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!
A one-kilometer long earth crack opened up on August 15, 2014, in Sonora, Mexico. The crack severed Highway 26 between the city of Hermosillo and the coast. At some points it is 5 meters wide and 8 meters deep.According to El Imparcial newspaper, it is still
New NASA research shows that Earth's atmosphere contains an unexpectedly large amount of an ozone-depleting compound – Carbon tetrachloride (CCl4) – from an unknown source decades after the compound was banned worldwide.Carbon tetrachloride was regulated
A new study by scientists from Oregon State University, published this week in journal Science, concludes that sunlight and not bacteria is the key to triggering the production of CO2 from material released by Arctic soils. The finding is particularly importan
A new study from Lund University in Sweden has, for the first time, reconstructed solar activity during the last ice age and showed that the regional climate is influenced by the Sun.For the first time, a research team has been able to reconstruct the solar activit
The latest image released by ESO shows two dramatic star formation regions in the southern Milky Way. The first is of these, on the left, is dominated by the star cluster NGC 3603, located 20 000 light-years away, in the Carina–Sagittarius spiral arm of the…
Taro, the capital of Solomon Island's Choiseul Province, is getting relocated to the mainland due to coastal hazards and the risk of rising sea levels resulting from climate change. This marks the first time a Pacific Islands capital with al
Millions of sea stars have vanished from the West Coast over the past year, affecting habitats ranging from Alaska all the way to Mexico, with some deaths even detected off the East Coast.Perhaps one of the most peculiar facts about the event is that both wild and capti
In California's Cuyama Valley, Santa Barbara County, groundwater is the sole source for agricultural, domestic and municipal water use. However, a new water availability report from USGS warns that groundwater there is being depleted twice as fast than it
The European Space Agency's Rosetta mission to the Comet 67P is attracting worldwide attention to comet science. While months remain until the team attempts to land a probe on the comet's surface, astonishing revelations are already confronting scientists on Ear
On January 21, 2014, astronomers around the world witnessed a supernova soon after it exploded in the Messier 82, or M82, galaxy. It is one of the closest supernovas discovered in decades. Telescopes across the globe and in space turned their at
