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Science News Explores

Artificial intelligence is making it hard to tell truth from fiction

Experts worry that by making it harder to tell what’s true, AI can threaten people’s reputations, health, fair elections and more.

Elusive worm-lizards sport weird, spooky skulls

Lego bricks inspired a new way to shape devices for studying liquids

Let’s learn about particles that help us peer inside objects

Check out the magnetic fields around our galaxy’s central black hole

Earthquake sensor: taylor swift fans ‘shake it off’, with measles outbreaks in 49 countries, should you worry, word of the week.

Scientists Say: Genetic Engineering

Genetic engineering involves adding, changing or removing certain pieces of DNA from a living thing to give it desired traits.

Experiments

Experiment: Make your own cents-able battery

Make your own ‘voltaic pile’ with pennies and nickels, and find out how many coins will make the most electricity!

Technically Fiction

Could we build a mecha?

In the movies, mechas come equipped with all kinds of abilities. But real giant robots would first have to master simpler actions, like walking and jumping.

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What's Hot

Scientists Say: Periodic table

The science of ghosts

Explainer: Earth — layer by layer

Top 10 tips on how to study smarter, not longer

Explainer: How do mass and weight differ?

A weird upside-down world lurks beneath Antarctica’s ice

All about bugs.

Explainer: What is metamorphosis?

Insects, amphibians and some fish undergo metamorphosis. But they’re not the only ones.

Explainer: What are cicadas?

Invertebrates are pretty clever, but are they conscious, explainer: insects, arachnids and other arthropods.

Air pollution can make it harder for pollinators to find flowers

Pollutants that build up in night air can break down the scents that attract pollinating hawkmoths to primrose blooms, disrupting their pollination.

Turning jeans blue with sunlight might help the environment

This egg-laying amphibian feeds its babies ‘milk’

What the weird world of protists can teach us about life on Earth

A new tool could guard against deepfake voice scams

More stories.

Scientists Say: Supercontinent

Experiment: can plants stop soil erosion, did james webb telescope images ‘break’ the universe, explainer: what is the solar cycle, scientists say: digital footprint, scientists say: bionic, environment.

Scientists Say: Carbon capture

Bottled water hosts many thousands of nano-sized plastic bits, new ultrathin materials can pull climate-warming co 2 from the air, dancing spiders inspired this biologist to teach others, among mammals, males aren’t usually bigger than females.

Handwriting may boost brain connections that aid memory

Scientists say: confirmation bias, brain scans hint at how well teens will manage pandemic stress.

Forests could help detect ‘ghost particles’ from space

Health & medicine.

Too much noise can harm far more than our ears

A new type of immune cell may cause lifelong allergies.

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Science News

Nasa’s budget woes put ambitious space research at risk.

The Mars Sample Return mission and other planetary science efforts are most affected by cost cutting

Using its drill, NASA’s Perseverance rover (lower left) collected material from a rock nicknamed Rochette in September 2021 as part of a plan to bring back samples to Earth. The agency’s recent budget woes have placed the sample return project in turmoil.

JPL-Caltech/NASA

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By Adam Mann

May 8, 2024 at 11:15 am

Dreams of exploring the cosmos have crashed up against the harsh reality of budget cuts in the United States. Congressional approval of the 2024 federal budget earlier this year left NASA with roughly half a billion dollars less than the agency had in 2023 — and Mars science has taken the biggest hit.

Engineers are scrambling to figure out how a long-planned mission to bring samples back from the Red Planet might still be accomplished. Probes intended for other planets and moons are delayed, and the venerable Chandra X-ray Observatory, which launched in 1999 and has transformed our view of energetic phenomena in the universe, is potentially on the chopping block.

Until now, NASA had been on its longest streak of regular budget increases in history, says Casey Dreier, chief of space policy at The Planetary Society in Pasadena, Calif. Between 2014 and 2023, funding had increased more than 3 percent on average compared with the previous year.

“That makes it easy to take on new projects,” Dreier says. “There’s room to grow. Everybody can win. And that has ended.”

NASA’s 2024 budget comes to $24.875 billion, a 2 percent cut relative to last year and 8.5 percent less than the requested funding. That’s the biggest discrepancy between requested and appropriated funding for the agency since 1992.

The budget’s approval immediately left it up to NASA administrators to figure out how to adapt and cover the $509 million gap.

“We know we are definitely in an imperfect environment, and we acknowledge this is a very challenging time,” Nicola Fox, NASA’s associate administrator for science, said in March during a public town hall . But, she vowed, NASA “will use every single penny to do great science.”

