Science

This story originally appeared on Grist and is part of the Climate Desk collaboration. In the fall of 2016, soaring temperatures caused the permafrost encasing a remote Norwegian mountainside to thaw. An ensuing flood breached the entrance tunnel of the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, built into the mountain as a …

Some 480 million miles away, an ocean — harboring perhaps twice the water of Earth’s seas — sloshes beneath the icy surface of Europa. NASA’s going there. This moon of Jupiter has long intrigued planetary scientists, as a number of missions have swooped by the world’s cracked, icy crust. Now, …

As the Perseverance rover rumbled over Mars terrain scoping out rocks, seven companies spent the summer trying to figure out how to help NASA bring its samples back to Earth. The U.S. space agency’s mission to return bits of rock, dust, and even air from the Red Planet, known as …

With Boeing’s troubled spaceship deemed too risky to bring its crew home from space, NASA has bumped the two female astronauts set for the next International Space Station rotation to free up seats. Zena Cardman, who would have been the SpaceX Crew-9 commander, and Stephanie Wilson were cut from the …

This story originally appeared on WIRED Italia and has been translated from Italian. John McFall’s sporting record alone would be enough to justify him being the flag bearer for the 2024 Paralympics. He won silver in the 100 meters (T42) and bronze in the 200 meters at the 2006 IPC …

SpaceX is about to send its human spacecraft farther than ever before in space, and it will do it with a crew of four civilians. During the five-day Polaris Dawn mission, the Crew Dragon capsule is expected to reach its highest-ever orbit of 435 miles above Earth. That’s about 185 …

As mpox continues to spread in Central Africa, a promising antiviral drug to treat the infection has failed to improve patients’ symptoms in a trial in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the epicenter of the outbreak. In the trial, the drug tecovirimat, also known as TPOXX, did not alleviate …

Sometimes, planets go rogue. Scientists used the powerful James Webb Space Telescope to spot six of these rogue objects, which move through the cosmos untethered from any solar system. They’re a little bigger than the gas giant Jupiter, and the discovery suggests these worlds formed similar to the way stars …

While solar power is growing at an extremely rapid clip, in absolute terms, the use of natural gas for electricity production has continued to outpace renewables. But that looks set to change in 2024, as the US Energy Information Agency (EIA) has run the numbers on the first half of …

This story originally appeared on WIRED Italia and has been translated from Italian. This is the most important moment in the life of an airliner: when the new owner signs for it and picks it up, much like a driver picking up a new car from a dealer. The aircraft …