https://phys.org/ en-us Phys.org internet news portal provides the latest news on science including: Physics, Nanotechnology, Life Sciences, Space Science, Earth Science, Environment, Health and Medicine. For decades, astronomers have assumed that the Martian surface froze solid around 3 billion years ago and has stayed that way ever since. If this were really the case, any liquid water would have long since either been locked away underground or lost to space. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-mars-liquid-thought.html Astrobiology Mon, 10 Aug 2026 17:00:13 EDT news705587200 A study examining air quality and respiratory health in communities surrounding the Salton Sea in Southern California shows how environmental conditions, poor housing quality and structural inequities combine to place children at greater risk for respiratory illness. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-families-daily-health-salton-sea.html Environment Thu, 02 Jul 2026 03:40:01 EDT news702139082 The European Space Agency's Mars Express has captured part of Mars's Mamers Valles, a fascinating valley system speckled with brief, tornado-like whirlwinds known as dust devils. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-dozens-devils-caught-swirling-mars.html Planetary Sciences Wed, 17 Jun 2026 14:20:02 EDT news700914890 Geopolitical tensions in Eastern Europe underscore the urgency of addressing the climate and radiological consequences of a regional nuclear conflict. Even a small-scale nuclear conflict at the Ukraine–Russia border could cause years of severe global climate disruption and radioactive fallout across much of the world, new research suggests. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-nuclear-war-ukraine-russia-border.html Earth Sciences Thu, 23 Apr 2026 11:40:04 EDT news696159181 The technology used to predict sand and dust storm (SDS) severity has for decades systematically overestimated when and where sediment is transported across Earth's surface, a new study shows. Existing models, which draw on satellite, surface, Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) and weather data, make emission predictions and underpin early warning systems to try and reduce the health and climate impacts of SDS events globally. https://phys.org/news/2026-03-satellite-driven-realistic-reliable-sand.html Earth Sciences Tue, 24 Mar 2026 16:40:06 EDT news693581581 Two microscopic grains collide and produce a tiny spark. This phenomenon may have provided the energy to kick off life on Earth. But if these solid particles have the same composition, what factor causes the charge to flow in a given direction? In a study published in Nature, physicists from the Institute of Science and Technology Austria (ISTA) identify the key factor as environmental carbon-based molecules that adhere to the materials' surface. https://phys.org/news/2026-03-colliding-creation-carbon-coated-grains.html Astrobiology Wed, 18 Mar 2026 12:00:15 EDT news692980261 What governs the speed at which raindrops fall, sediment settles in river estuaries, and matter is ejected during a supernova? These questions circle around one, deceitfully simple factor: the rate at which a fluid filled with particles mixes with a particle-free one. Raindrops travel from one layer of air to another; sediment falls from river to seawater, and ejecta travels from the exploding star through the surrounding dust cloud. The same principle dictates sediment mixing in rising smoke, dust storms, nuclear explosions, hydrocarbon refining, metal smelting, wastewater treatment, and more. https://phys.org/news/2026-03-fluid-simulation-unprecedented-scale-toolkit.html General Physics Wed, 11 Mar 2026 17:10:07 EDT news692463481 Mars is a dusty planet dominated by vast, dry deserts, with no easily accessible sources of liquid water. Much like on Earth, dust is lifted from Mars's surface by wind and rotating air columns, transported through the atmosphere, and deposited back onto the planet's surface via sedimentation. The Martian dust cycle is governed by multiple factors, including interactions between the planetary surface and atmosphere, seasonal variations, and the formation of massive dust storms that can span the globe. https://phys.org/news/2025-12-gomars-simulates-year-martian.html Space Exploration Wed, 17 Dec 2025 