CNN – World

By Katie Hunt and Ashley Strickland, CNN Comet Leonard, which last passed by Earth 80,000 years ago, has been dazzling the night sky before Christmas, and there’s only a few days left to see the celestial object before it disappears forever. The imager onboard the Solar Orbiter, a joint mission between NASA and the European

By Rob Picheta, CNN For the second year in a row, a worrying new coronavirus variant has scuppered holiday plans around the world. This year, it’s the Omicron strain that has scientists and governments concerned — in just a matter of weeks, it has become dominant in multiple countries and put hospitals on alert for

CNN By Rob Picheta, CNN For the second year in a row, a worrying new coronavirus variant has scuppered holiday plans around the world. This year, it’s the Omicron strain that has scientists and governments concerned — in just a matter of weeks, it has become dominant in multiple countries and put hospitals on alert

By Katie Hunt, CNN The human story — where we come from and how we evolved — got a new chapter in 2021. Thanks to new fossil finds and analysis of ancient DNA preserved in teeth, bones and cave dirt, scientists have unearthed startling revelations about our Homo sapien forebears, and other humans that existed

By Ashley Vaughan, Jennifer Grubb, Ben Burnstein, CNN The Philippines are struggling to recover after Super Typhoon Rai devastated the islands last week. The storm left a death toll exceeding 300 people. Those on the ground believe the actual number is higher than has so far been reported, as the storm’s full impact is still

By Ashley Strickland, CNN This year, we got to know our universe a little bit better. Discoveries in our solar system helped us become better acquainted with planets like Mars and Venus. Waves of light reached us from across the cosmos to tell ancient stories and reveal new phenomena. We greeted new worlds that broaden

By Ivana Kottasová and Virginia Langmaid, CNN It might be time to rethink your festive plans, the World Health Organization has warned amid a rising number of cases of the coronavirus caused by the Omicron variant. World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the pandemic might mean canceling in-person events over the holiday period,

By Megan Marples, CNN A crisp wind blew off the Gulf of Mexico as photojournalist and commercial photographer Mark Wallheiser set up his camera on a tripod near the edge of the water. He unfolded his camping chair, opened a cold beer and settled in for a long evening of stargazing. Wallheiser spent last December

By Jeevan Ravindran, CNN If you’ve never heard of the Siau scops-owl, there’s a good reason why — and it’s not because your knowledge of birds isn’t quite up to scratch. Nobody has seen the elusive owl since 1866, and it’s not the only such missing species. Researchers, conservationists and birdwatchers all over the world

By Ashley Strickland, CNN The sun is the literal star of the show in our solar system, but we’re still trying to figure out our celestial disco ball. Debates about the sun were first posed by ancient Greek philosophers. Thousands of years later, the combined work of people like Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler and Newton helped

By Sheena McKenzie and Yong Xiong, CNN As the rapid spread of the Omicron coronavirus variant looms across parts of the globe and the Delta variant remains dominant — for now — in others, the Covid-19 pandemic is again threatening holiday celebrations for millions. Several European cities have already canceled firework displays ringing in 2022

By Angela Eichhorst, CNN Bundle up to enjoy the last full moon of the year. The last full moon of 2021 will reach peak illumination on Saturday, December 18, at 11:32 p.m. ET, according to NASA, but you can trace its path across the sky starting at just before sunset. Known as the “cold moon”

By Ashley Strickland, CNN The isolated Faroe Islands were once home to an unknown population in 500 AD, about 350 years before Vikings ever arrived, according to new research. And the evidence comes from an unusual source: ancient sheep poop. The striking Faroes are a small archipelago located in the North Atlantic halfway between Norway

By Ashley Strickland, CNN Mars has its own version of the Grand Canyon, and scientists have learned this dramatic feature is home to “significant amounts of water” after a discovery made by an orbiter circling the red planet, according to the European Space Agency. The ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter, launched in 2016 as a joint

By Ashley Strickland, CNN Lava once flowed at the site of an ancient lake on Mars. The Perseverance rover landed on the planet just 10 months ago, but it has already made that surprising discovery. The rover’s latest finding suggests that the bedrock it has been driving over since landing was once formed by volcanic