Popular Science

New satellite images are helping scientists understand a major tsunami that changed the landscape of a popular tourist destination in Alaska forever. 

On August 10, 2025, a tsunami larger than the Eiffel Tower ripped through Tracy Arm fjord in southeast Alaska. The rapid retreat of the South Sawyer Glacier triggered a landslide that swept huge rocks down the picturesque waterway visited by millions aboard Alaskan cruises every summer. At least 64 million cubic meters of rock slid down the slope of the glacier. The rocks created an enormous tsunami that stripped trees and other vegetation from the opposing fjord wall up to 1,578 feet above sea level. 

The NASA-USGS Landsat satellite images show the dramatic changes to the landscape. In one photo taken on July 26, 2025, the fjord is surrounded by green vegetation. 

The shores of Tracy Arm on July 26, 2025. Image: NASA Earth Observatory images by Michala Garrison, using Landsat data from the U.S. Geological Survey.

In the second image, taken nine days after the landslide on August 19, the fjord is dominated by a gray scar made by the cascading rock. 

The shores of Tracy Arm on August 19, 2025. This image was taken after the tsunami and landslide. Image: NASA Earth Observatory images by Michala Garrison, using Landsat data from the U.S. Geological Survey.Image: NASA Earth Observatory images by Michala Garrison, using Landsat data from the U.S. Geological Survey.

“The bright landslide scar on the north side of the fjord is striking, as is the ‘bathtub’ ring around the fjord showing the areas where the forest was leveled by the tsunami,” said Dan Shugar, a geomorphologist at the University of Calgary.

Sawyer Island, located about 6 miles away from the landslide, also turned from green to brown. Only a few trees still stood at the island’s higher elevations.

Over the past several months, Shugar and his colleagues combined satellite, airborne, and ground-based observations with eyewitness accounts and simulations to build a complete story with how this historic event transformed. Their analysis was published May 6 in the journal Science.

Their analysis found that water continued to slosh around the fjord for more than one day. Geologists call this water-sloshing phenomenon a seiche. Both the landslide and resulting seiche produced seismic signals that were detected around the world and equivalent to a magnitude 5.4 earthquake.

The landslide scar and the zone where vegetation was stripped by the resulting tsunami are both visible in this aerial photo of Tracy Arm and South Sawyer Glacier, captured on August 13, 2025. Image: U.S. Geological Survey/John Lyons

The Landsat images also show that the South Sawyer Glacier retreated significantly in less than a month. Typically, glacial retreat takes much longer. 

“Part of that occurred between the date of the first image and the date of the landslide,” Shugar said. “But part of it is from the landslide itself, which broke off a big chunk of the terminus of South Sawyer Glacier, resulting in a slurry of icebergs in the fjord.”

Fortunately, no one was injured in the event, largely because it occurred around 5:30 a.m. local time. The wave did sweep away some gear from a group of kayakers camping on Harbor Island near the fjord’s mouth. Passengers aboard a small cruise ship in neighboring Endicott Arm also reported swings in water levels and a strong current associated with the tsunami. 

In response to the event, at least six cruise lines have eliminated the Tracy Arm fjord from their itineraries for 2026 due to the hazards. The United States Geological Survey also warns that steep, mountainous landslide areas are “inherently unstable” and that the Tracy Arm fjord tsunami will likely continue to change the landscape.

The post NASA satellite images show how a massive tsunami in Alaska changed the landscape forever appeared first on Popular Science.

This article was originally featured on The Conversation.

Exactly how did birds evolve from dinosaurs? It’s a mystery that has been with us for more than 150 years, and palaeontologists are still hunting for pieces of the puzzle today.

Among them is the University of Edinburgh’s Professor Steve Brusatte, whose latest book, The Story of Birds, tells the whole fascinating story. We caught up with him recently to find out more.

Of all the great dinosaur subjects, why this story?

I’ve always been fascinated by birds. They are all around us and there’s such a stunning diversity and variety. As a palaeontologist I specialised early in the theropod (two-legged) dinosaurs. This is the group that includes T.rex and Velociraptor – and gave rise to birds.

The more I studied theropods, the more I became more curious about the modern-day animals that descended from them. Back in the early 2010s my PhD was about the origin of birds. Its core involved building a big new family tree of theropod dinosaurs to understand where birds slot in, how they evolved from dinosaurs, and how their body features came together.

I wrote about the dinosaur bird connection in my first book, The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs (2018), but that was just one chapter. It made me think it would be really fun to do an entire book on the subject. That was how my new book, The Story of Birds, came together.

Is there still any debate about birds evolving from dinosaurs?

I think people have generally heard that birds descended from dinosaurs. In the newer Jurassic World films you even see feathers on some of them. And yet it hasn’t really broken through to the public consciousness that today’s birds really are dinosaurs. They are part of the dinosaur family tree. They just happen to be a peculiar group of dinosaurs that got small and evolved wings, took to the skies and have survived until today.

It was Charles Darwin’s great disciple, Thomas Henry Huxley, in the 1860s who first noted similarities between the skeletons of some dinosaurs starting to be found in Europe and those of modern birds. This was back before anybody knew what DNA was, for instance.

Huxley’s idea did enter the public consciousness, at least in Victorian Britain. Darwin added it to the later editions of On the Origin of Species. But then it went out of favour. This was the great era of exploration, especially in the US and Canada. The frontier was being pushed westwards, and all these new dinosaurs were being found – Stegosaurus, Brontosaurus and later Brachiosaurus and T.rex.

None look anything like birds. I think dinosaurs obtained this stereotype as giant reptilian monsters, and this still largely dominates the public consciousness today.

Yet there were also a lot of smaller dinosaurs. Many had feathers and wings, and many were very bird-like. It’s really only in the past few decades that the idea that birds evolved from dinosaurs has become scientific consensus. The discovery of feathers on dinosaurs in the 1990s really sealed the deal on that.

What mysteries remain?

There are of course still things we don’t know, like how dinosaurs started to fly. How did they start to move their wings in a way that generated enough lift and thrust to get them airborne? Did they run on the ground and use their wings to defy gravity? Did they do it from the trees down, using these wings as a way to manipulate gravity? That’s one of the biggest mysteries.

Another area of uncertainty is which dinosaurs were the closest relatives of birds. The more fossils we find, especially feathered dinosaurs in China and other places, the more it’s clear there was a whole bunch of small dinosaurs with feathers. A lot had wings, some had wings only on arms, some on arms and legs. Some had wings of feathers. Some had wings of skin like a bat.

There was a huge diversity of them right around that point in the family tree where proper modern-style birds evolved with big arm wings that they flap to keep airborne. Each new fossil gives us more information but also another layer of complexity. It makes it just a little trickier to untangle the knot of exactly which dinosaurs were the closest rivals of birds. You still see new discoveries being made every year.

You say in the book that wings evolved not to fly?

The fossils tell us clearly that feathers evolved long before any of these animals were flying. Many dinosaurs had simple feathers; they looked like little strands of hair. In fact most dinosaurs probably had them – they just don’t normally preserve because they decay away so quickly. It’s in spectacular fossil sites where lots of dinosaurs were buried quickly, usually by volcanic eruptions, where you see a lot of these feathers (Liaoning province in north-eastern China is a good example).

But these feathers were not used for flying. There’s clear evidence from the fossil record that feathers evolved in a simpler form for other reasons. Our best hypothesis is they evolved for insulation, to help them stay warm – just like hair in mammals.

Later on, these feathers evolved on some dinosaurs into quills that made up wings. But the fossil record shows that the first wings that show up in dinosaurs between the sizes of sheep and horses. Those wings were only about the size of laptop screens, and by the laws of physics, those could not keep an animal of that size in the air.

That hints that wings probably also evolved for another reason and were only later co-opted for flying. We can tell a lot of these feathers had flamboyant colours and patterns, so one leading idea is that wings first evolved for display, to attract mates; to intimidate rivals. This is still true today, of course.

You can imagine if those wings got bigger over time, more flamboyant, more ornate, at some point the laws of physics would take over and they would generate some of those aerodynamic forces. It’s not like we have fossils of the exact dinosaurs that were the first to flap their wings, but that is at least what the fossil record is telling us.

Did dinosaurs have to get smaller for flying birds to evolve?

This is a big part of the story. Some dinosaurs, such as T.rexes, got bigger over time, but the dinosaurs that evolved into birds had been getting smaller for tens of millions of years. We don’t know why exactly, but there’s all kinds ecological niches where it pays to be small: it’s easier to hide, you can grow more quickly, and so on.

So it seems you had this group, that their bodies were getting smaller, and their wings were getting bigger. At some point you had a wing that was big enough to keep a body that was small enough in the air. At that point, natural selection could take over and start refining these dinosaurs into ever better flyers.

Is it an accident of evolution that flying creatures the size of elephants don’t exist?

Animals that need to flap wings to fly can’t be that big. The biggest flapping flyers today are wandering albatrosses, and their maximum wingspan is about 3.5 metres. We have fossils of birds that were bigger: the Pelagornithids were giant soaring birds that went extinct right before the ice age. They had wingspans that were something like 7 metres long. But beyond that, I think it would be very hard to flap wings to fly.

It makes total sense to me that it was probably a crow-sized to lapdog-sized raptor dinosaur that first started to flap as opposed to some dinosaur the size of an albatross. It’s just that the stereotype of dinosaurs being huge makes it harder to envision some small dinosaurs flapping and flying.

How did birds survive the asteroid?

That was a big mystery for a long time. There were proper birds at least 150 million years ago, which means they lived alongside their dinosaur cousins for some 80 million years. Then the asteroid comes down around 66 million years ago and all the dinosaurs die except the birds – why is that?

The reality is that lots of birds went extinct at the same time as the other dinosaurs. Many birds were still quite primitive and would have looked a lot like their dinosaur cousins. The only ones to survive were very modern-style birds. They had beaks instead of teeth, big wings and large chest muscles, and could grow really quickly like birds today.

A lot of recent research has clarified why they survived. What it comes down to is: the asteroid was a shot out of the darkness of outer space, a six-mile wide rock that smashed into the Earth one day. It changed everything instantaneously. There were earthquakes and tsunamis and wildfires. There was dust blocking out the sun, giving rise to a nuclear-style winter that lasted several years. Natural selection can’t work on that timeframe, so when the asteroid hit, all the animals had to confront the situation with the features they already had.

Most of the dinosaurs were big, and nothing bigger than a husky dog survived on land. With all these fires and acid rain and storms, simply being outside and exposed to the elements would have been bad. If you were smaller you could hide away more easily.

Also, modern-style birds had a bunch of features that turned out to be beneficial. They grew to adult within year, so it didn’t take too long for them to nurture the next generation. They could fly away from danger. But crucially they also had beaks, which could have allowed them to eat seeds.

When the Earth went cold for many years, ecosystems collapsed. Plants did not have sunlight to photosynthesise. So plant-eaters died, which meant meat-eaters died. Seeds were probably the last foods that survived. If you could eat them, it could probably have got you through those lean years.

We have gut content of birds from the Cretaceous period (145 to 66 million years ago) and we can tell a lot of them did eat seeds. So the modern-style birds had a good hand of cards just as the world became this fickle casino and survival was a matter of the odds.

Which bird species appeared after the asteroid?

Bird fossils from the Cretaceous (meaning before the asteroid) are limited because it’s hard to fossilise birds. They’re small and their bones are really delicate. But we do know there’s birds like Vegavis and Asteriornis that lived in that period and were respectively members of the modern groups of ducks and chickens.

It doesn’t mean other modern species like owls or falcons weren’t there, but certainly they were not a major component of the ecosystems at the time. Then the asteroid hit and we start to see in the Paleocene (66 to 55 million years ago) fossils of things like penguins, mouse birds and multiple other modern groups.

Yet the really strong evidence about what happened is from the DNA of modern birds. Researchers are using whole genomes now. They can compare the similarities and back-calculate to predict when two groups would have diverged. When you do this, it predicts there was a big bang of bird evolution right around that time – including species like owls, parakeets, falcons and hawks.

It makes sense that if you have a mass extinction that kills 75% of species, there would have been abundant opportunity for whatever survived. But we’re still waiting for fossils to confirm this directly. It’s a real target for people doing fieldwork to confirm this story by finding the fossils of birds up to 5 to 6 million years after the asteroid.

You write that great birds have come and gone – talk us through some of those

There are more than 10,000 species of birds today, basically double the number of mammal species, so in that sense we’re still in a dinosaur world. But there are even more incredible extinct birds, some of which went extinct quite recently because of us, as we’ve spread around the world and changed the environment very quickly.

A lot of these fantastic birds got their start in the ecological vacuum after the asteroid. There were birds that became basically born-again T.rex and Triceratops – filling the top predator/top plant-eater role in a lot of ecosystems.

In South America were the “terror birds” (Phorusrhacidae). They stood taller than a person, had a head the size of a horse head and a massive hooked gnarly beak. They were the top predators there for tens of millions of years. South America was an island for lot of that time; only later did jaguars and big dogs arrive.

South America’s terror bird, once the apex predator on the continent. Harper Collins, CC BY-SA

In many places, birds were the biggest plant-eaters. Australia had birds called demon ducks (Dromornithidae) that lived for tens of millions of years. Think of the modern duck and super-size it by 100. Some were heavier than cows.

Elsewhere there was New Zealand’s moa and Madagascar’s elephant bird. Elephant birds were maybe the heaviest birds of all time. They laid eggs the size of watermelons. Many of these birds couldn’t fly. They gave up that ability as a trade-off to allow them to become really big.

The Pelagornithids also really fascinate me – the birds that were double the wingspan of an albatross. They lived for tens of millions of years, sailing the world’s thermals like giant kites. They would have been utterly spectacular animals.

Pelagornithids had twice the wingspan of the modern wandering albatross. Harper Collins, CC BY-SA

We only know about most of these birds because of fossils – except for some like the moas and elephant birds and demon ducks, which did meet humans but didn’t last long, unfortunately.

Is it surprising birds never became as intelligent as humans?

When I was growing up in the late 1980s and through the 1990s, it was an insult to say “you’re a bird brain”. It’s such an unfair biological slur, because birds are very smart.

It’s just that they have small brains – I don’t know how many hummingbirds could fit into the head of an elephant. But when it comes to the size of the brain relative to the size of the body, which is largely what matters for cognition, problem-solving and so on, birds are right up there with mammals.

Song birds learn intricate songs. Similar to a human language, they learn them from tutors, they babble when they’re young and make mistakes, then master their avian language later on.

Parrots can mimic human speech. And whereas plenty of animals use tools in a rudimentary way, some crows can make their own tools. It’s really only crows and humans and maybe some close primate relatives that do that. Crows take sticks and branches and twist and turn them. They make hooks out of them and use them to probe for food.

Since the asteroid, there were probably long stretches where it was actually birds that were the cognitive superstars. It was maybe only a few million years ago when some primates eclipsed birds in having the biggest brain relative to body size.

When did birds start singing?

