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This week in scientific discipline news , we followed an despatch to the bottom of the worldly concern in search of a lava lake , tracked a mysterious lump of the moon revolve Earth and discovered something horrifying hiding in someone ’s pinna duct .
Although we know much about the control surface of our major planet , there is still plenty to be break , and it necessitate brave souls and daring adventures to locate and confirm these never - before - see feature article . That ’s what one set of researcher did when they visited Mount Michael , a volcano on Saunders Island near Antarctica , where they completed a perilous ascent to confirm the existence of something that was previously only theory — theworld ’s 8th lava lake .
Science news this week includes a perilous expedition to an uninhabited island in the South Atlantic to find the world’s 8th lava lake, and a chunk of the moon appears to be orbiting near Earth.
The Antarctic was also home to more alarming newsworthiness this week , with the discovery ofhighly pathogenic chick fluthat could threaten penguin colonies , and report of the " inescapable " collapseof the West Antarctic water ice sheet .
shift from Antarctica to Africa , we learnt of a"world - class aquifer"in the Sahara , anancient Egyptian Book of the Deadand the " lowly miracle " ofgenetically link living citizenry with skullsstolen from Africa a century ago and put in in a German museum .
The origin of an asteroid discovered in 2016 that is close orbiting Earth has been baffling scientists , but a fresh discipline suggests itcould be a chunk of our near neighbor , the moon ( which itselfcould be a lot olderthan we antecedently thought ) . Another thing orbiting too close for comfort is infinite junk , and a novel study suggest it could be changing Earth ’s upper atmospherein ways we do n’t fully understand .
NASA’s Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) spacecraft captured this image of an enormous X-class solar flare as it erupted from the sun on Oct. 28, 2003. The monstrous solar storm is one of the largest in recorded history.
— scientist at last figure out 390 million - class - old ' murder mystery ' from an ancient supercontinent
— World ’s smallest mote accelerator is 54 million times smaller than the Large Hadron Collider , and it works
— In a 1st , AI neural meshing captures ' decisive aspect of human intelligence '
— Humans and Neanderthals couple 250,000 years ago , much in the first place than thought
Over to the animal kingdom , the top stories this week revealed just how terrific aJurassic " megapredator"might have been ; the discovery of numerous fossil go to the world’slargest - ever pouched mammal ; and how caterpillars evolved theirweird chubby little " prolegs " .
ultimately , it would n’t be the spookiest clock time of the year without a little repulsion — the " short " thing in this case being a spider , and the horror is , well , see for yourself … if you dare !
An artist’s illustration shows how an electrostatic tractor beam could be used to pull defunct satellites out of geostationary orbit around Earth. In reality, the beam would be invisible.
Picture of the week
This ghoulishly green look-alike shows asolar flareexploding on the sun ’s surface , acquire on Oct. 28 , 2003 . During the flighty time of year of 2003 , the Dominicus spat out an unusually powerful serial ofsolar flares , known as the " Halloween solar storms . " The most powerful of these flare , anX - grade flair , explode from a macula blanket than 13 Earths and launch a high - speed explosion of electrically charge particles , called acoronal slew ejection(CME ) , that smashed into Earth the next day .
The resulting CME temporarily knock out one-half of the satellites orb Earth at the time and force astronaut on theInternational Space Stationto take natural covering from the radiation therapy . On Earth , the leave geomagnetic storm rally for three Day , create temporary tuner blackouts across large parts of the satellite and causing permanent damage to electric substructure in some berth .
Experts say the superpowered storm could have been the largest since theCarrington Eventin 1859 , but if that was n’t skittish enough , the sunshine ’s upcoming point of elevation activity , the solar maximum , looksset to be the strong in decades .
Sunday reading
Something for Halloween
It ’s the time of year of creepy pumpkin carvings , terrifying trick - or - regale and ghoulish ghost stories , but countenance ’s not let skill get in the way of something supernatural . Here are some of our tremendous favorites for spooky season .
Live Science long read
With the commercial space industry booming , the identification number of satellites in Earth ’s orbit is prefigure to rise acutely . This gold rush of new satellite will finally wear out and turn the distance around Earth into a elephantine junkyard of debris that could crush into working space vehicle , plump to Earth , pollute our standard atmosphere with metalsandobscure our sight of the universe . If left unchecked , the growingspace junkproblem could hobble the palmy space exploration industry , experts admonish .
So what is the resolution to this high - post job ? Something direct out of science - fable — tractor ray of light .
Plants : Facts about our oxygen providers
Satellite study reveals the fastest fall off city in the US
The unremitting surveillance of modern living could worsen our brain use in way we do n’t fully understand , disturbing studies suggest
