Our Planet

Changing Earth

The ever-changing Earth: our planet is constantly changing over the years. Some changes are part of nature, and some of them are on humanity’s shoulders. Some scientists even suggest that the Earth has entered a new geological epoch defined by human impact, called “Anthropocene“. Over the years astronauts have taken photos of the Earth from space and documented these changes. NASA’s World of Change series shows how our planet’s land, oceans, atmosphere, and Sun are changing over time.

World’s largest living cat: Hercules, the liger

Ligers are the largest cats on Earth. A liger can be more than 900 pounds (about 408 kg) in weight and 12 feet (about 3.65 m) long, weighing almost 100 times more than house cats and almost twice as much as either Panthera tigris (tiger) or Panthera leo (lion).

The liger, the largest of all known extant felines, is a hybrid cross between a male lion and a female tiger.

Google vice president breaks the skydiving record with a peak altitude of 135,908 feet

Alan Eustace, a senior vice president of Google, parachuted from a balloon near the top of the stratosphere on Friday, October 24, 2014, falling faster than the speed of sound and beating the skydiving record set by the Austrian Felix Baumgartner in 2012.

A Japanese Giant Hornet cooked by of Honey Bees – an amazing video

Japanese Honeybee thermal defence against Japanese giant hornet

In the insects’ world, the Japanese Giant Hornet (Vespa mandarinia japonica) is a real beast. It is one of the subspecies of the Asian Giant Hornet (Vespa mandarinia), which is the world’s largest hornet. As its name suggests, it is endemic to the Japanese islands, where it prefers rural areas where it can find trees to nest in.

Using its scissor-like teeth that can wreak havoc on its prey, a single Japanese giant hornet can kill up to forty European honeybees a minute. So, a few of them can decimate an entire colony containing 30,000 European honey bees. Compared to honeybees, it is a really giant: adults can be more than 4.5 centimeters (1.8 in) long, with a wingspan greater than 6 centimeters (2.4 in).

But, the Japanese honey bees have developed an amazing defense against these giants during their evolutionary process.

The first earthrise ever seen directly by humans

On December 24, 1968, the crew of Apollo 8, the second human spaceflight mission in the US Apollo space program, were the first humans to witness an Earthrise. The first Earthrise is photographed by astronauts on board Apollo 8. It is one of the most famous photos ever taken and became the symbol of one the greatest explorations in history: humans’ first journey to another world, and when the crewmembers looked back, they saw their home planet.

The man who swims with a crocodile: the amazing story of Chito and Pocho

A unique friendship between a man and a crocodile: nicknamed “Chito”, Gilberto Shedden, a Costa Rican fisherman, and naturalist had an unusual friend: “Pocho”, a huge crocodile longer than 5 meters (16 feet 5 inches), with a weight up to half a ton.

Two kangaroos get into a boxing match, amazing video

Somewhere in the Central Coast of Australia, two kangaroos are caught on camera in an intense boxing match on a suburban street. The marsupials can be seen punching and kicking each other close to houses in Central Coast, New South Wales. It is not clear where the action was filmed.

In this incredible video below, the funny fight goes on for more than five minutes. Luckily, both kangaroos were OK and not seriously harmed after the match.

Great white shark fight caught on camera

Great white shark fight caught on camera: the sensational moment was caught on camera by Adam Malski, 33, as the fish proved why it has the reputation of the ocean’s most fearsome predator. The 4.8 meters (15 feet 9 in) shark, named “Gilbert”, attacked the rival fish 50 miles from Australia’s shore. The larger animal survived the encounter but the smaller shark has not been sighted since.

10 Lesser-Known Natural Wonders (I)

The age of the Earth is approximately 4.54 billion years. For all these years, our planet has been a work in progress: water, wind, air pressure, minerals, heat, and even extraterrestrial forces like meteors and comets mold and shape our environment, and created all manner of strange formations. Some of them are really beautiful: we call them “Natural wonders”. Some natural wonders are really famous, for example, the Grand Canyon or Victoria Falls. Some of them are lesser-known, yet still stunning. Here are the top 10 lesser-known natural wonders of the World.

NASA needs your help to identify cities at night images

Since the “space-age” has started in the early 1960s, astronauts have taken more than 1.8 million photographs of the Earth from orbit, and about one-third of them (approximately 600,000) have been taken at night. But they don’t always know what they are looking at. You can help, announced NASA – the space agency needs your help to identify cities at night from space images.