NASA proposes 2025 mission to Neptune’s mysterious moon Triton which orbits in the OPPOSITE direction to the planet’s rotation and may host an ocean of liquid water beneath its icy crust The only craft to study Triton up close to date was Voyager 2 back in 1989 Much of the moon’s surface is unmapped and … Read more
Shellfish could be wiped out as Arctic Ocean acidifies due to climate change, scientists fear Ocean expected to absorb more carbon dioxide than expected in next 80 years Increasing acidity of water could wipe out organisms like shellfish and urchins Acid can dissolve their calcified skeletons and shells and could affect food chain By Daily … Read more
Researchers in the Arctic Ocean map undersea methane pockets distributed across a 250-million-year-old ‘fault zone’ that could accelerate ice sheet withdrawal with future ruptures Researchers mapped a network of undersea methane pockets in the Arctic They found that structural instability in the seafloor was the biggest factor affecting which region would experience a rupture, releasing … Read more
Researchers in the Arctic Ocean map undersea methane pockets distributed across a 250-million-year-old ‘fault zone’ that could accelerate ice sheet withdrawal with future ruptures Researchers mapped a network of undersea methane pockets in the Arctic They found structural instability in the seafloor was the biggest factor effecting which region would experience a rupture, releasing the … Read more
Researchers identify the cleanest air on the planet in the Southern Ocean off the coast of Antarctica, which contains no traceable aerosols or other particles produced by humans Scientists sailed to the Southern Ocean near Antarctica to measure air quality They found no aerosols, bacteria, or other particles that traced to human activity The team … Read more
Elusive ‘dumbo’ octopus is filmed in Java Trench 23,000 feet below the ocean surface, breaking the previous record for deepest octopus sighting ever A team of researchers in Java observed a rare ‘dumbo’ octopus The sighting took place at 23,000 feet, the deepest recorded octopus encounter The previous record was set in 1950 near Barbados … Read more
Researchers develop a new computer algorithm to locate people lost at sea by modeling ‘traps’ in the water that could pull them in different directions Scientists from MIT and elsewhere developed a new search and rescue tool The computer algorithm identifies multiple ‘trap’ regions in the ocean These traps could pull people in several different … Read more
Microplastics shed from tyres are a major source of river and ocean pollution, UK government-backed study finds Researchers from Plymouth studied the sources and transport of microplastics These tiny polluting particles have been found in oceans and waterways globally Tyres now join plastic bags, clothes and cosmetic microbeads as key sources The findings may help the … Read more
Brightly illuminated orange letters at Rarotonga airport cry: ‘Kia orana!’ You’ll hear those words a lot if you’re lucky enough to visit this tiny, lushly forested extinct volcano rearing from the Pacific bed. They mean ‘may you live long’ in Maori, and the etiquette is to reply ‘kia orana’. Make sure you do: bleary-eyed after … Read more
Mussel beds act as traps for microplastic pollution dumped in the ocean by slowing the sea water flowing over them, research shows Experts experimented with flowing water over different mussel reef structures When the mussels clumped together like in nature, the flow became turbulent This increased threefold the amount of microplastic ingested by the mussels By Ian … Read more