There is a great amount of biological diversity on Earth, with millions of different species living in all kinds of ecosystems. This biodiversity is not distributed equally across the globe, with a larger amount of species living in the warmer areas near the tropics. The study of how species and ecosystems are distributed in the…
In 2006, the International Astronomical Union (IAU) introduced a new definition of planet, changing the way we classify the larger bodies in the Solar System. According to this definition, a planet is a celestial body that: orbits the Sun, is in hydrostatic equilibrium, meaning that it has a nearly round shape, it has “cleared the…
Only 29.2% of the surface of Earth is land, while the remaining 70.8% is covered by the oceans. The landmasses located above sea level are divided into continents. While there are various ways to distinguish the continents, the most common model counts seven of them: Europe, Asia, Africa, North America, South America, Australia, and Antarctica…
For millennia the only known celestial objects were those visible to the naked eye. In the Solar System these are limited to the Sun, the Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, and some comets and asteroids occasionally passing near our planet. Astronomy was revolutionized in the early seventeenth century, when Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei was…
Over the past few decades, extreme weather events have become more and more common all over the world, due to the effects of climate change caused by human activities. Closely linked with the rise of global average temperatures is the increased frequency of heat waves, which have brought record high temperatures in numerous countries. Meanwhile…
Eclipses are among the most beautiful and fascinating astronomical events that can be observed from Earth. Since ancient times, people have been captivated by the unique occurence of an eclipse, sometimes appreciating their beauty, and other times looking at them with fear. Now we know that eclipses are just a natural phenomenon and we can…
Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun in our Solar System, and it is one of the most studied celestial bodies. Observed since ancient times, it was the target of some of the earliest space exploration missions in the 1960s, and it has been reached by several uncrewed spacecrafts ever since. Today, thanks to…