It's still not aliens, but the interstellar comet keeps getting weirder. Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent every weekday. As comet 3I/ATLAS continues its exciting journey through our solar system, scientists are still learning everything they can about this special space rock. It is only the second interstellar object ever tracked through our solar system and is among the fastest comets ever observed. As the 3I/ATLAS nears its closest distance to Earth, an international team of astronomers now says the space rock may be covered in active, icy cryovolcanoes.

Scientists reveal what triggered Santorini'earthquake swarm' The swarm of tens of thousands of earthquakes near the Greek island of Santorini earlier this year was triggered by molten rock pumping through an underground channel over three months, scientists have discovered. They used physics and artificial intelligence to work out exactly what caused the more than 25,000 earthquakes, which travelled about 20km (12 miles) horizontally through the Earth's crust. They used each of the tremors as virtual sensors, then used artificial intelligence to analyse patterns associated with them. One of the lead researchers, Dr Stephen Hicks from UCL, said combining physics and machine learning in this way could help forecast volcanic eruptions. The seismic activity started to stir beneath the Greek islands of Santorini, Amorgos, and Anafi in January 2025.

The gloomy arguments in favor of solar geoengineering are compelling; so are the even gloomier counter-arguments. Stardust is the name of a small startup with enormous ambitions. The company, which is based in Israel and registered in Delaware, proposes to do nothing less than dim the sun. Its business plan is modelled on volcanoes. In a major eruption, millions of tons of sulfur dioxide get thrown up into the stratosphere.

Natural disasters, such as volcanic eruptions, pose significant challenges to daily life and incur considerable global economic losses. The emergence of next-generation small-satellites, capable of constellation-based operations, offers unparalleled opportunities for near-real-time monitoring and onboard processing of such events. However, a major bottleneck remains the lack of extensive annotated datasets capturing volcanic activity, which hinders the development of robust detection systems. This paper introduces a novel dataset explicitly designed for volcanic activity and eruption detection, encompassing diverse volcanoes worldwide. The dataset provides binary annotations to identify volcanic anomalies or non-anomalies, covering phenomena such as temperature anomalies, eruptions, and volcanic ash emissions. These annotations offer a foundational resource for developing and evaluating detection models, addressing a critical gap in volcanic monitoring research. Additionally, we present comprehensive benchmarks using state-of-the-art models to establish baselines for future studies. Furthermore, we explore the potential for deploying these models onboard next-generation satellites. Using the Intel Movidius Myriad X VPU as a testbed, we demonstrate the feasibility of volcanic activity detection directly onboard. This capability significantly reduces latency and enhances response times, paving the way for advanced early warning systems. This paves the way for innovative solutions in volcanic disaster management, encouraging further exploration and refinement of onboard monitoring technologies.

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We're finally reading the secrets of Herculaneum's lost library A whole library's worth of papyri owned by Julius Caesar's father-in-law were turned to charcoal by the eruption of Vesuvius. Deep within a particle accelerator, theoretical physicist Giorgio Angelotti is hard at work. He sets a black cylinder on a mount, bolts it down, then runs through some safety checks before retreating from the chamber, known as "the hatch". "You have to be sure there's no one in the hatch before you close the door," he says. That's because he is about to blast the sample with a super-powerful beam of X-rays.

Scientists have discovered an ominous sign which could hint that Yellowstone's supervolcano is building up to an eruption. Using machine learning, researchers found there have been over 86,000 hidden earthquakes between 2008 and 2022. That is 10 times more tremors than scientists had previously detected. Worryingly, more than half of those earthquakes came in swarms - small groups of interconnected tremors - which have been known to precede volcanic activity. The researchers say these'chaotic' swarms were found moving along rough, young fault lines running deep below the Yellowstone Caldera. These clusters of seismic activity are likely caused by hot, mineral-rich water forcing itself through cracks in the rock.

Few objects pique the curiosity of academics quite like the Herculaneum scrolls – the ancient documents buried by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79. These priceless rolled-up documents carry ancient text written in carbon-based ink on papyrus – a material similar to paper made from the pith of the papyrus plant. Now, for the first time, researchers have found the title and author inside one of the scrolls known as PHerc. With the help of AI, it has been identified as'On Vices' by the Greek philosopher Philodemus, a historic ethical treatise providing guidance for'cultivating a virtuous life'. In recognition of this achievement, researchers have been awarded the Vesuvius Challenge First Title Prize, which includes prize money of 60,000/ 45,000.

It's been left unread for nearly 2,000 years, last glimpsed when the Roman Empire ruled over Europe. Now, scientists have used AI to virtually unfurl one of the Herculaneum scrolls – the ancient documents buried by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79. 'It's an incredible moment in history as librarians, computer scientists and scholars of the classical period are collaborating to see the unseen,' said Richard Ovenden, senior executive Bodleian Libraries. 'The astonishing strides forward made with imaging, and AI are enabling us to look inside scrolls that have not been read for almost 2,000 years.' The Herculaneum scrolls are thought to contain profound philosophical and literary texts from ancient Greek and Roman scholars. The problem is that any attempts to unroll the burnt cylinders will turn them to dust because they are so fragile – meaning the words would be lost forever.

Scientists have warned that an underwater volcano off the coast of the northwestern US is likely to blow sometime in 2025. The volcano, called Axial Seamount, is more than 3,600-feet-tall and sits half a mile underwater just 300 miles off the coast of Oregon. Experts made the prediction on December 10 after detecting seafloor swelling around Axial that mimicked a level seen immediately before an eruption in 2015. Seismic activity has also increased, with hundreds of earthquakes generated around the volcano per day and earthquake swarms greater than 500 per day. 'Based on the current trends, and the assumption that Axial will be primed to erupt when it reaches the 2015 inflation threshold, our current eruption forecast window is between now (July 2024) and the end of 2025,' researchers said in the new study.