The Mars Sample Return mission faces the biggest cuts

NASA’s Mars Sample Return mission had intended to bring rock and soil samples to Earth from the Red Planet by 2033. But even before these budget cuts, questions emerged about whether the ambitious program, prioritized in 2022 as part of planetary scientists’ decadal survey , could meet its goals on deadline and at a reasonable cost ( SN: 4/20/22 ). The budget cuts now mean the mission is on hold as NASA tries to determine if it can be done at all.

The Perseverance rover, currently roaming Mars’ Jezero crater, is the first step of sample return. Since arriving on Mars in 2021 , the rover has been filling small tubes with material from specific locations, with the goal of eventually gathering 38 samples in total ( SN: 2/17/21 ). The rocks and soil could answer fundamental questions about the formation of the inner solar system and the history of water on Mars, and perhaps reveal signs of past life on the planet.

Yet bringing these samples back from such a great distance is among the most complex mission proposals ever put forward, requiring a vehicle that could launch from the Martian surface and a way to transfer the samples to a second rocket in space to prevent possible contamination of our home planet. The decadal survey estimated the mission cost at between $5 billion and $7 billion total. NASA had hoped to spend around $950 million on it this year.

But two independent review boards pegged the overall expense for sample return much higher, potentially topping $11 billion — unacceptable to NASA administrators. In response to the approved budget, 2024 funding for the program was reduced by $630 million, essentially covering the full amount of the cost cutting that NASA needed to do and allowing for some other programs to have modest budget increases.

“Mars Sample Return took it on the chin for the entire agency,” Dreier says. The amount taken from this program, part of the planetary science division, “basically saved every other science division.”

NASA proposes spending just $300 million on the sample return mission this year and $200 million next year, which is just enough to string the program along as its future is figured out. And though it’s still unclear how much money NASA will receive next year, the 2025 budget requested by the Biden administration has been pared back.

The Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, largely responsible for designing and building the components of sample return, “lost hundreds of millions of dollars functionally overnight,” Dreier says. Uncertainty over the budget had already prompted the center to announce it would dismiss 530 employees , or 8 percent of its staff, in February. “I’m positive you will see further layoffs at JPL and probably other NASA centers that were involved in Mars Sample Return,” Dreier says.

Meanwhile, NASA has put out a solicitation asking other NASA centers and engineers in the industry to propose innovative ways to bring back at least some of the samples at a lower cost. It may mean choosing which of the originally planned cache of samples — 24 of which have been collected so far — are most valuable.

Missions to other planets are delayed

Yet that doesn’t mean other missions are in the clear. A dedicated orbiter to explore the ice giant Uranus — the 2022 decadal survey’s second priority after the Mars sample return — has seen its timeline pushed back. Because ice giants are among the most common types of exoplanets being discovered around other stars, researchers are keen to understand those in our own solar system. But the researchers tasked with planning the effort “won’t even start thinking about that mission until 2028 at the earliest,” Dreier says.

DaVinci and Veritas, two missions to explore Venus, are also being delayed, and there’s now more uncertainty about which, if any, other probes on the drawing board — those intending to bring back samples from a comet or fly through the plumes of Saturn’s moon Enceladus — will go forward.  

All this will mean less near-term research on the formation and dynamics of planets and their moons. “We forget how little we’ve explored the solar system we live in,” Dreier says. Scientists are crying out to explore it, he adds, and that’s all being pushed back.

Other missions, such as Europa Clipper, which is set to launch to the frozen moon of Jupiter in November, didn’t face cuts. Future probes including Dragonfly, heading to explore Saturn’s moon Titan, and the space-based Near-Earth Object Surveyor, which will scan for potentially hazardous asteroids, are still receiving the money they need.

While not strictly a scientific mission, NASA’s Artemis program, which aims to land humans on the moon again in the coming decade, saw a small funding increase for 2024. “Artemis was one of the few programs that more or less held its own,” says Marcia Smith, a space policy analyst and editor of the site SpacePolicyOnline.com.

The first Artemis test, an uncrewed swing around the moon, successfully completed its journey in 2022 ( SN: 12/12/22 ). Future missions would assess how astronauts adapt to space exploration and return new rock samples from the moon — including from the lunar south pole, where some of the satellite’s oldest rocks are found.

While Smith expects that future Artemis missions might see delays, she thinks there’s enough momentum to ensure they’ll take off at some point. There’s a broad coalition in Congress who believe it to be important for staying ahead of China, which also aims to land people on the moon in the coming years.

