The Tonga eruption in January was “basically like Krakatoa 2.” This time, geophysicists could explain the tiny tsunamis that cropped up all over the planet, solving a 139-year-old mystery about Tonga’s predecessor.
Deep in the mantle, a branching plume of intensely hot material appears to be the engine powering vast volcanic activity.
Jupiter and Saturn should be freezing cold. Instead, they’re hot. Researchers now know why.
Scientists have long struggled to understand how common planets form. A new supercomputer simulation shows that the missing ingredient may be magnetism.
Scientists have begun to decipher the subtle signs that reveal how explosive a volcanic eruption is going to be.
About 60 million years ago, India plowed into Eurasia and pushed up the Himalayas. But when Lucía Pérez-Díaz reconstructed the event in detail, she found that its central mystery depended on a broken geological clock.
The new volcanic fissures are more otherworldly than they first appear.
Small and cold, Mars has long been considered a dead planet. But a series of recent discoveries has forced scientists to rethink how recently its insides stopped churning — if they ever stopped at all.
Liz MacDonald realized that if she wanted to create the world’s best aurora map, she needed a secret ingredient: Twitter.