分类： science

After back-to-back blockbuster total solar eclipses that drew millions of skywatchers across North America in 2017 and 2024, the cosmic spotlight has shifted to Europe for this week’s highly anticipated celestial event.

On Wednesday, a total solar eclipse will carve a path across parts of the Northern Hemisphere, bringing the rare phenomenon of midday darkness to regions that have not experienced totality in more than two decades. Totality will first touch down near the North Pole before tracking southeast across Greenland, Iceland, mainland Spain, and a small section of northern Portugal. At maximum duration, the total phase of the eclipse will last just a couple of minutes at any given location — far shorter than the nearly four-and-a-half-minute maximum totality that crossed North America in April 2024. Even so, this event marks the first time a total solar eclipse has been visible from continental Europe since 1999, with the next longer totality set to cross Spain, North Africa and the Middle East in August 2026.

While the full total phase is restricted to the European path of the eclipse, skywatchers in far northern parts of the United States and Canada will still have the opportunity to view a partial eclipse, when the moon will appear to take a visible “bite” out of the sun’s surface. NASA has released detailed viewing information for major population centers across North America, outlining local start, peak, and end times, along with the expected percentage of the sun covered by the moon.

Among the cities included in NASA’s data, St. Johns in Newfoundland and Labrador will see the most significant partial eclipse, with 53% of the sun obscured at peak, which is scheduled for 3:35 p.m. local time. Anchorage, Alaska, follows with an expected 28% coverage at 8:21 a.m. local time, while Bangor, Maine, will see 24% coverage peaking at 1:53 p.m. Montreal, Quebec, will observe an 18% partial eclipse at 1:45 p.m., with other centers seeing smaller coverage percentages: New York City at 9% (peak 1:54 p.m.), Toronto at 8% (peak 1:40 p.m.), Philadelphia at 7% (peak 1:53 p.m.), Winnipeg at 5% (peak 12:02 p.m.), Washington, D.C. at 4% (peak 1:53 p.m.), and Detroit at 3% (peak 1:36 p.m.).

North American skywatchers waiting for another coast-to-coast total eclipse will need to be patient: the next total solar eclipse stretching from the Pacific to the Atlantic coast of the contiguous United States will not occur until 2045. NASA reminds all skywatchers that even during a partial eclipse, looking directly at the sun without certified solar viewing glasses can cause permanent eye damage, so proper safety precautions are required for anyone planning to observe the event.

This reporting is produced by the Associated Press Health and Science Department, which receives educational funding support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP retains full editorial control over all content.

In a continued push for greater transparency around Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP), the U.S. Department of Defense has released a new set of declassified files containing previously unseen footage, visual renderings, and official records detailing encounters with mysterious airborne and surface objects. This release marks the fifth batch of documents declassified under an executive order issued earlier this year by former President Donald Trump, which mandated full public disclosure of long-classified UAP-related records held by federal agencies.

Altogether, the latest drop includes 41 individual files: more than a dozen video recordings, three original images, and dozens of text-based PDF documents that span more than 70 years of U.S. military observation, with the oldest document dating back to 1953 and the most recent recorded just this year. This follows an initial release of 161 declassified UAP files uploaded to the Pentagon’s public website in May, when officials first pledged that additional batches would follow on a rolling schedule.

Among the most notable new recordings is a 2021 video captured over the Gulf of Oman, which captures a dark, roughly 4-foot diameter “cold orb” moving in erratic, irregular patterns that do not match known conventional aircraft or natural weather phenomena. At first glance, the object appears small enough to be a common housefly crossing the camera’s sensor, but official classification confirms it is cataloged as an unidentified anomalous phenomenon.

Another 2025 recording, captured by a U.S. military sensor camera at an undisclosed military location in the Middle East, shows a solid round sphere moving at consistent speed in a straight line over a developed urban residential area.

A 2019 recording taken over the Pacific Ocean offers another curious observation: a black sphere that appears to vanish from the sensor feed entirely for a short period before reappearing, visibly trembling as it drifts slowly across the frame. Pentagon notes accompanying the video clarify that while the original observation was captured by a military sensor, the footage itself was recorded by holding a handheld camera up to the display monitor, meaning some of the visible flickering may be a result of the secondary recording method rather than the object’s actual behavior.

Beyond video, a declassified 1953 memo from the U.S. Naval Photographic Interpretation Center analyzes two separate UAP videos captured in Montana in 1950 and Utah in 1952. The center’s assessment concluded that the objects captured in both videos showed unusual characteristics: their size visibly increased alongside increases in their luminosity, traits that the memo confirmed are “inconsistent with those of natural phenomena.”

A declassified FBI file included in the release also features a first-hand account from a former military pilot, who reported repeated sightings of unusual white lights during transatlantic flights between Boston and Dublin beginning in October 2023. The pilot reported that the lights start dim, grow progressively brighter before fading out, and exhibit unusual movement: some hold stationary position, while others travel in straight lines and occasionally change direction abruptly. He noted that he has observed the lights at least 10 times since his first sighting, and claimed that many other commercial and military pilots have reported similar sightings consistently between midnight and 3 a.m.

