The Watchers team and our contributors bring the latest on extreme weather, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, space weather, and all things science. We're all about making sense of the natural world and keeping you informed on what’s happening. Got a tip or a question? Hit us up using the form at newstips!
NASA's Curiosity Mars rover has collected its first sample of the layered mountain whose scientific allure drew the mission to choose this part of Mars as a landing site.Late Wednesday, September 24, the rover's hammering drill chewed about 6.7 centimeters (2.6
According to a recent paper, scientists are now exploring whether so-called “electrical sparking may occur on the moon, altering the lunar soil. The scientists have developed computer models to explore how strong electric fields might accumulate in permanently sha
On July 23, 2012, a massive cloud of solar material erupted off the sun's right side, zooming out into space. It soon passed one of NASA's Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory, or STEREO, spacecraft, which clocked the CME as traveling between 2 900 – 3…
High-density population areas of Sierra Leone have just been locked down in the largest pandemic quarantine in history, and it's already causing a collapse of the food delivery infrastructure. The local government says forced isolation orders will remain in effect u
India's first interplanetary mission to planet Mars, Mars Orbiter Mission, arrived in the Martian orbit on September 24, 2014 making India the first nation to enter the Mars's orbit in it’s first attempt and the first Asian nation to reach the Red planet.I
High-resolution topographic data generated from NASA's Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) in 2000, previously only available for the United States, will be released globally over the next year, the White House announced yesterday. The announcement was made at t
New model describes overlooked prediction of Einstein's theory of relativity, demonstrates that stars can absorb gravitational ripples.Scientists have shown how gravitational waves – invisible ripples in the fabric of space and time that propagate through the univer
The death toll from Ebola is surging in West Africa, and officials in Liberia are warning that the entire country could collapse from the devastation. Speaking at a recent meeting of the United Nations Security Council, Liberia's Minister of National Defense, Browni
An unprecedented national lockdown is about to take place in Sierra Leone, one of the three West African countries most embattled by the worst Ebola outbreak in history. Reports indicate that Sierra Leone's 6 million residents are being asked to stay home for three
Hurricane "Hugo" (1989) was a classic Cape Verde-type hurricane first detected as a tropical wave emerging from the coast of Africa on September 9, 1989. Moving steadily westward, the system became a tropical depression the next day, a tropical storm on the 11
