The Latest Breaking News from Earth

Planets are eaten by dying stars as they turn into red giants and expand. Earth will be eaten by the sun in billions of years

A little over 5 million years ago, water from the Atlantic Ocean found a way through the present-day Strait of Gibraltar. According to this theory, oceanic water rushed faster than a speeding car down a kilometre-high slope towards the empty Mediterranean Sea, excavating a skyscraper-deep trough on its way.

The sun was caught bursting out a huge quantity of helium-3, an isotope that's scarce in our solar system.

Rocket start-up SpinLaunch wants to catapult hundreds of flattened "microsatellites" into space at once, using a cannon-like machine that accelerates objects by spinning them. The first orbital demonstration is scheduled for next year.