All three images included in this release are official renderings, created as artistic interpretations of first-hand witness descriptions of UAP encounters. One of the most striking renderings depicts a massive, dark triangular craft hovering in the sky, with a bright round light positioned at each of the three corners. The rendering is based on a 2011 encounter reported by two former U.S. military service members.

UAP is the official term adopted by the U.S. government and scientific community to replace the more popularized term “UFO” (unidentified flying object). Unlike the traditional framing of UFOs as only airborne potential alien spacecraft, UAP covers all unexplained observations, including those on land, in the air, and underwater.

Public curiosity and interest in UAP and the potential for extraterrestrial life has grown dramatically in the U.S. over the past decade. In 2022, the U.S. Congress held its first formal public hearings focused on UAP in more than 50 years, and the Department of Defense has committed to ongoing transparency around military observations of unexplained phenomena. In a statement accompanying this fifth file release, Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell confirmed that the department will continue releasing additional declassified UAP documents to the public on an ongoing rolling basis.

On a recent mission to expand the power capabilities of the International Space Station (ISS), two NASA astronauts, Anil Menon and Jessica Meir, successfully carried out a 6.5-hour extravehicular activity (EVA), more commonly known as a spacewalk, outside the orbital outpost.

The core objective of this extravehicular mission was to install specialized mounting hardware that will pave the way for the deployment of upgraded solar arrays in the near future. These new power-generation units are designed to boost the ISS’s overall electrical output, supporting the expanding range of scientific experiments, crew operations, and long-term habitation that take place aboard the station.

Spacewalks represent one of the most demanding and high-risk activities human beings can undertake in the extreme environment of low Earth orbit. Astronauts must rely on their full pressure spacesuits for life support as they work in vacuum conditions, where temperatures can swing from hundreds of degrees above zero to hundreds of degrees below in a single orbit. This successful completion of the installation task marks a key milestone in the ongoing upgrade program for the ISS, which has hosted continuous human presence in space for more than two decades. NASA officials have noted that the new solar arrays, once installed, will extend the operational lifespan of the station and enable more cutting-edge research that benefits life on Earth.

When federal funding for university research dried up, one Colorado-based biologist turned to an unexpected platform to keep his decades-long wildlife study alive: OnlyFans. What happened next turned a colony of yellow-bellied marmots into unexpected internet celebrities, all in the name of conservation science.

Dr. Daniel Blumstein, leader of the long-running Marmot Project based at UCLA’s Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory, launched the playful OnlyFans account dubbed “OnlyMarms” in a last-ditch bid to raise funds for his research program. Launched in 2024 following cuts to federal academic research grants, the project already holds a prestigious place in global scientific history: it is the second-longest continuous study of individually identified wild mammals on Earth, trailing only Jane Goodall’s legendary chimpanzee research in Tanzania.

For more than 60 years, Blumstein and his team have studied yellow-bellied marmots, a common, non-endangered species of ground-dwelling squirrel found across North America. Unlike many high-profile conservation projects focused on at-risk animals, this long-term research fills a critical gap in ecological knowledge: tracking how population dynamics shift over time in a stable species, offering key insights into how environmental changes impact wildlife populations broadly. Despite the project’s well-documented scientific value, Blumstein confirmed to the BBC that securing ongoing federal funding had become impossible, leaving the program’s future in jeopardy.

The unusual OnlyFans idea struck Blumstein unexpectedly while he waited in an alpine meadow for marmots to emerge from their burrows. Fresh off watching the popular TV series *Margot’s Got Money Troubles* — where Elle Fanning’s titular character launches an OnlyFans to support herself as a single parent — Blumstein had a sudden epiphany: “Marmots’ got money troubles. Maybe we should do something a little risqué.”

He floated the idea to his research students, who embraced the concept wholeheartedly, helping him craft the playful brand OnlyMarms and set up the account. The project hit a small early snag during platform verification: OnlyFans moderators flagged the account, after Blumstein submitted his driver’s license for ID check, which did not match the account’s profile photo of a marmot. A quick explanatory email cleared up the confusion, and the team was able to start posting content.

Contrary to OnlyFans’ reputation as a platform dominated by sexually explicit adult content, all content posted on OnlyMarms is completely family-friendly. The feed features candid, unedited videos and photos of the wild marmots going about their daily lives in the Rocky Mountains: scurrying across alpine meadows, emerging from underground burrows, interacting with one another, and basking in the mountain sun. Blumstein notes that yellow-bellied marmots are less social than their alpine marmot relatives, and female marmots actually grow more territorial and irritable as they age — a quirk that has produced some viral-worthy content, including one clip of a female marmot chasing an intruding male out of her burrow.