Other NASA divisions’ budgets are flat

NASA’s planetary science division is suffering more from the cuts than the Earth science, biological and physical sciences, and heliophysics divisions, which are facing flat funding for the most part. A smaller than requested bump for NASA’s astrophysics division is adding scrutiny to some of its projects.

The budget for this year and expectations for next year have prompted NASA to conduct a review of its existing flagship telescopes, the Chandra X-ray Observatory and the Hubble Space Telescope, to see if either can be wound down. Both were launched as part of the first generation of Great Observatories in the 1990s and early 2000s, and they’ve already seen their companions, the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory and Spitzer Space Telescope, shut off.

Few expect that the famous Hubble will be shelved. Chandra’s future is less certain. Launched 25 years ago, the X-ray observatory has been delivering unparalleled imagery of the high-energy universe for decades, providing data on gorging black holes in the centers of galaxies, neutron star collisions, and gas and dust in the intergalactic medium. Its operational costs are on the order of $70 million per year. Yet NASA needs to free up funds for future observatories such as the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, an infrared telescope scheduled to launch in 2027, and the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna, or LISA, a space-based gravitational wave detector that the agency is developing in partnership with the European Space Agency. The Roman telescope will hunt for exoplanets and study the nature of dark energy, while LISA will scan for merging black holes in galactic centers.

Though many scientists say Chandra is healthy enough to continue producing wonderful research, its aging infrastructure has officials eyeing its end. NASA administrator Bill Nelson stated in a congressional hearing that “Chandra has given us so many gifts,” but “it’s time for new missions.”

Answers on the telescope’s fate are expected in the near future, though it’s unclear exactly when.

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James Webb telescope detects 1-of-a-kind atmosphere around 'Hell Planet' in distant star system

By Joanna Thompson published 12 May 24

Using the James Webb Space Telescope, scientists have discovered evidence of a carbon-rich atmosphere around the hellish world 55 Cancri e. This marks the best evidence yet of an atmosphere around a rocky exoplanet.

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TKTKBirman and Burmese cats live the longest, while Sphynx cats die the youngest, a giant new study of U.K. cats found.

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New research shows how disruptions to binary star systems could be the key to detecting space's most confounding substance — dark matter.

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• 2 Cave of Crystals: The deadly cavern in Mexico dubbed 'the Sistine Chapel of crystals'
• 3 'The most critically harmful fungi to humans': How the rise of C. auris was inevitable
• 4 2,500-year-old Illyrian helmet found in burial mound likely caused 'awe in the enemy'
• 5 32 of the most colorful birds on Earth
• 2 Roman-era skeletons buried in embrace, on top of a horse, weren't lovers, DNA analysis shows
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Solar Storm Intensifies, Filling Skies With Northern Lights

Officials warned of potential blackouts or interference with navigation and communication systems this weekend, as well as auroras as far south as Southern California or Texas.

By Katrina Miller and Judson Jones

Katrina Miller reports on space and astronomy and Judson Jones is a meteorologist.

A dramatic blast from the sun set off the highest-level geomagnetic storm in Earth’s atmosphere on Friday that is expected to make the northern lights visible as far south as Florida and Southern California and could interfere with power grids, communications and navigations system.

It is the strongest such storm to reach Earth since Halloween of 2003. That one was strong enough to create power outages in Sweden and damage transformers in South Africa.

The effects could continue through the weekend as a steady stream of emissions from the sun continues to bombard the planet’s magnetic field.

The solar activity is so powerful that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which monitors space weather, issued an unusual storm watch for the first time in 19 years, which was then upgraded to a warning. The agency began observing outbursts on the sun’s surface on Wednesday, with at least five heading in the direction of Earth.

“What we’re expecting over the next couple of days should be more significant than what we’ve seen certainly so far,” Mike Bettwy, the operations chief at NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center, said at a news conference on Friday morning.

For people in many places, the most visible part of the storm will be the northern lights, known also as auroras. But authorities and companies will also be on the lookout for the event’s effects on infrastructure, like global positioning systems, radio communications and even electrical power.

While the northern lights are most often seen in higher latitudes closer to the North Pole, people in many more parts of the world are already getting a show this weekend that could last through the early part of next week.

As Friday turned to Saturday in Europe, people across the continent described skies hued in a mottling of colors.

Alfredo Carpineti , an astrophysicist, journalist and author in North London, saw them with his husband from the rooftop of their apartment building.

“It is incredible to be able to see the aurora directly from one’s own backyard,” he said. “I was hoping to maybe catch a glimpse of green on the horizon, but it was all across the sky in both green and purple.”

Here’s what you need to know about this weekend’s solar event.

How will the storm affect people on Earth?

