Science

13,000 Years Ago, a Firestorm Covered 10% of Earth’s Surface, Triggering an Ice Age

by

At a point some 12,800 years ago, a tenth of Earth’s surface suddenly became covered in roaring fires. The firestorm rivalled the one that wiped out the dinosaurs, and it was likely caused by fragments of a comet that would have measured around 100 kilometers (62 miles) across.   As dust clouds smothered Earth, they … Read more

Archaeologists Find 40 Beheaded Roman Skeletons With Skulls Between Their Legs

by

About 40 beheaded skeletons were among 425 bodies found in a late Roman cemetery uncovered by archeologists in southern England. The team of around 50 archeologists made the discovery during an excavation at Fleet Marston, near Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, on the route of the multi-billion pound high-speed rail link that is currently under construction, HS2 said.   … Read more

How does terraforming work in the Alien universe?

by

The subject of terraforming lies at the center of James Cameron’s Aliens, at least when it comes to worldbuilding. Released in 1979, Ridley Scott’s Alien already saw a group of space truckers visit an unknown “planetoid,” which would later become LV-426 in the 1986 sequel. And spacesuits weren’t needed anymore to walk on its surface … Read more

Earth’s Ancient ‘Supermountains’ May Have Been Crucial For Life as We Know It

by

Once, there were giants. Mountain ranges that rivaled the Himalayas in height used to stretch thousands upon thousands of kilometers across the seams of merging supercontinents, billions of years in the past.   Like the teeth of decrepit old gods, they’ve long been worn down to their roots by time and decay. But in those … Read more

Watch SpaceX launch a US spy satellite and land a rocket in this mesmerizing drone video

by

A stunning new video from SpaceX captures what it’s like to watch a rocket launch from mid-air and then witness the booster return to Earth. The video, captured by a flying SpaceX drone, shows the company’s launch of the classified NROL-87 satellite for the U.S. National Reconnaissance Office. The mission lifted off on a Falcon … Read more

Ancient evils arise in IDW’s new ‘Transformers: War’s End’ comic book miniseries

by

San Diego-based IDW Publishing has been at the front lines of “Transformers” tie-in, one-shot, and spinoff comic books starring those sentient robots in disguise since they first acquired the licensing rights from Hasbro back in 2005. Since then, IDW has been the champion of more than 400 “Transformers”-centric issues representing the longest-running era of “Transformers” … Read more

‘John Carter of Mars’ blasts back to Barsoom in new comic series from Dynamite

by

Before Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers, and long before “Dune,” “Star Trek” and “Star Wars,” there was famed sci-fi writer Edgar Rice Burroughs’ cosmic adventurer John Carter of Mars. First appearing in 1912 within serialized tales in The All-Story magazine titled “Under The Moons of Mars,” this stalwart Virginian and former Civil War captain was … Read more

Titan Books celebrates vintage ‘Flash Gordon’ comic strips in a deluxe new collection

by

The golden age of newspaper comic strips was a glorious time for imaginative readers, with iconic runs of Superman, Prince Valiant, Buck Rogers, and of course Earth’s fair-haired space adventurer, Flash Gordon. Gordon, the handsome Yale University alumnus and celebrity polo player, first appeared as a King Features Syndicate strip in January of 1934. Created … Read more

US Space Force’s ‘Orbital Prime’ project aims to attack space debris by recycling or removing junk

by

A new U.S. Space Force video “demands action” on space debris and asks the private sector for their help cleaning up the growing space mess. The video was released Jan. 5 on the Space Force’s SpaceWERX website (its technology branch) to push a program called Orbital Prime, which aims to test out an on orbit-system … Read more