Rather than naming the research subjects with human names — a practice that could introduce observational bias into the study — the team marks individual marmots with non-toxic dye and gives them quirky, informal identifiers: popular subjects include “dans_hat”, “open_kite”, and “Citroën”.

So far, the unorthodox fundraising campaign has exceeded early expectations, raising more than $5,000 total. After OnlyFans takes its platform commission, the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory will net roughly $4,000 to put toward research costs. While Blumstein acknowledges that OnlyFans revenue will not be enough to fully offset federal spending cuts and secure the project’s long-term future on its own, he stresses that the campaign has already delivered significant value by raising public awareness of the research and its importance.

Building on the viral attention from the OnlyMarms account, the team has also launched a new public engagement event: Fat Marmot Week, modeled after the wildly popular Fat Bear Week hosted by Alaska’s Katmai National Park. Scheduled for the end of August, the bracket-style tournament will let the general public vote for their favorite chunky marmot. As hibernating animals, marmots build up large fat reserves ahead of the long winter, so the public competition is more than just fun: “It’s fun to root for the chunkiest marmot, but behind the fun and games is a deathly serious competition against nature to pile on fat to survive the long, cold winter,” Blumstein explained in a press release announcing the event.

The unusual campaign highlights a growing crisis in academic research: long-term ecological studies, which produce some of the most valuable data on climate and population change, are increasingly struggling to secure consistent government funding, pushing scientists to explore creative, unconventional alternatives to keep their work going.

In early 2022, a discarded SpaceX rocket booster that had been drifting through uncontrolled orbital space for years made an inevitable impact with the Moon’s far side, leaving what astronomers predict is a fresh, uneven crater scattered with debris across the lunar surface. But more than a year after the collision, no official clear images of this new impact site have been made public, leaving space enthusiasts and researchers curious about the long delay.

The most straightforward explanation for the wait lies in orbital scheduling and observation logistics. The key Lunar reconnaissance assets that can capture high-resolution images of the surface, including NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) and India’s Chandrayaan-2, operate on fixed, pre-planned orbital paths. They can only image a given point on the Moon when their orbit brings the target site within their camera’s field of view, a window that does not open on demand.

Complicating this timeline further is the exact challenge of locating the crater. While astronomers have produced rough estimates of where the booster impacted, these calculations come with a margin of error measured in multiple kilometers. Before any dedicated imaging can take place, orbiters must conduct incremental search passes to narrow down the impact site’s location, a process that takes time and prioritization against other active research missions.

Another factor that has slowed public release is the priority of mission objectives. LRO and other active lunar orbiters are committed to long-term research goals, from mapping polar water ice deposits to preparing for future human Artemis missions. Shifting resources away from these pre-approved projects to search for a newly formed crater requires coordination and approval, pushing the search further down mission waiting lists in many cases.

Even so, experts note that the wait will not last forever. As orbiters complete their scheduled tasks and gradually pass over the impact region, the new crater will be located, imaged, and eventually released to the public. When the images do arrive, they will give planetary scientists valuable real-world data on how large objects impact the lunar surface, helping refine models of crater formation that improve understanding of solar system geology.

A team of wildlife scientists studying alpine marmots has turned to the unconventional social platform OnlyFans to plug critical funding gaps that have slowed their long-term research work, launching a cheeky account billed as featuring “uncensored marmot content” that has already pulled in more than $5,000 in fan tips since its launch.

The research group, which has spent years tracking marmot behavior, population dynamics, and the impacts of climate change on these high-altitude burrowing rodents, found traditional grant funding increasingly hard to secure in recent years. Facing mounting costs for field equipment, GPS tracking collars, and on-site research expeditions, the team decided to think outside the box to keep their project alive, leaning into viral internet humor to attract public support.

Their OnlyFans page, which leans into a playful pun on the word “marmot” rather than explicit adult content (the platform’s most well-known use), shares exclusive behind-the-scenes footage of marmot daily life: close-up shots of the animals foraging, playing in alpine meadows, and emerging from their winter burrows, alongside candid photos from the researchers’ field work. The lighthearted, unexpected concept quickly caught on with social media users, who have shared the campaign widely across Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok, driving a steady stream of tips and new subscribers.

As of the latest update, the account has generated over $5,000 in donations through platform tips, a sum that will cover nearly a full season of field research costs. The team says they are stunned by the outpouring of support, noting that the campaign not only solved their immediate money troubles but also helped raise public awareness of marmot conservation and the broader challenges wildlife researchers face when securing funding for critical ecological work.

The unusual fundraising strategy has sparked a wider conversation about the growing pressure on academic researchers to find alternative funding sources as traditional government and non-profit grants become more competitive. For this marmot research team, however, the gamble has paid off, turning a quirky idea into a lifeblood for their work and proving that unconventional approaches can sometimes solve even the most unexpected financial hurdles in scientific research.