How well do you follow Earth and space science news? Take one of our quizzes to find out!
True or False? Skills for research data management (RDM), including organizing, documenting, analyzing, preserving, and publishing data, have been integrated widely into science curricula in higher education. Credit: iStock.com/Kulpreya Chaichatpornsuk
Stand Up for Science is the name of a group of rallies that took place on 7 March 2025. How many cities hosted official events? Above, a sign from a 2017 March for Science protest in Portland, Ore. Credit: Another Believer/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0
Tree distribution in boreal forests like the one at the entrance to Denali National Park, in Alaska, will likely undergo changes in the coming century. Where is the boreal forest (taiga) biome? Credit: NPS Photo/Tim Rains
China’s Yellow River transports sediments and other materials for thousands of kilometers and is a cornerstone of nearby ecosystems. How long is the River? Credit: fading/Wikimedia, CC BY-SA 3.0
True or False? One proposed means of slowing the ice flow and melting rates of marine-terminating glaciers involves using flexible fabric barriers, or curtains, anchored to the seafloor. Credit: Antarctica New Zealand
True or false? High-elevation lakes, like this one in the Wind River Range in Wyoming, are often naturally fishless. Credit: Zruda/Flickr, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
Pollution from commercial gas stoves is an understudied occupational hazard. Gas stoves, like those in homes and restaurants, have been shown to worsen indoor air quality by leaking what gases? Credit: Peruphotoart/Adobe Stock
Johannes de Sacrobosco’s 13th century text De Sphaera Mundi depicts an eclipse. In new work, researchers used ancient eclipse records to learn more about how the length of days on Earth has changed over time. What forces can affect the length of Earth’s days? Credit: New York Public Library, Public Domain
During which geologic eon were most banded iron formations, such as this one in Dales Gorge, Australia, deposited? Credit: Graeme Churchard/Flickr, CC BY 2.0
Dust from the Sahara carries iron to ocean life in the Atlantic. Does the iron become more or less bioavailable the farther this dust travels? Credit: NOAA
When glaciers, like those near Lenin Peak, seen here from Kyrgyzstan, melt, the organic matter trapped within enters rivers and streams. True or false? Most glaciers have more or less the same profile of organic matter content. Credit: Amy Holt
Mars’s surface is pockmarked with millions of craters formed by asteroids. Some of those impacts might have launched material that ended up on Earth. Roughly how many of the 60,000 meteorites found on Earth originated on Mars? Credit: NASA/JPL/Arizona State University, R. Luk
True or false? Scientists hypothesize that reactions in deep Earth can cause nonporous rocks to temporarily develop porosity. Credit: Gharvart/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
DG Canum Venaticorum, one of a binary pair of red dwarf stars, released a sequence of strong flares in April 2014. The strongest of the flares, illustrated here, was 10,000 times more powerful than the strongest recorded solar flare. Are ultraviolet flares from M dwarf stars always helpful, always harmful, or possibly helpful and possibly harmful? Credit: NASA/GSFC/S. Wiessinger
In much of the ocean, particularly the Arctic, nitrogen is the limiting factor for the growth of phytoplankton blooms like this one in the Barents Sea. Credit: European Union, Copernicus Sentinel-3 imagery
A new technique could improve predictions of tropical cyclones such as Typhoon Kilo, Hurricane Ignacio, Hurricane Jimena, and Tropical Depression 14E, pictured here from left to right. What is the longest-lasting tropical cyclone on record? Credit: NASA/NOAA GOES Project
This photo shows an experimental forest fire in northwestern Canada, ignited to increase understanding of wildfire behavior. Have global extreme wildfire frequency and intensity doubled or tripled over the past 20 years? Credit: Stefan Doerr/Imaggeo, CC BY-ND 3.0
This image of Uranus from NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) on NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope shows the planet and its rings in dazzling clarity. Can you put the planets of our solar system in order of their distance from the Sun? Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI
What factors, when out of balance, contribute to a phenomenon called a triple column-compound extreme that affects marine life in the water column? Credit: Avoini via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0
Lee Ferry is the dividing point between the ______ and ______ basins of the Colorado River. Credit: Alexander Heilner/The Water Desk, with aerial support provided by LightHawk; CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
Despite its small size, Hawaii (here Nāpali Coast State Wilderness on the island of Kauai) is climatically diverse. How many climate divisions does Hawaii have? Credit: Roberto Nickson/Unsplash
