Planet Earth

An ocean that opened up in what is now Mongolia 410 million years ago was created by a hot upwelling of rock known as a mantle plume.

Earth from space A 2017 satellite image of the Sahara's Tanezrouft Basin shows the abstract beauty in ancient rock folds and colorful salt flats that have been sculpted in this terrifying region over millions of years.

Lucy is popularly depicted as being hairy, but new evidence suggests she wasn't. The discovery prompts new questions about the history of nudity.

A microbe can grow a neck that is 30 times as long as its body in just a few seconds. Origami folding explains how

Geologists set Turkmenistan's Darvaza gas crater ablaze in 1971, thinking the fire would die down within a few weeks, but the pit is still burning 53 years later.

"There was this gigantic river system": Researchers find ancient lost world deep beneath Antarctic ice.

New research suggests that runoff from the Greenland Ice Sheet could prevent icebergs from disrupting key ocean currents. But some scientists have cautioned that other factors may be at play.

A new study confirms that Earth's inner core has been rotating more slowly than usual since 2010. This mysterious "backtracking" could also end up slightly altering the planet's overall rotation, lengthening our days.

To assess risk from heat, scientists use the "wet bulb temperature," looking at the point where the human body isn't able to let enough heat out.