Terra Daily

Saturn's moon Titan is the only place beyond Earth where a person could stand outside without a pressure suit — its atmosphere is 50 per cent thicker than ours and blocks even the galactic cosmic rays that would make Mars lethal over time

Titan's dense nitrogen atmosphere supplies tolerable pressure and absorbs primary galactic cosmic rays before they reach the surface, but oxygen…

Marie Curie processed several tonnes of pitchblende by hand in a leaky Paris shed with no floorboards, boiling and filtering the ore for nearly four years to isolate about a tenth of a gram of radium chloride, whose samples glowed faintly in bottles across the shed and slowly damaged her fingertips

Between 1898 and 1902, Marie and Pierre Curie processed tonnes of pitchblende by hand in a leaky Paris shed to isolate roughly a tenth of a gram…

At the equator on a Martian summer afternoon, temperatures can reach a tolerable 20°C — but the moment the sun sets, the near-absent atmosphere bleeds the heat away and the surface drops to −84°C by morning, a daily swing no unprotected human body could survive.

Mars can briefly produce Earthlike ground temperatures in equatorial sunlight, then plunge toward −84°C before dawn. The physics behind that swi…

One of the most desert-covered nations on Earth has to buy its sand from abroad, and the reason is grain-deep wind has polished Arabian sand too smooth to bind in concrete, so Saudi Arabia imports construction sand from as far as Australia

Millennia of wind have rendered Arabia's vast deserts worthless for construction—too polished and uniform to bind concrete, forcing the kingdom…

Zealandia, the submerged continent geologists confirmed in 2017, is 94 percent underwater and stretches nearly two million square miles beneath the South Pacific, yet its modern name was quietly proposed by geophysicist Bruce Luyendyk in 1995

A continent vanished beneath the waves not because the ocean rose, but because the land itself sank over millions of years, transforming forests…

Rescues underway in Greek towns cut off by floods

Palamas Karditsa, Greece (AFP) Sept 9, 2023 - Firefighters backed by the army were rescuing hundreds of people Saturday in villages in central G…

Finland's Lapland sees warmest summer on record

Helsinki (AFP) Sept 2, 2024 - Finland's far north Lapland region has been hit by its highest recorded summer temperatures, an expert at the nati…

French fire forces evacuation of tourists near southern beaches

Toulouse, France (AFP) July 26, 2025 - A fire in the south of France was spreading towards a beach resort late Saturday, forcing the evacuation…

Greek heatwave drags out as temperatures near 46C

Athens (AFP) July 25, 2025 - A week-long heatwave in Greece that began on Monday is now expected to last more than a week, the country's weather…

Hong Kong leader backs same-sex couples' rights bill

Hong Kong leader John Lee threw his weight behind a bill recognising limited rights for same-sex couples on Tuesday, despite fears that oppositi…

France says it has common ground with China on environment

Beijing (AFP) May 30, 2025 - France and China have found points of convergence on the environment, French minister for ecological transition Agn…

France adopts major new bill to combat drug-related crime

Paris (AFP) April 30, 2025 - Some of France's most dangerous drug traffickers face being locked up in high-security units in prison in the comin…

Finnish top court rejects complaint on govt climate inaction

Helsinki (AFP) Jan 8, 2025 - Finland's Supreme Administrative Court said Wednesday it had dismissed a complaint filed by rights groups accusing…

El Salvador Congress votes to end ban on metal mining

San Salvador (AFP) Dec 23, 2024 - El Salvador's Congress on Monday approved a bill promoted by President Nayib Bukele to roll back a ban on the…

Greece pushes green transition on its fragile islands

Naxos (AFP) Nov 22, 2024 - Greece this week signed a clean energy deal with the EU in a bid to fast-track the green transition on its fragile is…

ICTA-UAB expedition reveals the impact of Atlantic waters on Arctic ecosystems

Madrid, Spain (SPX) Nov 21, 2024 - The BIOCAL expedition, led by the Institute of Environmental Science and Technology of the Universitat Autono…

France says still room for negotiation over China's brandy tariffs

Shanghai (AFP) Nov 4, 2024 - French foreign trade minister Sophie Primas on Monday said the window for negotiation with Beijing over tariffs on…

Flood mishandling fuels fury at Spain royals, PM: experts

Madrid (AFP) Nov 4, 2024 - The unprecedented outburst of anger at Spain's ruling class in the epicentre of devastating floods expressed popular…