08:42:32 EST news685183322 Using images from the James Webb Space Telescope (Webb), an international research team including Western's Stanimir Metchev has discovered new answers to explain how some brown dwarfs form giant dust storms, contradicting previous assumptions. These storms may look similar to Jupiter's iconic Great Red Spot, but the new study, led by Shanghai Jiao Tong University, shows they actually form quite differently. https://phys.org/news/2025-12-super-jupiters-jupiter-necessarily.html Astronomy Mon, 01 Dec 2025 17:12:26 EST news683831521 Scientists have detected what they believe to be lightning on Mars by eavesdropping on the whirling wind recorded by NASA's Perseverance rover. https://phys.org/news/2025-11-scientists-capture-crackling-lightning-mars.html Planetary Sciences Thu, 27 Nov 2025 12:00:04 EST news683386402 Combing through 20 years of images from the European Space Agency's Mars Express and ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter spacecraft, scientists have tracked 1,039 tornado-like whirlwinds to reveal how dust is lifted into the air and swept around Mars's surface. https://phys.org/news/2025-10-mars-devils-revealing-faster.html Planetary Sciences Wed, 08 Oct 2025 14:00:05 EDT news678988921 After nearly 20 years of operations, NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) is on a roll, performing a new maneuver to squeeze even more science out of the busy spacecraft as it circles the Red Planet. Engineers have essentially taught the probe to roll over so that it's nearly upside down. Doing so enables MRO to look deeper underground as it searches for liquid and frozen water, among other things. https://phys.org/news/2025-06-science-mars-orbiter-years-space.html Space Exploration Thu, 26 Jun 2025 15:48:59 EDT news670171725 Microplastics, tiny plastic particles found in everyday products from face wash to toothpaste, are an emerging threat to health and ecology, prompting a research team to identify what keeps them trapped in stream ecosystems. https://phys.org/news/2025-04-microplastics-emerging-threat-streams.html Earth Sciences Mon, 21 Apr 2025 16:18:04 EDT news664471081 A Chinese rover that landed on Mars in 2021 detected evidence of underground beach deposits in an area thought to have once been the site of an ancient sea, providing further evidence that the planet long ago had a large ocean. https://phys.org/news/2025-02-ancient-beaches-testify-ocean-mars.html Astrobiology Mon, 24 Feb 2025 15:00:09 EST news659608201 Are human spacecraft, landers, rovers and other space-exploration debris little more than trash littering the surface of Mars, or the modern equivalent of Clovis points—treasured artifacts marking Homo sapiens' lust for new frontiers? https://phys.org/news/2024-12-anthropologists-tracking-human-artifacts-mars.html Space Exploration Mon, 16 Dec 2024 11:00:01 EST news653560762 In an innovative paper published today in the journal Plants, People, Planet, scientists from the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, Huarango Nature and paramotorists from Forest Air, highlight the exciting potential of paramotoring as a means of aiding research and conservation efforts in some of the most fragile and challenging parts of the globe. https://phys.org/news/2024-09-extreme-botany-paramotorists-soar-remote.html Ecology Tue, 24 Sep 2024 19:00:01 EDT news646392664 People have observed the bright Martian poles wax and wane for centuries, but only within the last 50 years have scientists discovered that they are mostly comprised of carbon dioxide cycling in and out of the atmosphere to the rhythm of the seasons. But exactly how this happens is a complex interplay of planetary processes that scientists are continually teasing out. https://phys.org/news/2024-09-martian-polar-caps-equally.html Planetary Sciences Tue, 03 Sep 2024 12:09:03 EDT news644584141 When allergy season hits, many blame their reactions on the local flora in the spring. However, African Saharan-Sahelian dust plumes, large enough to register on weather radar, travel around the globe every summer, bringing their own form of air pollution. https://phys.org/news/2024-03-unseen-storms-bacteria-fungi-world.html Earth Sciences Tue, 26 Mar 2024 09:20:07 EDT news630663601 Dust storms are not only a nuisance for anyone trying to keep their house spick