planet

Gabriela Cowperthwaite is the first to admit her new film, I.S.S., is out of step with her career to date.The director of Blackfish (a documentary about the cruel treatment of orcas in captivity, Children of the Underground (about a covert network built to smuggle families away from abusive partners) and Our Friend (a true story of friendship in the face of terminal cancer), Cowperthwaite might be expected to focus on tales inspired by real events. Instead, an unrealized love for thrillers, horror and blockbusters took…

By now, most people are well aware that 2023 was the hottest year on record, coming in at 1.48 C warmer than the pre-industrial average from 1850-1900. This beat out 2016's record of 1.25 C.  In climate terms, an increase in warming by 0.23 C is considerable and climate scientists are still trying to figure out why it happened.Was 2023 just a big blip on the upward trend of global warming? Perhaps. Scientists are trying to tease out all the potential contributors.But one of the things that is inarguably a contributor is…

A cache of scientific equipment that could fit in the back of an SUV has been lowered into the sea north of the Antarctic Peninsula, and is already streaming open-source data for anyone wanting to monitor the Southern Ocean's health.Scientists say the underwater observatory collects measurements, including temperature, oxygen concentration and chlorophyll levels, and will fill a gap in data to help understand the impact of climate change in the waters around Antarctica.The project is being jointly run by Ocean Networks…

An exoplanet discovered just 73 light-years away is offering a glimpse into what baby Earth might have looked like – if it was locked in a scorchingly tight orbit with its star.The world is named HD 63433 d, a newborn exoplanet that's just a titch bigger than Earth, orbiting a star that is just like the Sun. It's the smallest planet we've found yet that is less than 500 million years old, a rare window into the formation of planets similar to, but not entirely like, our own world.Earth is the only world that we know for…

French startup Kermap has developed a ‘digital twin’ of the Earth that claims to offer the most up-to-date views of our home planet.  The programme is called Nimbo Earth Online and it is the only platform providing new satellite views of the world every month, without clouds. Google Earth refreshes its imagery every several months to years, depending on location. AI-powered Nimbo’s chronological views of the world rely on Sentinel 1 and 2 satellite images supplied by the EU’s Copernicus…

Astronomers have discovered over 5,500 worlds out there in the great unknown. And yet, they continue to baffle and surprise us. The latest surprise comes in the form of exoplanet WASP-69B, a planet with a 350,000-mile-long comet-like tail flowing behind it.Slightly larger than Jupiter, WASP-69b is what astronomers often refer to as a hot Jupiter. It’s less dense than our solar system’s largest gas giant and orbits its star in just 3.9 Earth days. While WASP-69b might be one of the most common types of exoplanet,…

Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain Automotive giants Tesla and Volvo have announced pauses to the production of their electric vehicles (EVs) in Europe. Electric vehicles are seeing record sales and demand worldwide, but a lack of parts means that factories cannot sustain their production.…

Still the gaming behemoth it’s been since it was released over twelve years ago, Minecraft continues to sell in droves. Much of that is its mass appeal of allowing near-infinite build potential. But the recent release of the Planet Earth III DLC probably isn’t hurting things, either. Inspired by the BBC documentary of the same name, the latest Minecraft content brings more of the natural world to the blocky sandbox game. But it goes beyond just pretty animals. A recent post on the official website gives details on…

Minecraft has partnered with BBC Earth to release a new world inspired by the BBC series Planet Earth 3. According to a press release, the new map will allow players to step into “extraordinary realms of the natural world to experience the struggles and triumphs of survival”. The collaboration also allows players to play as, among others, a great white shark and an Arctic wolf. This will shed light on the “precarious balance of survival” by allowing players to be both predator and prey, discovering what it’s like to…

If you own a copy of Minecraft: Bedrock Edition or Minecraft: Education Edition, you can now grab a free expansion pack based on the BBC's Planet Earth III. Much like the previous Frozen Planet II experience, this new wildlife documentary DLC lets players explore five scenarios through the lens of animals — arctic wolves, ocelots, musk oxen, leopards, Cape fur seals, great white sharks, impalas and more.Basically, be the hunter or be hunted; you get to play both sides on locations ranging from the Arctic tundra to the…