12-09-04 A new study, by scientists from the Universities of York, Glasgow and Leeds, involving analysis of fossil and geological records going back 540 million years, suggests that biodiversity on Earth generally increases as the planet warms. But the resea...

12-08-10 For years, many scientists had thought that plate tectonics（板块构造论） existed nowhere in our solar system but on Earth. Now, a UCLA scientist has discovered that the geological phenomenon, which involves the movement of huge crustal plates benea...

12-08-10 Results from an expedition to far eastern Russia that set out to find the origin of naturally occurring quasicrystals（准晶体） have provided convincing evidence that they arrived on Earth from outer space. Writing in IOP Publishing's journal Report...

12-08-06 The US space agency has just landed a huge new robot rover on Mars. 美国宇航局一台巨大的机器人成功降落至火星。 The one-tonne vehicle, known as Curiosity, was reported to have landed in a deep crater near the planet's equator at 06:32 BST. It will no...

12-07-18 Government officials believe aliens may visit Earth and suggest harnessing UFO technology for UK defences, files say. 在英政府公布的一批有关UFO的机密文档中，英政府官员称外星人可能造访地球，并提议利用外星人高超的飞行器技术为英国国防服务。 Documents f...

12-07-13 Scientists have long believed that comets and, or a type of very primitive meteorite（陨星） called carbonaceous chondrites（碳粒陨星） were the sources of early Earth's volatile elements -- which include hydrogen, nitrogen, and carbon -- and possib...

12-07-06 The latest spacecraft in Europe's long-running Meteosat series has just gone into orbit on an Ariane rocket. 欧洲气象卫星计划最后一颗卫星已搭载阿丽亚娜火箭升空。 Meteosat-10 (MSG-3) being placed on top of its Ariane launcher It is now being manoeuvr...

12-07-02 If the day seems a little longer than usual on Saturday, June 30, 2012, that's because it will be. An extra second, or leap second, will be added at midnight to account for the fact that it is taking Earth longer and longer to complete one full turn...

12-05-31 It took some 10 million years for Earth to recover from the greatest mass extinction of all time, latest research has revealed. Life was nearly wiped out 250 million years ago, with only 10 per cent of plants and animals surviving. It is currently m...

12-05-27 Molecules containing large chains of carbon and hydrogen--the building blocks of all life on Earth--have been the targets of missions to Mars from Viking to the present day. While these molecules have previously been found in meteorites（陨石） from...