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One of the greatest enduring mysteries is the fate of beloved pilot Amelia Earhart.
Nearly 87 years after the famous aviator and her navigator, Fred Noonan, disappeared over the Pacific Ocean while attempting to fly around the world, underwater archaeologists and other marine experts are still trying to unravel what happened.
The US government claims the aviation pioneer and Noonan crashed into the ocean after running out of fuel, but some believe the duo became castaways on an island or that Earhart was a spy captured by the Japanese.
The record-breaking Earhart disappeared at the top of her powers and became a groundbreaking icon for female pilots.
And a recent discovery could add a new chapter to Earhart’s unfinished story.
Ocean secrets
A search team believes it has found Earhart’s twin-engine plane deep beneath the waves.
Ocean exploration company Deep Sea Vision sent an expedition to the Pacific Ocean between September and December. While using sonar images to map the seabed with sound waves, a small, plane-shaped anomaly appeared at more than 4,877 meters depth.
The researchers made the discovery about 100 miles (161 kilometers) from Howland Island, the next scheduled stop on Earhart and Noonan’s route after taking off from Papua New Guinea.
Deep Sea Vision must return to the location to confirm whether the find is an aircraft. If so, the plane is likely well preserved due to the cold depths of the ocean.
Moon update
The moon is shrinking, and hours-long “moonquakes” and landslides could make the moon’s south pole a risky place for astronauts to land in the future.
Multiple missions are targeting the region with the aim of potentially using the ice deposits for a sustainable human presence on the moon. But as the moon’s core cools and shrinks, the south pole is an area where moonquakes tend to rumble, according to a new study.
Seismometers placed by Apollo astronauts decades ago recorded a moonquake that reached the equivalent of a magnitude 5 earthquake on Earth.
Given the moon’s low gravity, such an earthquake “could knock you off your feet,” says Thomas R. Watters, senior scientist emeritus at the National Air and Space Museum’s Center for Earth and Planetary Studies.
Meanwhile, Japan’s “Moon Sniper” lander received enough solar energy to wake up and take new images of the moon’s surface.
Fantastic creatures
New drone footage appears to show the first time a newborn great white shark has been spotted in the wild.
While capturing aerial video and footage off the coast of Southern California, wildlife filmmaker Carlos Gauna and University of California, Riverside, doctoral student Phillip Sternes spotted a pale shark about 5 feet (1.5 meters) long.
A closer look revealed that a thin, white layer was shed from its body as the shark swam. Sternes said he believes the shark shed a layer of nutritious fluid that supported it in the womb.
Scientists have searched for it for a long time, but have not yet discovered it where great white sharks give birth – an event never witnessed before. Some experts believe the footage could help locate a shark farm.
Dig this
About 350 million years ago, trees were buried alive by an earthquake-induced landslide in what is now Canada.
When researchers unearthed the first fossils from a quarry in 2017, they made the rare discovery of a tree with branches and petals still attached to the trunk, according to a new report describing the species.
Complete tree fossils are harder to find than dinosaur skeletons, but they are crucial for understanding what ancient landscapes and ecosystems looked like, the researchers said. The trees, called Sanfordiacaulis, were reminiscent of palms.
‘It’s a tree that looks all over Dr. Seuss looks. It’s a weird and wonderful idea of what this thing could look like,” said Olivia King, a research associate at the New Brunswick Museum who found the fossils.
Throughout the universe
Millions of stars dance along the spiral arms of 19 galaxies in new images captured by the James Webb Space Telescope.
Webb’s mid-infrared and near-infrared cameras spied sparkling blue stars and glowing red and orange gas that reveal the galaxies’ iconic spiral structure.
Details in the awe-inspiring images provide new pieces of the puzzle that could help astronomers answer important questions about star formation and galactic evolution.
Discoveries
Grab a cup of coffee and enjoy these intriguing new books:
– Ancient DNA from bones found in a German cave has revealed that humans likely made distinctive leaf-shaped stone tools and lived alongside Neanderthals in an unlikely place 45,000 years ago.
— Astronomers peering into the heart of the Milky Way encountered a new type of aging star called an “old smoker,” which can remain invisible for decades before releasing giant clouds of smoke and dust.
— Want to know your dog’s lifespan? Their body size, gender and even the length of their nose could determine how long your fluffy buddy will stay by your side, new research shows.
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