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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).

The world's oldest land animal, Jonathan the tortoise, is still alive after a viral hoax falsely claimed he'd died. The confusion began after a post on X falsely claimed the giant tortoise had died at age 193. The account, which impersonated Jonathan’s veterinarian, Joe Hollins, quickly gained traction and sparked concern among fans around the world. That claim, however, was not true. "Yes, he's still alive," the X user wrote hours later. "This was just an April Fools' prank." **SNIP** Jonathan, a Seychelles giant tortoise, continues to live on the island of St. Helena, a remote British territory in the...

She might want to demand a refund on that Ivy League education. A hilarious exchange during the March 28 No Kings Rally in Manhattan went viral after a woke protestor was caught on video condemning society’s treatment of the non-existent “gays of Hormuz.” “Isn’t it a little homophobic that we’re so focused on the straights of Hormuz — and not the gays of Hormuz?” comedian Lionel Leede asked the anti-Trump demonstrator, in a play on words on the Strait of Hormuz, the crucial oil shipping lane that’s been choked by the war in Iran. Yes,” she proceeded to answer with...

Members of Congress are demanding 46 military videos from the Department of War which insiders say offer convincing proof that advanced, non-human craft are operating on Earth. Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) requested the long list of explosively titled files on Wednesday, which include 45 previously unreleased military clips. The presence of Unidentified Aerial Phenomena “in and around the sensitive airspaces of US military installations poses a threat to the security of the armed forces and their readiness,” according to the April 1 letter addressed to Secretary Pete Hegseth. Those with knowledge of the long list of videos — which...

Explanation: From pole to pole our fair planet is captured in this snapshot from space, an evocative image from a window of the Orion spacecraft Integrity. From the spacecraft's perspective the Sun is moving behind Earth's bright limb along the lower right. Africa and the Iberian peninsula are in view on the pale blue planet's surface, while aurorae crown Earth's south and north poles at top right and bottom left. Commander Reid Wiseman took the historic picture on Artemis II mission flight day 2 (April 2), after the completion of the planned translunar injection burn. That burn boosted the spacecraft...

A Chinese satellite equipped with a robotic "octopus arm" has passed a key refueling test in low Earth orbit (LEO), according to state-run media. The achievement highlights China's continued leadership with this particular technology, which NASA has not yet caught up with. The experimental spacecraft will eventually deploy a giant balloon in LEO, which could help solve another important issue surrounding satellite "megaconstellations" like SpaceX's Starlink network. The satellite, dubbed Hukeda-2 (also known as Yuxing-3 06 within China), launched March 16 aboard the Kuaizhou-11 rocket from Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, according to the website of Jonathan McDowell, a now-retired astronomer...

Explanation: How can we see what is invisible? Black holes are not easy to see in the dark cosmic night, but astronomers can find them by analyzing their gravitational effects on matter, light and spacetime. The featured image shows an illustration that combines a simulation of a black hole binary system in its final "death-dance" with an astrophotography image of the Tarantula Nebula in the background. Even though black holes don't emit light, they distort the path of light rays, acting like a gravitational lens. As a result, the nebula appears extremely distorted, forming Einstein rings and multiple images. Tarantula...

The submarine, launched by the Confederate Army in the last full year of the Civil War, made history when it became the first combat submarine to ever sink a warship. But on the same night when the H.L. Hunley’s torpedo sent the USS Housatonic, along with two of its officers and three of its enlisted crew, to a watery grave in the depths of Charleston Harbor in South Carolina, the Hunley itself—along with its eight-man crew—was also claimed by the waves. snip In a study published in PLOS One in 2017, a team of researchers affiliated with Duke University announced...

The Greek city of Rhodes emerged victorious from a yearlong siege by the Macedonian noble Demetrius Poliorcetes in 304 b.c. To commemorate their city's resilience, the Rhodians built a towering bronze statue of the sun god Helios, their patron deity, who also appeared on their coinage. It took the local sculptor Chares 12 years to construct the Colossus of Rhodes, the tallest sculpture in the ancient world at some 120 feet. Chares created the statue using a revolutionary process known as casting in courses, which no other ancient sculptor is known to have employed. In order to cast each course,...

For a millennium, Gortyn was the most important city on Crete. Its ruins - largely unexcavated - are scattered across a picturesque landscape of stony hills and olive groves. Scenic Routes to the Past | 58.2K subscribers | 4,704 views | March 27, 2026 0:00 Introduction 0:34 Agios Titos 1:09 Law code of Gortyn 2:30 Acropolis 4:33 Unexcavated area 5:35 Two temples 6:48 Praetorium 7:18 Metropolitan basilica 8:11 Baths

ET phone IT! The Artemis II crew’s early tasks were disrupted by an issue with the shuttle’s Microsoft Outlook less than a day after blasting off into Earth’s orbit. Reid Wiseman, the mission’s commander, reported the problem with the email app to the Houston-based mission control just seven hours after the rocket’s historic launch. “I also see that I have two Microsoft Outlooks and neither one of those are working,” Wiseman could be heard saying over dispatch. “If you want to remote in and check the Optimus and those two Outlooks that would be awesome,” he added. Mission control said...

