, the comet, nicknamed the “Devil” due to its apparent horns, measures a colossal 18.6 miles in diameter, or the size of a small city. For reference, Mount Everest, the highest mountain on Earth, is about 5.5 miles high. This marked the second time this interstellar ice cube erupted in the last four months. The Science Times reports that...

New measurements of Neptune's atmosphere by a European space telescope suggest that a comet may have crashed into the gas giant about 200 years ago.Scientists analyzed the composition of Neptune's atmosphere using data from the Herschel space observatory. They found a peculiar distribution of carbon monoxide in the gas giant's atmosphere, which could be an indication of an earlier comet impact...Other similar collisions between comets (or asteroids) and planets helped the astronomers detect the telltale signs of cometary impacts.When pieces of the comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 slammed into Jupiter in 1994, scientists were able to examine the trajectory and debris to...

An ambitious effort to understand the Earth’s climate over the past 485 million years has revealed a history of wild shifts and far hotter temperatures than scientists previously realized — offering a reminder of how much change the planet has already endured and a warning about the unprecedented rate of warming caused by humans. The timeline, published Thursday in the journal Science, is the most rigorous reconstruction of Earth’s past temperatures ever produced, the authors say. Created by combining more than 150,000 pieces of fossil evidence with state-of-the-art climate models, it shows the intimate link between carbon dioxide and global...

In November of 2020, a freak wave came out of the blue, lifting a lonesome buoy off the coast of British Columbia 17.6 meters high (58 feet). The four-story wall of water was finally confirmed in February 2022 as the most extreme rogue wave ever recorded at the time. Such an exceptional event is thought to occur only once every 1,300 years. And unless the buoy had been taken for a ride, we might never have known it even happened. For centuries, rogue waves were considered nothing but nautical folklore. It wasn't until 1995 that myth became fact. On the...

Dutch researchers have found evidence of approximately 20 mysterious, large-scale structures hidden beneath the sediment of an ancient lost ocean on Mars. The team also reports the discovery of evidence that an active Martian crust is pushing against Olympus Mons, elevating the solar system’s largest volcano. Previous scientific efforts have found hidden ice deposits and other unexpected structures on the red planet. However, the researchers behind this latest discovery say these mysterious, large-scale structures are particularly perplexing because they appear hidden beneath the sedimentary layers of an ancient ‘lost’ Martian ocean. “These dense structures could be volcanic in origin or...

The bronze blade, thought to be around 3,000 years old, has the markings of Ramesses II, hailed as the most powerful king of ancient Egypt...The sword was uncovered among the ruins of an ancient military fort in Housh Eissa, a city just south of Alexandria, which featured barracks for soldiers and storage rooms for food, weapons and other goods...The ancient sword likely did not belong to the famous king, but likely to one of his soldiers stationed at the fort, experts said.Elizabeth Frood, an Oxford University Egyptologist who was not involved in the dig, told The Washington Post: 'An object...

Hürriyet Daily News reports that an excavation conducted at the Maydos Church Hill Mound in northwestern Turkey uncovered a 3,900-year-old cylinder seal, a 3,400-year-old lead sling stone, spindle whorls, weaving tools, metal tools, and drills dated to the Middle Bronze Age, around 2000 B.C. Archaeologist Göksel Sazcı of Onsekiz Mart University said that when sling stones are found, they are usually made of stone or terracotta. "The ones made of lead are very rare and are mostly found in the Hellenistic and Roman periods," he added. "Such finds are mostly known from the Mediterranean island of Crete, its Knossos settlement,...

The bronze items—three shields and a helmet—were found during excavations at the archaeological site of Ayanis, an ancient citadel and settlement in what is now Van province in eastern Turkey, Culture and Tourism Minister Mehmet Nuri Ersoy announced on social media.Ayanis was a citadel city founded in the seventh century B.C. by the Urartian king Rusa. Urartu was an Iron Age kingdom that extended across parts of what is now eastern Turkey, Armenia, Iran and Iraq.The kingdom, renowned for its mastery of stone, metal and weaponry, was one of the most powerful states in West Asia during the eighth and...

Today, the coelacanth is a fascinating deep-sea fish that lives off the coasts of eastern Africa and Indonesia and can reach up to 2m in length. They are "lobe-finned" fish, which means they have robust bones in their fins not too dissimilar to the bones in our own arms, and are thus considered to be more closely related to lungfish and tetrapods (the back-boned animals with arms and legs such as frogs, emus, and mice) than most other fishes.Over the past 410 million years, more than more than 175 species of coelacanths have been discovered across the globe. During the...

In a couple of weeks, Earth will have a mini-moon for 56.6 days. Welcome to the neighborhood, 2024 PT5. Image credit: Buradaki/Shutterstock.com An asteroid heading towards Earth is set to have an unusual fate: instead of smashing through our planet’s atmosphere, it’s likely to become trapped in orbit and become a mini-moon. It will be a swift visit, however, and is likely to only remain in Earth's gravitational grasp for two months. The asteroid, named 2024 PT5, was discovered on August 7 and measures around 10 meters (33 feet) in diameter. Two astronomers from the Complutense University of Madrid, Carlos...

Did the eruption of Thera cause the Ten Plagues of Egypt, such as the transformation of the Nile into blood?The eruption of the Minoan island of Thera, or Santorini, has popularly been linked to the legend of Atlantis. However, many researchers also attempt to connect it to another famous story: the Ten Plagues. The Bible tells the story of the Ten Plagues of Egypt in the Book of Exodus. Is it possible that the eruption of Thera really could have resulted in these famous Ten Plagues? How the eruption of Thera supposedly explains the Ten Plagues According to advocates of...

Ahram Online reports that archaeologist Ahmed Said El-Kharadly of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) and his colleagues are excavating the military site of Tell Al-Abqain, which is located near the coast of northern Egypt. They have uncovered mudbrick barracks structures dated to the New Kingdom period, between about 1550 and 1070 B.C. "It is an important discovery highlighting the strategic role of [the] Tell Al-Abqain area as a crucial military outpost on the Western military road, protecting Egypt's northwestern borders from potential invasions by Libyan tribes and Sea Peoples," said Mohamed Ismail Khaled, Secretary General of the SCA. The...

Explanation: Orbiting 400 kilometers above Quebec, Canada, planet Earth, the International Space Station Expedition 59 crew captured this snapshot of the broad St. Lawrence River and curiously circular Lake Manicouagan on April 11. Right of center, the ring-shaped lake is a modern reservoir within the eroded remnant of an ancient 100 kilometer diameter impact crater. The ancient crater is very conspicuous from orbit, a visible reminder that Earth is vulnerable to rocks from space. Over 200 million years old, the Manicouagan crater was likely caused by the impact of a rocky body about 5 kilometers in diameter. Currently, there is...

The structure in Quebec, Canada. Image credit: Google Maps Aman browsing Google Maps whilst planning a camping trip in Quebec's Côte-Nord region has potentially discovered the site of an ancient asteroid impact. People have discovered all sorts of oddities while browsing through Google Maps, from "aliens" and camera-hogging cats to the answer to decades old cold cases. In the latest find, Joël Lapointe stumbled across an unusual, roughly spherical structure about 15 kilometers (9.3 miles) across surrounding Marsal Lake in Quebec. Lapointe contacted geophysicist Pierre Rochette of the Centre de recherche en géosciences de l'environnement (CEREGE) in France for help...