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