Sound doesn’t fossilise, of course. But we can look at the family tree of modern birds. We can look at the songbird group and use DNA to predict when they would have originated. We can then look at the fossil record of the skeletons of birds, and see if they more or less match up with what the DNA suggests.

This tells us that song birds go back in Australia as long as 50 million years ago. Songbird evolution then probably went into overdrive about 27 million years ago. This was probably triggered by tectonic events such as little microplates, and islands moving around and forming new corridors and environments in South East Asia.

It’s only in the past 20 million years or so where you’ve had songbirds moving around the world. Nowadays, more than half of birds are song birds.

Anything else that is a priority?

The very first birds in the fossil record – proper flapping flight birds like Archaeopteryx – are from about 150 million years ago. Archaeopteryx had big feathered wings that could flap, but also teeth in its jaws, as well as big claws and a long tail. It’s the quintessential evolutionary link in transitional species, and has been known since the 1860s, when Huxley and Darwin wrote about them. Archaeopteryx was integral to their idea that birds evolved from dinosaurs.

We still haven’t discovered anything much older. We have some new fossils from China that are about the same age. Yet these birds must have had ancestors that were a bit more primitive, that could only fly in more of a rudimentary way. That’s one thing we’re waiting for, maybe from the Late Jurassic (162 to 143 million years ago) or even Middle Jurassic (174 to 162 million years). Those fossils would give us proper insight into how flapping flight really originated.

The Story of Birds US edition publishes on April 28, while the UK edition publishes on June 11 and is available for pre-order.

This article features references to books that have been included for editorial reasons, and may contain links to bookshop.org. If you click on one of the links and go on to buy something from bookshop.org The Conversation UK may earn a commission.

To read an extract from the book, click here.

The post There’s a reason we don’t have birds the size of elephants appeared first on Popular Science.

Fifteen-year-old Evan Budz was on a camping trip when he saw a snapping turtle that would become the impetus for an award-winning invention. As someone who loves hiking, canoeing, and just being outside, the Canadian high school student from Burlington, Ontario, had actively been looking for ways that he could go out and help the planet. 

“My parents brought me up with the sort of principle that every place that I visit, I should leave it a bit better than I found it,” he says. So when Budz noticed the turtle swimming in some nearby waters, he knew that he’d found his next passion project: a bionic robot turtle that could help protect underwater environments. 

How a turtle inspired an award-winning science project

“When I saw the snapping turtle, it was so graceful, fluidic, and generally non-disruptive” to its surroundings, says Budz. “I thought it’d be really interesting to go and try and replicate its natural swimming kinematics [basically the study of how things move]” in a robot.

Along with mimicking the fluid motions of a wild green sea turtle in the water, his autonomous device uses AI to monitor underwater ecosystems for ecological threats, such as invasive species and coral bleaching. 

“Most current underwater technologies can produce things like noise from their propellers or very high-pressure water streams,” which can erode environments, he says. 

However, by mimicking the motions of a sea turtle, Budz’s robot can move through the water innocuously, gathering vital data in a way that doesn’t stress marine life or damage delicate habitats. “I don’t want to harm the various places that I’m hoping to protect.”

High school student Evan Budz works on the flippers for his bionic turtle. Image: Evan Budz How to build a robot turtle

To create his bionic turtle, Budz got to work studying the reptile’s locomotion. He watched videos of sea turtles swimming and talked with experts at his local aquarium, learning how the reptiles use their front flippers to propel themselves forward and their hind limbs for steering. He then used his 3D design and electronics know-how to plan a prototype in SolidWorks, a 3D Computer-Aided Design (CAD) and engineering software. From there, the high school student started creating his robot turtle’s 3D parts. 

The robot has four flippers in total—with the larger front flippers providing its main propulsion and its smaller rear flippers used mainly for stability and changing direction, just like a real turtle. It also has a main acrylic tube “body” for housing its electronic components, which include a Raspberry Pi microcomputer. This runs AI models to detect environmental threats and records and transmits data. In addition, the bionic turtle navigates the water using various sensors. These include a GPS module for position tracking, allowing the robot to follow a predefined grid pattern. 

Budz’s robot also has a front camera for “seeing” its surroundings, along with additional sensors on its exterior to help guide the autonomous reptile, offer depth control, and check for ecological hazards like microplastics and bleached coral. 

Meet the Bionic Underwater Robotic Turtle, aka BURT

While not an official name, Budz has been calling his invention “BURT,” an acronym for “Bionic Underwater Robotic Turtle.” BURT maintains the same body-to-flipper-size proportions as a real-life sea turtle but is smaller overall, which allows it to move easily in different environments. It weighs about 11 pounds, though much of the robot’s weight is just added metal that allows it to sink down. This gives BURT an opportunity to monitor depths well below the water’s surface. 

“To achieve neutral buoyancy in the water,” says Budz, “I needed the turtle to basically be heavier than the force of buoyancy that’s pushing it up.” 

Budz did much of BURT’s testing in his grandparents’ backyard pool. Image: Evan Budz

BURT can swim for up to eight hours per charge on a lithium battery, though it also has a solar panel that can keep it going for even longer periods. Right now, Budz has BURT set up to swim at the typical speed of turtles (approximately 0.5 miles per hour). “If I do want it to swim faster, I can just change the flipper oscillation frequency,” meaning the rate of its flipper strokes. 

Most of BURT’s testing has taken place in Budz’s grandparents’ backyard pool, which has a depth of just over eight feet. 

“I basically went out and created a simulated coral reef setup using 3D models,” he says, programming the turtle to understand what coral bleaching and invasive species actually look like. “And the turtle then swims around them to simulate what it would do in a real-world environment.” 

BURT is also set up to follow a predetermined search pattern, “so there’s no need for any sort of tether like you might find on a traditional underwater drone.” The bionic turtle scans its surrounding waters through its front-mounted camera, with all of the recorded data then feeding back into its Raspberry Pi microcomputer. According to the Budz’s testing, BURT has been able to detect replicated coral bleaching with 96 percent accuracy.

Budz tested BURT in Lake Ontario. Image: Evan Budz BURT, the robot turtle, keeps getting smarter

Budz’s next step is to bring BURT into different environments to see how deep the robot can actually go. To deal with especially murky waters, he has installed lights on the front of the robot and added an ultrasonic transducer, which utilizes high-frequency sound waves to detect potential obstacles. 

This year he’s even developed a new holographic imaging device, which he’s using to record the structural characteristics and shapes of tiny particles in waterways. He then uses a custom-trained neural network, which processes data in a way that’s similar to a human brain, to classify if each particle is a microplastic. 

Although Budz built his robot as a labor of love, it’s since won some major awards, including first prize at the European Union Contest for Young Scientists, held in Latvia in 2025, and the Canada-Wide Science Fair, an annual science fair in which finalists qualify from approximately 25,000 competitors. 

Budz’s goal is to have a fleet of these sea turtles that can be set out to detect ecological threats. “I’ve already looked at coral bleaching, invasive species, and microplastics,” he says, “but there are so many different places where this can be used.”

In The Workshop, Popular Science highlights the ingenious, delightful, and often surprising projects people build in their spare time. If you or someone you know is working on a hobbyist project that fits the bill, we’d love to hear about it—fill out this form to tell us more.

Related 'The Workshop' Stories

Teen brothers build a Disney-inspired ride in family basement

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In Vermont, one man is bringing pay phones back to life

A pilot turned an old plane into a two-bedroom apartment

A life-long car lover recreated the Griswold’s famous station wagon

The post Teen builds ‘Bionic Underwater Robotic Turtle’ to detect ecological threats appeared first on Popular Science.

Regular coffee drinkers know there is a big difference between a brew’s aroma and its taste. A cup may smell warm and full-bodied only to leave you with a lingering bitterness behind the first sip. Researchers have long known a coffee’s potentially acrid flavor profile is dictated at a molecular level thanks to your tongue’s taste receptors, but how that occurs has remained a mystery. Now, a team at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has the answer thanks to precise imaging technology—and their findings may have much wider ramifications beyond the coffee pot.

The details were published in the journal Nature Structure & Molecular Biology, and focuses on TAS2R43, one of our 26 different bitter taste receptors. These mechanisms are expressed throughout the human body, and likely evolved to guard the species against toxic substances as well as helping regulate our metabolisms.

“Bitter taste receptors are thought to be important for detecting toxins, pathogens, and harmful bacteria in the airways, gut, skin, and organs, initiating immune responses, clearing pathogens, regulating immune cells, influencing hormone secretion, and aiding digestion,” explained study co-author and molecular biologist Bryan Roth.

Scientists first determined the microscopic structure of TAS2R43 a few years ago, but until Roth’s team, no one had analyzed how it responds to bitter compounds. To accomplish this, researchers relied on a technique called cryogenic electron microscopy (cryo-EM). This method involves flash-freezing biological molecules, then employing electrons to generate highly detailed 3D images of their overall shape. Roth and his colleagues recorded how TAS2R43 receptors responded to coffee’s bitter elements including caffeine and mozambioside, then compared those to the reaction of other receptors.

“In this work, we solved the structures of TAS2R43 bound to bitter compounds and showed, in molecular detail, how this receptor detects bitter molecules,” said molecular biologist and study co-author Yoojoong Kim.

Researchers now have a molecular framework for creating future compounds that intentionally control how someone experiences bitterness in drugs or foods. Aside from finally understanding how taste receptors like TAS2R43 physically respond to bitter molecules, the discoveries could also help develop new medical treatments. 

“In the long term, this could help guide the development of new therapeutic strategies for diseases involving airway defense, gut function, inflammation, or host responses to microbes,” Kim added.

The post Why coffee tastes bitter, according to molecular biology appeared first on Popular Science.

Regular coffee drinkers know there is a big difference between a brew’s aroma and its taste. A cup may smell warm and full-bodied only to leave you with a lingering bitterness behind the first sip. Researchers have long known a coffee’s potentially acrid flavor profile is dictated at a molecular level thanks to your tongue’s taste receptors, but how that occurs has remained a mystery. Now, a team at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has the answer thanks to precise imaging technology—and their findings may have much wider ramifications beyond the coffee pot.

The details were published in the journal Nature Structure & Molecular Biology, and focuses on TAS2R43, one of our 26 different bitter taste receptors. These mechanisms are expressed throughout the human body, and likely evolved to guard the species against toxic substances as well as helping regulate our metabolisms.

“Bitter taste receptors are thought to be important for detecting toxins, pathogens, and harmful bacteria in the airways, gut, skin, and organs, initiating immune responses, clearing pathogens, regulating immune cells, influencing hormone secretion, and aiding digestion,” explained study co-author and molecular biologist Bryan Roth.

Scientists first determined the microscopic structure of TAS2R43 a few years ago, but until Roth’s team, no one had analyzed how it responds to bitter compounds. To accomplish this, researchers relied on a technique called cryogenic electron microscopy (cryo-EM). This method involves flash-freezing biological molecules, then employing electrons to generate highly detailed 3D images of their overall shape. Roth and his colleagues recorded how TAS2R43 receptors responded to coffee’s bitter elements including caffeine and mozambioside, then compared those to the reaction of other receptors.

“In this work, we solved the structures of TAS2R43 bound to bitter compounds and showed, in molecular detail, how this receptor detects bitter molecules,” said molecular biologist and study co-author Yoojoong Kim.

Researchers now have a molecular framework for creating future compounds that intentionally control how someone experiences bitterness in drugs or foods. Aside from finally understanding how taste receptors like TAS2R43 physically respond to bitter molecules, the discoveries could also help develop new medical treatments. 

“In the long term, this could help guide the development of new therapeutic strategies for diseases involving airway defense, gut function, inflammation, or host responses to microbes,” Kim added.

The post Why coffee tastes bitter, according to molecular biology appeared first on Popular Science.

Regular coffee drinkers know there is a big difference between a brew’s aroma and its taste. A cup may smell warm and full-bodied only to leave you with a lingering bitterness behind the first sip. Researchers have long known a coffee’s potentially acrid flavor profile is dictated at a molecular level thanks to your tongue’s taste receptors, but how that occurs has remained a mystery. Now, a team at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has the answer thanks to precise imaging technology—and their findings may have much wider ramifications beyond the coffee pot.

The details were published in the journal Nature Structure & Molecular Biology, and focuses on TAS2R43, one of our 26 different bitter taste receptors. These mechanisms are expressed throughout the human body, and likely evolved to guard the species against toxic substances as well as helping regulate our metabolisms.

“Bitter taste receptors are thought to be important for detecting toxins, pathogens, and harmful bacteria in the airways, gut, skin, and organs, initiating immune responses, clearing pathogens, regulating immune cells, influencing hormone secretion, and aiding digestion,” explained study co-author and molecular biologist Bryan Roth.

Scientists first determined the microscopic structure of TAS2R43 a few years ago, but until Roth’s team, no one had analyzed how it responds to bitter compounds. To accomplish this, researchers relied on a technique called cryogenic electron microscopy (cryo-EM). This method involves flash-freezing biological molecules, then employing electrons to generate highly detailed 3D images of their overall shape. Roth and his colleagues recorded how TAS2R43 receptors responded to coffee’s bitter elements including caffeine and mozambioside, then compared those to the reaction of other receptors.

“In this work, we solved the structures of TAS2R43 bound to bitter compounds and showed, in molecular detail, how this receptor detects bitter molecules,” said molecular biologist and study co-author Yoojoong Kim.

Researchers now have a molecular framework for creating future compounds that intentionally control how someone experiences bitterness in drugs or foods. Aside from finally understanding how taste receptors like TAS2R43 physically respond to bitter molecules, the discoveries could also help develop new medical treatments. 

“In the long term, this could help guide the development of new therapeutic strategies for diseases involving airway defense, gut function, inflammation, or host responses to microbes,” Kim added.

The post Why coffee tastes bitter, according to molecular biology appeared first on Popular Science.

On April 1, Texas’ Fort Worth Zoo welcomed  a 285-pound baby into the world. It wasn’t an April Fool’s joke—the newborn was a healthy male Asian elephant (Elephas maximus) calf, and he represents the newest member of a four-generation Fort Worth elephant family.

Elephants are currently the largest terrestrial animals on earth, and they consist of three species: the Asian elephant, African savannah elephant (Loxodonta africana), and African forest elephant (Loxodonta cyclotis). Asian elephants are a bit smaller than the other two species. On average, they weigh between 6,000 and 12,000 pounds and usually are six to 12 feet tall at the shoulder. Today they exist in limited areas in India and Southeast Asia, and they are classified as endangered in the IUCN Red List, with a decreasing population. 

Fort Worth Zoo’s calf is 36 inches tall and is the offspring of father Romeo and mother Bluebell, whose prenatal care included weekly blood tests, regular physical examinations, and sonograms. He has one full sibling, Travis, and two half-siblings, Lady Bird and Brazos. 