Scientists were able to recover fragments of the Winchcombe meteorite, such as this one, within hours of its crash in Gloucestershire, England, in February 2021. Where did the largest chunk of the meteorite land? Credit: Trustees of the Natural History Museum
Landsat images of the Rio Bermejo in Argentina show how the path of the river migrated between 2013 and 2022. What factors can influence the lateral migration of a river’s path? Credit: USGS
True or false? A single hurricane striking New England could be enough to wipe out a carbon offset program’s storm buffer pool. Credit: NASA/NOAA GOES Project/Flickr, CC BY 2.0
Sahara el Beyda, or the White Desert Protected Area, in Egypt is the site of large white chalk rock formations such as these. Are you a monolith or part of a cool conglomerate? Find out what famous rock formation you are with our 7-question personality quiz. Credit: L-BBE/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 3.0
An artist’s impression of a glory on exoplanet WASP-76 b. On which solar system planets has the “glory effect,” which can look like a circular rainbow, been seen? Credit: ESA, work performed by ATG under contract for ESA, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO
What are Canada’s top two most threatening volcanoes, according to a new analysis from scientists at the Geological Survey of Canada? Credit: Wikimedia Commons/Tim Gage, CC BY-SA 2.0
A plastic-covered beach is emblematic of the serious plastic problem in Manila, Philippines. How many garbage trucks’ worth of plastics are dumped into oceans, lakes, and rivers each day? Credit: Adam Cohn/Flickr, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
Off the Bonney Coast region of Australia, upwelling currents support an array of marine life, including phytoplankton blooms that appear as greenish swirls. In the process of absorbing carbon dioxide, what other two potent greenhouse gases can the coastal ocean release? Credit: NASA
An unusual El Niño event may have jump-started the retreat of Thwaites Glacier on the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS). New research shows its current retreat phase started around the same time as which of the other WAIS glaciers? Credit: NASA ICE/Flickr, CC BY 2.0
In many regions, atmospheric rivers, like the one shown here in green, are expected to increase in frequency with climate change. During East Asia’s warm season, approximately what percentage of precipitation comes from atmospheric rivers? Credit: NASA
A new study analyzes how metal isotopes may increase scientists’ understanding of how corals like these in Australia’s Great Barrier Reef respond to stress. In which of corals’ biological processes are metal isotopes involved? Credit: Toby Hudson/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0
Floating debris in the ocean can be home to a mix of coastal organisms and open-ocean organisms. In what part of the Pacific is the Great Pacific Garbage Patch? Credit: The Ocean Cleanup
True or False? The global consensus among water scientists and policy experts is that countries are making good progress toward achieving the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 6, which calls for the availability of clean water and sanitation for all people.Credit: foreground: iStock.com/Pict Rider; background: iStock.com/piyaset
Astronaut Charles Conrad Jr. walks on the Moon during the Apollo 12 mission. Artemis astronauts will be the first humans to set foot on the Moon since the Apollo program ended nearly 50 years ago. Where does this new crop of lunar explorers aim to land? Credit: NASA
Volcanic gases emanate from vents at Hawaii’s Kīlauea volcano during an eruption in September 2023. True or false? Emissions of mercury from volcanoes and other natural sources dwarf emissions from anthropogenic sources like coal combustion. Credit: U.S. Geological Survey/L. Gallant, Public Domain
Firefighters light and monitor prescribed burns to reduce the risk of extreme wildfires. New research estimates that because of climate change, opportunities for prescribed burns in the coming decades may decrease by what percent? Credit: terski/Pixabay
In climate science, the pattern effect describes how the sensitivity of Earth’s climate depends on the geographic pattern of _____ across the planet’s surface. Credit: David Bonan
U.S. Coast Guard mariners push a flat-bottomed boat through Baton Rouge, La., floodwaters in 2016. Approximately how much does flooding in the United States cost communities each year? Credit: Petty Officer 3rd Class Brandon Giles, U.S. Coast Guard
A large solar flare erupts from the Sun’s surface in this image from NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory taken on 7 March 2012. How long is the average solar cycle? Credit: NASA/GSFC/SDO
Recent rapid advances in the development of LLM–based chatbot systems that can generate responses to natural language prompts and carry on sophisticated conversations may reshape how people engage with science topics like climate change. What is LLM short for? Credit: iStock.com/Anastasia Usenko
A land of vast glaciers and heavy snows that feed many major rivers, the _____ _____, often considered to be Earth’s “Third Pole,” is also a major influence on the global climate system. Credit: Tenace10/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
