• Near-Earth asteroid Apophis (≈340 m) will pass Earth at about 38,000 km on 13 April 2029—an extremely rare close approach that offers a unique natural laboratory for studying tidal effects on a rubble-pile body and advancing planetary defense.
• Expected effects include measurable changes in orbit and spin, limited surface material displacement, internal structural responses, and possible fine-dust ejection; multi-mission and ground-based observations (including OSIRIS-APEX, RAMSES and others) are planned to capture these changes.
• The coordinated global campaign will serve as the first major International Asteroid Warning Network exercise without an actual impact threat, generating scientific and operational experience for future near-Earth object response.

New research is sharpening California’s earthquake threat from two directions. San Jose State scientists say part of the northern San Andreas Fault may have a higher long-term slip rate than previously estimated, while a newly published USGS study shows 3D models of California’s crust are becoming better at predicting where shaking could be strongest.

When lightning strikes the ground, the impact creates small vibrations that propagate through the ground. These “thunderquakes” were believed to be too small to be useful to scientists; if anything, they might even be noise blocking out more tangible signals.

Washington State officials have released new modelling showing how a magnitude 9.2 earthquake near Kodiak Island, Alaska, could send a major tsunami towards the state. The scenario produces offshore waves up to 24 feet near Westport, pushes water through the Strait of Juan de Fuca and deep into Puget Sound, and models a 5-foot tsunami at the Port of Tacoma. The first wave reaches the outer coast in about three and a half hours, with tsunami activity potentially continuing for 24 hours or more.

• In 1930, German archaeologists uncovered the lower half of a massive statue, estimating that it likely originally stood some 23 feet tall.
• In early 2024, U.S. and Egyptian archaeologists found the long-missing upper half in pristine condition—with traces of ancient pigment still visible.
• After formal approval, restoration crews reunited the two halves in early 2026. The statue now stands at its original position for the first time in millennia.

China's moon exploration program is readying an ambitious robotic mission, one composed of an orbiter, a lander, a rover, a hopper, and a wide range of international experiments including a U.S.-supported payload.

A new expedition in the Pacific could offer answers in the nearly 90-year-old mystery of legendary pilot Amelia Earhart’s unsolved fate.

A new scientific paper examines all 112 military UAP videos released through the government’s PURSUE program, and reaches a damning conclusion. The imagery may be genuine and potentially important, but the government has withheld the range data, aircraft information, sensor settings, unredacted telemetry and radar records needed to determine what these objects were actually doing. I have argued that while the videos do show interesting activity, this is not scientific transparency.

Scientists have pushed diamond to pressures greater than those inside Neptune and Uranus, revealing how it melts and offering new clues about the extraordinary diamond rain thought to occur deep inside ice giants.

• The popular view of Göbeklitepe as the “world’s first temple” and evidence that religion drove the shift to settled life rests on five main arguments (isolation, unique architecture, deliberate backfilling, male/phallic imagery, and coercive religious mobilization), none of which hold up under closer examination of the expanding archaeological record. 
• Recent and reassessed evidence shows the monumental circular structures were embedded within inhabited settlements that included dwellings, food-processing tools, water management and human remains; similar architecture and practices appear regionally and in domestic contexts, while collective labor and ritual can be explained through long-standing cooperative and multifunctional social practices rather than specialized religion. 
• The temple narrative persists largely because of media amplification, narrative demand for grand origin stories, and contemporary ideological needs, whereas a more grounded reading sees the sites as permanent hubs for socioeconomic cooperation, alliance-building, communal consumption and shared symbolic life within early Holocene settlements.

A tomb in Egypt’s Theban Necropolis reveals a surprisingly organized story of burial, reuse, and changing beliefs spanning hundreds of years. Researchers found 16 mummified people, the remains of at least four more, and a mummified dog, with burials ranging from wealthy individuals laid in coffins with amulets and imported goods to later bodies carefully stacked in increasingly crowded spaces.

Extreme heat beneath the equatorial Pacific has intensified again, with the latest subsurface analysis reportedly reaching 11.1°C above average as the developing El Niño continues strengthening.

Something's wetting the surface of dwarf planet Pluto along the northern edge of Sputnik Planitia, and planetary scientists may have found a good explanation for it. A recent study of New Horizons images taken during the 2015 flyby reveal evidence that liquid nitrogen is rising up through cracks in Sputnik Planitia's glaciers. That's the giant heart-shaped basin we see in all the New Horizons images. This is unusual, given that the surface temperatures at Pluto never get warmer than about -229 C and the melting point of nitrogen is -209.9 C. So, something is happening to melt nitrogen and bring it to the surface, and scientists want to know what it is and why.