What's up in
Science
Physics, climate, planetary science, and the research that shapes how we understand the universe and our place in it.
At the summit of Mauna Kea in Hawaii, the air is so thin and so dry that astronomers can see light from galaxies billions of light-years away with a clarity impossible at sea level — which is why 11 countries have built 13 major telescopes on what is technically a dormant volcano
The Southern Delta Aquariids peak around July 30, but a nearly full Moon drowns all but the brightest meteors — so the dark mornings the week before are the ones to watch
We tend to think Everest is the tallest mountain on Earth, but if you measure from the centre of the planet rather than from sea level, a volcano in Ecuador called Chimborazo wins by more than two kilometres
Every Antarctic winter, male emperor penguins stand for more than two months in temperatures down to minus 50 degrees Celsius, balancing a single egg on their feet — and eating nothing the entire time
A near-Earth asteroid tracked since 1998 turned up far from its predicted spot in the sky, and astronomers have now confirmed why — it is secretly a comet, nudged off its path by escaping gas, with a tail too faint for ordinary telescopes to see
The Voyager Golden Record carries a small sample of uranium on its cover, placed there so whoever finds it can measure the decay and work out how long it has been drifting — a built-in clock for any civilisation that discovers it
A polar bear’s fur looks white, but it contains no white pigment: its long guard hairs are transparent, hollow tubes that scatter light like crushed ice, while the skin underneath is black, helping absorb what little Arctic sunlight reaches it
A black bear's heart drops from roughly 55 beats per minute to as few as 8 during hibernation, yet it emerges in spring with almost no muscle or bone loss: a biological trick space agencies are studying to protect astronauts on long missions
Deep beneath Svalbard in a frozen Norwegian mountain, a vault holds seeds from almost every food crop on Earth: not as a museum piece, but as the working backup for the world's fragile seed banks
Every winter, a single beluga whale in the Arctic will dive to 700 metres and stay under for 25 minutes on a lungful of air compressed to 1/70th its surface volume, sustained by muscles so oxygen-rich they run nearly black when cut
