Light from our setting sun reflecting off storm clouds can give off a some vivid shades of pinks, purples and oranges.
Jake Clark
It’s all to do with the light from the Sun and a blanket of air wrapped around Earth called the ‘atmosphere’.
The Piton de la Fournaise in eruption, 2015.
Greg de Serra/Flickr
The study of neutrinos produced within the Earth’s interior provides a better understanding of the radioactivity of our planet.
An artist’s rendering of the surface of Venus.
(Shutterstock)
A severe climate change event on Venus may have transformed an Earth-like climate to the current uninhabitable-to-humans state.
Fossil remains indicate these birds had a wingspan of over 20 feet.
Brian Choo
Paleontologists have discovered fossil remains belonging to an enormous ‘toothed’ bird that lived for a period of about 60 million years after dinosaurs.
Photo of a nearly full Moon shining brightly on the Earth’s atmosphere, taken from the International Space Station.
NASA
The Earth’s magnetic field was most likely weaker when life evolved on our planet than it is today.
NASA’s Curiosity Rover takes a selfie on Mars in June, 2018.
NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
The clouds of Venus may harbour alien life. But where else?
Strict physical distancing restrictions have resulted in cleaner air, but atmospheric carbon dioxide levels continue to rise.
PeteLinforth/Pixabay
Despite clear air as a result of the pandemic reducing human activities, our emissions still soar.
Artist’s rendition of NASA’s 2020 Mars rover collecting rocks with its robotic arm.
NASA
Martian meteorites allow scientists here on Earth to decode that planet’s geology, more than a decade before the first missions are scheduled to bring rocks back home from Mars.
Earth and Moon as seen by the Galileo spacecraft.
NASA
From the Moon’s size to the first calculator, the ancients made some jawdropping discoveries without modern technology.
Two planetary bodies colliding.
NASA/JPL-Caltech
The Earth and the Moon were long thought to be virtually identical in composition. Now we know they are not.
Shutterstock
These scientists identified the five most severe crises the planet faces in a new report, Our Future on Earth 2020.
In 2015, NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft looked back toward the sun and captured this near-sunset view of the rugged, icy mountains and flat ice plains extending to Pluto’s horizon.
NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI
Many people are still upset that Pluto was demoted from being a planet. But definitions of various celestial objects are fairly fluid. So whether it is an asteroid or moon or planet is up for debate.
In the future, people may be able to go to Mars.
Gorodenkoff/Shutterstock.com
The first Martian might just be a human being.
NASA Ames/JPL-Caltech/T. Pyle
Kepler-452b is sometimes called ‘Earth 2.0’, but there’s a lot we still don’t know about it.
The view of our planet from aboard the International Space Station.
Expedition 43/NASA
Of all the planets in the solar system, there’s a reason we call Earth home. It’s made of just the right stuff. It’s not too small, or too big, or too hot or too cold. It’s just right.
On June 5-6, 2012, NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory collected images of one of the rarest predictable solar events: the transit of Venus across the face of the Sun.
NASA/SDO, AIA
This hot, acidic neighbor with its surface veiled in thick clouds hasn’t benefited from the attention showered on Mars and the Moon. But Venus may offer insights into the fate of the Earth.
Johan Swanepoel/Shutterstock
Satellites monitor climate change, guide people with GPS and keep us connected through texts and social media, but they’re under threat.
The moon covers much of the sun during the total solar eclipse, in Merlo, San Luis, Argentina, July 2 2019.
EPA-EFE/NICO AGUILERA
While the world gathers to see an eclipse, what’s the rest of nature doing?
Very beautiful, and useful too.
Shutterstock.
An expert explains all the wonderful ways the atmosphere protects life on Earth.
New geological research reveals information about the Earth’s orbit and climate from billions of years ago.
Shutterstock
Layers of rock provide a historical record of variations in the Earth’s orbit, revealing information about the planet’s climate billions of years ago.