Science & Environment

Ana Faguy & Mark Poynting BBC News Watch: Timelapse captures rising glacial lakes in Alaska Some Alaskans are evacuating their homes as meltwater escapes a basin dammed by the Mendenhall Glacier – raising fears of record-breaking flooding in the US state’s capital city. The National Weather Service (NWS) office in Juneau has issued a flood warning as glacial outburst water …

Watch: Can you un-bleach coral? BBC visits remote Australian reef to find out World-famous coral reefs along Western Australia’s (WA) coast have suffered the worst bleaching on record after the state’s “longest, largest and most intense” marine heatwave, scientists say. Between last August and this May, warmer water temperatures led to significant heat stress on the reefs, causing many of …

Georgina Rannard Climate and science correspondent David Bell Dennis Bell was on a two-year assignment in Antarctica The bones of a British man who died in a terrible accident in Antarctica in 1959 have been discovered in a melting glacier. The remains were found in January by a Polish Antarctic expedition, alongside a wristwatch, a radio, and a pipe. He …

Mark Poynting and Justin Rowlatt BBC News Climate and Science Some of the UK’s new subsea wonders seen in recent years The UK’s seas have had their warmest start to the year since records began, helping to drive some dramatic changes in marine life and for its fishing communities. The average surface temperature of UK waters in the seven months …

Maddie Molloy Climate and science reporter Getty Images Stargazers will soon be treated to what could be one of the year’s most dazzling displays, with the Perseid meteor shower reaching its peak on Tuesday night. The shower lights up the skies each summer, and is known for its bright, fast-moving meteors – often dubbed “shooting stars”. However, visibility could be …

Watch: Large fireball seen shooting across sky over Southeastern US A meteorite that crashed into a home in the US is older than planet Earth, scientists have said. The object flew through the skies in broad daylight before exploding across the state of Georgia on 26 June, Nasa confirmed. Researchers at the University of Georgia examined a fragment of the …

Watch: Moment Jim Lovell told earth “Houston, we’ve had a problem” as Apollo 13 suffered a fault Astronaut Jim Lovell, who guided the Apollo 13 mission safely back to Earth in 1970, has died aged 97. Nasa said he had “turned a potential tragedy into a success” after an attempt to land on the Moon was aborted because of an …

NASA Who will be the next human to leave their footprint on the surface of the Moon? They were the pioneers of space exploration – the 24 Nasa astronauts who travelled to the Moon in the Apollo missions of the 1960s and 1970s. The death of Apollo 13 commander Jim Lovell, who guided the stricken mission safely back to Earth …

Georgina Rannard Science correspondent NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, R. Hurt (Caltech/IPAC) An artist’s drawing of what the new planet might look like. Our Sun is the small dot of light between the two bright stars on the left and right. Scientists have found strong evidence of a giant gas planet in the nearest star system to our own. At four-and-a-half …

Tim Dodd Climate and science reporter Adam Gor/Butterfly Conservation The Southern Small White has been gradually making its way across Europe A species of butterfly previously only found in Southern Europe has been seen in the UK for the first time, according to charity Butterfly Conservation. Experts have tracked the Southern Small White butterfly’s rapid expansion northwards through Europe over …