A geomagnetic storm watch or warning indicates that space weather may affect critical infrastructure on or orbiting near Earth. It may introduce additional current into systems, which could damage pipelines, railroad tracks and power lines.

According to Joe Llama, an astronomer at Lowell Observatory, communications that rely on high frequency radio waves, such as ham radio and commercial aviation , are most likely to suffer. That means it is unlikely that your cellphone or car radio, which depend on much higher frequency radio waves, will conk out.

Still, it is possible for blackouts to occur. As with any power outage, you can prepare by keeping your devices charged and having access to backup batteries, generators and radio.

The most notable solar storm recorded in history occurred in 1859. Known as the Carrington Event, it lasted for nearly a week, creating aurora that stretched down to Hawaii and Central America and impacting hundreds of thousands of miles of telegraph lines.

But that was technology of the 19th century, used before scientists fully understood how solar activity disrupted Earth’s atmosphere and communication systems.

“That was an extreme level event,” said Shawn Dahl, a forecaster at NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center. “We are not anticipating that.”

Unlike tornado watches and warnings, the target audience for NOAA’s announcements is not the public.

“For most people here on planet Earth, they won’t have to do anything,” said Rob Steenburgh, a space scientist at NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center.

The goal of the announcements is to give agencies and companies that operate this infrastructure time to put protection measures in place to mitigate any effects.

“If everything is working like it should, the grid will be stable and they’ll be able to go about their daily lives,” Mr. Steenburgh said.

Will I be able to see the northern lights?

It is possible that the northern lights may grace the skies this week over places that don’t usually see them. The best visibility is outside the bright lights of cities.

Clouds or stormy weather could pose a problem in some places. But if the skies are clear, even well south of where the aurora is forecast to take place, snap a picture or record a video with your cellphone. The sensor on the camera is more sensitive to the wavelengths produced by the aurora and may produce an image you can’t see with the naked eye.

Another opportunity could be viewing sunspots during the daytime, if your skies are clear. As always, do not look directly at the sun without protection. But if you still have your eclipse glasses lying around from the April 8 event, you may try to use them to try to spot the cluster of sunspots causing the activity.

How strong is the current geomagnetic storm?

Giant explosions on the surface of the sun, known as coronal mass ejections, send streams of energetic particles into space. But the sun is large, and such outbursts may not cross our planet as it travels around the star. But when these particles create a disturbance in Earth’s magnetic field, it is known as a geomagnetic storm.

NOAA classifies these storms on a “G” scale of 1 to 5, with G1 being minor and G5 being extreme. The most extreme storms can cause widespread blackouts and damage to infrastructure on Earth. Satellites may also have trouble orienting themselves or sending or receiving information during these events.

The current storm is classified as G5, or “extreme.” It is caused by a cluster of sunspots — dark, cool regions on the solar surface — that is about 16 times the diameter of Earth. The cluster is flaring and ejecting material every six to 12 hours.

“We anticipate that we’re going to get one shock after another through the weekend,” said Brent Gordon, chief of the space weather services branch at NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center.

Why is this happening now?

The sun’s activity ebbs and flows on an 11-year cycle, and right now, it is approaching a solar maximum. Three other severe geomagnetic storms have been observed so far in the current activity cycle, which began in December 2019, but none were predicted to cause effects strong enough on Earth to warrant a watch or warning announcement.

The cluster of sunspots generating the current storm is the largest seen in this solar cycle, NOAA officials said. They added that the activity in this cycle has outperformed initial predictions .

More flares and expulsions from this cluster are expected, but because of the sun’s rotation the cluster will be oriented in a position less likely to affect Earth. In the coming weeks, the sunspots may appear again on the left side of the sun, but it is difficult for scientists to predict whether this will cause another bout of activity.

“Usually, these don’t come around packing as much of a punch as they did originally,” Mr. Dahl said. “But time will tell on that.”

Jonathan O’Callaghan contributed reporting from London.

An earlier version of this article misstated the radio frequencies used by cellphones and car radios. They are higher frequencies, not low.

How we handle corrections

Katrina Miller is a science reporting fellow for The Times. She recently earned her Ph.D. in particle physics from the University of Chicago. More about Katrina Miller

Judson Jones is a meteorologist and reporter for The Times who forecasts and covers extreme weather. More about Judson Jones

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Dante Lauretta, the planetary scientist who led the OSIRIS-REx mission to retrieve a handful of space dust , discusses his next final frontier.

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Articles in 2022

Fires and flows in Southern California

An article in Geomorphology examines the relationship between wildfires and post-fire debris flows in Southern California.

