Is The Earth's Mantle Full of Diamonds?
Parts of the Earth’s mantle might be loaded with diamonds, if a new model turns out to be correct. But no, you can’t mine them—they’d be almost a hundred miles below the surface.
Why Is This Asteroid Orbiting the Wrong Way Around the Sun?
Asteroid 2015 BZ509 is orbiting the wrong way around the Sun. Why? According to a hyped new paper from astronomers Fathi Namouni and Helen Morais, this asteroid with its contrary orbit may not be native to our Solar System at all—it may have been captured from interstellar space.
Protect Your $1,000 Phone with Actual Rocks
So you just bought a $1,000 iPhone X. It’s fast, gorgeous, and everything you could ask for in an absurdly priced consumer device. There’s just one problem. As good as it looks, it’s way too precious for life without some kind of protection. You’re going to need a case, but what kind should you get? Plastic is for…
It Looks Like We Were Wrong About a Basic Property of Mars
When you think about what makes a planet special, maybe you think about its size, its composition, how far it is from the Sun, and maybe how large its collection of apples is. You are probably not thinking about its density. But maybe you should be.
Some Dick Destroyed Norway's Beloved Troll Penis Rock
Norwegian citizens are about to go Liam Neeson in Taken on the shameless vandal who desecrated one of their most beloved natural monuments—a troll dick. Well, it’s a rock that looks like a dick. But it’s supposed to be a troll dick, specifically.
Rock-Balancing Robots Could Build Our Future Habitats On Mars
Like maintaining a zen garden, or pruning a bonsai tree, some people stack and balance rocks as a way to relax. But robots don’t really experience emotional stress, so why bother teaching a bot to balance rocks? One day, this robot’s skills could prove invaluable when it comes to building structures on distant worlds…
All the Instruments In This Excellent Rock Band Are Played by Actual Rocks
Last year, artist Neil Mendoza turned a hamster running in a wheel into a talented sketch artist. This year he’s pulled off an even more amazing feat by turning inanimate rocks into a talented (literal) rock band that plays a surprisingly decent cover of The Beatles’ “Here Comes the Sun.”
This Huge Rock Explosion Looks More Like a Crazy Ocean Wave
When you blow up a quarry that’s 65 feet high with 75 tons of explosives, you turn the rock wall into a tsunami wave that sends nearly 400,000 tons of rocks flying everywhere. The blast of the Bremanger Quarry in Norway looks great because it was carefully planned, with explosives planted in 454 blast holes made along…
These Rocks Could Help Reverse Climate Change
This may look like just another rock, but its so much more than that. It’s also a storage unit for carbon emissions—and it could finally give us a way to backtrack a bit on what we’ve done to our climate.
Watch a stone skip a world record 88 times across a lake
One of the two best feelings a kid can have is that immediate king of the world, I’ve got this life thing all figured out of learning how to skip a stone across a body of water (the other is the freedom of learning of how to ride a bike, I think). But that smug satisfaction of throwing rocks that jump like 2-4 times…
Short film: Giant rock creature teaches a funny life lesson
I think this silly animation about a giant rock creature trying to rescue a town is a hilariously dark lesson that shows how some things just aren't worth saving. Or that maybe all our work is useless. Or perhaps that bad intentions can cause good actions. Or whatever, maybe it's just a really fun CG animation.
Curiosity Finds A Weird "Ball" On Mars
If there's one thing to be said for Curiosity's mission on Mars so far, it certainly hasn't been boring. From supposed Martian squirrels to strange flashes of light on the surface, the rover has kept us entertained. And now there's this rather odd... ball.
How Underground Fires Helped Shape the Landscape of the American West
The most famous coal seam fire smolders underneath Centralia, Pennsylvania, but thousands of such underground fires burn all over the world. In the American West, where subterranean coal still burn, ancient conflagrations created the red-inflected landscape we see today.
Mount Etna Is Making It Rain Rocks
There's nothing like some casual rock precipitation to make you glad you packed your umbrella.
30 Starry Wonders Hiding Inside of Dull Meteorites
A few weeks ago, Russian divers extracted a 1,250-pound chunk of the infamous Chelyabinsk meteorite from a lake where it landed on February 15. The massive space stone ended up cracking into three pieces—and though scientists may have cursed the clumsy divers, I was interested in something else: What was inside the…
All Our National Monuments Have a Hidden Geological History
All human existence is a meaningless blip in the grand scheme of time. Nice thought for a Monday, right? But you knew that already, so here's another way to think about it: All the grand monuments we build are made of rock thousands of times older than the historical blips they commemorate.
10 Beautiful Minerals You Won't Believe Are Found on Earth
We've all seen our fair share of rocks, and most of them aren't that pretty. The ones that are though, can be totally mind-blowing. Ryoji Tanaka, a Japanese photographer and chemist, likes to capture some of the most striking elements, minerals, and compounds in close-up (like the Uranium-containing cuprosklodowskite…
Own a Piece Of Mars Without a NASA-Sized Budget
Good news for anyone who's stared in envy as NASA sends rover after rover to explore and study Mars. You no longer need countless millions and a team of rocket scientists to perform your own experiments on the red planet. For just $25 ThinkGeek will sell you your very own shard of our celestial neighbor.