Keeping with the Texas-theme naming tradition, the new calf has been dubbed Sam Houston after the politician of the same name. Houston who was a veteran of the War of 1812 and an important figure in the Texas Revolution (1834–1836). He also played a significant role in helping Texas become part of the United States. While the historic figure’s first name was Sam (Samuel), and last name was Houston, it’s a double name for the young elephant. 

“Given his remarkable size – the largest calf in Zoo history – it felt only fitting to honor one of Texas’ most iconic figures, Sam Houston,” according to a statement. “Like his namesake, the Zoo’s Sam Houston (yes, it’s a double name) represents strength, and a lasting legacy, joining a four-generation elephant family that reflects the rich heritage and enduring spirit of Texas.”

Lady Bird (left) with her new baby Sam Houston (right). Image: Fort Worth Zoo.

Sam Houston got down to business right after birth. He was on his feet within six minutes of popping out, steering his trunk competently almost right away, and nursing within an hour. Sam Houston made his public debut May 7th after spending weeks bonding with his mother and becoming familiar with his environment—including being near other members of the herd—away from prying eyes. However, zoo  visitors can only see Sam Houston from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., because afternoon naps are imperative to the baby’s wellbeing and development. 

“Asian elephants are endangered, with fewer than 40,000 individuals remaining in the wild, and their populations continue to decline,” Ramona Bass, chairman of the Fort Worth Zoo Board of  Directors, said in the statement. “Each birth is a step forward, reflecting decades of dedicated care and specialized expertise. As part of the natural world, we play a critical role in their future – and through continued research and innovation, including the Zoo’s CARES Lab, we’re helping ensure Asian elephants thrive for generations to come, right here in Fort Worth, Texas.”

The post Meet Sam Houston, the new baby Asian elephant appeared first on Popular Science.

On April 1, Texas’ Fort Worth Zoo welcomed  a 285-pound baby into the world. It wasn’t an April Fool’s joke—the newborn was a healthy male Asian elephant (Elephas maximus) calf, and he represents the newest member of a four-generation Fort Worth elephant family.

Elephants are currently the largest terrestrial animals on earth, and they consist of three species: the Asian elephant, African savannah elephant (Loxodonta africana), and African forest elephant (Loxodonta cyclotis). Asian elephants are a bit smaller than the other two species. On average, they weigh between 6,000 and 12,000 pounds and usually are six to 12 feet tall at the shoulder. Today they exist in limited areas in India and Southeast Asia, and they are classified as endangered in the IUCN Red List, with a decreasing population. 

Fort Worth Zoo’s calf is 36 inches tall and is the offspring of father Romeo and mother Bluebell, whose prenatal care included weekly blood tests, regular physical examinations, and sonograms. He has one full sibling, Travis, and two half-siblings, Lady Bird and Brazos. 

Keeping with the Texas-theme naming tradition, the new calf has been dubbed Sam Houston after the politician of the same name. Houston who was a veteran of the War of 1812 and an important figure in the Texas Revolution (1834–1836). He also played a significant role in helping Texas become part of the United States. While the historic figure’s first name was Sam (Samuel), and last name was Houston, it’s a double name for the young elephant. 

“Given his remarkable size – the largest calf in Zoo history – it felt only fitting to honor one of Texas’ most iconic figures, Sam Houston,” according to a statement. “Like his namesake, the Zoo’s Sam Houston (yes, it’s a double name) represents strength, and a lasting legacy, joining a four-generation elephant family that reflects the rich heritage and enduring spirit of Texas.”

Lady Bird (left) with her new baby Sam Houston (right). Image: Fort Worth Zoo.

Sam Houston got down to business right after birth. He was on his feet within six minutes of popping out, steering his trunk competently almost right away, and nursing within an hour. Sam Houston made his public debut May 7th after spending weeks bonding with his mother and becoming familiar with his environment—including being near other members of the herd—away from prying eyes. However, zoo  visitors can only see Sam Houston from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., because afternoon naps are imperative to the baby’s wellbeing and development. 

“Asian elephants are endangered, with fewer than 40,000 individuals remaining in the wild, and their populations continue to decline,” Ramona Bass, chairman of the Fort Worth Zoo Board of  Directors, said in the statement. “Each birth is a step forward, reflecting decades of dedicated care and specialized expertise. As part of the natural world, we play a critical role in their future – and through continued research and innovation, including the Zoo’s CARES Lab, we’re helping ensure Asian elephants thrive for generations to come, right here in Fort Worth, Texas.”

The post Meet Sam Houston, the new baby Asian elephant appeared first on Popular Science.

On April 1, Texas’ Fort Worth Zoo welcomed  a 285-pound baby into the world. It wasn’t an April Fool’s joke—the newborn was a healthy male Asian elephant (Elephas maximus) calf, and he represents the newest member of a four-generation Fort Worth elephant family.

Elephants are currently the largest terrestrial animals on earth, and they consist of three species: the Asian elephant, African savannah elephant (Loxodonta africana), and African forest elephant (Loxodonta cyclotis). Asian elephants are a bit smaller than the other two species. On average, they weigh between 6,000 and 12,000 pounds and usually are six to 12 feet tall at the shoulder. Today they exist in limited areas in India and Southeast Asia, and they are classified as endangered in the IUCN Red List, with a decreasing population. 

Fort Worth Zoo’s calf is 36 inches tall and is the offspring of father Romeo and mother Bluebell, whose prenatal care included weekly blood tests, regular physical examinations, and sonograms. He has one full sibling, Travis, and two half-siblings, Lady Bird and Brazos. 

Keeping with the Texas-theme naming tradition, the new calf has been dubbed Sam Houston after the politician of the same name. Houston who was a veteran of the War of 1812 and an important figure in the Texas Revolution (1834–1836). He also played a significant role in helping Texas become part of the United States. While the historic figure’s first name was Sam (Samuel), and last name was Houston, it’s a double name for the young elephant. 

“Given his remarkable size – the largest calf in Zoo history – it felt only fitting to honor one of Texas’ most iconic figures, Sam Houston,” according to a statement. “Like his namesake, the Zoo’s Sam Houston (yes, it’s a double name) represents strength, and a lasting legacy, joining a four-generation elephant family that reflects the rich heritage and enduring spirit of Texas.”

Lady Bird (left) with her new baby Sam Houston (right). Image: Fort Worth Zoo.

Sam Houston got down to business right after birth. He was on his feet within six minutes of popping out, steering his trunk competently almost right away, and nursing within an hour. Sam Houston made his public debut May 7th after spending weeks bonding with his mother and becoming familiar with his environment—including being near other members of the herd—away from prying eyes. However, zoo  visitors can only see Sam Houston from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., because afternoon naps are imperative to the baby’s wellbeing and development. 

“Asian elephants are endangered, with fewer than 40,000 individuals remaining in the wild, and their populations continue to decline,” Ramona Bass, chairman of the Fort Worth Zoo Board of  Directors, said in the statement. “Each birth is a step forward, reflecting decades of dedicated care and specialized expertise. As part of the natural world, we play a critical role in their future – and through continued research and innovation, including the Zoo’s CARES Lab, we’re helping ensure Asian elephants thrive for generations to come, right here in Fort Worth, Texas.”

The post Meet Sam Houston, the new baby Asian elephant appeared first on Popular Science.

Leopards (Panthera pardus) in India are doing pretty well, all things considered. According to a report published in 2024, experts estimate their population in the country at a range of 12,616 to 15,132 individuals, which wildlife biologist Thomas Sharp calls “a healthy number.”

Part of their success could be due to the fact that leopards are enduring in areas close to human settlements where their bigger feline relatives, like tigers or lions, simply can’t—partly thanks to their secretive nature and the fact that they subsist on smaller prey.

“This is a good thing in many ways, with the way the world’s been changing and habitat degradation and everything else,” Sharp, who is the director of conservation and research at the organization Wildlife SOS tells Popular Science. “It’s a good thing that they can hang on in some of these areas. But there’s always a tradeoff, and the negative is they get involved in a lot of human-leopard conflict.”

Unsurprisingly, this sort of conflict is usually to the detriment of the leopard. The big cats rarely attack humans, and when they do, the animal is usually acting defensively, Sharp explains. Leopards will more frequently prey on small animals, such as goats or dogs.

Rescue teams will check the cub’s health as quickly as possible before leaving them near where they were found. Image: Wildlife SOS.

However, areas in India are now seeing more and more cases of a much more cute encounter: leopard cubs hanging out in sugarcane. The dynamic sounds relatively simple. Humans replace leopard habitat with thick sugarcane fields, and so leopards take the change in stride and start to live—and make babies—in the new flora.

With this new dynamic, humans may come across leopard cubs on their own while the mother is off hunting. The discovery could consist of a passerby hearing their meowing, or a farmer finding them as they harvest their crop. Often the well-intentioned individual will think the cubs are abandoned and move them, “or even take them home because they are so cute and willing to play with humans,” Sharp says. 

This might sometimes be necessary for their own safety, so they don’t get injured by harvesting machinery. But the removal separates the cubs from their mother.

“A big part of what Wildlife SOS does in these areas is to make sure people know that, if possible, the cubs should be left where they are found,” Sharp explains. “Their mother’s likely going to come back for them within a few hours.”

If the cubs are moved, Wildlife SOS sends a rescue team to check on the cub’s health and then send them back to their mother as fast as possible. Not only do cubs belong with their mothers, but some evidence indicates that a leopard mother can become more aggressive while looking for her babies, so it’s also in the best interest of nearby humans, according to Sharp.

A female leopard reunited with her cub. Image: Wildlife SOS.
Akash Dolas

To make the reunion happen, Wildlife SOS will put the leopard cub or cubs in a box where they were found, or as close to that location as possible. The box has holes so that the leopard mother can hear and smell them, and it protects the cubs from other predators while also keeping them from wandering off. When the mother finds them, she’ll usually knock the box over, and then carry her one or more babies somewhere else.

The organization sets up camera traps to keep an eye on the dynamic, making sure that the family is indeed reunited. To date, they have returned 112 cubs back to 73 mothers, and the five cubs that couldn’t be reunited live at the Wildlife SOS leopard rescue center.

The post Leopard moms hide babies in sugarcane fields to go hunting appeared first on Popular Science.

Leopards (Panthera pardus) in India are doing pretty well, all things considered. According to a report published in 2024, experts estimate their population in the country at a range of 12,616 to 15,132 individuals, which wildlife biologist Thomas Sharp calls “a healthy number.”

Part of their success could be due to the fact that leopards are enduring in areas close to human settlements where their bigger feline relatives, like tigers or lions, simply can’t—partly thanks to their secretive nature and the fact that they subsist on smaller prey.

“This is a good thing in many ways, with the way the world’s been changing and habitat degradation and everything else,” Sharp, who is the director of conservation and research at the organization Wildlife SOS tells Popular Science. “It’s a good thing that they can hang on in some of these areas. But there’s always a tradeoff, and the negative is they get involved in a lot of human-leopard conflict.”

Unsurprisingly, this sort of conflict is usually to the detriment of the leopard. The big cats rarely attack humans, and when they do, the animal is usually acting defensively, Sharp explains. Leopards will more frequently prey on small animals, such as goats or dogs.

Rescue teams will check the cub’s health as quickly as possible before leaving them near where they were found. Image: Wildlife SOS.

However, areas in India are now seeing more and more cases of a much more cute encounter: leopard cubs hanging out in sugarcane. The dynamic sounds relatively simple. Humans replace leopard habitat with thick sugarcane fields, and so leopards take the change in stride and start to live—and make babies—in the new flora.

With this new dynamic, humans may come across leopard cubs on their own while the mother is off hunting. The discovery could consist of a passerby hearing their meowing, or a farmer finding them as they harvest their crop. Often the well-intentioned individual will think the cubs are abandoned and move them, “or even take them home because they are so cute and willing to play with humans,” Sharp says. 

This might sometimes be necessary for their own safety, so they don’t get injured by harvesting machinery. But the removal separates the cubs from their mother.

“A big part of what Wildlife SOS does in these areas is to make sure people know that, if possible, the cubs should be left where they are found,” Sharp explains. “Their mother’s likely going to come back for them within a few hours.”

If the cubs are moved, Wildlife SOS sends a rescue team to check on the cub’s health and then send them back to their mother as fast as possible. Not only do cubs belong with their mothers, but some evidence indicates that a leopard mother can become more aggressive while looking for her babies, so it’s also in the best interest of nearby humans, according to Sharp.

A female leopard reunited with her cub. Image: Wildlife SOS.
Akash Dolas

To make the reunion happen, Wildlife SOS will put the leopard cub or cubs in a box where they were found, or as close to that location as possible. The box has holes so that the leopard mother can hear and smell them, and it protects the cubs from other predators while also keeping them from wandering off. When the mother finds them, she’ll usually knock the box over, and then carry her one or more babies somewhere else.

The organization sets up camera traps to keep an eye on the dynamic, making sure that the family is indeed reunited. To date, they have returned 112 cubs back to 73 mothers, and the five cubs that couldn’t be reunited live at the Wildlife SOS leopard rescue center.

The post Leopard moms hide babies in sugarcane fields to go hunting appeared first on Popular Science.

If you’ve spent any time on TikTok lately, you’ve probably seen the smart dog wall test. Someone scoops up their dog (or cat!), carries them face-first toward a wall, and the internet decides whether the pet is smart or not based on whether it sticks its paw out. 

A five-second intelligence test you can do in your living room sounds cool. The problem, according to the researchers who actually study animal cognition, is that it doesn’t measure intelligence at all.

It’s a reflex, not a sign of intelligence

Dr. Murat Sırrı Akosman, a veterinary medicine professor at Afyon Kocatepe University in Turkey, recently published a letter in The Journal of Small Animal Practice calling out the TikTok trend for creating confusion. 

Experts agree: Don’t do this viral TikTok trend. Video: Will your dog pass the wall test? See how other pups fared. @USAToday

“As veterinary professionals, it is our duty to clarify that this maneuver is not a measure of canine cognition but is, in fact, a fundamental neurological assessment known as the visual and tactile placing test,” Akosman writes.

When your dog reaches out toward the wall, that’s an automatic reflex—like when a doctor taps your knee and your leg jerks forward. Vets use it to check if a dog’s nervous system is working properly, he explains. 

If your dog “fails” the test, it may be an early warning sign of serious nervous system issues, says Akosman, and you would do well to book a vet visit. (But don’t panic: If they react on the second or third try, it’s likely that they were distracted to begin with, or you moved too fast and it messed with their sense of balance.)

“The wall test is not a valid measure of a cat or dog’s intelligence,” agrees Dr. Gitanjali (Gita) Gnanadesikan, a postdoctoral fellow at the Social Cognition and Primate Behavior Lab at Emory University.

And while some pet owners see the wall test as a fun trend, pets might not feel the same way. “It’s worth noting that most cats and dogs don’t like being held like this!” Gnanadesikan notes.

“I think the wall test is a very ill-advised and potentially harmful way of treating an animal,” says Dr. Juliane Kaminski, director of the Dog Cognition Centre at the University of Portsmouth. “I would never encourage dog owners (or any pet owner) to do that to their pet.”