• Laura Zinke

Prediction and projection of heatwaves

Heatwaves are occurring with increasing frequency and intensity, necessitating prediction so as to minimize loss of life and other impacts. This Review outlines heatwave predictive capabilities at daily to decadal timescales, and discusses heatwave projections with anthropogenic warming.

• Daniela I. V. Domeisen
• Elfatih A. B. Eltahir
• Heini Wernli

Compound heat and moisture extreme impacts on global crop yields under climate change

Compound heat and moisture extremes influence crop yield, threatening food security. This Review outlines the mechanisms, projections and adaptation options for compound extreme–crop yield relationships, highlighting an urgency to better understand the impact of joint stresses.

• Weston Anderson
• Megan Konar

Looking out for visual impairments

Representation and discrimination of those with mobility and sensory impairments is a serious problem in academia, especially in the Earth sciences. Non-disabled academics must fight prejudice and increase the support to, and visibility of, physically impaired colleagues, states Paul Upchurch.

• Paul Upchurch

Flexible fieldwork

GeoSPACE is addressing the barrier of inaccessible field courses with a planetary mission approach, combining online participation with accessible in-person field work.

• Anita M. S. Marshall
• Jennifer L. Piatek
• Yesenia Arroyo

Breaking barriers for those with hidden disabilities

Chronic illnesses, mental health issues, and other hidden disabilities can be debilitating, especially in combination with stigmatization and lack of proper accommodations. Breaking barriers in academic systems for those with hidden disabilities demands that personal, institutional and organizational ableist biases are overcome, writes Isabel Carrera Zamanillo.

• Isabel Carrera Zamanillo

The accretion of planet Earth

The history of Earth’s formation can be unravelled from the compositions of meteorites, terrestrial and lunar rocks, and observations from space-based telescopes. This Review discusses advances in theories and evidence concerning the dynamical mechanisms and timescales for Earth’s accretion in the Solar System.

• Alex N. Halliday
• Robin M. Canup

Soil structure and microbiome functions in agroecosystems

Soil structure, the soil microbiome and ecosystem functioning are intimately linked. This Review describes these connections in agroecosystems and the impact of management strategies on them.

• Martin Hartmann

Author Correction: Antarctic geothermal heat flow and its implications for tectonics and ice sheets

• Anya M. Reading
• Tobias Stål
• Derrick Hasterok

Diversity of magmatism, hydrothermal processes and microbial interactions at mid-ocean ridges

Oceanic spreading centres are sites of extensive tectonic, magmatic and hydrothermal activity that provide nutrients to the ocean and multifaceted habitats for life. This Review explores processes governing variations in hydrothermal vents, microbial ecosystems and global fluxes from ocean ridges.

• Gretchen L. Früh-Green
• Deborah S. Kelley
• John A. Baross

Prioritizing plastic pollution

Earth is polluted with plastic waste, with impacts on ecosystems and health. This Issue and online Collection bring together research on plastic in the environment and discussion on how to combat this growing problem.

The need for a dedicated marine plastic litter satellite mission

Monitoring marine plastic pollution requires repeated, long-term, global and harmonised observations of plastic presence, quantity and type, which satellites can provide. To convince space agencies to take action, coordinated activities are urgently needed to agree on target environments and to integrate in situ and satellite-derived measurements.

• Victor Martinez-Vicente

Embrace complexity to understand microplastic pollution

Environmental cycling of microplastics and nanoplastics is complex; fully understanding these pollutants is hindered by inconsistent methodologies and experimentation within a narrow scope. Consistent methods are needed to advance plastic research and policy within the context of global environmental change.

• Michael S. Bank
• Denise M. Mitrano
• Yong Sik Ok

Curbing single-use plastic with behaviour change interventions

Solving the plastic waste problem requires pre- and post-consumption actions. Behaviour change interventions — including nudges, norm messages and education — offer opportunities to reduce demand for single-use plastic while industry-wide solutions and governmental policies are developed and expanded.

• Heather Barnes Truelove
• Kaitlin T. Raimi
• Amanda R. Carrico

The status and fate of oceanic garbage patches

Floating plastic is accumulating in the five subtropical oceanic gyres, but little is known about their composition, sources, and fate. Monitoring has provided insight into persistence and accumulation processes in the North Pacific Ocean, but their relevance in other gyres is unknown. Identifying the sources of plastics, in all subtropical gyres, is necessary for cleanup efforts to be effective.

• Laurent Lebreton

The long-term fates of land-disposed plastic waste

The large quantities of plastics stored in landfills and dumpsites are often overlooked when discussing plastic pollution. Improperly managed waste disposal sites can leak plastics to the environment, requiring immediate action. Mitigation must be supported by research to quantify the scale of the problem and prioritize efforts.

