Book Review: Countdown: Our Last, Best Hope for a Future on Earth?
Books and recommendations from Scientific American
Stories by Lee Billings
Fact or Fiction?: We Can Push the Planet into a Runaway Greenhouse Apocalypse
A new study suggests human activity could, in theory, bring about the end of most life on Earth
Solved: The Mystery of the Martian Meteorites
Precision dating of a single rock resolves lingering uncertainties about the Red Planet’s history
Cassini Spacecraft Takes 1 Last Look at Home Today
For a quarter-hour today, some of us on Earth can look up and know that almost a billion miles away, above the sky, a set of robotic eyes is looking right back .
Neptune s New Moon May Be Named after One of Sea God s Monstrous Children
This past Monday, the planet Neptune officially got a new moon, a relatively tiny chunk of rock and ice about as wide as Manhattan is long. The object is currently dubbed S/2004 N 1, and it’s the fourteenth now known to circle that distant icy world...
Uncommon Measure: Acoustic Result Could Change Definition of Temperature
A new measurement of a fundamental physical constant marks a turning point in the quest to craft a perfect temperature scale
A Brilliant Flash, Then Nothing: New “Fast Radio Bursts” Mystify Astronomers
Ultrafast, ultrabright radio pulses from sources unknown could help map intergalactic matter, but only if astronomers can figure out their origin
Do 3 Habitable Super-Earths Really Orbit a Nearby Star?
News of possible multiple habitable worlds around the red dwarf star Gliese 667 C may be exciting, but researchers caution that certainty about these exoplanets remains elusive