Don’t do the wall test on your cats either. Video: Tuxedo Cat Fails Intelligence Test, @ViralHog “It’s not possible to put a single number on intelligence”

The idea that you could rate a pet’s intelligence through a single test is flawed, experts say.

“The term intelligence is very broad,” says Dr. Shany Dror, a postdoctoral researcher at the Clever Dog Lab at the University of Veterinary Medicine, Vienna. What scientists find more valuable is examining specific cognitive (i.e. thinking) abilities—such as physical problem-solving, spatial navigation, and social awareness—using different tests.

Pets who excel at solving physical problems, like figuring out how to open a door, have very good physical cognition, explains Dror. 

Others have very good spatial cognition, which means that they are very good at orienting themselves in space and may, for example, always know how to come back home. 

And “some animals have exceptionally good social cognition and can easily interpret social interactions and react accordingly,” Dror says. 

Gnanadesikan’s own research shows how pet intelligence is really nuanced. “The dogs who have good memories are not necessarily the dogs who have good problem-solving abilities,” she says. 

“Instead of having genius dogs that perform well on everything, we find that some dogs do better at some things and others at others. Which also means that it’s not possible to put a single number on intelligence.”

What to try instead

If you actually want to learn something about how your dog thinks, there are far better options than the wall test.

Kaminski suggests a simple cup game “that is actually fun for dogs and can at the same time potentially tell you something about your dog’s thought process” works. 

Try this simple cup game: Place two identical, non-transparent cups in front of your dog, then hide a treat under one of them while your dog isn’t looking. Once the cups are set, use a pointed finger or a deliberate gaze to signal which cup conceals the food—then let your dog choose. Getting it right depends entirely on them reading you, which is what makes it such a revealing test of social cognition. It also builds impulse control, since they have to hold back and wait for your cue before making a move.

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Another test you can try at home involves placing unequal numbers of treats on two identical plates and seeing how close the quantities need to get before your dog stops reliably picking the larger pile. “Usually dogs are quite good as long as the maximum number of pieces on one tray does not go beyond 15—from then on, it becomes hard,” Kaminski notes.

If your dog seems disengaged, resist the urge to draw conclusions—they might simply lack motivation. “Just like us, they have to be motivated to learn something,” Dror cautions. “If you’re trying to teach your dog something new and they’re not interested in what you have to offer, it’s not them that’s failing the test, it’s you.”

What about cats?

Compared to dogs, researchers know far less about the thinking abilities of cats, “because cats are a lot harder to study, which I’m sure surprises absolutely no one,” Gnanadesikan jokes. 

But the same principle applies: Cat intelligence is far more nuanced than a number on a scale, she says. 

I can personally attest to this. One of my cats doesn’t pick up social cues very well, but he’s an expert at opening doors, including kitchen cupboards—low social cognition, high physical cognition.

In Ask Us Anything, Popular Science answers your most outlandish, mind-burning questions, from the everyday things you’ve always wondered to the bizarre things you never thought to ask. Have something you’ve always wanted to know? Ask us.

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Would my dog or cat really eat me if I died alone?

The post Test your dog or cat’s IQ using these simple tricks appeared first on Popular Science.

Researchers studying copulation in mayflies pulled off a stunt worthy of the naughtiest ancient Greek myths. Just like Hephaestus used an unbreakable net to trap his wife Aphrodite and her lover Ares in the middle of their adulterous act, a team of scientists in Germany deployed a long-handled net to catch mating insects, and then used freezing spray to preserve the moment for study. 

And that’s not even the strangest part of the study titled, “When mayflies have an erection: functional morphology of the genitalia in Ecdyonurus.” 

Frozen in the act

Mayflies are a group of strange winged insects with dramatic life cycles. They live as larvae in freshwater for most of their lives. When they finally become adults, they stop eating (their gut closes off and turns into a balloon) and they exist to fulfill a single mission—sex. 

Before the Insect Systematics and Diversity study, researchers knew very little about mayfly mating. It’s easy to see why, since the act is fast and it takes place mid-flight,  in the air. The team was clearly undeterred in their quest to understand the intimate affairs of much smaller beings.

The team collected Ecdyonurus venosus mayflies in Germany’s Black Forest. There, they used a long-handled net to catch copulating pairs. Unsurprisingly, most of the captured duos split up right away. Those that didn’t, however, would experience the literal meaning of Dolly Parton’s hit song “I Will Always Love You.” The team then shock-froze them with freezing spray and preserved them in ethanol.

Benedict Stocker shock-freezing a copulating pair of mayflies in a net. Image: A. Staniczek / SMNS.

The researchers then used synchrotron X-ray microtomography (µCT) at the synchrotron particle accelerator of the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, producing images for a digital 3D model. 

“The aim of the present work is to clarify the function of genital interactions during copulation in the mayfly genus Ecdyonurus,” the team wrote in the study, “and to unravel the mechanisms that lead to the change in the penis configuration during mating.”

Yes, you read that right. Their penis changes—and the males sort of have two of them. 

A tale of two penises

Mayfly sex is of a shockingly acrobatic dynamic. Males swarm over bodies of water to seduce females. When a female introduces herself into the fray, the copulation occurs immediately and in midair. The male attaches onto the female from below, using forelegs to hold onto the bases of her wings, and then bends his abdomen up and over. He also uses specialized genital forceps called claspers to secure his grip. Mating can now take place. 

Females have a copulatory pouch that opens towards the back. Males have two separate penis lobes that have spines in between them and claspers on both sides of the “paired penis.” Similarly to the claspers, the spines keep the paired penis in place during mating. 

Male (left) and female (right) of the mayfly species Ecdyonurus venosus, body length approx. 1.2 cm. Image: Copyright: A. Staniczek / SMNS.

“µCT scans show that the penis changes shape during mating powerful muscles cause[ing] a deformation of the penis shaft, making the penis lobes fold over. At the same time, the penial spines extend and prick into the thin membrane of the female’s copulatory pouch,” per a statement. “This stretches the pouch so that it can receive large amounts of sperm, which are stored in a folded membrane at the front of the copulatory pouch.”

As if mayfly mating wasn’t complicated enough, other males frequently attempt to steal the female, so male mayflies’ sturdy attachment is doubly useful. Once the mating is done, however, the couple doesn’t get to celebrate their achievement for long. 

Researchers don’t know if they mate multiple times, but not much time passes before the males die of exhaustion from the swarming flight. The females lay the fertilized eggs in upstream water—and then also die. 

The post Mayflies have crazy, acrobatic sex appeared first on Popular Science.

Billions of stars illuminate the Milky Way. Down here on Earth, only about 6,000 stars are visible to the naked eye, but with the right camera, we can see tens of thousands more.

The Milky Way Photographer of the Year awards celebrate the celestial light show, honoring 25 truly awe-inspiring images. This year’s competition received more than 6,500 submissions, the highest number in the project’s history.

“Aoraki Mt Cook”
My goal with astrophotography has always been to combine my passion for mountains, adventure, and the landscapes of New Zealand. Capturing the Milky Way arch above Aoraki / Mount Cook, the central peak of the national park, became one of the most demanding challenges I had set for myself. Reaching this location required drawing on my experience as a mountaineer, navigating steep rocky terrain and snow-covered slopes under winter conditions. The route presented constant challenges, including large washouts along the mountainside, unstable snow affected by solar radiation, and the demands of winter camping at altitude. The effort required both physical endurance and careful decision-making throughout the journey. Despite these difficulties, the environment offered extraordinary conditions. As night fell, the Milky Way and zodiacal light appeared with exceptional clarity, enhanced by the cold, stable air at elevation. Being positioned so close to Aoraki added a sense of scale and intensity to the moment, especially as the western arc of the Milky Way moved into alignment above the mountain. With only a brief window to capture the scene, there was little margin for error. This image represents that single opportunity, where preparation, experience, and timing came together to document a moment that felt both challenging and deeply rewarding.
Credit: Owain Scullion / Milky Way Photographer of the Year 2026 Owain Scullion

“Every year, this collection reminds us that photographing the Milky Way is not only about technique or planning,”says Dan Zafra, editor of Capture the Atlas, the organization behind the collection. “It is about curiosity, patience, and the desire to experience the night sky in places where it still feels wild,” “Many of these skies are becoming increasingly rare, and we hope these images inspire people not only to admire them, but also to value and protect them.”

Amongst the 25 selected images are scenes from Paranal, Chile, home to the Very Large Telescope and coastal Florida during the Perseids and Geminids meteor showers.

