‘Blue marble’: How half a century of climate change has altered the face of the Earth

 A photo taken by NASA in December 1972 has become an icon of the global environmental movement

Can Europa support life? Scientists estimate thickness of Jupiter moon’s ice shell to help figure it out

Europa’s icy crust found to be at least 20 kilometres thick

Despite PM Modi’s assurance, land degradation, desertification increasing

Some 29.7 per cent of India’s land is degraded, according to a new ISRO atlas

Pentagon report says UFOs can't be explained, and this admission is a big deal

The report does not, as many were hoping, conclude UFOs are alien spacecraft.

2023 in a blink: DTE’s reportage on global scientific research this year

Down To Earth recaps the primary environment, health and developmental news from 2023

Almost half of Moon missions fail. Why is space still so hard?

India’s success came just days after a spectacular Russian failure

GSAT communication satellite costing Rs 508 crore unused for half its lifetime: CAG report

GSAT-6 was expected to last for 12 years from 2015

Fast radio bursts detected in the Milky Way for the first time

The superpower blasts of radio waves, ascribed to sources ranging from alien ships to colliding black holes, are actually generated by dead stars …

Scepticism to clarity: Dormant black hole found in Milky Way’s satellite galaxy

The discovery is also a vindication of the possibility of an abundance of black holes in our universe 

What’s the mysterious light up above? A supermassive black hole ripping a star apart

Halfway across the universe, this is brightest and farthest tidal disruption event ever detected

Most distant source of radio emission discovered, holds clues about ancient universe

Supermassive black holes that formed when the universe was young have raised more questions than they answered

Look, Hubble is turning 31

The Hubble Space Telescope will celebrate 31 years in space observing the universe on April 24, 2021. A month before it’s birthday, presenting …

India to witness ‘Ring of Fire’ eclipse on June 21

The next solar eclipse, which will be a partial solar eclipse, will take place on October 25, 2022

What is the multi-drug-resistant pathogen found in the International Space Station?

Research on Enterobacter bugandensis holds promise for managing hospital infections & safeguarding astronaut well-being

NASA plans to launch two new missions to Venus by 2030

The Venus missions will provide valuable insights to our fight against climate change

Major floods on Mars? China’s rover finds evidence

Zhurong rover's first radar imager results analysed two interesting underground layers

James Webb telescope spots 6 monster galaxies harbouring tens to hundreds of billions of sun-sized stars’ mass: Study

These galaxies challenge our current understanding of galaxy formation as they are too hefty for their age

‘There is a fundamental joy in exploring our universe, but it comes with great responsibility’

In a week when India created history with Chandrayaan-3, Down To Earth spoke to biologist Jyotsna Dhawan, daughter of the late Dr Satish Dhawan, …

Bubble of secrets: Here’s what the new 3D map of a gigantic cosmic cavity tells us about the universe

The ‘Local Bubble’ is a 1,000-light-year-wide cavity or a superbubble around the Sun

Scientists detect two water worlds 218 light years away

Study of the twin planets shows exoplanets are more diverse; new planet in same system discovered  

Planet greening negated global warming, show NASA maps

Since 2000, at least 30% of areas with more leaf coverage were cooled by it, the research noted

Mars: mounting evidence for subglacial lakes, but could they really host life?

Although the new findings make Mars even more interesting than before, they haven’t advanced its ranking in the list of solar system bodies …

Biodiversity, green cover: Bhopal’s ecological garden offers shot at conservation

The tree cover in Bhopal has declined by 44% in 2 decades; the urban forest can help compensate for the same   

NASA images capture wet and dry cycles in Namibia’s Etosha Pan

The salt pan in Namibia receives most of the rainfall — as much as 46 cm — every year between October and March

A year around the moon

India’s second lunar mission, Chandrayaan-2, completed one year in orbit around the moon August 20, 2020. Space agency ISRO said it has …