The Telltale Signs Of A Volcano Preparing To Erupt

The Mayon volcano in the Philippines has erupted nearly 40 times in 400 years, and it looks primed to go off again. This NASA satellite image shows a small plume of ash or steam blowing west from its summit. More »

Portrait of a Polluted Land

NASA's Aqua satellite captured this image of a massive smog bank smothering huge portions of China today. This blanket of pollution has been hovering over the country for over a week now, exacerbated by cool air and smoke from fires. More »

The Churning Heart of Hurricane Jimena

A few days ago, megastorm Jimena was a category 4 hurricane in the Pacific, bashing its way to Baja California. As these satellite photos show, Jimena still looked awe-inspiring even when it diminished to a tropical storm. More »

A Dust Cloud That Lowered Temperatures Around The World

Using satellite data, scientists tracked dust clouds created by a massive Chinese dust storm in 2007, and discovered that they circled the globe in 13 days. And the clouds may have affected weather half-way around the world. More »

The Supervolcano That's About to Shatter Yellowstone

Yellowstone National Park boasts dozens of geysers and broiling eruptions. But they're nothing compared to the massive volcano that bubbles beneath the park, and could unleash a world-altering blast. Check out these images of the megablast-in-waiting. More »

Redoubt Volcano Rains Ash and Spreads a Stink of Sulfur Over Alaska

Mount Redoubt, an Alaskan volcano, has been erupting for over a week. On Monday a satellite captured its latest emission: A huge plume of ash that locals said came with a smell of sulfur. More »

Magnetic Anomaly Map of the World

This map shows areas on the globe where there are disturbances in the Earth's magnetic field. Here, red indicates a stronger magnetic tug, and blue a weaker one (white lines are the edges of tectonic plates). As you can see, disturbances are fairly regularly distributed, but that doesn't stop UFO enthusiasts from saying aliens have a hand in these magnetic fluctuations. Science, however, has a slightly different explanation for why certain objects (including submarines) create a shift in the magnetic field. More »

The Glowing, Shattered Face of Mercury

NASA's Messenger spacecraft zoomed past Mercury yesterday, sending back a set of luminous images that look like they were taken by celebrated nature photographer Ansel Adams in space. Here you can see the bright pocks left by recent meteors crashing to the planet's surface, opening up complicated webs of cracks. Want to see those cracks close up? More »

Yes, There Is Water on Mars — But You Can't Drink It

Though NASA has been reporting for years that there is water ice on Mars, today the US space agency held a press conference to announce definitively that the Phoenix Lander has found traces of water ice on the red planet. As Phil Plait over at Bad Astronomy points out, today's announcement was really about the continuation of the Phoenix mission, which was scheduled to sunset in the next few weeks. Now that the cool lander is scooping up hunks of ice in the sticky Martian dirt (plastered into the bottom of Phoenix's scoop, above), NASA has poured enough money into the project to keep it going at least through September. But pretty much every single news source reporting the Martian water story has neglected to tell you the most important thing about this "water ice." It's probably not drinkable. More »

Volcanoes in Alaska Are "Hopping," Says Scientist

Witness the glory of one of the two massive volcanoes erupting today in Alaska. Here you can see a satellite's-eye-view of the plumes from Okmok Caldera, floating out between the clouds over the coast. Though Okmok has been erupting for several days, it was joined recently by Mount Cleveland, off the coast in the Aleutian Islands. More eruption below. More »

Kilauea Volcano Restarts Its Fires, Spews Strange New Ash

A crater on the ever-active Kilauea Volcano in Hawaii has started to spew a huge plume of ash. The recent explosion, which shut down roads in the area, may be a harbinger of even bigger explosions to come. Above, you can see what happened a few years ago when things got explodey on Kilauea. We've got pictures of the new ash plume, plus more Kilauea lava love below. More »

A Red Storm Boils over the Jovian Prairie

It looks like somebody photoshopped the Canadian prairies inside the red gasses of Jupiter, but this is an actual picture, untouched, of Earth. It's a "shelf cloud" lit up by early-morning light. Photographed from the Trans-Canada highway in Saskatchewan, this shelf cloud was most likely the bleeding edge of a storm. More »