“Botswana Baobabs by Night”
I spent ten days traveling through Botswana, living out of my car and moving through remote desert landscapes in complete isolation, focused entirely on photographing the night sky. This location became the highlight of the trip: a small, ancient island rising from the middle of a vast salt pan. Reaching it, however, was far from straightforward. After struggling to find the route and nearly giving up, I only managed to get there by chance, spotting two Jeeps heading in the opposite direction and deciding to turn around and follow them. After three intense hours navigating the terrain, I finally found myself driving across the open salt pan, leaving a trail of white dust behind. The island itself was covered with baobab trees, scattered in small groups or standing alone, each one offering a striking subject under the night sky. Many were naturally positioned beneath the Milky Way core early in the night, while others lent themselves to different compositions, including star trails. This particular group stood out to me the most. Alone in the darkness, I took my time shaping the scene, using a torch to carefully light-paint the foreground. The final image is a blend of one exposure for the landscape, eleven for the light painting, and a stack of four tracked exposures for the sky, combined to balance detail and atmosphere.
Credit: Stefano Pellegrini / Milky Way Photographer of the Year 2026  Stefano Pellegrini “Caldera Galaxy Panorama”
This panorama was captured at the highest point of the volcanic island of La Palma, a location defined by its unique terrain and exceptional night sky conditions. The lack of ambient light made the process more demanding, requiring extensive focus stacking to achieve sharpness across the entire scene, but it also provided ideal conditions for astrophotography. I chose to create a panoramic composition to include the blooming pink Tajinaste flowers, an endemic species of the island, using them to frame the full arc of the Milky Way’s core. The summit itself forms a vast crater, offering expansive views across the island, often rising above a layer of clouds. Although it was already early summer and nearing the end of the blooming season, I was fortunate to find a few flowers still in good condition and positioned perfectly for the composition I had envisioned. This image represents both careful planning and timing, and I’m especially pleased with the result and honored to have it selected for the Milky Way Photographer of the Year collection.
Credit: Max Terwindt / Milky Way Photographer of the Year 2026  Max Terwindt “Celestial Light Over Sea Cliffs”
The night sky takes on a distinctly different character during this time of year, especially with the arrival of the winter constellations. The tones feel cooler, the air sharper, and Orion rises prominently above the horizon, becoming the centerpiece of the scene. It’s a season that brings a quiet, almost meditative atmosphere to nightscape photography. This image was captured along the sea cliffs near my home in the south of France, a place where the coastline, the stars, and the surrounding silence come together in perfect balance. Having access to such diverse landscapes, from mountains to the sea, all within reach of dark skies, makes moments like this not only possible, but deeply rewarding.
Credit: Anthony Lopez / Milky Way Photographer of the Year 2026 Anthony Lopez “Divinity”
Capturing a setting Milky Way core from this beach had been on my list for a long time, with the starfish-covered reef offering a distinctive and compelling foreground. It’s a notoriously difficult scene to photograph, as access to the reef is only possible during the lowest tides, while the sky must also cooperate with favorable moon and cloud conditions. During my short visit, everything unexpectedly aligned. At first, the conditions seemed uncertain due to strong winds, but I decided to attempt the shot with some company for safety. After assessing the reef, I carefully made my way onto it while others kept watch to ensure I remained safe. The terrain is hazardous, with gaps between the rocks posing a real risk, and the rapidly rising tide added constant pressure throughout the shoot. Despite these challenges, I was able to capture the necessary frames, returning to shore just in time. Due to the changing tide, the upper rows of the sky panorama were photographed from the beach, while the lowest row was captured from the reef to maintain proper alignment and perspective in the final composition.
Credit: Kavan Chay / Milky Way Photographer of the Year 2026 Kavan Chay “Double Milky Way over Monfrague National Park”
I am always drawn to traveling to remarkable natural landscapes to capture their essence through night photography. This image, which represented a significant challenge for me, was taken in Monfragüe National Park during one of the few nights of the year when both the winter and summer Milky Way can be seen in the same sky. The scene does not appear this way to the naked eye. It is a composite that captures the transition of the Milky Way over several hours, combining the winter Milky Way visible after dusk with the summer Milky Way rising before dawn. The following morning, I was able to return to this location with my family, who had accompanied me in the search for this long-envisioned image. Those shared moments, along with the effort behind the capture, make this photograph especially meaningful to me.
Credit: Luis Cajete / Milky Way Photographer of the Year 2026 Luis Cajete “Fireball in Paradise”
This single-exposure image became a reminder to always expect the unexpected in astrophotography. I had not even planned to visit this beach, as the forecast called for clouds and rain throughout the night. The capture was part of a larger day-to-night time-lapse that I began shooting at golden hour, working through biting insects and the intense tropical humidity of Florida. After setting up the sequence, I left the camera running and returned to my vehicle. Several hours later, shortly after midnight, I noticed the ground around me suddenly illuminated by a green glow, prompting me to look up. What followed was the largest meteor I have ever witnessed. It moved slowly across the Milky Way for nearly five seconds, and the glowing trail left behind by the fireball remained visible for almost fifteen minutes. It was one of the most memorable moments I have experienced in astrophotography, completely unplanned and impossible to anticipate.
Credit: Jason Rice / Milky Way Photographer of the Year 2026 Jason Rice “Galactic Gandalf”
When I first discovered this location, I immediately envisioned creating something special beneath the night sky. However, upon arriving after dark, I found that a seal had settled exactly where I had planned to set up my tripod. It showed little interest in moving, and judging by how worn and polished the rock was, it was clearly one of its preferred resting spots. Eventually, the seal shifted slightly to the side, remaining within the scene for the duration of the shoot. It can still be seen in the final image for those who look closely, adding an unexpected and memorable element to the composition. Given the complexity of the scene, I knew the final image would require a significant amount of work. Over the following weeks, starting in November, I returned whenever possible to collect the necessary data for this panorama, carefully building the image piece by piece under the night sky.
Credit: Evan McKay / Milky Way Photographer of the Year 2026 Evan McKay “Galactic Spine”
I am drawn to Milky Way photography because of its ability to spark curiosity. It offers a perspective that feels entirely different from other forms of photography, often revealing a world that many people have never experienced. With my images, my goal is to inspire that same sense of curiosity, encouraging others to imagine what it feels like to stand beneath a sky like this and witness it with their own eyes. That sense of wonder is what first drew me to the Milky Way, and it continues to shape the way I approach each image.
Credit: Andrew Imhoff / Milky Way Photographer of the Year 2026 Andrew Imhoff “Galaxy on the Rise”
I’m always drawn to locations that feel unique and relatively undiscovered, and this cave was a perfect example. Although it was only a few minutes from the parking area, it took me nearly four hours of scouting to finally locate it. The conditions made the process even more demanding. Intense heat combined with powerful winds made movement difficult, at times pushing me against sharp rocks. After nearly giving up and heading back, I finally came across the cave, a moment that made the entire search worthwhile. Capturing the image proved just as challenging. Composing and shooting the panoramic foreground required careful positioning, while properly illuminating the upper section of the cave was particularly difficult. To manage this, I used focus stacking across different planes, including the upper edge, the horizon, and the lower foreground, all in near-total darkness, where the brief blue hour offered little assistance. With the Milky Way sitting low on the horizon, bringing out its color and detail required additional effort in both capture and processing. In the end, the result reflects not only the scene itself, but also the persistence and experience behind it, making it especially meaningful.
Credit: Anastasia Gulova / Milky Way Photographer of the Year 2026 Anastasia Gulova “Geminid Symphony Over La Palma Guardian of the Sky”
This winter Milky Way panorama captures a sky filled with Geminid meteors above the Gran Telescopio Canarias, the largest optical telescope in the world. My first trip to La Palma was an intense and unpredictable experience, from storms and summit snowfall to strong winds, rain, and brief windows of clear skies. For the first three nights, we were confined to the southern part of the island, as the road to the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory remained closed, forcing us to search for clear conditions elsewhere. Reaching the summit seemed increasingly unlikely, until the fourth day, when the road finally reopened. We immediately made our way up, filled with anticipation. After scouting compositions and preparing for the night, clouds once again moved in, putting everything at risk. Rather than giving up, we waited, constantly checking the sky for any sign of improvement. Around midnight, the first stars began to appear, and we quickly headed to the Gran Telescopio Canarias. Above us, the sky opened into a field of stars, while a layer of clouds remained below, creating a striking contrast with the illuminated structure of the telescope. Although the dome could not be opened due to humidity, the experience of witnessing such dark skies for the first time was remarkable, with the Milky Way appearing almost three-dimensional. This was also my first successful capture of the Gum Nebula, adding a unique element to the composition. The final image is the result of an extensive post-processing workflow, combining meteor data registered using Auriga RegiStar from six cameras over five nights on La Palma. All RGB frames were captured using the Capture the Night Astro filter by Capture the Atlas. The final resolution reaches approximately 400 megapixels. This image reflects not only the complexity of the process, but also the experience behind it. Each time I revisit it, it brings me back to that unforgettable time on La Palma.
Credit: Uroš Fink / Milky Way Photographer of the Year 2026 Uroš Fink “Lost in the ripples of space and time”
There’s something uniquely powerful about a calm, windless night in the Pinnacles Desert, a place that never fails to remind me how fortunate we are to have such pristine dark skies so close to home, just a short drive away. As the sun sets beyond the Indian Ocean, a profound stillness settles over Nambung, transforming the landscape into an almost otherworldly scene and drawing me back here time and time again. In this composition, the main limestone pillar aligns almost perfectly with the South Celestial Pole, anchoring the image beneath the rotating sky. To the right, the faint but unmistakable red glow of the Gum Nebula, a vast supernova remnant, adds depth and scale to the scene. Western Australia offers some of the finest night skies in the world, yet it’s easy to take them for granted. Nights like this serve as a reminder of just how special these quiet, remote corners of the Wheatbelt truly are.
Credit: Leonel Padrón / Milky Way Photographer of the Year 2026 Leonel Padrón “Milky Way over Tatra mountains”
Taking advantage of the April new moon, I set out to capture my first Milky Way image of 2025. With promising conditions forecast across southern Poland, I returned to the Tatra Mountains, a region I often revisit with my camera, this time exploring the Białka Gorge in Jurgów, a location I had not photographed before. From this vantage point, the Milky Way rises above the Tatras, which in early spring still carry the lingering traces of winter. What drew me most to this scene was the contrast between the dark, rugged landscape and the richness of the sky. The galactic core emerges just above the mountain horizon, accompanied by the subtle colors of the dust and nebulae within the Rho Ophiuchi region. In the foreground, the river creates a natural leading line, guiding the eye from the earth toward the mountains and into the night sky, visually connecting the terrestrial and the cosmic. Beyond the final image, astrophotography is equally about the experience in the field, often shared with others who are drawn to the same conditions and moments, united by a common appreciation for the night sky.
Credit: Lukasz Remkowicz / Milky Way Photographer of the Year 2026 Łukasz Remkowicz “My perfect night”
Reaching this location required traveling deep into the Argentine Puna, a remote region accessible only by 4×4 vehicles along rough dirt tracks, far from any source of light pollution. The nearest settlement was Antofalla, a small village of around 60 inhabitants, where electricity is generated locally and turned off at night. Beyond that, the closest towns are several hours away, surrounded by vast and isolated landscapes. Situated between 3,500 and 4,000 meters above sea level, the altitude and remoteness make this an exceptional environment for night sky photography. What made this place particularly compelling was its rarity. I had never seen photographs of this salt flat before, and its untouched character and minimalist landscape immediately stood out. Photographing the Milky Way in the southern hemisphere brought both challenges and excitement, as its appearance differs significantly from what I was used to in the north. In this moment, the galactic center sits to the left side of the arch, while the Gum Nebula appears on the right, creating a natural visual balance across the sky.
Credit: Daniel Viñe Garcia / Milky Way Photographer of the Year 2026 Daniel Viñé Garcia “Perseid Meteors over Durdle Door”
“Ancient fireworks” from Comet Swift-Tuttle hurtled through the atmosphere to document this ultra-wide angle composite image above the natural limestone arch of Durdle Door. In the foreground, a singular glow worm was documented amongst reeds along the sea cliff edge. As the subject of Astrophotography grows by demand, beauty hotspots and World Heritage Sites including Durdle Door, are getting busy. With good reason that is why as Astrophotographers, we need to set an example in protecting beauty hotspots and local ecology. Through practice of utilising red head torches and adhering to access-restricted areas of UNESCO World Heritage sites.
Credit: Josh Dury / Milky Way Photographer of the Year 2026 Josh Dury “The Milky Way over a field of Lupines”
This image captures the Milky Way rising above a blooming field of lupines in New Zealand during November, when spring wildflowers transform the landscape beneath the night sky. Using a fisheye perspective, the flowers encircle the scene, forming a natural frame that draws the viewer into the celestial sphere above.
Credit: Alvin Wu / Milky Way Photographer of the Year 2026 Alvin Wu “Standing on the shoulders of Giants”
This photograph was captured in the heart of the Sierra La Giganta, in Baja California Sur, following a two-day expedition from the small village of San Juan Londo. The final approach required an ascent of more than 800 meters by mule along a long-forgotten section of the historic Camino Real, once used by vaqueros and their donkeys to transport goods between remote settlements. This path has remained largely untouched for nearly 80 years. The image forms part of an ongoing project focused on documenting and promoting the exceptional dark skies of Baja California Sur for astrotourism. These conditions meet the standards of true Dark Sky Sanctuaries, offering some of the purest night skies in the region. On the right side of the frame, the faint glow belongs to the distant city of Loreto, the first capital of the Californias, located approximately 30 kilometers to the south. We were accompanied by Señor Juan, our guide, whose father first brought him to this hidden location over 65 years ago. Together, we aim to preserve the memory of these historic routes, ancient paths that have been gradually reclaimed by nature over time. This photograph reflects not only the pursuit of pristine dark skies, but also a deeper process of exploration and rediscovery. It brings together the search for untouched landscapes with the recovery of a cultural and historical legacy, helping to position Baja California Sur as a world-class destination for night sky photography while honoring the stories embedded in its terrain. Milky Way photography goes beyond capturing the stars. It becomes a way to explore remote environments, challenge physical limits, and reconnect with both nature and history. If this image encourages others to look beyond established paths in search of truly dark skies, then it has fulfilled its purpose.
Credit: Ignacio Pelaez / Milky Way Photographer of the Year 2026 Nacho Peláez “Valle de la luna”
This photograph was captured in the heart of the Sierra La Giganta, in Baja California Sur, following a two-day expedition from the small village of San Juan Londo. The final approach required an ascent of more than 800 meters by mule along a long-forgotten section of the historic Camino Real, once used by vaqueros and their donkeys to transport goods between remote settlements. This path has remained largely untouched for nearly 80 years. The image forms part of an ongoing project focused on documenting and promoting the exceptional dark skies of Baja California Sur for astrotourism. These conditions meet the standards of true Dark Sky Sanctuaries, offering some of the purest night skies in the region. On the right side of the frame, the faint glow belongs to the distant city of Loreto, the first capital of the Californias, located approximately 30 kilometers to the south. We were accompanied by Señor Juan, our guide, whose father first brought him to this hidden location over 65 years ago. Together, we aim to preserve the memory of these historic routes, ancient paths that have been gradually reclaimed by nature over time. This photograph reflects not only the pursuit of pristine dark skies, but also a deeper process of exploration and rediscovery. It brings together the search for untouched landscapes with the recovery of a cultural and historical legacy, helping to position Baja California Sur as a world-class destination for night sky photography while honoring the stories embedded in its terrain. Milky Way photography goes beyond capturing the stars. It becomes a way to explore remote environments, challenge physical limits, and reconnect with both nature and history. If this image encourages others to look beyond established paths in search of truly dark skies, then it has fulfilled its purpose.
Credit: Gonzalo Santile / Milky Way Photographer of the Year 2026 Gonzalo Javier Santile

The post 19 breathtaking images from the Milky Way Photographer of the Year 2026 awards appeared first on Popular Science.

Billions of stars illuminate the Milky Way. Down here on Earth, only about 6,000 stars are visible to the naked eye, but with the right camera, we can see tens of thousands more.

The Milky Way Photographer of the Year awards celebrate the celestial light show, honoring 25 truly awe-inspiring images. This year’s competition received more than 6,500 submissions, the highest number in the project’s history.

“Aoraki Mt Cook”
My goal with astrophotography has always been to combine my passion for mountains, adventure, and the landscapes of New Zealand. Capturing the Milky Way arch above Aoraki / Mount Cook, the central peak of the national park, became one of the most demanding challenges I had set for myself. Reaching this location required drawing on my experience as a mountaineer, navigating steep rocky terrain and snow-covered slopes under winter conditions. The route presented constant challenges, including large washouts along the mountainside, unstable snow affected by solar radiation, and the demands of winter camping at altitude. The effort required both physical endurance and careful decision-making throughout the journey. Despite these difficulties, the environment offered extraordinary conditions. As night fell, the Milky Way and zodiacal light appeared with exceptional clarity, enhanced by the cold, stable air at elevation. Being positioned so close to Aoraki added a sense of scale and intensity to the moment, especially as the western arc of the Milky Way moved into alignment above the mountain. With only a brief window to capture the scene, there was little margin for error. This image represents that single opportunity, where preparation, experience, and timing came together to document a moment that felt both challenging and deeply rewarding.
Credit: Owain Scullion / Milky Way Photographer of the Year 2026 Owain Scullion

“Every year, this collection reminds us that photographing the Milky Way is not only about technique or planning,”says Dan Zafra, editor of Capture the Atlas, the organization behind the collection. “It is about curiosity, patience, and the desire to experience the night sky in places where it still feels wild,” “Many of these skies are becoming increasingly rare, and we hope these images inspire people not only to admire them, but also to value and protect them.”

Amongst the 25 selected images are scenes from Paranal, Chile, home to the Very Large Telescope and coastal Florida during the Perseids and Geminids meteor showers.

