Earth

Should We Terraform a New Planet Or Fix Our Own?

Before we talk about terraforming another planet like Mars, we have to talk about Earth—and whether we should be spending our resources trying to save it, or moving on to another pale blue dot. It’s a grim debate that some scientists say it’s time to have. Terraform This We’ve been imagining how to create a…

Stunning full color HD video from the ISS shows life on Earth in motion

This video is taken from space. And yet we can see so much detail on Earth that it’s almost unbelievable. Cars are driving on roads and buildings are moving throughout the day and boats are crawling through rivers, remember this isn’t your run of the mill drone footage, this is all taken from an ultra-HD…

This Music Video Goes On An Exhilarating Ride Through Earth and Space  

The music video for Dream Koala’s “Earth” from the Earth.Home.Destroyed EP, directed by the duo FABULOUS, is awe-inspiring in so many ways. From the wreckage of civilization to the beauty of nature on earth, every shot is amazing. And so is the lonely astronaut traveling through space, only to crash to Earth. It’s kind of…

13 Years of Cloud-Watching Makes a Beautiful Visual of the Earth

This beautiful map shows an average of all of the available cloud observations from the Aqua satellite. The shades of blue represent the cloudiness of our planet. The visual is based on data acquired from July 2002 until April 2015, offering a top-down view that shows where the satellite’s Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer saw clouds…

Machines Sensed the Nepal Earthquake from 8,000 Miles Away

When a massive earthquake struck Nepal on April 25, it created seismic waves that traveled around the world in a matter of minutes, propagating swiftly through Earth’s crust and mantle to rattle seismic stations in the US. The Nepal quake was devastating, but the fact that it was felt 8,000 miles away is actually not…

Two Leading Biologists Discuss The Next Step In Saving The Planet

Edward O. Wilson made his name by arguing that human society and the natural world are governed by the same principles. Sean B. Carroll made his name by unifying the study of humans and animals, showing that development in both is driven by the same fundamental molecular and genetic processes. So what happened when these…

How to Save the Planet: An Interview With Two Iconic Scientists

What happens when two iconic scientists talk about saving our planet? Read on to find out what happened when E O Wilson and Sean Carroll—two giants in their field—sat down to discuss just that. Edward O Wilson made his name by arguing that two apparently disparate things – human society and the natural world –…

Here’s Earth On Earth Day

The day just finished, April 22nd, is a globally-recognised day of awareness for recycling and hybrids and all the good stuff. To celebrate, the European Space Agency released this rather wonderful image of our special planet on its special day. The image was captured by Meteosat-10, using its Spinning Enhanced Visible and Infrared Imager. SEVIRI…

What Is it Like Living on Earth After Living in Space?

The food is much better here on Earth. And taking showers and going to the bathroom are much easier to do here too. But you do go through a strange adaptation process when you return to Earth. The first thing you notice is that everything seems really heavy. After 95 days on the International Space…

What’s The Most Amazing Natural Phenomenon You’ve Ever Seen?

Space may have the best reputation for strangely gorgeous sights, but there’s plenty to dazzle us here on our planet. Today, we want to know about the weird, beautiful, and quirky natural phenomena that you’ve glimpsed. Whether you want to shed a light on a little known natural phenomenon from your locale, share some of…

The best solar eclipse videos

A perfect recipe to enjoy the weekend: just watch these videos of today’s solar eclipse over and over again from different locations across our planet and even around the universe. We’ve collected videos from space, from a place that looks like Hoth on Earth and so many more. Even if you missed it earlier, you’ll…

Peer Into the Inside of Our Planet With This Trippy Computer Simulation

This trippy orb isn’t the result of a youth misspent. Instead, the it’s the fruits of complex computer simulations which use the speed of seismic waves from earthquakes to visualize the existence of subterranean structures far beneath the surface of our planet. Created by Ebru Bozdağ from the University of Nice Sophia Antipolis and David…

If you include its atmosphere, Pluto is larger than Earth. Michael Simons at New Horizonsexplains how this can be.

Watch different layers of clouds move in completely different directions

This is cool. A time lapse, aptly named Highway in the Sky by the guy who filmed it, shows how different layers of clouds in the same sky can actually move in completely different directions. It’s like seeing clouds respect different flows of traffic. It’s like seeing multiple skies in one. It’s like staring at…

Scientists Weigh in on Plans to Hack the Weather and Cool the Earth

Geoengineering, i.e. tinkering with the climate to stop the rising tides of climate change, is a provocative and frankly still kinda crazy idea. Two long-awaited reports from the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) out today have some pretty harsh words about geoengineering. The reports don’t use the term “geoengineering” but are instead titled “Climate Intervention.”…

Two Cyclones Dance On The Indian Ocean

Eunice (left) and Diamondra (right) are a pair of tropical cyclones currently whirling about the Indian Ocean. The latter formed on January 26 and is projected to die out presently. Eunice, which was named just hours ago, is expected to intensify in the coming days. Photo Credit: EUMETSAT This composite image, comprising infrared data from…

Awesome time lapse shows the Earth turning and not the stars

This is so cool. Usually time lapses show the night sky of stars moving around Earth but we know that’s not true, it’s Earth that’s moving and rotating and turning. Photographer Lance Page made this time lapse to represent our Earth turning by making the camera move along with the North Star. That way we…

Here’s What Earth Looked Like At the Start of the New Year

NASA tweeted out this photo taken by the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite-East on January 1, 2015. This photo the Americas was taken at 9:45 EST, making it one of the first shots of the Earth in 2015. Image credit: NASA/GEOS-East [via ABC News]

What Would Life Be Like On A Flat Earth?

Earth is round, but that shouldn’t keep us from speculating about the implications of a flat planet. The latest episode of Vsauce is all about a hypothetically flat planet called Earth, and the very real people who believe in that planet’s existence. It’s a good one: See also: [Vsauce]

Why Earth isn’t flat and why you wouldn’t fall off of it even if it was

Some people seriously think that the Earth is flat. No one can save them. But the always thinking Vsauce explores the possibility and tries to figure out if the Earth actually could be flat in his latest video and details some rather interesting things about a flat Earth: that life would suck on it and…