What every week. Beloved nature communicator David Attenborough turned 100 on Friday, and scientists named a newly found species of wasp in his honor. The wasp from Chile, referred to as Attenboroughnculus tau, is not the primary to be named after Attenborough — it joins an inventory of over 50 organisms bearing his identify in a roundabout way, which appears about proper. Additionally this week, NASA shared an replace about its Curiosity rover, which encountered some points throughout a sampling try on Mars, and the company launched a brand new batch of pictures from the Artemis II mission.
Learn on on to be taught extra about these and different science tales we discovered fascinating this week.
Curiosity runs right into a little bit of bother
NASA’s Curiosity rover discovered itself in a little bit of a pickle lately after drilling into some Martian rock that proved unexpectedly clingy. In an incident that was captured by Curiosity’s cameras on April 29, the rover might be seen with a slab of rock caught on its drill bit after it tried to gather a pattern. The rock, dubbed Atacama, was about 1.5 toes broad and weighed almost 30 kilos, in accordance with NASA. In some way within the 14 years the rover has been exploring Mars, this has by no means occurred earlier than, and vibrating the drill to shake the rock free did not work at first.
“When the rover retracted its arm, your entire rock lifted out of the bottom, suspended by the mounted sleeve that surrounds the rotating drill bit,” NASA explains in a weblog submit. “Drilling has fractured or separated the higher layers of rocks prior to now, however a rock has by no means remained connected to the drill sleeve.” After a number of extra makes an attempt over the subsequent couple of days, the crew was capable of get the rock unfastened by “tilting the drill extra, rotating and vibrating the drill, and spinning the drill bit.” We are able to see the rock lastly dropping away from Curiosity and breaking up in photos taken on Could 1.
Curiosity has taken dozens of samples from the floor of Mars by drilling into rock, as proven on this picture from 2024 (trypophobia warning). After drilling, the rover collects the powderized rock and analyzes it with its Pattern Evaluation at Mars (SAM) and Chemistry & Mineralogy (CheMin) devices to find out the composition. Now that its transient mishap has been resolved, it might get again to work.
What goes on on the backside of an Arctic fjord
The Arctic seafloor is not precisely a simple place to watch, however due to a long-running analysis program at Inglefield Bredning in northwest Greenland, we have got a glimpse of what life is like there deep beneath the floor. As a part of this effort, researchers deployed a video digicam and hydrophone 260 meters deep within the fjord for every week in August 2025 to evaluate the seafloor atmosphere and biodiversity. Their findings have been simply revealed within the journal PLOS One, together with some unimaginable pictures and movies (do not be alarmed by the eerie hue, that is because of the pink gentle they used underwater).
The crew recorded a complete of 478 completely different organisms, together with comb jellies, arrowworms, snailfish and shrimp. In a single clip, a snailfish might be seen passively using the present to float backward, which the researchers notice was “peculiar.” Take a look at the highlights right here.
Podolskiy et al.
The devices additionally picked up the sounds of close by narwhals, which have been current on each day of the research besides one, in addition to the sounds of cracking and melting icebergs and boat engine noises. The footage additionally reveals tons of what is often called “marine snow,” or natural particles like poop and materials from useless animals and crops. It is sort of gross to consider, however many deep-sea creatures depend on this materials that falls from increased waters.
Based mostly on the success of their observations, the researchers say their strategy could possibly be a possible option to research these deep Arctic ecosystems. “Up to now, there have been few direct underwater observations within the Arctic for ecological analysis,” the authors wrote. “With video setups turning into accessible, extra research could be useful for filling this information hole.” Compact, moveable moorings with video recorders could possibly be “an necessary device for exploration of the Arctic seafloor,” they notice.
Feast your eyes on 12,000+ pictures from Artemis II
NASA
NASA this week launched hundreds of images captured throughout final month’s Artemis II mission across the moon. You could find all of them right here. In basic authorities web site vogue, the UI sort of sucks, nevertheless it’s nicely value it to click on by way of the catalog when you’ve obtained a while in your fingers. Whereas their goal was the moon, and there are many nice photographs of the moon each from up shut and afar, there are some actually putting photos of Earth and the Milky Means in there too.