What nutrient is prevalent in agricultural fertilizer but also contributes to algal blooms, eutrophication, and dead zones in waterways? Credit: Jerry Ackerman, U.S. EPA
True or false? Studies have found that mental health issues such as depression, anxiety, and loneliness are prevalent among Ph.D. students. Credit: iStock.com/David Schaffer
An ingredient that is part of the biochemistry of life has been found on Enceladus. What are the six essential elements of life? Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute
Scientists have measured Arctic sea ice every September since 1979. How much sea ice has been lost since then? Credit: NASA/Kathryn Hansen, Public Domain
True or False? Beaver dams tend to degrade local ecosystems because they reduce habitat for other animals and hoard water that would otherwise be distributed more widely. Credit: Schmiebel/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0
Which baseball stadium will experience the largest increase in the number of home runs thanks to climate-driven warming? Credit: Rex Hammock, CC BY-SA 2.0
Are you downtown D.C. or an isolated island? Make some Earth and space sciences choices and we’ll let you know. Shown here is the Mesa Arch in Canyonlands National Park in Utah. Credit: DonyaNedomam/Depositphotos.com
Choose some of your favorite Earth sciences and we’ll tell you who on Earth we think you are—a deep, brooding ocean or a bright, sunny plain? Credit: NASA
True or false? Firsthand “felt reports” from people who experienced earthquakes are better at identifying low-impact quakes than high-impact quakes. Credit: Walter Mooney, USGS
Scientists recently found that a landslide in what country might have been the first Arctic landslide caused by climate change? Credit: Kristian Svennevig
True or false? In California, transportation and agriculture are both significant contributors to nitrogen dioxide emissions. Credit: Amelia Cui, Unsplash
True or false? In a new study, scientists described a new method that can pinpoint where in a cloud a lightning strike begins. Credit: Mathias Krumbholz/Wikimedia, CC-BY-SA 3.0
Geologists can harpoon the Whaleback anticline in which U.S. state? (Hint: It is a former coal mine located in the Middle Anthracite region). Credit: Universities Space Research Association/Earth Science Picture of the Day/Dave Kerr
True or false? Breakdown products from pharmaceuticals are always less toxic than their original parent compound. Credit: SharonDawn/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
True or false? Heavy physical cables are still necessary for the Internet to work as we expect it to. Credit: TeleGeography’s Submarine Cable Map, CC BY-SA 4.0
Are you a spark of lightning or a glacial glide? Find your signature Earth or space science phenomenon with our fun and scientifically silly 10-question quiz.
Researchers recently completed an open-access geospatial database of the Prince Edward Islands. Where are the Prince Edward Islands? Credit: Liezel Rudolph
To be useful in evacuation planning in places like Hawaii, models that forecast lava flows must accurately predict what characteristics?. Credit: A. Lerner/U.S. Geological Survey, Public Domain
True or false? Across the city of Indore, India, a network of low-cost sensors revealed that most air pollution comes from a single type of source. Credit: Ikshit Patel, Unsplash
Glaciers in Kenai Fjords National Park, Alaska, can terminate over land, lakes, or the ocean. Which type of glacier is slowest to retreat? Shown here is Holgate glacier.
Most deltas are susceptible to land loss during sea level rise, whereas others gain land because of changes in the courses of rivers. This famous delta is experiencing land loss in most areas but gaining in others. What delta are we looking at?
Astronomers have only found 8 planets around pulsars, those cosmic lighthouses that are born when massive stars die. By which methods have pulsar planets been found?
According to new research, about how much methane do lakes (including Lake Carezza in Italy, pictured) release into the atmosphere every year? Credit: Umberto Salvagnin/Flickr, CC BY 2.0
High school students from the Azores used a Raspberry Pi to measure Earth’s magnetic field and pinpoint its pole locations using data from the ISS. Where are the Azores?
In Florida, stormwater ponds protect the quality of nearby waterways by containing sediment, which sinks to the bottom of the ponds, and prevent erosion by limiting runoff. How many stormwater ponds are in Florida?
As wildfire smoke rises into the atmosphere, sunlight spurs chemical reactions that alter the smoke’s original components (primary organic aerosols) and create new ones, called what?
Lake Snow Eagle is 198 meters (650 feet) deep, 48 kilometers (30 miles) long, and 14 kilometers (9 miles) wide. Why was it discovered only 4 years ago?
A coronal mass ejection from a star 450 light years from Earth sent two billion billion pounds of mass rocketing into space. (Yes, billion billion.) Where is the coronal mass ejection on this illustration?
What information is helping scientists study ancient landslides off the coast of New Zealand to better assess the modern-day risk of tsunamis around the Tasman Sea?