and span, they also pose a very real health hazard and are a major ecological concern. Respiratory problems caused by breathing in dust and other airborne particles are one of the main causes of death worldwide. https://phys.org/news/2023-06-storms-ai.html Earth Sciences Fri, 16 Jun 2023 10:34:04 EDT news606130442 Climate change could alter wind regimes so much by the end of this century that desert dunes and sand seas may impact human infrastructure, agriculture and homes, finds new study by King's researchers. https://phys.org/news/2022-10-climate-threatens-entire-villages-sand.html Earth Sciences Thu, 27 Oct 2022 12:11:03 EDT news586091461 Approximately half of the large wildfires occurring between 2003 and 2020 were followed by dust events—storms of strong winds lifting dust and sand from dry soils, according to an analysis of more than 150,000 wildfires in Nature Geoscience. https://phys.org/news/2022-10-bushfires-frequently-storms-theyre-worse.html Environment Wed, 19 Oct 2022 13:12:53 EDT news585403972 Saturn's moon Titan looks very much like Earth from space, with rivers, lakes, and seas filled by rain tumbling through a thick atmosphere. While these landscapes may look familiar, they are composed of materials that are undoubtedly different—liquid methane streams streak Titan's icy surface and nitrogen winds build hydrocarbon sand dunes. https://phys.org/news/2022-04-scientists-landscape-formation-titan-revealing.html Astronomy Mon, 25 Apr 2022 11:24:43 EDT news570104677 New research conducted at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) analyzes three-dimensional particle-laden, isotropic turbulence to develop an understanding of inertial particle dynamics from a kinetic energy perspective. https://phys.org/news/2022-02-mystery-particles-cluster-turbulent.html Soft Matter Wed, 16 Feb 2022 15:50:52 EST news564249044 Three studies published in the past month have cast doubt on the premise of subsurface lakes below the Martian south pole. https://phys.org/news/2021-07-clays-source-mars-lakes.html Planetary Sciences Thu, 29 Jul 2021 13:08:07 EDT news546782857 If experiments done in small bottles in a University of Oregon lab are accurate, the friction of colliding Martian dust particles are unlikely to generate big electrical storms or threaten the newly arrived exploration vehicles or, eventually, human visitors. https://phys.org/news/2021-02-mars-rovers-safe-lightning.html Space Exploration Fri, 19 Feb 2021 10:59:24 EST news532954761 A satellite-based dataset generated by KAUST researchers has revealed the dynamics of dust storm formation and movements over the last decade in the Arabian Peninsula. Analysis of this long-term dataset reveals the connection between the occurrence of extreme dust events and regional atmospheric conditions, a finding that could help improve weather forecasting and air-quality models. https://phys.org/news/2021-02-fine-grained-view-storms.html Earth Sciences Tue, 02 Feb 2021 09:44:32 EST news531481464 The discovery of the first known fossil iguana nesting burrow, on an outer island of the Bahamas, fills in a gap of scientific knowledge for a prehistoric behavior of an iconic lizard. PLOS ONE published the finding by scientists from Emory University, which also uncovers new clues to the geologic and natural history of the Bahamas. https://phys.org/news/2020-12-first-known-fossil-iguana-burrow-bahamas.html Paleontology & Fossils Wed, 09 Dec 2020 16:17:51 EST news526753058 A Chinese probe was orbiting the moon on Monday in preparation for the returning of samples of the lunar surface to Earth for the first time in almost 45 years. https://phys.org/news/2020-12-chinese-probe-orbiting-moon-earth-bound.html Space Exploration Mon, 07 Dec 2020 03:55:21 EST news526535716 The southeastern U.S. is getting dusted by the Sahara. https://phys.org/news/2020-06-massive-sahara-plume-southeastern-sensational.html Earth Sciences Thu, 18 Jun 2020 08:20:02 EDT news511686608 Meteorological conditions on Saturn's large moon Titan, the strange, distant world that may be the most Earth-like in the solar system, appear conducive to the formation of dust devils, according to new research in AGU's journal Geophysical Research Letters. https://phys.org/news/2020-04-devils-roam-hydrocarbon-dunes-saturn.html Astronomy Fri, 17 Apr 2020 10:17:40 EDT news506337457