I’m a science journalist and researcher at The Watchers, contributing to the Epicenter edition, where I cover peer-reviewed scientific research and emerging discoveries across Earth and space sciences. With a background in astronomy and a passion for environmental science, I’ve worked in shark and coral conservation in Fiji, conducting reef and shark-behavior research, contributing to mangrove restoration, and earning PADI Open Water and Coral Reef Certifications. I bring a blend of scientific rigor and storytelling to illuminate the discoveries shaping our planet and beyond.

  • Extreme fire-smoke exposure days rise from 16 to 66 per year globally since the 1990s

    ByReet Kaur

    Extreme fire-PM2.5 exposure events have tripled globally since the 1990s, while wildfire and other fire activity contributed to above-average particulate pollution across several regions in 2025, according to the World Meteorological Organization’s latest Air Quality and Climate Bulletin. The September 7, 2026 assessment places that trend alongside declines in other sources of PM2.5 in parts of Europe and North America.

  • Deep learning identifies six structurally complex regions at Earth’s core-mantle boundary

    ByReet Kaur

    Researchers analyzing more than 2 million seismic waveforms identified six previously undersampled regions of strong structural heterogeneity near Earth’s core-mantle boundary, improving the global picture of one of the planet’s least accessible internal regions. The findings may help researchers investigate how ancient subducted material, partial melting and other deep-mantle processes influence the structure and evolution of the lowermost mantle.

  • Five dead as Bihar floods affect more than 3.4 million, Ganga exceeds previous highest levels

    ByReet Kaur

    Five people have drowned in flood-affected parts of Patna district as widespread flooding continues across Bihar, where more than 3.4 million people in 13 districts are affected as of September 8, 2026. The Ganga exceeded previous highest flood levels at Gandhi Ghat and Pandarak during the weekend, while the official flood-monitoring system showed the river still above its previous HFL at Sultanganj on September 8.**

  • Hydraulic fracturing triggered 12 slow-slip events in northeast B.C. between 2017 and 2023

    ByReet Kaur

    Satellite radar observations revealed 12 aseismic slow-slip events triggered during hydraulic fracturing of the Montney Formation in northeast British Columbia between 2017 and 2023. The events extended along more than 100 km (62 miles) of the Northern Rocky Mountain Fold and Thrust Belt; nine resolved events had equivalent moment magnitudes of Mw 4.71–5.06, but produced no felt shaking.

  • Hubble reveals evolving decagon around Saturn’s south pole

    ByReet Kaur

    NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope observations have revealed an evolving 10-sided atmospheric wave encircling Saturn’s south pole, with the telescope’s archive tracing the feature back to 2023. The research places the wave near 63°S within a powerful atmospheric jet and shows that it extends through multiple levels of Saturn’s atmosphere. Its formation mechanism and long-term stability remain unresolved.

  • Solar Cycle 26 enters the harder-to-predict side of the solar cycle

    ByReet Kaur

    Researchers at the University of Oulu in Finland found stronger long-term geomagnetic precursor relationships within even-to-odd solar-cycle pairs than across odd-to-even transitions. The result is potentially relevant to Solar Cycle 26 because it will follow odd-numbered Cycle 25, the type of transition for which the researchers found weaker precursor relationships, although the study does not issue a specific forecast for Cycle 26. The study used a 180-year composite aa-based geomagnetic record, hindcast Solar Cycles 10–24 using leave-one-out cross-validation, and generated a prediction for Solar Cycle 25.

  • Gulf Stream rapidly intensified after 2014, 31-year satellite record shows

    ByReet Kaur

    A 31-year satellite altimetry record shows that the Gulf Stream east of about 75°W underwent rapid surface intensification beginning around 2014, shifted northward and became less meandering after a prolonged weaker period. The strengthened state persisted through December 2023, while the study linked the transition to changes in subtropical North Atlantic wind forcing and a spin-up of the subtropical gyre.

  • ESA’s final Cluster spacecraft Tango set for targeted reentry over the South Pacific on September 1

    ByReet Kaur

    The European Space Agency (ESA) predicts that Tango, the fourth and final Cluster spacecraft, will reenter Earth’s atmosphere over a remote part of the South Pacific Ocean at 21:30:31 UTC on September 1, 2026, with an uncertainty of ±10 seconds. ESA said at 11:10 UTC that the ROSIE team was flying out again from Tonga to observe the breakup with an aircraft carrying 30 instruments, one day after successfully recording the reentry of Tango’s sister spacecraft Samba.

  • North Atlantic temperature patterns change with AMOC strength, models show

    ByReet Kaur

    A Nature Communications study published on August 5, 2026, identifies three state-dependent relationships between Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) strength and North Atlantic sea surface temperature (SST): a typical dipole fingerprint under strong AMOC, amplified subpolar SST anomalies at intermediate strength, and muted North Atlantic signals in a weak-AMOC regime. The year of peak AMOC–SST sensitivity emerged as a predictor of the modeled transition into the weak-AMOC regime and the associated decay of the North Atlantic warming hole.

  • Great Atlantic Sargassum Belt records second-largest year in 2026

    ByReet Kaur

    The Great Atlantic Sargassum Belt reached its 2026 annual peak in June, making 2026 the second-highest Sargassum year in the continuous satellite record, behind 2025. The Caribbean Sea and Gulf of America (Gulf of Mexico) set June records. Mexico’s Instituto Oceanográfico del Golfo y Mar Caribe maintained a high Sargassum classification on August 26, with 29 920 metric tons (32 981 short tons) estimated in the Mexican Caribbean and substantial concentrations remaining farther east across the Caribbean and western central Atlantic.