The number of continents is one of the first facts most people are taught about the world, and one of the least questioned. Seven: Africa, Antarctica, Asia, Australia, Europe, North…
Picture the two places side by side. On one side of the Atlantic, the Sahara: the largest hot desert on the planet, stretching across the northern third of Africa, defined…
In the Southern Hemisphere summer of 1997, a team from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration was doing routine work: monitoring an array of underwater microphones, or hydrophones, positioned to…
We tend to assume that simple things are old things. If an object is uncomplicated and useful, surely someone thought of it long ago. In fact, the gap between when…
Source: Wikimedia Commons
There are landscapes that look like other planets, and then there is the Danakil Depression, which scientists actually use as a stand-in for one. It sits in the…
Look at Earth from orbit today and you see the famous blue marble: oceans, cloud swirls, green continents. Run the clock back roughly 700 million years and an observer in…