• Xunchang Fei
• Yuliang Guo
• Hongping He

A new treaty process offers hope to end plastic pollution

The development of a global legally binding treaty by the UN to end plastic pollution is underway. To be effective, the global treaty requires new levels of transparency, disclosure and cooperation to support evidence-based policymaking that avoids the fragmented and reactionary policies of the past.

• Antaya March
• Keiron P. Roberts
• Stephen Fletcher

Re-framing plastics pollution to include social, ecological and policy perspectives

Plastic pollution is widely presented as a waste problem, resulting in proposed solutions that target end-of-life waste management and consumer behaviour. This framing misrepresents the entangled global social and ecological challenges of the plastic crisis, which must be recognised for effective, equitable and sustainable responses.

• Patricia Villarrubia-Gómez
• Bethanie Carney Almroth
• Sarah E. Cornell

Accumulation, transformation and transport of microplastics in estuarine fronts

Large quantities of plastics flow from rivers to estuaries, where they potentially converge in frontal zones. This Perspective describes the occurrence, transformation and impact of these processes, highlighting their importance in mitigating plastic pollution.

• Mengli Chen

Warming-driven erosion and sediment transport in cold regions

Anthropogenic warming is causing cryosphere degradation, which is increasing erosion and sediment transport. This Review describes changes in sediment fluxes and explains how peak sediment will be reached as a result of deglaciation and permafrost thaw.

• Dongfeng Li

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Loved the northern lights? Check out these phenomena next.

This weekend’s dramatic light displays are part of the many sights available in the United States and abroad.

The night sky dazzled people across the United States and Europe on Friday evening as an extreme geomagnetic storm brought aurora displays not usually seen at lower latitudes — beautiful streaks of green, purple and pink lights.

Like the total solar eclipse in April, the aurora offered a chance for people to marvel at the natural world. The spectacular show could be repeated this weekend.

If you miss it, though, you can find awe in many of Earth’s other phenomena. From fleeting meteor showers to year-round beauty, here are some wonders to look for.

Lunar eclipses

Next year will see a total lunar eclipse on March 14, when the moon moves into Earth’s shadow. It gives the moon a very deep red hue , and all you need to see it is a clear sky.

A partial lunar eclipse will happen in September, less spectacular but also visible with the naked eye: Viewers will see “a little bite” taken out of the moon, and the moon will appear slightly darkened, said William Teets, director of the Dyer Observatory at Vanderbilt University.

Meteor showers

In mid-August, the Perseid meteor shower will peak , offering the year’s best chance to see dozens of meteors streaking through the sky, according to NASA.

The best viewing is in the pre-dawn hours, and the peak is predicted for Aug. 12, with up to 100 meteors per hour. Wait for the moon to set around 1 a.m. local time, then head to a dark location, recommended Robert Lunsford of the American Meteor Society. Peak time will be 3 to 5 a.m.

Enthusiasts should also circle their calendars for the Geminids shower in December 2025, which won’t be obscured by moonlight, Lunsford said, and the 2027 Perseids, when several hundred meteors an hour are predicted to streak across the sky.

Meteor showers, which happen annually, are among the “easiest things to observe and prepare for” because viewers only need clear weather and a dark area, Teets said.

“Find as dark a location as you can, put a blanket out on the ground and just lie back and take in as much of the sky as possible,” he said.

Parade of planets

Six planets will align June 3, giving viewers from Earth’s Northern Hemisphere an unusual chance to see them all at once.

Jupiter, Mercury, Mars, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune will line up in the pre-dawn sky. The first four will be clear to the naked eye, and all six will be visible through binoculars or a telescope, according to Astronomy magazine. The moon will also be visible between Uranus and Mars.

Bioluminescence

Light displays aren’t just for the skies — they can also been seen in the oceans when bioluminescent organisms light up and create an otherworldly glow. Sometimes bioluminescence is visible near the water’s surface, often triggered by waves, boats or other disturbances, according to the Smithsonian Institution.

Bioluminescence can’t be predicted, but travelers can try to witness spring and summer displays in spots throughout the world, such as California, Puerto Rico and Australia.

Other ways to find a glow: Visit the New Zealand glowworms at Waitomo Caves or catch the synchronous firefly displays in the Great Smoky Mountains .

Year-round wonders

Natural beauty is all around, and there are plenty of places where you can find a sense of awe anytime you want.

