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By Laura Paddison, CNN (CNN) — Elkhorn and staghorn corals used to carpet Florida’s reef system, rising like antlers from the seabed — but not anymore. These crucial coral species are now “functionally extinct” in the region after record-breaking ocean temperatures, according to a study published Thursday. The corals, which have been dominant reef builders

By Ashley Strickland, CNN (CNN) — Astronomers have spotted a quasi-moon near Earth — and the small space rock has likely been hanging out near our planet unseen by telescopes for about 60 years, according to new research. The newly discovered celestial object, named 2025 PN7, is a type of near-Earth asteroid that orbits the

By Andrew Freedman, CNN (CNN) — The Billion-Dollar Weather and Climate Disasters Database, which the Trump administration “retired” in May, has relaunched outside of the government using the same methodology. In its first update at the new site, the database shows that the first six months of 2025 have been the most expensive first six

By Laura Paddison, CNN (CNN) — Iceland’s frozen, inhospitable winters have long protected it from mosquitoes, but that may be changing. This week, scientists announced the discovery of three mosquitoes — marking the country’s first confirmed finding of these insects in the wild. Mosquitoes are found almost everywhere in the world, with the exception of

By Jackie Wattles, CNN (CNN) — NASA may sideline SpaceX and choose a different company to land its astronauts on the moon later this decade, acting space agency chief Sean Duffy suggested during TV appearances Monday. Duffy emphasized that he believes SpaceX, which has a $2.9 billion contract to provide the lunar lander astronauts would

By Jacopo Prisco, CNN (CNN) — At the center of our galaxy, there’s a mysterious, diffuse glow given off by gamma rays — powerful radiation usually emitted by high-energy objects such as rapidly rotating or exploding stars. NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope detected the glow shortly after launching in 2008, and the light has puzzled

By Laura Paddison, Andrew Freedman, CNN (CNN) — A fierce Trump administration push to stop the global shipping industry from paying for its own climate pollution appeared to have been successful Friday, as efforts to approve the “world’s first global carbon tax” collapsed. It had been widely assumed the tax would be adopted during a

By Ashley Strickland, CNN (CNN) — An unusual double-ring structure spotted in space with the help of citizen scientists has turned out to be a cosmic rarity. The celestial anomaly, captured by a radio telescope, is an odd radio circle, one of the scarcest and most mysterious objects in the universe, said Dr. Ananda Hota,

By Jackie Wattles, CNN (CNN) — SpaceX’s luck appears to be turning, as the company notched a second straight successful test flight of the Starship launch system — the most powerful rocket ever constructed — on Monday evening. The test mission, which kicked off around 7:23 p.m. ET at SpaceX’s facilities in South Texas, marked

By Ella Nilsen, CNN (CNN) — The Trump administration’s cancellation of the largest solar project in the United States has sparked confusion and concern among Republicans and Democrats alike. Known as the Esmerelda 7, the collection of seven solar projects in rural Nevada was set to generate up to 6.2 gigawatts of energy when complete,

By Ashley Strickland, CNN (CNN) — The total solar eclipse in North America on April 8, 2024, temporarily reset the biological clocks of some bird species, according to new research. The eclipse created a dramatic spectacle as the moon moved between Earth and the sun, plunging midday into a few moments of total darkness along

By Laura Paddison, CNN (CNN) — The planet is grappling with a “new reality” as it reaches the first in a series of catastrophic and potentially irreversible climate tipping points: the widespread death of coral reefs, according to a landmark report produced by 160 scientists across the world. As humans burn fossil fuels and ratchet

By Laura Paddison, CNN (CNN) — Planet-heating methane is escaping from cracks in the Antarctic seabed as the region warms, with new seeps being discovered at an “astonishing rate,” scientists have found, raising fears that future global warming predictions may have been underestimated. Huge amounts of methane lie in reservoirs that have formed over millennia

By Ashley Strickland, CNN (CNN) — Two newly discovered comets are streaking across the sky in a spectacular display as they make their closest approaches to Earth this month. Comets are made of ice, frozen gases and rock, and as they travel near stars such as the sun, heat causes them to release gas and

