• Severe weather warning for stormy conditions across the UK

    Met Office forecasters have issued a red National Severe Weather Warning for stormy conditions across the UK this afternoon and evening. 

    The strongest winds are expected across Wales and northern England with gusts of 128 – 160 km/h (80 – 100 mph) in some

  • Multiple CMEs observed from central region on the Sun

    Solar activity was at moderate levels in last 24 hours (12:30 UTC). Region 1974 (S13W05, Fsc/beta-gamma-delta) continued to exhibit growth and separation in the intermediate spots, and was responsible for the majority of the flare activity throughout the

  • Night sky guide for February 2014

    According to AMS, February offers the meteor observer in the northern hemisphere a couple of weak showers plus falling sporadic rates. February is also the start of the fireball season, when an abundance of fireballs seem to occur. This lasts well into April

  • Asteroid diversity points to a "snow globe" solar system

    Our solar system seems like a neat and orderly place, with small, rocky worlds near the Sun and big, gaseous worlds farther out, all eight planets following orbital paths unchanged since they formed.

    However, the true history of the solar system is more riotous.

  • Changing climate: How dust changed the face of the Earth

    In spring 2010, the research icebreaker Polarstern returned from the South Pacific with a scientific treasure – ocean sediments from a previously almost unexplored part of the South Polar Sea. What looks like an inconspicuous sample of mud to a layman is, to geological

  • World's first magma-enhanced geothermal system created in Iceland

    In 2009, a borehole drilled at Krafla, northeast Iceland, as part of the Icelandic Deep Drilling Project (IDDP), unexpectedly penetrated into magma (molten rock) at only 2100 meters depth, with a temperature of 900-1000 C. The borehole, IDDP-1, was the first

  • Extreme drought in California

    On January 17, 2014, amid California's driest year on record, Governor Jerry Brown declared a drought emergency in the state. Rivers and water reservoirs in California are dangerously low after the driest years on record.

    "Today I'm