Polished pebbles in an old streambed, as found by the Curiosity rover, tell a tale of a planet’s rich and watery past
Did a Distant Solar System Send Life to Earth?
A new theory of how space debris travels increases the likelihood that star systems swap biology
EcocentricGoing Green
How Silent Spring Became the First Shot in the War Over the Environment
50 years old this month, Rachel Carson’s book Silent Spring helped kickstart the environmental movement and led the U.S. to ban the pesticide DDT. So why do some people blame Carson for millions of malaria deaths in Africa?
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CGI: Designing—and Powering—a Better World
The Clinton Global Initiative kicks off with a paean to the importance of designing solutions that can scale up.
The Great, Wet, Cosmic Rock
The asteroid Vesta turns out to have had a very watery past
Starry Nights Were Never Like This
A good look at a night sky in a remote place like a desert can be jaw-dropping. It’s hard to imagine more stars could be packed even into so vast an expanse of sky. But the view from Earth — a planet orbiting a relatively …
1.32 million sq. miles
Snapshots of the Heavens: Amazing Astronomy Photos
The Royal Observatory has culled through over 800 entries from astronomers and astro-photographers around the world to release its compilation of the best astronomy photos so far this year. Astronomy Photographer of the Year is …
EcocentricGoing Green
Urban Planet: How Growing Cities Will Wreck the Environment Unless We Build Them Right
More and more people are moving into cities around the world—and those cities are getting bigger and bigger. The urbanization shift could wreck the environment—unless we can plan the transition.
Martian Blizzard! It’s Snowing on the Red Planet
New findings by a venerable NASA orbiter reveal a new dimension to Martian weather systems