Stephanie Pappas

Scientists are getting a better handle on how fast Greenland's ice is flowing out to sea. Old models that used Antarctica as a baseline were way off the mark.

Fossils called stromatolites from Western Australia were created by microbes 3.48 billion years ago.

Protons can contain a charm quark, an elementary particle 1.5 times heavier than the proton itself.

Researchers have detected the deepest earthquake ever, 467 miles below the Earth's surface.

An underground mountain-sized chunk of rock may be affecting paths of large earthquakes in southern Japan.

A rare type of plutonium has been found in the crust below the deep sea, offering new clues as to how heavy metals form in star explosions and mergers.

Water driven toward Earth's center by plate tectonics could lead to the creation of diamonds at the boundary between the core and the mantle.

An ancient piece of crust is hiding below Western Australia, having survived 4 billion years of upheaval.

A document thought to have been handwritten by Galileo Galilei is in fact a 20th-century fake.

For the first time, authorities have given a heat wave a name. Scientists hope that naming extreme heat events will help the public protect itself.

A loud explosion heard Saturday (Aug. 13) in Utah may have been an exploding Perseid meteor.

A 66 million-year-old impact crater has been discovered off the coast of West Africa, raising questions about just how many deadly space rocks the dinosaurs had to deal with.

At 'supercriticality,' the difference between the liquid and gas phases of a material seems to disappear. New research finds that this weird tipping point may be simpler than scientists thought.

The Siberian tundra could disappear by the year 2500, unless greenhouse gas emissions are dramatically reduced.

The dust trail from the largest comet outburst on record will be visible to amateur astronomers in late July 2022.

A restless sunspot sent off a double solar flare on Monday (April 25), temporarily disrupting some radio communications in Asia and Australia.

The "corpse" of a sunspot exploded Monday (April 11), triggering a mass ejection of solar material that is headed in Earth's direction.

The moon is leading a parade of four planets across the predawn sky this week.

It's confirmed: The hottest rock ever discovered in Earth's crust really was super-hot.

A newly created isotope of the silvery metal lutetium has a strange squashed nucleus and a half-life of just a few hundred nanoseconds.

Scientists have crafted a new message for intelligent extraterrestrials

The solidification of the inner core may have strengthened Earth's magnetic field.

Researchers plan to launch two rockets into the heart of the northern lights. Here's what they might find.

A circular shape on the seafloor visible on Google Earth is raising cries of "UFO," but chances are … it's not aliens.

When the plasma of the Van Allen belts drops in density during a solar storm, it can set up the perfect conditions for electrons to travel nearly as fast as light.