Q&A
The New Historian of the Smash That Made the Himalayas
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.
planetary science
Iceland’s Eruptions Reveal the Hot History of Mars
The new volcanic fissures are more otherworldly than they first appear.
planetary science
Rumbles on Mars Raise Hopes of Underground Magma Flows
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.
Q&A
The Scientist Leading the World’s Aurora Hunters
Liz MacDonald realized that if she wanted to create the world’s best aurora map, she needed a secret ingredient: Twitter.
Abstractions blog
New Earthquake Math Predicts How Destructive They’ll Be
The “pinball” model of a slipping fault line borrows from the mathematics of avalanches.
planetary science
Are Saturn’s Rings Really as Young as the Dinosaurs?
A surprisingly youthful estimate of the age of the rings has stirred a backlash.
astrophysics
Long-Lived Stellar Blast Kindles Hope of a Supernova We’ve Never Seen Before
A giant star’s death throes may offer the first evidence of a pair-instability supernova, and a glimpse of the first stars in the universe.