According to the Greek Reporter, an international team of researchers has conducted a survey of the seafloor off the northern coast of the Greek island of Karpathos. The team members identified archaeological sites dating from the later seventh century B.C. through the mid-nineteenth century A.D. The sites include four ancient shipwrecks and one modern one; traces of an ancient port, shipwreck cargo packed in amphoras; and more than 20 anchors dated to the Byzantine period. To read about a famous monument on a neighboring Greek island, go to "Secrets of the Seven Wonders: Colossus of Rhodes."

Hima-liars. Mount Everest guides have allegedly been secretly lacing tourists’ food to trigger costly helicopter rescues as part of a $20 million insurance scam, according to a new investigation. Police in Nepal have charged 32 individuals with organized crime and fraud charges related to the plot, which involves trekking company owners, helicopter operators, and hospital executives, the Kathmandu Post reported. Guides with the trekking agencies allegedly poisoned tourists by putting baking soda in their food to trigger severe gastrointestinal distress that mimicked altitude sickness or food poisoning, investigators said. Once ill, the visitors were allegedly pressured into agreeing to costly...

The Dutch police have recovered the Helmet of Cotofenesti, a Romanian treasure stolen from the Drents Museum in Assen in January last year, art detective Arthur Brand announced on X. Sources also told Dagblad van het Noorden and RTL Nieuws that the stolen treasures have been recovered.The Dutch authorities have not confirmed this, but the Public Prosecution Service (OM) has announced a press conference at 2:00 p.m. to announce "new developments" in the case. The Drents Museum's website states that the museum is closed today due to "unforeseen circumstances."During the early hours of January 25, 2025, thieves set off an...

Explanation: We are one small step closer to returning to the Moon. A new chapter in human exploration began yesterday when NASA's Artemis II launched aboard the Space Launch System (SLS) from Kennedy Space Center. Carrying four astronauts, the Orion spacecraft's planned lunar flyby will be the first in over half a century. This historic test flight, echoing the legacy of Apollo while pushing beyond it, will carry its crew farther from Earth than any humans since 1972, looping around the Moon before returning home. During the approximately ten-day journey, Orion's systems--from life support to navigation--will be tested in deep...

...The collaboration between the French-Egyptian Center for the Study of the Temples of Karnak (CFEETK), the Supreme Council of Antiquities, and the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) has completed the project of reassembly and restoration of the gate of the wall of King Ramses III, located in the northern area of the Karnak complex...As for the intervention on the gate of the wall built by Ramses III, belonging to the Twentieth Dynasty, the work has involved a complex process of dismantling, restoration, and relocation of the stone elements. The structure, whose base had been located in the 19th...

According to a Phys.org report, a team of researchers led by Sophia Adams of the British Museum and Jamie Armstrong of Durham University have examined more than 950 objects recovered from two separate hoards discovered by a metal detectorist near the site of a known Iron Age power center in northern England. The artifacts have been dated to between the late first century B.C. and the early first century A.D., and appear to represent about 300 whole objects that had been deliberately dismantled, damaged, and placed in ditches. The researchers suggest that most of the artifacts were parts of at...

Explanation: What unexpected things do you see when you look up at the night sky? Today’s image resembles an abstract painting, with large swaths of color strewn across a cosmic canvas seemingly without design. Despite the image's abstract nature, the human mind finds patterns, identifying a large claw reaching up towards a floating bubble. Embedded within these seemingly random structures are the physical laws that govern how light and matter interact. The Claw (Sh2-157) and Bubble (NGC 7635) Nebulae glow colors that are mapped to the yellow and blue shown, indicating the presence of hydrogen and oxygen ionized by the...

In response to the intensifying European energy crisis, the green lobby in Brussels and Berlin is accelerating the pace of transformation. Pressure generates counterpressure. In response to the intensifying European energy crisis, the green lobby in Brussels and Berlin is accelerating the pace of transformation. Politics lacks the imagination for a real energy crisis scenario. Civil society submits, nearly paralyzed, to its fate. Anyone who expected that empty gas storage in Germany and the escalating energy crisis in Iran would silence the green lobby in the country must think again. The political representation and its media apparatus -- the extended...

Explanation: Titania's tortured terrain is a mix of canyons, cliffs, and craters. NASA's interplanetary robot spacecraft Voyager 2 passed the largest moon of Uranus in 1986 and took the feature picture. That the trenches of Titania resemble those on another moon of Uranus, Ariel, indicate that Titania underwent some violent surface event possibly related to water freezing and expanding in its distant past. Although Titania is Uranus's largest moon, it is only about half the radius of Triton - the largest moon of Uranus's sister planet Neptune, which itself is slightly smaller than Earth's Moon. Titania, discovered by William Herschel...