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What obscure kingdom lie beneath our foot ? In this week ’s science news , geologist uncovered aseries of " sunken worlds " hidden deep within Earth ’s mantlethat they say should n’t be there . The buried blobs seem to be chunks of our planet ’s ancient crust , but scientists ca n’t figure out how they got there .

Moving closer to the airfoil , an enormous source of groundwater — twice the sizing ofLake Mead , the largest source in the U.S. — has been discoveredin the rocks of the Oregon Cascades .

split image of kidney beans on mars and fiery impactor

Science news this week includes kidney beans on Mars and sunken worlds hidden deep within Earth.

And speaking of obscure pee , weird bean - shaped blob on Mars might provide unexampled clues in our search forlife on Mars .

Kidney beans on mars

Giant ‘kidney beans’ spotted in Mars satellite images could point to signs of water and life

NASAsatellites have spotted what looks like a field of giant kidney beans on Mars . But despite their weird coming into court , these legume lookalikes are in reality frozen grit dunes .

A stratum of carbon dioxide hoarfrost holds the moxie sand dune in place , and physicist say that this Robert Frost mightoffer new perceptiveness into the ruddy planet ’s ancient atmosphere , and thus its power to support liquified piss — and potentially sprightliness .

key more space news

Frozen sand dunes sit locked in place in Mars' northern hemisphere, stuck until the spring thaw melts their icy shells

These geological formations on Mars look eerily like kidney beans, but are in fact frozen sand dunes that are locked in place until spring thaw melts them.

— Supermassive black muddle recognise 12.9 billion light - years from Earth — and it ’s shoot a electron beam of energy right at us

— uncommon bowed stringed instrument of ' cosmic pearls ' dance together in the macrocosm

— Something invisible and ' fuzzy ' may lurk at the Milky Way ’s plaza , young inquiry suggests

a photo of a woman holding up a bay leaf from a jar and smelling it

Bay leaves are a controversial food item, with some saying they impart a distinctive flavor and others arguing they do nothing at all.

Life’s Little Mysteries

Do bay leaves actually add flavor, or is it all a con?

When a recipe calls for bay leafage , how often do you actually use them ? The leathery folio has been a mainstay of Mediterranean cuisine for centuries — but what do embayment leave in reality taste like ? Anddo they really add look ?

Breakthrough in quantum computing

Schrödinger’s Cat breakthrough could usher in the ‘Holy Grail’ of quantum computing, making them error-proof

Quantum computers are inherently noisy , which entail they are also prostrate to making error . The error charge per unit of these machine has been a major obstruction in their development . But now , by using the famousSchrödinger ’s guy paradox and atoms of atomic number 51 embedded in a silicon quantum Saratoga chip , scientist have significantly reduced this computer error pace and detected problems before they come .

divulge more physics and engineering science news program

— ' Spooky ' quantum web come upon inside case-by-case protons for 1st clip ever

An artist’s illustration of Schrödinger’s Cat.

A breakthrough inspired by the Schrödinger’s Cat thought illustration could. usher in error-proof quantum computing, a new study suggests.

— petite AI silicon chip modeled on the human brain set to boost battery life story in smart equipment

— Top - confidential X-37B space plane has been in electron orbit for more than 1 twelvemonth

Also in science news this week

— fresh supergiant ' Darth Vader ' sea bug discovered in South China Sea — and it ’s utterly massive

— China plans to build tremendous solar array in space — and it could hoard more energy in a class than ' all the oil on Earth '

— IVF may put forward risk of exposure of sealed disorders in baby — and epigenetic ' signatures ' in the placenta could explain why — One of Iceland ’s turgid volcanoes sees swarm of 130 seism — could it be about to brag ?

Artist reconstruction of Tameryraptor markgrafi.

Scientists have identified a new species of dinosaur from a series of lost photographs dating to the 1940s of fossils.

Science Spotlight

Giant horned dinosaur’s fossils were destroyed in WWII — but photos reveal it was an unknown species

A coinage of giant dinosaur has been key from lost photos after its original fossils were ruin during World War II . At 33 feet ( 10 meters ) long , the new key species , Tameryraptor markgrafi , is one of the large body politic animate being know to science .

Tameryraptoris call up to have exist in what is now North Africa around 95 million age ago . Its bones were first uncovered in Egypt ’s Western Desert in 1914 and were held in the Bavarian State Collection for Paleontology and Geology in Germany until the construction was bomb in 1944 .

At the time , palaeontologist believed the specimen belonged to a genus of large theropod dinosaurs calledCarcharodontosaurus . However , antecedently obscure photographs — hear in an archive at the University of Tübingen — suggest thatthe specimen belonged to a different mathematical group all in all .

A photo taken from the ISS showing a bright comet and its streaking tail appearing to fall behind Earth’s horizon

Astronaut Don Pettit captured a stunning photo of Comet C/2024 G3 (ATLAS) as it streaked across the sky and fell behind Earth’s horizon.

Something for the weekend

If you ’re take care for something a little longer to register over the weekend , here are some of the better long read , book excerpts and interviews published this week .

— Why we need leech , despite them phlebotomize life-time from others

— atomic fusion could be the clean energy of the future tense — but these ' sturdy ' challenges stand in the room

Split image of the Martian surface and free-floating atoms.

— 20,000 - year - old ' human ' fossils from Japan are n’t what we thought

Science in pictures

‘Totally amazing’ astronaut photo captures comet C/2024 G3 ATLAS shooting past Earth from the ISS

NASA astronaut Don Pettit snap astunning shot of comet C/2024 G3 ( ATLAS ) as it raced past our satellite for the first time in 160,000 twelvemonth . The comet made its closest coming to Earth on Tuesday ( Jan. 14 ) , although it was mostly only visible in the Southern Hemisphere . However , it could also be see from theInternational Space Station(ISS ) .

" It is totally awing to see a comet from orbit , " Pettit write in a post on the social political program X.

Split image of the world�s largest underground thermal lake on record and a �city-killer� asteroid approaching Earth.

A mosaic in Pompeii and distant asteroids in the solar system.

Split image of newborn planets and the burial object left in a newly discovered ancient Egyptian tomb.

Split image of Skull Hill on Mars and an artificially stimulated retina

Split image of a "cosmic tornado" and a face depiction from a wooden coffin in Tombos.

an illustration of a base on the moon

a photo of the Milky Way reflecting off of an alpine lake at night

A composite image of the rings on Saturn, Uranus and Jupiter

an illustration of Mars

An artist�s illustration of a satellite crashing back to Earth.

An illustration of a satellite crashing into the ocean after an uncontrolled reentry through Earth�s atmosphere

An aerial photo of mountains rising out of Antarctica snowy and icy landscape, as seen from NASA�s Operation IceBridge research aircraft.

A tree is silhouetted against the full completed Annular Solar Eclipse on October 14, 2023 in Capitol Reef National Park, Utah.

Screen-capture of a home security camera facing a front porch during an earthquake.

Circular alignment of stones in the center of an image full of stones

Three-dimensional rendering of an HIV virus