By Mindy Weisberger, CNN (CNN) — Hovering blue flames that flicker over bogs and marshes have inspired ghostly folktales for centuries. Known as “will-o’-the-wisp,” “jack-o’-lantern,” “corpse candle” and “ignis fatuus” (“foolish fire” in Latin), the global phenomenon has a spine-tingling history. But its origins could now have a scientific explanation: tiny flashes of lightning that

By Christian Edwards, Katie Hunt, CNN (CNN) — The 2025 Nobel Prize in physics has been awarded to a trio of scientists – a Briton, a Frenchman and an American – for their ground-breaking discoveries in the field of quantum mechanics. John Clarke, Michel Devoret and John Martinis will share the prize for their discovery

By Gina Park, CNN (CNN) — Keep your eyes along the horizon on Monday night to see the first supermoon of the year. October’s full moon, also called the harvest moon, will be visible from Monday night into early Tuesday. The silvery orb will be at its fullest around 11:48 p.m. ET Monday, according to

By Christian Edwards, Katie Hunt, CNN (CNN) — The 2025 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine has been awarded to a trio of scientists – two of them American and one Japanese – for discovering how the immune system protects us from thousands of different microbes trying to invade our bodies. Mary E. Brunkow, Fred

By Katie Hunt, CNN (CNN) — It’s the time of year when leading scientists might not want to let any calls go to voicemail. Prizes in chemistry, physics, and physiology or medicine, established by Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel more than a century ago, will be announced next week, along with prizes in peace and literature.

By Jacopo Prisco, CNN (CNN) — The search for an unknown planet in our solar system has inspired astronomers for more than a century. Now, a recent study suggests a potential new candidate, which the paper’s authors have dubbed Planet Y. The planet has not been detected but merely inferred by the tilted orbits of

By Jackie Wattles, CNN (CNN) — Some 15,000 NASA employees were sent home this week as a government shutdown began, halting work across much of an agency already grappling with budget cuts and widespread job losses. But at least one NASA effort appears to be moving full steam ahead: the Artemis program. With the goal

By Laura Paddison, CNN (CNN) — In the early hours of a late September morning, a container ship called the Istanbul Bridge set sail from China, destined for Europe and laden with cargo — everything from batteries to clothing. So far, so standard, but there’s a twist. Instead of navigating south on a journey toward

By Ashley Strickland, CNN (CNN) — Astronomers have observed a planet that in some ways behaves more like a star — including a massive growth spurt unlike anything witnessed before in a free-floating planet. The rogue planet, which does not orbit any star, is called Cha 1107-7626 and is outside of our solar system, 620

By Andrew Freedman, CNN (CNN) — While the Trump administration wages war against clean energy, it is now vowing to lease millions of acres of public lands at a discount and spend hundreds of millions of dollars to prop up the most polluting source of electricity: coal. This comes as the administration has restricted new

By Amanda Schupak (CNN) — What do you get when you cross a blue jay with a green jay? That’s not the start of a joke, but the subject of a new study that aims to describe a hybrid bird never encountered before in the wild. The bigger question scientists are puzzling over, though, is

By Katie Hunt, CNN (CNN) — A badly crushed cranium unearthed decades ago from a riverbank in central China that once defied classification is now shaking up the human family tree, according to a new analysis. Scientists digitally reconstructed the squashed skull, thought to be 1 million years old, and its features suggest that the

By Jack Guy, CNN (CNN) — Endangered leopard sharks have been observed mating in the wild for the first time, with scientists witnessing a “threesome” involving two males and a female. The encounter was filmed by Hugo Lassauce, a marine biologist at the University of the Sunshine Coast, Australia, and documented in a research paper

By Ashley Strickland, CNN (CNN) — Surrounding our solar system is a natural and enigmatic cosmic shield called the heliosphere — and a new mission aims to help astronomers better understand it. Created by the solar wind, a constant flow of charged particles that stream away from the sun, the heliosphere acts as an enormous

By Jackie Wattles, CNN (CNN) — NASA on Monday introduced the 10 people — selected from a pool of 8,000 applicants — who will join the agency’s astronaut corps as it races to return to the moon before attempting an unprecedented crewed mission to Mars. The group includes six women and four men, whom acting

By Ashley Strickland, CNN (CNN) — Astronomers are trying to understand what caused a series of gamma ray bursts, or GRBs — the most powerful explosions in the universe. These energetic bursts are typically unleashed by the incendiary death of a star, or when it is shredded by a black hole. The observation of repeating