Yves Adams took this photo of a rare yellow penguin on South Georgia Island in December 2019. It went viral this month. "It seems we are in desperate need for some mellow yellow news!" Adams said.
New research suggests that the famous black hole Cygnus X-1 - first black hole ever detected and one of the closest to Earth - is farther away and much more massive than previously believed.
A magnetic reversal 42,000 years ago helped bring about earthly extinctions, scientists said, accompanied by changes in the sky including electrical storms and widespread auroras. "It would have been scary," they commented.
Astronomers have spotted “something” near Alpha Centauri A, in the star system nearest our Earth and sun. If it turns out to be a planet, it'll be the first time a planet has been directly imaged within the habitable zone of a star.
2021 has brought a deadly avalanche season. "We're only halfway through the season and we're 3/4 of the way to the number of fatalities we'd see in a typical year. The dangerous, record-breaking year keeps avalanche forecasters up at night," one expert said.
The Dyatlov Pass incident has intrigued people for generations, but a new theory pointing to a slab avalanche as the culprit does a thorough job of explaining how the 9 Russian trekkers died. A new video and more here.
Kelly Kizer Whitt - EarthSky’s nature and travel vlogger on YouTube - writes and edits some of the most fascinating stories at EarthSky.org. She's been writing about science, with a focus on astronomy, for decades. She began her career at Astronomy Magazine and made regular contributions to other outlets, including AstronomyToday and the Sierra Club. She has nine published books, including a children's picture book, Solar System Forecast, and a young adult dystopian novel, A Different Sky.
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