“Botswana Baobabs by Night”
I spent ten days traveling through Botswana, living out of my car and moving through remote desert landscapes in complete isolation, focused entirely on photographing the night sky. This location became the highlight of the trip: a small, ancient island rising from the middle of a vast salt pan. Reaching it, however, was far from straightforward. After struggling to find the route and nearly giving up, I only managed to get there by chance, spotting two Jeeps heading in the opposite direction and deciding to turn around and follow them. After three intense hours navigating the terrain, I finally found myself driving across the open salt pan, leaving a trail of white dust behind. The island itself was covered with baobab trees, scattered in small groups or standing alone, each one offering a striking subject under the night sky. Many were naturally positioned beneath the Milky Way core early in the night, while others lent themselves to different compositions, including star trails. This particular group stood out to me the most. Alone in the darkness, I took my time shaping the scene, using a torch to carefully light-paint the foreground. The final image is a blend of one exposure for the landscape, eleven for the light painting, and a stack of four tracked exposures for the sky, combined to balance detail and atmosphere.
Credit: Stefano Pellegrini / Milky Way Photographer of the Year 2026  Stefano Pellegrini “Caldera Galaxy Panorama”
This panorama was captured at the highest point of the volcanic island of La Palma, a location defined by its unique terrain and exceptional night sky conditions. The lack of ambient light made the process more demanding, requiring extensive focus stacking to achieve sharpness across the entire scene, but it also provided ideal conditions for astrophotography. I chose to create a panoramic composition to include the blooming pink Tajinaste flowers, an endemic species of the island, using them to frame the full arc of the Milky Way’s core. The summit itself forms a vast crater, offering expansive views across the island, often rising above a layer of clouds. Although it was already early summer and nearing the end of the blooming season, I was fortunate to find a few flowers still in good condition and positioned perfectly for the composition I had envisioned. This image represents both careful planning and timing, and I’m especially pleased with the result and honored to have it selected for the Milky Way Photographer of the Year collection.
Credit: Max Terwindt / Milky Way Photographer of the Year 2026  Max Terwindt “Celestial Light Over Sea Cliffs”
The night sky takes on a distinctly different character during this time of year, especially with the arrival of the winter constellations. The tones feel cooler, the air sharper, and Orion rises prominently above the horizon, becoming the centerpiece of the scene. It’s a season that brings a quiet, almost meditative atmosphere to nightscape photography. This image was captured along the sea cliffs near my home in the south of France, a place where the coastline, the stars, and the surrounding silence come together in perfect balance. Having access to such diverse landscapes, from mountains to the sea, all within reach of dark skies, makes moments like this not only possible, but deeply rewarding.
Credit: Anthony Lopez / Milky Way Photographer of the Year 2026 Anthony Lopez “Divinity”
Capturing a setting Milky Way core from this beach had been on my list for a long time, with the starfish-covered reef offering a distinctive and compelling foreground. It’s a notoriously difficult scene to photograph, as access to the reef is only possible during the lowest tides, while the sky must also cooperate with favorable moon and cloud conditions. During my short visit, everything unexpectedly aligned. At first, the conditions seemed uncertain due to strong winds, but I decided to attempt the shot with some company for safety. After assessing the reef, I carefully made my way onto it while others kept watch to ensure I remained safe. The terrain is hazardous, with gaps between the rocks posing a real risk, and the rapidly rising tide added constant pressure throughout the shoot. Despite these challenges, I was able to capture the necessary frames, returning to shore just in time. Due to the changing tide, the upper rows of the sky panorama were photographed from the beach, while the lowest row was captured from the reef to maintain proper alignment and perspective in the final composition.
Credit: Kavan Chay / Milky Way Photographer of the Year 2026 Kavan Chay “Double Milky Way over Monfrague National Park”
I am always drawn to traveling to remarkable natural landscapes to capture their essence through night photography. This image, which represented a significant challenge for me, was taken in Monfragüe National Park during one of the few nights of the year when both the winter and summer Milky Way can be seen in the same sky. The scene does not appear this way to the naked eye. It is a composite that captures the transition of the Milky Way over several hours, combining the winter Milky Way visible after dusk with the summer Milky Way rising before dawn. The following morning, I was able to return to this location with my family, who had accompanied me in the search for this long-envisioned image. Those shared moments, along with the effort behind the capture, make this photograph especially meaningful to me.
Credit: Luis Cajete / Milky Way Photographer of the Year 2026 Luis Cajete “Fireball in Paradise”
This single-exposure image became a reminder to always expect the unexpected in astrophotography. I had not even planned to visit this beach, as the forecast called for clouds and rain throughout the night. The capture was part of a larger day-to-night time-lapse that I began shooting at golden hour, working through biting insects and the intense tropical humidity of Florida. After setting up the sequence, I left the camera running and returned to my vehicle. Several hours later, shortly after midnight, I noticed the ground around me suddenly illuminated by a green glow, prompting me to look up. What followed was the largest meteor I have ever witnessed. It moved slowly across the Milky Way for nearly five seconds, and the glowing trail left behind by the fireball remained visible for almost fifteen minutes. It was one of the most memorable moments I have experienced in astrophotography, completely unplanned and impossible to anticipate.
Credit: Jason Rice / Milky Way Photographer of the Year 2026 Jason Rice “Galactic Gandalf”
When I first discovered this location, I immediately envisioned creating something special beneath the night sky. However, upon arriving after dark, I found that a seal had settled exactly where I had planned to set up my tripod. It showed little interest in moving, and judging by how worn and polished the rock was, it was clearly one of its preferred resting spots. Eventually, the seal shifted slightly to the side, remaining within the scene for the duration of the shoot. It can still be seen in the final image for those who look closely, adding an unexpected and memorable element to the composition. Given the complexity of the scene, I knew the final image would require a significant amount of work. Over the following weeks, starting in November, I returned whenever possible to collect the necessary data for this panorama, carefully building the image piece by piece under the night sky.
Credit: Evan McKay / Milky Way Photographer of the Year 2026 Evan McKay “Galactic Spine”
I am drawn to Milky Way photography because of its ability to spark curiosity. It offers a perspective that feels entirely different from other forms of photography, often revealing a world that many people have never experienced. With my images, my goal is to inspire that same sense of curiosity, encouraging others to imagine what it feels like to stand beneath a sky like this and witness it with their own eyes. That sense of wonder is what first drew me to the Milky Way, and it continues to shape the way I approach each image.
Credit: Andrew Imhoff / Milky Way Photographer of the Year 2026 Andrew Imhoff “Galaxy on the Rise”
I’m always drawn to locations that feel unique and relatively undiscovered, and this cave was a perfect example. Although it was only a few minutes from the parking area, it took me nearly four hours of scouting to finally locate it. The conditions made the process even more demanding. Intense heat combined with powerful winds made movement difficult, at times pushing me against sharp rocks. After nearly giving up and heading back, I finally came across the cave, a moment that made the entire search worthwhile. Capturing the image proved just as challenging. Composing and shooting the panoramic foreground required careful positioning, while properly illuminating the upper section of the cave was particularly difficult. To manage this, I used focus stacking across different planes, including the upper edge, the horizon, and the lower foreground, all in near-total darkness, where the brief blue hour offered little assistance. With the Milky Way sitting low on the horizon, bringing out its color and detail required additional effort in both capture and processing. In the end, the result reflects not only the scene itself, but also the persistence and experience behind it, making it especially meaningful.
Credit: Anastasia Gulova / Milky Way Photographer of the Year 2026 Anastasia Gulova “Geminid Symphony Over La Palma Guardian of the Sky”
This winter Milky Way panorama captures a sky filled with Geminid meteors above the Gran Telescopio Canarias, the largest optical telescope in the world. My first trip to La Palma was an intense and unpredictable experience, from storms and summit snowfall to strong winds, rain, and brief windows of clear skies. For the first three nights, we were confined to the southern part of the island, as the road to the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory remained closed, forcing us to search for clear conditions elsewhere. Reaching the summit seemed increasingly unlikely, until the fourth day, when the road finally reopened. We immediately made our way up, filled with anticipation. After scouting compositions and preparing for the night, clouds once again moved in, putting everything at risk. Rather than giving up, we waited, constantly checking the sky for any sign of improvement. Around midnight, the first stars began to appear, and we quickly headed to the Gran Telescopio Canarias. Above us, the sky opened into a field of stars, while a layer of clouds remained below, creating a striking contrast with the illuminated structure of the telescope. Although the dome could not be opened due to humidity, the experience of witnessing such dark skies for the first time was remarkable, with the Milky Way appearing almost three-dimensional. This was also my first successful capture of the Gum Nebula, adding a unique element to the composition. The final image is the result of an extensive post-processing workflow, combining meteor data registered using Auriga RegiStar from six cameras over five nights on La Palma. All RGB frames were captured using the Capture the Night Astro filter by Capture the Atlas. The final resolution reaches approximately 400 megapixels. This image reflects not only the complexity of the process, but also the experience behind it. Each time I revisit it, it brings me back to that unforgettable time on La Palma.
Credit: Uroš Fink / Milky Way Photographer of the Year 2026 Uroš Fink “Lost in the ripples of space and time”
There’s something uniquely powerful about a calm, windless night in the Pinnacles Desert, a place that never fails to remind me how fortunate we are to have such pristine dark skies so close to home, just a short drive away. As the sun sets beyond the Indian Ocean, a profound stillness settles over Nambung, transforming the landscape into an almost otherworldly scene and drawing me back here time and time again. In this composition, the main limestone pillar aligns almost perfectly with the South Celestial Pole, anchoring the image beneath the rotating sky. To the right, the faint but unmistakable red glow of the Gum Nebula, a vast supernova remnant, adds depth and scale to the scene. Western Australia offers some of the finest night skies in the world, yet it’s easy to take them for granted. Nights like this serve as a reminder of just how special these quiet, remote corners of the Wheatbelt truly are.
Credit: Leonel Padrón / Milky Way Photographer of the Year 2026 Leonel Padrón “Milky Way over Tatra mountains”
Taking advantage of the April new moon, I set out to capture my first Milky Way image of 2025. With promising conditions forecast across southern Poland, I returned to the Tatra Mountains, a region I often revisit with my camera, this time exploring the Białka Gorge in Jurgów, a location I had not photographed before. From this vantage point, the Milky Way rises above the Tatras, which in early spring still carry the lingering traces of winter. What drew me most to this scene was the contrast between the dark, rugged landscape and the richness of the sky. The galactic core emerges just above the mountain horizon, accompanied by the subtle colors of the dust and nebulae within the Rho Ophiuchi region. In the foreground, the river creates a natural leading line, guiding the eye from the earth toward the mountains and into the night sky, visually connecting the terrestrial and the cosmic. Beyond the final image, astrophotography is equally about the experience in the field, often shared with others who are drawn to the same conditions and moments, united by a common appreciation for the night sky.
Credit: Lukasz Remkowicz / Milky Way Photographer of the Year 2026 Łukasz Remkowicz “My perfect night”
Reaching this location required traveling deep into the Argentine Puna, a remote region accessible only by 4×4 vehicles along rough dirt tracks, far from any source of light pollution. The nearest settlement was Antofalla, a small village of around 60 inhabitants, where electricity is generated locally and turned off at night. Beyond that, the closest towns are several hours away, surrounded by vast and isolated landscapes. Situated between 3,500 and 4,000 meters above sea level, the altitude and remoteness make this an exceptional environment for night sky photography. What made this place particularly compelling was its rarity. I had never seen photographs of this salt flat before, and its untouched character and minimalist landscape immediately stood out. Photographing the Milky Way in the southern hemisphere brought both challenges and excitement, as its appearance differs significantly from what I was used to in the north. In this moment, the galactic center sits to the left side of the arch, while the Gum Nebula appears on the right, creating a natural visual balance across the sky.
Credit: Daniel Viñe Garcia / Milky Way Photographer of the Year 2026 Daniel Viñé Garcia “Perseid Meteors over Durdle Door”
“Ancient fireworks” from Comet Swift-Tuttle hurtled through the atmosphere to document this ultra-wide angle composite image above the natural limestone arch of Durdle Door. In the foreground, a singular glow worm was documented amongst reeds along the sea cliff edge. As the subject of Astrophotography grows by demand, beauty hotspots and World Heritage Sites including Durdle Door, are getting busy. With good reason that is why as Astrophotographers, we need to set an example in protecting beauty hotspots and local ecology. Through practice of utilising red head torches and adhering to access-restricted areas of UNESCO World Heritage sites.
Credit: Josh Dury / Milky Way Photographer of the Year 2026 Josh Dury “The Milky Way over a field of Lupines”
This image captures the Milky Way rising above a blooming field of lupines in New Zealand during November, when spring wildflowers transform the landscape beneath the night sky. Using a fisheye perspective, the flowers encircle the scene, forming a natural frame that draws the viewer into the celestial sphere above.
Credit: Alvin Wu / Milky Way Photographer of the Year 2026 Alvin Wu “Standing on the shoulders of Giants”
This photograph was captured in the heart of the Sierra La Giganta, in Baja California Sur, following a two-day expedition from the small village of San Juan Londo. The final approach required an ascent of more than 800 meters by mule along a long-forgotten section of the historic Camino Real, once used by vaqueros and their donkeys to transport goods between remote settlements. This path has remained largely untouched for nearly 80 years. The image forms part of an ongoing project focused on documenting and promoting the exceptional dark skies of Baja California Sur for astrotourism. These conditions meet the standards of true Dark Sky Sanctuaries, offering some of the purest night skies in the region. On the right side of the frame, the faint glow belongs to the distant city of Loreto, the first capital of the Californias, located approximately 30 kilometers to the south. We were accompanied by Señor Juan, our guide, whose father first brought him to this hidden location over 65 years ago. Together, we aim to preserve the memory of these historic routes, ancient paths that have been gradually reclaimed by nature over time. This photograph reflects not only the pursuit of pristine dark skies, but also a deeper process of exploration and rediscovery. It brings together the search for untouched landscapes with the recovery of a cultural and historical legacy, helping to position Baja California Sur as a world-class destination for night sky photography while honoring the stories embedded in its terrain. Milky Way photography goes beyond capturing the stars. It becomes a way to explore remote environments, challenge physical limits, and reconnect with both nature and history. If this image encourages others to look beyond established paths in search of truly dark skies, then it has fulfilled its purpose.
Credit: Ignacio Pelaez / Milky Way Photographer of the Year 2026 Nacho Peláez “Valle de la luna”
This photograph was captured in the heart of the Sierra La Giganta, in Baja California Sur, following a two-day expedition from the small village of San Juan Londo. The final approach required an ascent of more than 800 meters by mule along a long-forgotten section of the historic Camino Real, once used by vaqueros and their donkeys to transport goods between remote settlements. This path has remained largely untouched for nearly 80 years. The image forms part of an ongoing project focused on documenting and promoting the exceptional dark skies of Baja California Sur for astrotourism. These conditions meet the standards of true Dark Sky Sanctuaries, offering some of the purest night skies in the region. On the right side of the frame, the faint glow belongs to the distant city of Loreto, the first capital of the Californias, located approximately 30 kilometers to the south. We were accompanied by Señor Juan, our guide, whose father first brought him to this hidden location over 65 years ago. Together, we aim to preserve the memory of these historic routes, ancient paths that have been gradually reclaimed by nature over time. This photograph reflects not only the pursuit of pristine dark skies, but also a deeper process of exploration and rediscovery. It brings together the search for untouched landscapes with the recovery of a cultural and historical legacy, helping to position Baja California Sur as a world-class destination for night sky photography while honoring the stories embedded in its terrain. Milky Way photography goes beyond capturing the stars. It becomes a way to explore remote environments, challenge physical limits, and reconnect with both nature and history. If this image encourages others to look beyond established paths in search of truly dark skies, then it has fulfilled its purpose.
Credit: Gonzalo Santile / Milky Way Photographer of the Year 2026 Gonzalo Javier Santile

The post 19 breathtaking images from the Milky Way Photographer of the Year 2026 awards appeared first on Popular Science.

Billions of stars illuminate the Milky Way. Down here on Earth, only about 6,000 stars are visible to the naked eye, but with the right camera, we can see tens of thousands more.

The Milky Way Photographer of the Year awards celebrate the celestial light show, honoring 25 truly awe-inspiring images. This year’s competition received more than 6,500 submissions, the highest number in the project’s history.

“Aoraki Mt Cook”
My goal with astrophotography has always been to combine my passion for mountains, adventure, and the landscapes of New Zealand. Capturing the Milky Way arch above Aoraki / Mount Cook, the central peak of the national park, became one of the most demanding challenges I had set for myself. Reaching this location required drawing on my experience as a mountaineer, navigating steep rocky terrain and snow-covered slopes under winter conditions. The route presented constant challenges, including large washouts along the mountainside, unstable snow affected by solar radiation, and the demands of winter camping at altitude. The effort required both physical endurance and careful decision-making throughout the journey. Despite these difficulties, the environment offered extraordinary conditions. As night fell, the Milky Way and zodiacal light appeared with exceptional clarity, enhanced by the cold, stable air at elevation. Being positioned so close to Aoraki added a sense of scale and intensity to the moment, especially as the western arc of the Milky Way moved into alignment above the mountain. With only a brief window to capture the scene, there was little margin for error. This image represents that single opportunity, where preparation, experience, and timing came together to document a moment that felt both challenging and deeply rewarding.
Credit: Owain Scullion / Milky Way Photographer of the Year 2026 Owain Scullion

“Every year, this collection reminds us that photographing the Milky Way is not only about technique or planning,”says Dan Zafra, editor of Capture the Atlas, the organization behind the collection. “It is about curiosity, patience, and the desire to experience the night sky in places where it still feels wild,” “Many of these skies are becoming increasingly rare, and we hope these images inspire people not only to admire them, but also to value and protect them.”

Amongst the 25 selected images are scenes from Paranal, Chile, home to the Very Large Telescope and coastal Florida during the Perseids and Geminids meteor showers.

