Earth
Who Found Machu Picchu? A Farmer Walked Him There
In 1911 an American professor was led up the mountain by a local man. The families who lived there already knew the place.
Stories
Earth stories.
29 stories from the Earth desk, newest first.
Earth
People Heard It 4,800 Kilometers Away and Thought It Was Cannons
In 1883 a volcano in Indonesia blew up. The bang crossed the Indian Ocean, and the pressure wave went around the world.
Earth
Clap in Front of This Pyramid and a Bird Answers
A Maya pyramid in Mexico seems to hold a snake made of shadow and a bird made of echoes. Nobody knows whether that was planned.
Earth
A Farmer Heard a Cave Breathing
In 1991 a man in Vietnam found a cave by its sound. It has its own river, its own weather and its own jungle.
Earth
There's a Seal in the Middle of Russia
Lake Baikal is the deepest lake on Earth. It holds about a fifth of the planet's unfrozen fresh water, and a seal lives in it.
Earth
The Hole That Stopped Because It Got Too Hot
A Soviet drill went 12 kilometers into the ground in northern Russia. The rock at the bottom was far warmer than anyone predicted.
Earth
A Record Player in Space, Just in Case
Two spacecraft carry a gold-plated record with Earth's sounds, and Voyager 1 is about to be a full light-day away.
Earth
A Salt Flat So Flat That Satellites Use It as a Ruler
After rain, Bolivia's Salar de Uyuni becomes a mirror. The rest of the time, it helps check how high satellites think they are.
Earth
The Statues Walked, Say the People Who Know the Island
The old stories of Rapa Nui say the moai walked. An experiment in 2012 suggests they really could.
Earth
It's Not a Worm, and the Light Comes From Its Tail End
The glowworms of Waitomo are baby flies. They fish with sticky threads, and the hungry ones glow brightest.
Earth
An Island Was Born in 1963, and Only Scientists Can Visit
Surtsey rose out of the sea off Iceland. Ever since, researchers have watched how life moves in.
Earth
The First Boat to the Bottom Read the Wrong Number
In 1960 two men spent almost five hours sinking to the deepest place in the ocean. Their depth gauge was off by about 600 meters.
Earth
The Sea That Won't Let You Sink, and Is Slowly Leaving
The Dead Sea is nearly ten times saltier than the ocean, and its shore drops about a meter every year.
Earth
A Star the Size of a City That Spins Faster Than a Blender
In 1967 a student noticed a radio signal that ticked like a clock. It was a neutron star.
Earth
A Beach in a Meadow, With Waves
Gulpiyuri is in a field in northern Spain, and the sea reaches it underground.
Earth
The Bay in Puerto Rico That Lights Up When You Paddle Through It
Mosquito Bay glows blue because of microscopic creatures that flash when something disturbs the water.
Earth
The Waterfall With a Hidden Door for Birds
Iguazu is 275 waterfalls, not one, and some birds nest right behind them.
Earth
Are There Really More Stars Than Grains of Sand?
Nobody has counted either pile. Here is how people guessed, and which way the guesses lean.
Earth
The Seeds That Went Back Home
A vault in an Arctic mountain keeps spare copies of the world's crop seeds. In 2015 someone asked for some back.
Earth
A Whole Country With No Capital and One Road Around It
Nauru is the world's smallest island nation. Its middle is missing, and the reason is under the ground.
Earth
The Waterfall Named After a Pilot Who Got Stuck
A plane left on a mountaintop for 33 years, a drop of 979 meters, and a name the Pemon people had first.
Earth
Great Blue Hole: The Legacy of a Vanished Ice Age
Beneath the waters of Belize lies the remnant of an ancient cave system formed during the last ice age. Discover how changing seas transformed it…
Earth
What’s Really Slowing? Separating the Gulf Stream from the Atlantic’s Overturning Circulation
The Gulf Stream — a powerful surface current — remains largely intact. But its deep counterpart, the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation…
Earth
Hverfjall: A 2,500-Year-Old Fossil Explosion — The Phreatomagmatic Birth of Iceland’s Perfect Circle
Hverfjall, a 2,500-year-old phreatomagmatic tephra ring in Iceland’s Mývatn region, remains one of Earth’s most geometrically perfect volcanic…
