Virat Markandeya
The Safety Belt of Our Solar System
Mapping the heliosphere, which shields us from harmful cosmic rays.
Digging Deeper Into Holocaust History
What geoscientists are uncovering in Eastern Europe.
Preserving a Sense of Wonder in DNA
A bold project codes human data into microbes that will survive for millions of years.
The Strange Ecosystem in the Sea: Dead Whales
One April day in 2013, the submersible Shinkai 6500 descended to the base of the steep São Paulo Ridge, 13,000 feet under the Atlantic Ocean. “Hang on,” Paulo Sumida, a marine biologist, radioed to the submersible pilot from the support vessel on the ocean’s surface. “Those are whale bones.” In fact, they were frozen vertebrae of […]
The Man Who Discovered the Sun’s Puzzling Heat Is Being Forgotten
When you observe a solar eclipse—with great care, of course—what you see is a thin, red crescent outlining the blocked-out Sun and, extending beyond it, a stark white mane. This is the corona, an aura millions of miles thick of superheated plasma. It’s natural to assume the corona is cooler than the sun’s blazing surface. […]
