Katherine Kornei

All Stories by Katherine Kornei

  1. A photo of a black rock being held in a person's hand.
    Planetary Science

    Why you shouldn’t use magnets when looking for meteorites

    A popular tool for identifying meteorites can overwrite records of magnetic fields stored within the space rocks.

  2. An elevation image of Kelvin Seamount, in a rainbow of color with purple at the bottom and red at the top, on a black background.
    Oceans

    Satellite data reveal nearly 20,000 previously unknown deep-sea mountains

    By looking for tiny bumps in sea level caused by the gravity of subsurface mountains, researchers have roughly doubled the number of known seamounts.

  3. A satellite view of Tuscaloosa, Alabama, with a clear tornado track carving through the city
    Environment

    Satellite imagery reveals ‘hidden’ tornado tracks

    Twisters that churn over barren landscapes leave scars that are invisible to human eyes but are detectable with infrared light.

  4. An overhead image of tomatoes in four crates.
    Agriculture

    Dry farming could help agriculture in the western U.S. amid climate change

    Some farmers in the western United States are forgoing irrigation, which can save on water and produce more flavorful fruits and vegetables.

  5. Mars' Cerberus Fossae region, seen as a barren landscape with a prominent fault line running through it
    Planetary Science

    Marsquakes hint that the planet might be volcanically active after all

    Seismic data recorded by NASA’s InSight lander suggest molten rock moves tens of kilometers below the planet’s fractured Cerberus Fossae region.

  6. An elevation map of Montana near Yellowstone National Park with high elevation on the right and low elevation on the left
    Earth

    Landslides shaped a hidden landscape within Yellowstone

    Scientists have used lasers to get a detailed view of the national park’s topography, and they’ve spotted more than a thousand landslides.

  7. image of Mars’ south polar ice cap
    Planetary Science

    Mars’ buried ‘lake’ might just be layers of ice and rock

    Evidence grows that possible detections of liquid water buried near Mars’ south pole might not hold water.

  8. photo shows mangrove trees in the foreground and a beach with boats on the water in the background
    Environment

    Mangrove forests expand and contract with a lunar cycle

    The carbon-sequestering trees grow in a roughly 18-year cycle according to tides influenced by the moon’s orbit, a study in Australia finds.

  9. illustration of the Milky Way
    Planetary Science

    Passing through the Milky Way’s arms may have helped form Earth’s solid ground

    Barrages of comets stirred up by the early solar system’s journey around the center of the galaxy could explain the timing of ancient rock formation.

  10. Illustration of Kuiper Belt in the solar system
    Astronomy

    The discovery of the Kuiper Belt revamped our view of the solar system

    Thirty years ago, astronomers found the Kuiper Belt, a region of space home to Pluto and other icy worlds that helped show how the solar system evolved.

  11. Glassy debris creates the bluish tinge and radiating black stripes around an impact crater on Mars
    Planetary Science

    Asteroid impacts might have created some of Mars’ sand

    Roughly a quarter of the Red Planet’s sand is spherical bits of glass forged in violent impacts, new observations reveal.

  12. illustration of an isolated stellar-mass black hole
    Astronomy

    A celestial loner might be the first known rogue black hole

    The object could be the first isolated stellar-mass black hole identified in the Milky Way — or it might be an unusually heavy neutron star.