After dramatic landing, Mars rover will probe ancient lake for clues to planet’s wet past
Last week, NASA’s $2.7 billion Perseverance rover made a picture-perfect landing on the floor of Mars’s Jezero crater, which scientists believe was filled to the brim with water 3.8 billion years ago. Two kilometers away looms the rover’s primary target: a fossilized river delta, created as muddy water spilled into […]
Remains of oldest American dog bolster idea that first humans arrived along the coast
When researchers began to excavate a tunnellike cave on the west coast of Alaska in 1998, they were hoping to discover the remains of ancient bears. Instead, they unearthed something even more intriguing: a tiny chip of bone belonging to the first known dog in the Americas. The find supports […]
How fairy circles form in Shanghai’s salt marshes
Dry areas of Namibia and Australia are well known for their fairy circles—barren rings that dot grasslands and are thought to result from termites and water scarcity. But moist regions have fairy circles, too. A new study reveals what is driving their formation in the salt marshes of eastern China.
Coronavirus strain first identified in California may be more infectious and cause more severe disease, upcoming preprint suggests
Science’s COVID-19 reporting is supported by the Heising-Simons Foundation.
E-Eggs Track Turtle Traffickers
Decoy sea turtle eggs containing tracking tech are new weapons against beach poachers and traffickers.
Martian rover sends back ‘overwhelming’ video, audio from the Red Planet
Just four martian days after touching down on the Red Planet, NASA’s Perseverance rover has sent back its first video of its new home: a 1-minute arabesque of color and motion captured from four on-board cameras, as the car-size rover dangles from its rocket-propelled descent vehicle, a red-and-white parachute snaps […]
Last week’s pinpoint touchdown of NASA’s Mars Perseverance rover in Jezero Crater was historic for many reasons, chief among them the epochal nature of the mission’s task of seeking signs of ancient life—and caching relevant samples for eventual return to Earth. But even if the rover finds no evidence of […]