Science

Geology, paleontology, physics, space and the natural world

In Science, ECOnews reports on new discoveries in geology, paleontology, physics, space, health and the natural world. We explain the latest studies from universities and labs worldwide in plain language.

Map of the Moon’s far side showing red fault lines, revealing young geological scars that suggest active tectonics

The Moon is not “dead,” and a new map of the far side reveals young scars that could still be shifting today

By Adrian Villellas

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January 18, 2026 at 12:11 PM

Artist illustration of a spacecraft near Titan, Saturn’s largest moon, with sunlight flaring behind the hazy world in the background.

For years, there was talk of a global sea beneath the ice, but the new model paints a stranger picture: a spongy moon with layers of slush and pockets of water hidden deep below

By ECONEWS

—

January 17, 2026 at 6:30 PM

Close-up macro image of a purple sea urchin with long golden-brown spines radiating from its round body against a black background.

A strange animal with no head or face turns out to be “almost all head” at the genetic level, and the idea sounds absurd until you see how it is organized inside

By Adrian Villellas

—

January 17, 2026 at 8:45 AM

Earth over cracked dry ground symbolizing global water scarcity and “Day Zero” drought risk

Day Zero water crises could emerge in the 2020s and 2030s in parts of the Mediterranean, Africa and North America, a study warns

By Adrian Villellas

—

January 16, 2026 at 6:44 PM

Satellite chlorophyll-a map of the Gulf of Panama showing plankton-rich waters linked to seasonal upwelling.

The Panama Sea stopped “breathing” in 2025, and what satellites and fishermen saw had never been recorded in four decades

By ECONEWS

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January 16, 2026 at 1:54 PM

Illustration of a powerful gamma-ray burst explosion, with a bright central flash and expanding energy waves in deep space.

They captured a gamma-ray burst lasting just 10 seconds, and the question is no longer what it was, but how it could have traveled almost 13 billion years to arrive right now

By Adrian Villellas

—

January 16, 2026 at 10:15 AM

A skier descends a snowy slope on Mount Etna as a lava glow and thick ash plume rise behind the ridge in eastern Sicily.

A skier was carving turns in the freshly fallen snow when, behind the ridge line, a volcano began spewing ash and smoke as if winter had run out of sky in Sicily

By ECONEWS

—

January 16, 2026 at 8:45 AM

NGC 6789, a compact dwarf galaxy with a bright bluish core, surrounded by a dense star field in a deep-sky image.

A new telescope points to the Local Void and discovers something puzzling: the loneliest galaxy continues to ignite stars with a blue core that should not exist

By Adrian Villellas

—

January 16, 2026 at 6:30 AM

Satellite view of Spain’s Mar Menor coastal lagoon and the La Manga sandbar separating it from the Mediterranean Sea.

The Mar Menor hides an underground river that no one could see, and every year it leaves a toxic “signature” underwater where thousands of people swim

By ECONEWS

—

January 15, 2026 at 6:30 PM

Total solar eclipse seen from space as the Moon blocks the Sun above Earth, with a bright corona glowing around the dark disk.

The eclipse that many are already calling the eclipse of the century is coming, and what is disturbing is not only the darkness but also how slowly its shadow will advance

By Adrian Villellas

—

January 15, 2026 at 5:00 PM

Cutaway illustration of Earth showing the mantle and core, highlighting deep interior layers near the core-mantle boundary.

Two giant “spots” under Africa and the Pacific have been puzzling geologists for decades, and a new model suggests they could be the key to why life exists here

By ECONEWS

—

January 15, 2026 at 3:00 PM

Mountain reservoir and hydroelectric dam in Romania’s Carpathians, with a curved concrete wall holding back a long lake between green ridges.

Hidden in the Carpathian Mountains at an altitude of 1,300 meters is a gigantic hydroelectric power plant that was once called the greatest in Europe, yet almost no one knows about it

By Adrian Villellas

—

January 15, 2026 at 10:15 AM

Illustration of a tokamak fusion reactor chamber with a bright ring of superheated plasma confined by magnetic fields.

South Korea’s KSTAR holds 100 million °C plasma for 48 seconds after upgrading its tungsten walls

By Adrian Villellas

—

January 15, 2026 at 6:30 AM

Artist illustration of the “Cosmic Grapes” galaxy, showing multiple bright star-forming clumps inside a young rotating galaxy in the early universe.

It looked like a quiet galaxy from afar, but upon closer inspection, a “cluster” of stars appeared that should not have existed so soon after the Big Bang

By Adrian Villellas

—

January 14, 2026 at 12:30 PM

ALMA and VLA composite image of protostar SVS 13’s jet in NGC 1333, highlighting multiple ring-shaped shells that trace past outbursts.

A cosmic jet looked like just a bright trail, but ALMA has discovered that it is actually a secret archive of a star’s violent childhood

By ECONEWS

—

January 14, 2026 at 10:15 AM

Artist illustration of Cambrian seafloor life, including trilobites and other marine animals, before an ancient ocean die-off.