“Botswana Baobabs by Night”
I spent ten days traveling through Botswana, living out of my car and moving through remote desert landscapes in complete isolation, focused entirely on photographing the night sky. This location became the highlight of the trip: a small, ancient island rising from the middle of a vast salt pan. Reaching it, however, was far from straightforward. After struggling to find the route and nearly giving up, I only managed to get there by chance, spotting two Jeeps heading in the opposite direction and deciding to turn around and follow them. After three intense hours navigating the terrain, I finally found myself driving across the open salt pan, leaving a trail of white dust behind. The island itself was covered with baobab trees, scattered in small groups or standing alone, each one offering a striking subject under the night sky. Many were naturally positioned beneath the Milky Way core early in the night, while others lent themselves to different compositions, including star trails. This particular group stood out to me the most. Alone in the darkness, I took my time shaping the scene, using a torch to carefully light-paint the foreground. The final image is a blend of one exposure for the landscape, eleven for the light painting, and a stack of four tracked exposures for the sky, combined to balance detail and atmosphere.
Credit: Stefano Pellegrini / Milky Way Photographer of the Year 2026  Stefano Pellegrini “Caldera Galaxy Panorama”
This panorama was captured at the highest point of the volcanic island of La Palma, a location defined by its unique terrain and exceptional night sky conditions. The lack of ambient light made the process more demanding, requiring extensive focus stacking to achieve sharpness across the entire scene, but it also provided ideal conditions for astrophotography. I chose to create a panoramic composition to include the blooming pink Tajinaste flowers, an endemic species of the island, using them to frame the full arc of the Milky Way’s core. The summit itself forms a vast crater, offering expansive views across the island, often rising above a layer of clouds. Although it was already early summer and nearing the end of the blooming season, I was fortunate to find a few flowers still in good condition and positioned perfectly for the composition I had envisioned. This image represents both careful planning and timing, and I’m especially pleased with the result and honored to have it selected for the Milky Way Photographer of the Year collection.
Credit: Max Terwindt / Milky Way Photographer of the Year 2026  Max Terwindt “Celestial Light Over Sea Cliffs”
The night sky takes on a distinctly different character during this time of year, especially with the arrival of the winter constellations. The tones feel cooler, the air sharper, and Orion rises prominently above the horizon, becoming the centerpiece of the scene. It’s a season that brings a quiet, almost meditative atmosphere to nightscape photography. This image was captured along the sea cliffs near my home in the south of France, a place where the coastline, the stars, and the surrounding silence come together in perfect balance. Having access to such diverse landscapes, from mountains to the sea, all within reach of dark skies, makes moments like this not only possible, but deeply rewarding.
Credit: Anthony Lopez / Milky Way Photographer of the Year 2026 Anthony Lopez “Divinity”
Capturing a setting Milky Way core from this beach had been on my list for a long time, with the starfish-covered reef offering a distinctive and compelling foreground. It’s a notoriously difficult scene to photograph, as access to the reef is only possible during the lowest tides, while the sky must also cooperate with favorable moon and cloud conditions. During my short visit, everything unexpectedly aligned. At first, the conditions seemed uncertain due to strong winds, but I decided to attempt the shot with some company for safety. After assessing the reef, I carefully made my way onto it while others kept watch to ensure I remained safe. The terrain is hazardous, with gaps between the rocks posing a real risk, and the rapidly rising tide added constant pressure throughout the shoot. Despite these challenges, I was able to capture the necessary frames, returning to shore just in time. Due to the changing tide, the upper rows of the sky panorama were photographed from the beach, while the lowest row was captured from the reef to maintain proper alignment and perspective in the final composition.
Credit: Kavan Chay / Milky Way Photographer of the Year 2026 Kavan Chay “Double Milky Way over Monfrague National Park”
I am always drawn to traveling to remarkable natural landscapes to capture their essence through night photography. This image, which represented a significant challenge for me, was taken in Monfragüe National Park during one of the few nights of the year when both the winter and summer Milky Way can be seen in the same sky. The scene does not appear this way to the naked eye. It is a composite that captures the transition of the Milky Way over several hours, combining the winter Milky Way visible after dusk with the summer Milky Way rising before dawn. The following morning, I was able to return to this location with my family, who had accompanied me in the search for this long-envisioned image. Those shared moments, along with the effort behind the capture, make this photograph especially meaningful to me.
Credit: Luis Cajete / Milky Way Photographer of the Year 2026 Luis Cajete “Fireball in Paradise”
This single-exposure image became a reminder to always expect the unexpected in astrophotography. I had not even planned to visit this beach, as the forecast called for clouds and rain throughout the night. The capture was part of a larger day-to-night time-lapse that I began shooting at golden hour, working through biting insects and the intense tropical humidity of Florida. After setting up the sequence, I left the camera running and returned to my vehicle. Several hours later, shortly after midnight, I noticed the ground around me suddenly illuminated by a green glow, prompting me to look up. What followed was the largest meteor I have ever witnessed. It moved slowly across the Milky Way for nearly five seconds, and the glowing trail left behind by the fireball remained visible for almost fifteen minutes. It was one of the most memorable moments I have experienced in astrophotography, completely unplanned and impossible to anticipate.
Credit: Jason Rice / Milky Way Photographer of the Year 2026 Jason Rice “Galactic Gandalf”
When I first discovered this location, I immediately envisioned creating something special beneath the night sky. However, upon arriving after dark, I found that a seal had settled exactly where I had planned to set up my tripod. It showed little interest in moving, and judging by how worn and polished the rock was, it was clearly one of its preferred resting spots. Eventually, the seal shifted slightly to the side, remaining within the scene for the duration of the shoot. It can still be seen in the final image for those who look closely, adding an unexpected and memorable element to the composition. Given the complexity of the scene, I knew the final image would require a significant amount of work. Over the following weeks, starting in November, I returned whenever possible to collect the necessary data for this panorama, carefully building the image piece by piece under the night sky.
Credit: Evan McKay / Milky Way Photographer of the Year 2026 Evan McKay “Galactic Spine”
I am drawn to Milky Way photography because of its ability to spark curiosity. It offers a perspective that feels entirely different from other forms of photography, often revealing a world that many people have never experienced. With my images, my goal is to inspire that same sense of curiosity, encouraging others to imagine what it feels like to stand beneath a sky like this and witness it with their own eyes. That sense of wonder is what first drew me to the Milky Way, and it continues to shape the way I approach each image.
Credit: Andrew Imhoff / Milky Way Photographer of the Year 2026 Andrew Imhoff “Galaxy on the Rise”
I’m always drawn to locations that feel unique and relatively undiscovered, and this cave was a perfect example. Although it was only a few minutes from the parking area, it took me nearly four hours of scouting to finally locate it. The conditions made the process even more demanding. Intense heat combined with powerful winds made movement difficult, at times pushing me against sharp rocks. After nearly giving up and heading back, I finally came across the cave, a moment that made the entire search worthwhile. Capturing the image proved just as challenging. Composing and shooting the panoramic foreground required careful positioning, while properly illuminating the upper section of the cave was particularly difficult. To manage this, I used focus stacking across different planes, including the upper edge, the horizon, and the lower foreground, all in near-total darkness, where the brief blue hour offered little assistance. With the Milky Way sitting low on the horizon, bringing out its color and detail required additional effort in both capture and processing. In the end, the result reflects not only the scene itself, but also the persistence and experience behind it, making it especially meaningful.
Credit: Anastasia Gulova / Milky Way Photographer of the Year 2026 Anastasia Gulova “Geminid Symphony Over La Palma Guardian of the Sky”
This winter Milky Way panorama captures a sky filled with Geminid meteors above the Gran Telescopio Canarias, the largest optical telescope in the world. My first trip to La Palma was an intense and unpredictable experience, from storms and summit snowfall to strong winds, rain, and brief windows of clear skies. For the first three nights, we were confined to the southern part of the island, as the road to the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory remained closed, forcing us to search for clear conditions elsewhere. Reaching the summit seemed increasingly unlikely, until the fourth day, when the road finally reopened. We immediately made our way up, filled with anticipation. After scouting compositions and preparing for the night, clouds once again moved in, putting everything at risk. Rather than giving up, we waited, constantly checking the sky for any sign of improvement. Around midnight, the first stars began to appear, and we quickly headed to the Gran Telescopio Canarias. Above us, the sky opened into a field of stars, while a layer of clouds remained below, creating a striking contrast with the illuminated structure of the telescope. Although the dome could not be opened due to humidity, the experience of witnessing such dark skies for the first time was remarkable, with the Milky Way appearing almost three-dimensional. This was also my first successful capture of the Gum Nebula, adding a unique element to the composition. The final image is the result of an extensive post-processing workflow, combining meteor data registered using Auriga RegiStar from six cameras over five nights on La Palma. All RGB frames were captured using the Capture the Night Astro filter by Capture the Atlas. The final resolution reaches approximately 400 megapixels. This image reflects not only the complexity of the process, but also the experience behind it. Each time I revisit it, it brings me back to that unforgettable time on La Palma.
Credit: Uroš Fink / Milky Way Photographer of the Year 2026 Uroš Fink “Lost in the ripples of space and time”
There’s something uniquely powerful about a calm, windless night in the Pinnacles Desert, a place that never fails to remind me how fortunate we are to have such pristine dark skies so close to home, just a short drive away. As the sun sets beyond the Indian Ocean, a profound stillness settles over Nambung, transforming the landscape into an almost otherworldly scene and drawing me back here time and time again. In this composition, the main limestone pillar aligns almost perfectly with the South Celestial Pole, anchoring the image beneath the rotating sky. To the right, the faint but unmistakable red glow of the Gum Nebula, a vast supernova remnant, adds depth and scale to the scene. Western Australia offers some of the finest night skies in the world, yet it’s easy to take them for granted. Nights like this serve as a reminder of just how special these quiet, remote corners of the Wheatbelt truly are.
Credit: Leonel Padrón / Milky Way Photographer of the Year 2026 Leonel Padrón “Milky Way over Tatra mountains”
Taking advantage of the April new moon, I set out to capture my first Milky Way image of 2025. With promising conditions forecast across southern Poland, I returned to the Tatra Mountains, a region I often revisit with my camera, this time exploring the Białka Gorge in Jurgów, a location I had not photographed before. From this vantage point, the Milky Way rises above the Tatras, which in early spring still carry the lingering traces of winter. What drew me most to this scene was the contrast between the dark, rugged landscape and the richness of the sky. The galactic core emerges just above the mountain horizon, accompanied by the subtle colors of the dust and nebulae within the Rho Ophiuchi region. In the foreground, the river creates a natural leading line, guiding the eye from the earth toward the mountains and into the night sky, visually connecting the terrestrial and the cosmic. Beyond the final image, astrophotography is equally about the experience in the field, often shared with others who are drawn to the same conditions and moments, united by a common appreciation for the night sky.
Credit: Lukasz Remkowicz / Milky Way Photographer of the Year 2026 Łukasz Remkowicz “My perfect night”
Reaching this location required traveling deep into the Argentine Puna, a remote region accessible only by 4×4 vehicles along rough dirt tracks, far from any source of light pollution. The nearest settlement was Antofalla, a small village of around 60 inhabitants, where electricity is generated locally and turned off at night. Beyond that, the closest towns are several hours away, surrounded by vast and isolated landscapes. Situated between 3,500 and 4,000 meters above sea level, the altitude and remoteness make this an exceptional environment for night sky photography. What made this place particularly compelling was its rarity. I had never seen photographs of this salt flat before, and its untouched character and minimalist landscape immediately stood out. Photographing the Milky Way in the southern hemisphere brought both challenges and excitement, as its appearance differs significantly from what I was used to in the north. In this moment, the galactic center sits to the left side of the arch, while the Gum Nebula appears on the right, creating a natural visual balance across the sky.
Credit: Daniel Viñe Garcia / Milky Way Photographer of the Year 2026 Daniel Viñé Garcia “Perseid Meteors over Durdle Door”
“Ancient fireworks” from Comet Swift-Tuttle hurtled through the atmosphere to document this ultra-wide angle composite image above the natural limestone arch of Durdle Door. In the foreground, a singular glow worm was documented amongst reeds along the sea cliff edge. As the subject of Astrophotography grows by demand, beauty hotspots and World Heritage Sites including Durdle Door, are getting busy. With good reason that is why as Astrophotographers, we need to set an example in protecting beauty hotspots and local ecology. Through practice of utilising red head torches and adhering to access-restricted areas of UNESCO World Heritage sites.
Credit: Josh Dury / Milky Way Photographer of the Year 2026 Josh Dury “The Milky Way over a field of Lupines”
This image captures the Milky Way rising above a blooming field of lupines in New Zealand during November, when spring wildflowers transform the landscape beneath the night sky. Using a fisheye perspective, the flowers encircle the scene, forming a natural frame that draws the viewer into the celestial sphere above.
Credit: Alvin Wu / Milky Way Photographer of the Year 2026 Alvin Wu “Standing on the shoulders of Giants”
This photograph was captured in the heart of the Sierra La Giganta, in Baja California Sur, following a two-day expedition from the small village of San Juan Londo. The final approach required an ascent of more than 800 meters by mule along a long-forgotten section of the historic Camino Real, once used by vaqueros and their donkeys to transport goods between remote settlements. This path has remained largely untouched for nearly 80 years. The image forms part of an ongoing project focused on documenting and promoting the exceptional dark skies of Baja California Sur for astrotourism. These conditions meet the standards of true Dark Sky Sanctuaries, offering some of the purest night skies in the region. On the right side of the frame, the faint glow belongs to the distant city of Loreto, the first capital of the Californias, located approximately 30 kilometers to the south. We were accompanied by Señor Juan, our guide, whose father first brought him to this hidden location over 65 years ago. Together, we aim to preserve the memory of these historic routes, ancient paths that have been gradually reclaimed by nature over time. This photograph reflects not only the pursuit of pristine dark skies, but also a deeper process of exploration and rediscovery. It brings together the search for untouched landscapes with the recovery of a cultural and historical legacy, helping to position Baja California Sur as a world-class destination for night sky photography while honoring the stories embedded in its terrain. Milky Way photography goes beyond capturing the stars. It becomes a way to explore remote environments, challenge physical limits, and reconnect with both nature and history. If this image encourages others to look beyond established paths in search of truly dark skies, then it has fulfilled its purpose.
Credit: Ignacio Pelaez / Milky Way Photographer of the Year 2026 Nacho Peláez “Valle de la luna”
This photograph was captured in the heart of the Sierra La Giganta, in Baja California Sur, following a two-day expedition from the small village of San Juan Londo. The final approach required an ascent of more than 800 meters by mule along a long-forgotten section of the historic Camino Real, once used by vaqueros and their donkeys to transport goods between remote settlements. This path has remained largely untouched for nearly 80 years. The image forms part of an ongoing project focused on documenting and promoting the exceptional dark skies of Baja California Sur for astrotourism. These conditions meet the standards of true Dark Sky Sanctuaries, offering some of the purest night skies in the region. On the right side of the frame, the faint glow belongs to the distant city of Loreto, the first capital of the Californias, located approximately 30 kilometers to the south. We were accompanied by Señor Juan, our guide, whose father first brought him to this hidden location over 65 years ago. Together, we aim to preserve the memory of these historic routes, ancient paths that have been gradually reclaimed by nature over time. This photograph reflects not only the pursuit of pristine dark skies, but also a deeper process of exploration and rediscovery. It brings together the search for untouched landscapes with the recovery of a cultural and historical legacy, helping to position Baja California Sur as a world-class destination for night sky photography while honoring the stories embedded in its terrain. Milky Way photography goes beyond capturing the stars. It becomes a way to explore remote environments, challenge physical limits, and reconnect with both nature and history. If this image encourages others to look beyond established paths in search of truly dark skies, then it has fulfilled its purpose.
Credit: Gonzalo Santile / Milky Way Photographer of the Year 2026 Gonzalo Javier Santile

The post 19 breathtaking images from the Milky Way Photographer of the Year 2026 awards appeared first on Popular Science.

