The ConversationMar 01, 2021 19:23:00 IST NASA’s Perseverance rover successfully touched down on Mars last month, and has already begun beaming back images. But people might be surprised to learn there have been another 48 missions to the red planet so far. Of these, more than half failed at stages from...
Earth
‘The Earth could hear itself think’: how birdsong became the sound of lockdown
It’s six in the morning and still dark, 24 March 2020. I wake early and, knowing the children will soon be up, decide to steal half an hour’s solitude in the park. From the dense latticework of trees and shrubs that clothe the wooded slope...
World’s oldest DNA sheds light on mammoth evolution | EarthSky.org
Genetic material extracted from a 1.2-million-year-old mammoth tooth is the new record holder for the world’s oldest DNA. Researchers from the Centre for Palaeogenetics in Sweden have analyzed the DNA to conclude that it came from a previously unknown type of mammoth that has now...
Luck Played a Major Role in Keeping Earth Fit for Life
Artist’s rendering of potentially habitable exoplanets. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/R. Hurt (SSC-Caltech) A study by the University of Southampton gives a new perspective on why our planet has managed to stay habitable for billions of years – concluding it is almost certainly due, at least in part,...
Bitter fight over boys’ bodies finally over
A judge, tasked with deciding how the bodies of two young boys allegedly killed by an out-of-control car in January should be laid to rest, has made the “difficult” decision to give burial rights to their mum. Shane Shorey, 7 and Sheldon Shorey, 6, died...
Earth, Venus and Mars among millions of ‘aquatic planets’ in Milky Way
How important is the presence of liquid water? It is now widely believed that Mars holds a reasonably large volume of water. However, the surface of the planet is so cold, this water exists only as ice. In order for life to exist on a...