530 million years ago, the oceans filled with an invisible, lethal gas, and nearly half of all marine life disappeared with no escape

By ECONEWS

—

January 14, 2026 at 6:30 AM

Composite image showing a rocket payload fairing in a cleanroom and ISRO’s SpaDeX Target and Chaser satellites prepared side by side.

Two satellites the size of a refrigerator sought each other out in orbit, docked with pinpoint accuracy, and placed India in a very exclusive space club

By Adrian Villellas

—

January 13, 2026 at 6:30 PM

Infinity Galaxy seen by JWST, with a marker pointing to the central region where astronomers detect a powerful source that may be a newborn black hole

Webb looked at old files and found something so strange that it could be showing the birth of a giant black hole in real time

By Adrian Villellas

—

January 13, 2026 at 10:15 AM

People stand amid collapsed buildings in Haiti, with an InSAR satellite deformation map overlay showing post-quake ground movement and the epicenter

After the major earthquake in Haiti, something continued to move underground for weeks, and scientists have just discovered what it was

By ECONEWS

—

January 13, 2026 at 8:45 AM

MeerKAT radio telescope dishes in South Africa under a star-filled sky, used to detect hydrogen in distant galaxies

They pointed a radio telescope for less than three hours and, without even looking for them, ended up finding 49 new galaxies hidden in the data

By ECONEWS

—

January 13, 2026 at 6:30 AM

Previous Next

Science

The Moon is not “dead,” and a new map of the far side reveals young scars that could still be shifting today

For years, there was talk of a global sea beneath the ice, but the new model paints a stranger picture: a spongy moon with layers of slush and pockets of water hidden deep below

A strange animal with no head or face turns out to be “almost all head” at the genetic level, and the idea sounds absurd until you see how it is organized inside

Day Zero water crises could emerge in the 2020s and 2030s in parts of the Mediterranean, Africa and North America, a study warns

The Panama Sea stopped “breathing” in 2025, and what satellites and fishermen saw had never been recorded in four decades

They captured a gamma-ray burst lasting just 10 seconds, and the question is no longer what it was, but how it could have traveled almost 13 billion years to arrive right now

A skier was carving turns in the freshly fallen snow when, behind the ridge line, a volcano began spewing ash and smoke as if winter had run out of sky in Sicily

A new telescope points to the Local Void and discovers something puzzling: the loneliest galaxy continues to ignite stars with a blue core that should not exist

The Mar Menor hides an underground river that no one could see, and every year it leaves a toxic “signature” underwater where thousands of people swim

The eclipse that many are already calling the eclipse of the century is coming, and what is disturbing is not only the darkness but also how slowly its shadow will advance

Two giant “spots” under Africa and the Pacific have been puzzling geologists for decades, and a new model suggests they could be the key to why life exists here

Hidden in the Carpathian Mountains at an altitude of 1,300 meters is a gigantic hydroelectric power plant that was once called the greatest in Europe, yet almost no one knows about it

South Korea’s KSTAR holds 100 million °C plasma for 48 seconds after upgrading its tungsten walls

It looked like a quiet galaxy from afar, but upon closer inspection, a “cluster” of stars appeared that should not have existed so soon after the Big Bang

A cosmic jet looked like just a bright trail, but ALMA has discovered that it is actually a secret archive of a star’s violent childhood

530 million years ago, the oceans filled with an invisible, lethal gas, and nearly half of all marine life disappeared with no escape

Two satellites the size of a refrigerator sought each other out in orbit, docked with pinpoint accuracy, and placed India in a very exclusive space club

Webb looked at old files and found something so strange that it could be showing the birth of a giant black hole in real time

After the major earthquake in Haiti, something continued to move underground for weeks, and scientists have just discovered what it was

They pointed a radio telescope for less than three hours and, without even looking for them, ended up finding 49 new galaxies hidden in the data

In Romania’s Brașov County, brown bears number about 1,329 by a national genetic estimate, the highest density of any county, and one bear relocated from Poiana Brașov was back within 3 days

More than 40 Magellanic penguins born in captivity arrived by court order from Mar del Plata at a river island in Argentina’s Río Negro province, and at first they had not explored even a third of their new home

In Japan, researchers led by Tohoku University used an inexpensive blue pigment to turn carbon dioxide into methane with 79.5% Faradaic efficiency, and methane selectivity stayed above 60% for about 80 hours

At 8.2 feet on Oct. 13, the Lake Constance water level in Konstanz, Germany, fell below a 1947 record for the date, and it now sits 10 inches under last winter’s low

A simulated AMOC collapse in an unreviewed preprint cut wheat, corn and rice harvests in Germany and Ukraine by roughly 16 to 19 percent, and cereal prices could climb up to 40 percent in the worst case

A landslide in Alaska’s Tracy Arm fjord sent a tsunami 1,578 feet up the opposite wall, and a Science study found small tremors striking every 30 to 60 seconds in the hours before the collapse

A company won a mining license for a magnesium deposit it estimates at more than 50 million metric tons near Rășinari, in Romania’s Sibiu County, and the EU gets 97 percent of its magnesium from China

Leap seconds will end on May 20, 2027, under a rule the General Conference on Weights and Measures adopted in Versailles, France, and a new study finds Earth’s solid surface turning slightly rounder as polar ground rises

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