An intrepid sub-sea robot recently dove nearly 1.5 miles below the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of southern France. The remotely operated vehicle (ROV) went down to examine  the wreckage of a merchant ship that dates back to the 16th century. There, it found hundreds of ornately decorated ceramics, jars, and jugs strewn across the sand.  From the boat, a French navy sailor remotely controlling the robot plucked these treasures up ever so gently with the robot’s  pincers. Despite centuries of ocean burial, the artifacts still maintained the bold blue and yellow geometric designs they had when the ship mysteriously capsized. But the ship’s discovery was mostly due to luck, and its current exploration is only made possible by modern advances in robotics.

Archaeologists are officially calling the site Camarat 4. It sits roughly 30 miles off the coast of Ramatuelle, but French authorities are keeping the exact location secret to prevent unauthorized visitors from nosing around. Camarat 4 was initially discovered during a routine French navy survey of the region last year, and the wreckage is now considered the deepest shipwreck in French territorial waters. The record for the deepest shipwreck ever found belongs to the USS Samuel B. Roberts. The navy vessel lies about four miles deep off the coast of the Philippines, according to the Guinness Book of World Records.

But reaching 1.5 miles isn’t a day at the beach either. To get down there and explore the mysterious vessel, archaeologists worked alongside the navy and reportedly used the largest robot in their arsenal.The robot is capable of diving down to 8,202 feet and was equipped with several cameras and a pair of pincers capable of grabbing objects. When the robot was deployed, it reportedly took a full hour just to reach the sea floor.

When it did, the cameras revealed the shipwreck in greater detail than ever before. They  captured 66,974 images, snapping pictures at a rapid clip of eight photos per second. Those images clearly showed the ship’s six cannons, an anchor, and 12 cauldrons. Strewn across the seabed nearby were a small building’s worth of ceramics, one of which had the first three Greek letters of Jesus Christ’s name inscribed on it.

Archaeologists say that  the cannons and the cargo reinforce the idea that this was a merchant ship. Though researchers have traced its origins to somewhere in northern Italy, it remains entirely unclear where its final destination was or what caused it to meet its watery grave.

All of the photos taken by the robot will help create a 3D model of the wreckage, which could aid further research. The robot was also able to grab and recover three pitchers and a plate from the site, though it’s unclear how many others may have been broken in the process. Using a modern robot’s giant pincers to grab nearly 500-year-old, decaying artisan works isn’t exactly a foolproof recovery method.

Exploring the sunken Italian ship isn’t just a matter of mere curiosity. Archaeologists involved in the excavation say that detailed historical records about Mediterranean merchant ships from this period are scarce. Knowing more about why this ship was there and where it was going could shed greater light on trade routes of the time.

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Robots bring long lost ocean sites within reach 

Ironically, the sunken Italian ship’s sheer inaccessibility is also what makes it such a valuable site to explore. Its depth and remoteness mean it has been completely untouched by looters or previous explorers. Even so, modern humanity has  managed to leave its mark on the ancient vessel in the form of garbage. Beer cans, plastic containers, and old fishing nets were all spotted near the cannons and ceramics.

“After the awe of the discovery comes the sadness of finding such things,” DRASSM director Arnaud Schaumasse said in an interview with Le Monde.

Trash aside, the Camarat 4 expedition highlights the promise of future deep-sea exploration made possible by increasingly capable robotics, some of which are being designed to operate autonomously. By diving deeper than ever before, archaeologists will have the tools to explore mysteries that would otherwise have been left to rot in the ocean’s unforgiving darkness.

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“Mars, can you please clean up your Legos?”
“Jupiter, finish your peas.”
“Don’t pull the cat’s tail, Mercury!”

The Social Security Administration (SSA) has released its baby name data for 2025 and it’s clear that plenty of parents found inspiration in the cosmos for their little ones. The most popular proper planet in our solar system to name a baby after in 2025 was Mars, followed by Jupiter. Thankfully, no one named their child Uranus, but 80 parents did name their child Cosmo.

Here’s the planet-baby name breakdown:

• Mercury: 10 males
• Venus: 96 females
• Earth: Eight females
• Mars: 27 females, 105 males (132 total)
• Jupiter: 84 females, 37 males (121 total)
• Saturn: 18 females, 8 males (26 total)
• Uranus: Zero
• Neptune: Eight males

A couple of our solar system’s dwarf planets also made appearances on the list:

• Pluto: 11 males
• Eris: 128 females, 26 males (154 total)

Of course it’s important to note that most of our solar system’s planets got their names from Roman and Greek gods and goddesses, so a love of space likely wasn’t the only motivation for new parents.

Last year, 332 parents used the name Artemis for their babies. According to baby name site Nameberry, Artemis is of Greek origin and means “safe” or “butcher.” It’s also the name of NASA’s high-profile mission to return humans to the moon.

And as a bonus fun-with-data note: the name Tesla has completely disappeared from SSA’s data. The name peaked in 2016 with 180 children given the moniker. It last appeared on the charts in 2023 when only 13 babies got the name.

For privacy purposes, the SSA only releases data on names given to at least five children. So maybe somewhere, one little Uranus is ruling the playground.

The post ‘Mars’ is 2025’s most popular planet baby name appeared first on Popular Science.

A rare white bison (Bison bison) calf was born at the Neal Smith National Wildlife Refuge in Prairie City, Iowa. Most newborn bison are born with a reddish or brown coat, and the National Park Service estimates that white bison are born every one in one million births. A white bison calf was born at Yellowstone National Park in 2024 and was the first recorded there.

Refuge Manager Scott Gilje told WHO Des Moines this is the first time a white bison has been born at the refuge and it’s “something very special.” According to the National Park Service, white bison are very rare, with an estimated one in 1 million births being a white bison in the wild.

Whitish bison calf with adult bison on the prairie. Image: Photo courtesy of Hope Anderson / Neal Smith National Wildlife Refuge / USFWS

There are currently 81 bison living at the 6,000 acre wildlife and plant refuge. As of May 5, nine calves have been born this spring. Gilje expects more calves will arrive over the next few weeks. Several bison still appear to be pregnant and the refuge sees about nine to 15 new calves every year. The refuge is also home to elk and several species of grassland birds. 

Many Native American nations, including the Sioux, Cherokee, Navaho, Lakota, and Dakota, believe that the birth of a white bison calf is sacred. It is a hopeful sign of good times ahead. It comes from the legend of the White Buffalo Calf Woman, or Ptesan Wi, is a sacred story that has been passed down among generations. Many tribes will incorporate Ptesan Wi’s lessons bringing harmony and spirituality into a troubled and hungry world into their prayers and teachings. 

Bison are the largest land animal in North America. The males weigh up to 2,000 pounds, while females weigh up to 1,000 pounds. While wild bison are rare, they are no longer considered endangered or threatened due to decades of conservation efforts. Approximately 30,000 bison managed by conservation groups live in public and private herds in North America.

The post One-in-a-million white bison calf born in Iowa appeared first on Popular Science.

You can learn a lot about a society from the way they raise children. That includes not only what children learn, but how, when, and where they play.

Our modern concept of childhood emerged during the Enlightenment movement of the 18th century. Influential figures like philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau promoted the idea that children need special opportunities to explore and express themselves through playtime. 

Before then, children were treated essentially as small adults. Of course, kids in ancient or medieval times liked to run around and play as much as kids today, and they did so wherever they could. But only after childhood became thought of as a distinct stage of life with unique needs did adults start to design spaces like playgrounds.

When we look at the history of playgrounds, we can see how ideas about children’s play have changed over time.

The first playgrounds weren’t for children

The term “playground” predates the modern definition and was first used “to describe a general place of recreation,” Jon Winder, a historian of urban environments at the University of Liverpool in the UK, tells Popular Science. Winder explains that the modern children’s playground originated in 1840s England, when parks in the cities of Manchester and Salford set aside areas for children’s activities. 

The first playgrounds were just areas set aside for recreation. This circa 1914 photograph shows boys playing baseball on a so-called “playground.” Image: HUM Images / Contributor / Getty Images .

The park designers were influenced by earlier German education reformers like Friedrich Fröbel, who outfitted his schools with sandboxes for young students. Best-known for coining the term “Kindergarten,” Fröbel believed that cooperative outdoor play was essential to children’s development.

In the 19th century, “there was quite a lot of sharing of ideas between the UK and Europe” regarding social issues like education and public health, says Winder. The massive changes wrought by the Industrial Revolution, including an ever-growing urban population, brought with them concerns about how these changes were affecting adults and children alike. 

Early children’s playgrounds were meant to get kids off city streets

While rural children could still play in fields and forests, working-class urban children often played in the street, exposed to a variety of dangers. Adding children’s playgrounds to cities “was partly about removing [children] from the street” for their safety, says Winder. However, “that idea merged with these ideas about recreation, that there was something inherent about city life that led to physical degeneration of people.” 

The perceived negative effect of city living was considered a potential threat to the British Empire, which needed strong, healthy citizens. Gymnastic exercise regimens like Pilates became the health craze of the time. What people thought was best for adults extended to children, and “the spaces that were set aside for children to play in invariably also had gymnastic equipment,” says Winder.

The first playgrounds were not for fun

Some of the equipment in those first 19th century playgrounds resembles what we might see in an Olympic gymnast’s routine today, such as vaulting horses and climbing rings. Winder points out the absurdity of children being expected to know how to safely and effectively use such things. However, he explains, “It wasn’t about play as we would understand it. It was about physical exercise and strength.” Playgrounds were less about imagination and more about “wholesome strengthening exercises.”

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Winder notes that these early athletic playgrounds were also used to enforce Victorian gender norms. Not only were the first playgrounds separated by gender, he explains, “They had different equipment in them, because social reformers thought that girls and boys were capable of different types of physical exercise.” While a girls’ playground might have space for hopscotch and shuttlecock, boys would get more physically challenging equipment like ladders and climbing ropes. 

Furthermore, the design of the first playgrounds seemed intended to keep children themselves conveniently out of sight. Winder noted in 2022 that the first English playgrounds in Manchester “were hidden in the shrubbery on the boundary of the park, to prevent them from spoiling the view of the picturesque landscape.” 

Playgrounds spread around the world

As playgrounds spread to other cities in the UK and continental Europe, British companies began to mass-manufacture playground equipment. The reach of the British Empire meant that such equipment could be exported as far afield as South Africa and New Zealand, bringing with it contemporary ideas about what playgrounds were for.

American social reformers and urban planners soon joined the international conversation. “There were playground campaigners in the UK who were in correspondence with some of the organizations in the U.S.,” says Winder. “They swapped letters and did site visits.” 

American educator Henry Barnard drew up plans for a playground as early as 1848. It featured rotary swings, blocks, toy carts, and a shaded area for teachers to keep watch from. However, the first public playgrounds in the United States weren’t built until the late 1880s, with both Boston and San Francisco claiming the record. 

Following the earlier British model of the playground as a place to work out more than to play, Boston’s children’s playgrounds were part of a larger “open-air gymnasium” for all ages, and were separated by gender. 

Early playgrounds mostly consisted of gym equipment. Boys and girls were also divided for play time. This circa 1905 photograph shows girls playing on an early playground on Harriet Island in St. Paul, Minnesota. Image: Getty Images / Universal History Archive / Contributor / Circa Images / Glasshouse Images

However, there were some differences between American and European playgrounds. Early American playgrounds often featured adult facilitators who led athletic activities, something like modern gym teachers, as well as indoor activity spaces for bad weather. And as public playgrounds spread throughout the United States, racial segregation (both legal and de facto) was enforced in many such spaces until the 1950s. 

Putting the “play” back in playground

In 1921, industrialist Charles Wicksteed opened Wicksteed Park in Kettering, England, which Winder calls “a big, significant shift in the development of these children’s spaces.” Unlike earlier public playgrounds, Wicksteed Park emphasized amusement over exercise. Decked out with an ever-evolving range of equipment, as well as a theater, fountains, and refreshment areas, the space was designed to be enjoyed equally by boys, girls, and adults.

Rather than having gymnastics equipment, Wicksteed debuted some new kinds of playground equipment at his park based on fairground rides, such as the first playground slides, which were inspired by early roller coasters. 

Wicksteed is also credited with designing the modern playground swing, after the homemade swings that children had previously hung from trees (or even street lamps). Wicksteed sold his equipment to other parks, and the influence of Wicksteed Park spread far and wide. 

By the 1930s, says Winder, many designers had begun to accept the idea that “playgrounds perhaps needed to be fun to attract children and get them off the street.” While the playground was still seen as a place for children to get physical exercise in the 20th century, it increasingly became a site of entertainment.

In 1921, industrialist Charles Wicksteed opened Wicksteed Park in Kettering, England, which was one of the first playgrounds actually designed for amusement. Later playgrounds like this one followed Wicksteed’s approach. Image: Getty Images / Edoardo Frola The playground’s present and future

Both playground equipment and our perception of playgrounds have become more focused on fun over time. However, this also means that specific manufactured equipment has become increasingly viewed as essential to the playground. Today, park and school administrators may feel pressured to buy the right products to make a playground feel complete. Is it really a playground if there’s no slide or swing set?

Winder identifies a tension between equipment that stimulates creativity, and the constraints of budget and practicality. Kids can do a lot more with sand than with a set of swings, but it’s also a lot more work to keep clean and tidy.

But as ideas about education and the role of play in children’s lives have continued to evolve, the 20th century has also seen an increase in playgrounds that integrate more thoughtfully with the space around them. 

Dutch architect Aldo Van Eyck transformed hundreds of abandoned urban spaces into unique playgrounds designed to inspire children’s natural creativity, without dividing them from the rest of the environment, like the first Victorian playgrounds.

Designing playgrounds “was never about making city streets better places to play,” says Winder. “It was about removing kids from the street and segregating them into one place.” 

Winder advocates for urban design that “creates a more balanced relationship between people and vehicles on streets.” With more pedestrian-friendly spaces meshed into urban environments, children can be safe to let their imaginations run wild, whether that’s in a playground, in a park, or in other places set up for foot traffic.

“Kids are inherently playful,” says Winder, and they’ll find ways to play wherever they are. The challenge for adults has always been to try and get them to play the way we want them to.

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