Visit a national or state park. Natural wonders are always available, from the Grand Canyon to Niagara Falls, the volcanoes of Hawaii to the geysers of Yellowstone. Many track seasonal sights, too, such as bird and butterfly migrations, Yosemite’s “ firefall ” and wildflower super blooms across western desert swaths.

Travel to see the northern lights. Though their appearance Friday in the lower latitudes was rare, aurora displays can reliably be seen in the Arctic Circle. Visitors chase the lights in Alaska and parts of Canada, Norway, Sweden, Finland and Iceland. The lights can also sometimes be spotted in northern contiguous U.S. states such as Maine , Michigan , Wisconsin and Minnesota .

Go stargazing. Search for stars anywhere away from bright city lights. Drive at least 45 or 60 minutes from a big city, or check out a designated Dark Sky place — there are 138 places in the United States , many in the Southwest, along with spots in the East, Midwest and West.

Bring a blanket, lie back and use your eyes, Teets recommended. In the summer and fall, the Milky Way will glow across the sky. Viewers can also use night-sky phone apps to learn constellations, and binoculars can help you scan the sky for star clusters and galaxies.

“It gives us a little way to take a break and just enjoy what the universe has out there for us,” Teets said. “It just inspires this sense of awe and wonder.”

• International edition
• Australia edition
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Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes review – thrilling addition to the series

Wes Ball brings fresh blood, new ideas and superb motion capture to this top-quality summer blockbuster

W ith this muscular instalment of the consistently impressive rebooted Apes franchise, director Wes Ball, previously best known for the propulsive but somewhat generic YA dystopian Maze Runner series, graduates, with honours, to the big league of Hollywood helmers. This is a top-quality summer blockbuster, bringing fresh blood and new ideas into the series while staying recognisably within the worlds so meticulously created in the previous three movies.

Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes is set many generations in the future, long after the events of War for the Planet of the Apes and the conclusion of the story of Caesar, who is now regarded as a Moses-like legendary figure. But the thing about legends is that they get appropriated and twisted to fit the current narrative. Wise old orangutan scholar Raka (Peter Macon) follows the word of Caesar to the letter; Proximus (Kevin Durand) cherrypicks the primate unity theme but disregards the bit about ape not killing ape. And youngster Noa (Owen Teague), son of the leader of a chimp clan that trains and hunts with eagles, hasn’t even heard of Caesar.

It’s Noa that we follow, after his father is murdered and his clan enslaved. He joins forces with a young human, Mae (Freya Allan), who, unlike most of her species (now grunting, grubby, non-verbal scavengers), can speak, reason and plot against the ape oppressors. The picture looks phenomenal, with nature aggressively reclaiming abandoned human spaces – tower blocks jutting like broken teeth, the decaying carcass of a container ship. But most impressive are the motion capture performances, which are among the finest I have seen. It’s a thrilling addition to a franchise that swings from strength to strength.

In UK and Irish cinemas now

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The huge solar storm is keeping power grid and satellite operators on edge

Geoff Brumfiel

Willem Marx

NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory captured this image of solar flares early Saturday afternoon. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says there have been measurable effects and impacts from the geomagnetic storm. Solar Dynamics Observatory hide caption

NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory captured this image of solar flares early Saturday afternoon. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says there have been measurable effects and impacts from the geomagnetic storm.

Planet Earth is getting rocked by the biggest solar storm in decades – and the potential effects have those people in charge of power grids, communications systems and satellites on edge.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says there have been measurable effects and impacts from the geomagnetic storm that has been visible as aurora across vast swathes of the Northern Hemisphere. So far though, NOAA has seen no reports of major damage.

The Picture Show

Photos: see the northern lights from rare, solar storm.

There has been some degradation and loss to communication systems that rely on high-frequency radio waves, NOAA told NPR, as well as some preliminary indications of irregularities in power systems.

"Simply put, the power grid operators have been busy since yesterday working to keep proper, regulated current flowing without disruption," said Shawn Dahl, service coordinator for the Boulder, Co.-based Space Weather Prediction Center at NOAA.

NOAA Issues First Severe Geomagnetic Storm Watch Since 2005

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"Satellite operators are also busy monitoring spacecraft health due to the S1-S2 storm taking place along with the severe-extreme geomagnetic storm that continues even now," Dahl added, saying some GPS systems have struggled to lock locations and offered incorrect positions.

NOAA's GOES-16 satellite captured a flare erupting occurred around 2 p.m. EDT on May 9, 2024.

As NOAA had warned late Friday, the Earth has been experiencing a G5, or "Extreme," geomagnetic storm . It's the first G5 storm to hit the planet since 2003, when a similar event temporarily knocked out power in part of Sweden and damaged electrical transformers in South Africa.

The NOAA center predicted that this current storm could induce auroras visible as far south as Northern California and Alabama.

Extreme (G5) geomagnetic conditions have been observed! pic.twitter.com/qLsC8GbWus — NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center (@NWSSWPC) May 10, 2024

Around the world on social media, posters put up photos of bright auroras visible in Russia , Scandinavia , the United Kingdom and continental Europe . Some reported seeing the aurora as far south as Mallorca, Spain .

The source of the solar storm is a cluster of sunspots on the sun's surface that is 17 times the diameter of the Earth. The spots are filled with tangled magnetic fields that can act as slingshots, throwing huge quantities of charged particles towards our planet. These events, known as coronal mass ejections, become more common during the peak of the Sun's 11-year solar cycle.

A powerful solar storm is bringing northern lights to unusual places

Usually, they miss the Earth, but this time, NOAA says several have headed directly toward our planet, and the agency predicted that several waves of flares will continue to slam into the Earth over the next few days.

While the storm has proven to be large, predicting the effects from such incidents can be difficult, Dahl said.

Shocking problems

The most disruptive solar storm ever recorded came in 1859. Known as the "Carrington Event," it generated shimmering auroras that were visible as far south as Mexico and Hawaii. It also fried telegraph systems throughout Europe and North America.

Stronger activity on the sun could bring more displays of the northern lights in 2024

While this geomagnetic storm will not be as strong, the world has grown more reliant on electronics and electrical systems. Depending on the orientation of the storm's magnetic field, it could induce unexpected electrical currents in long-distance power lines — those currents could cause safety systems to flip, triggering temporary power outages in some areas.

my cat just experienced the aurora borealis, one of the world's most radiant natural phenomena... and she doesn't care pic.twitter.com/Ee74FpWHFm — PJ (@kickthepj) May 10, 2024

The storm is also likely to disrupt the ionosphere, a section of Earth's atmosphere filled with charged particles. Some long-distance radio transmissions use the ionosphere to "bounce" signals around the globe, and those signals will likely be disrupted. The particles may also refract and otherwise scramble signals from the global positioning system, according to Rob Steenburgh, a space scientist with NOAA. Those effects can linger for a few days after the storm.

Like Dahl, Steenburgh said it's unclear just how bad the disruptions will be. While we are more dependent than ever on GPS, there are also more satellites in orbit. Moreover, the anomalies from the storm are constantly shifting through the ionosphere like ripples in a pool. "Outages, with any luck, should not be prolonged," Steenburgh said.

What Causes The Northern Lights? Scientists Finally Know For Sure

The radiation from the storm could have other undesirable effects. At high altitudes, it could damage satellites, while at low altitudes, it's likely to increase atmospheric drag, causing some satellites to sink toward the Earth.

The changes to orbits wreak havoc, warns Tuija Pulkkinen, chair of the department of climate and space sciences at the University of Michigan. Since the last solar maximum, companies such as SpaceX have launched thousands of satellites into low Earth orbit. Those satellites will now see their orbits unexpectedly changed.

"There's a lot of companies that haven't seen these kind of space weather effects before," she says.

The International Space Station lies within Earth's magnetosphere, so its astronauts should be mostly protected, Steenburgh says.

In a statement, NASA said that astronauts would not take additional measures to protect themselves. "NASA completed a thorough analysis of recent space weather activity and determined it posed no risk to the crew aboard the International Space Station and no additional precautionary measures are needed," the agency said late Friday.

People visit St Mary's lighthouse in Whitley Bay to see the aurora borealis on Friday in Whitley Bay, England. Ian Forsyth/Getty Images hide caption

People visit St Mary's lighthouse in Whitley Bay to see the aurora borealis on Friday in Whitley Bay, England.

While this storm will undoubtedly keep satellite operators and utilities busy over the next few days, individuals don't really need to do much to get ready.

"As far as what the general public should be doing, hopefully they're not having to do anything," Dahl said. "Weather permitting, they may be visible again tonight." He advised that the largest problem could be a brief blackout, so keeping some flashlights and a radio handy might prove helpful.

I took these photos near Ranfurly in Central Otago, New Zealand. Anyone can use them please spread far and wide. :-) https://t.co/NUWpLiqY2S — Dr Andrew Dickson reform/ACC (@AndrewDickson13) May 10, 2024

And don't forget to go outside and look up, adds Steenburgh. This event's aurora is visible much further south than usual.

A faint aurora can be detected by a modern cell phone camera, he adds, so even if you can't see it with your eyes, try taking a photo of the sky.

The aurora "is really the gift from space weather," he says.

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