This striking satellite snap shows a powerful hurricane bearing down on Hawaii as a shimmering silver streak obscures the tropical islands from view.

The swirling cyclone, dubbed Hurricane Kiko, was a Category 4 storm that formed in the eastern Pacific on Aug. 31, 2025. Three days later, on Sept. 3, it had fully strengthened, reaching peak wind speeds of around 145 mph (233 km/h), and made headlines after researchers realized it was on a collision course with Hawaii.

Luckily, the hurricane weakened to a Category 2 storm before reaching Hawaii and diverted to pass mostly north of the islands, before finally fading away on Sept. 10, just off the coast of Honolulu, according to Zoom Earth. These changes, which were brought about after the hurricane hit a patch of cold water, meant that residents experienced some heavy rainfall and high winds but were otherwise unaffected.

The satellite photo was snapped Sept. 7, when Kiko was around 600 miles (965 kilometers) east of Hilo on Hawaii's Big Island, according to NASA's Earth Observatory. At this point, the cyclone was approximately 470 miles (750 km) across at its widest point.

You can just about make out the outlines of the cloud-covered Hawaiian Islands within the thick band of silver stretching across the left side of the image. This shimmering streak is the result of a phenomenon known as a sunglint.

Sunglints are visible only from space. A sunglint occurs when sunlight bounces off the surface of the ocean or another large body of water directly into the observer's line of sight. (This is similar to how sunlight reflects off water during a sunset.)

The phenomenon gives water a metallic, mirror-like appearance, which can create stunning spectacles, such as reflected cloud murals and visually transformed rivers.

What's more, sunglints can partially obscure satellite imagery, thus interfering with efforts to monitor the climate, according to NASA. On the other hand, sunglints can help researchers by revealing hidden oceanographic phenomena, such as subsurface currents and "internal waves."

Researchers predict that, on average, hurricanes and other tropical storms will become more frequent and powerful in the coming decades as a result of human-caused climate change. In fact, there have already been signs of this happening in recent years, including storms such as Hurricane Melissa, which killed 95 people as it ripped through Cuba, Haiti, the Dominican Republic and Jamaica in October 2025.

See more Earth from space

A massive blob deep under Hawaii seems to be solid and iron-rich, new research finds.

This blob — scientifically known as a mega-ultralow velocity zone — may anchor the Hawaii hotspot, an area where hot material rises through the mantle and drives the volcanic activity that created the Hawaiian Islands.

"Because it's iron-rich material, it is going to be electrically more conductive, and that will actually promote thermal conduction — so it will actually help localize the plume to last longer," said Doyeon Kim, a seismologist at Imperial College London and the first author of the new study, published Jan. 28 in the journal Science Advances.

Ultralow velocity zones (ULVZs) are giant hunks of the planet that sit near the boundary of the mantle and the core, at about 1,800 miles (2,900 kilometers) below the Earth's surface. They get their name from the fact that seismic waves from earthquakes slow down dramatically in these regions. Mega-ultralow velocity zones are the largest of these regions, which often span hundreds of kilometers. They're often found near volcanic hotspots, such as Hawaii, Iceland and the Marquesas Islands of the South Pacific.

"It actually makes them one of our few direct windows into deep-Earth composition and dynamics," Kim told Live Science.

Because these blobs are so deep, scientists typically study them using compressional waves generated by earthquakes. But these pressure waves, or P waves, provide limited information. So Kim and his colleagues used a method they developed in 2020 that could also incorporate S waves, or shear waves, which create vertical motion. By combining data from both types of waves and then modeling rocks and minerals that could match those data, the researchers could get a clearer picture of why the waves slow down in those zones.

They found that the mega-ULVZ under Hawaii is likely rich in iron and solid rock. That largely rules out a competing hypothesis that suggested the area might be extra-melty.

With this information, "we can think about where it is coming from," Kim said. "It could be coming from the relics of Earth's earliest evolution, particularly from the crystallization of a basal magma ocean or recrystallized melt from past mantle melting."

Not every mega-ULVZ may be created equally, Kim added. Some might form from the subduction of water-rich oceanic crust deep into the mantle. Perhaps others involve material from the core itself. The approach in the new paper can help differentiate these types of ULVZs worldwide, he said, as well as shedding light on how planets form in the first place.

"We have to first clearly understand what's happening on Earth to understand fully what's happening on other planets," he said.

"Sharktober" — the spike in shark bite incidents off the west coast of North America during the fall — is real, and it seems to happen in Hawaii when tiger sharks give birth in the waters surrounding the islands, new research suggests.

Carl Meyer, a marine biologist at the University of Hawai'i at Manoa's Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology, analyzed 30 years' worth of Hawaii shark bite data, from1995 to 2024, and found that tiger sharks (Galeocerdo cuvier) accounted for 47% of the 165 unprovoked bites recorded in the area during that period. Of the others, 33% were by unidentified species and 16% were attributed to requiem sharks (Carcharhinus spp.)

About 20% of all the bites occurred in October, a frequency two to four times higher than in any other month, despite there being no evidence of more people being in the water for recreational activities at that time of year.

Crucially, tiger sharks accounted for at least 63% of the recorded bites during that month. What's more, 28% of the October bites involved unidentified species, some of which may have also been tiger sharks, Meyer wrote in the study, which was published Jan. 6 in the journal Frontiers in Marine Science."The October spike appears to be driven by tiger shark biology rather than changes in human ocean use," Meyer told Live Science via email.

Tiger sharks typically reach 10 to 14 feet (3 to 4.3 meters) long and weigh more than 850 pounds (385 kilograms). They are named for the dark vertical stripes that younger ones have, and they are found throughout the world in temperate and tropical waters, especially around central Pacific islands.

Tiger shark numbers are highest in the waters off Hawaii during October according to ecotourism operators. This month is also when large, mature females move from islands in the northwest Pacific to areas close to the shores around the main Hawaiian Islands to give birth. The increased presence of large sharks is one crucial factor that could lead to more bites, Meyer said.

"The most plausible explanation is seasonal reproduction: a partial migration of large adult female tiger sharks associated with pupping season appears to increase their presence in nearshore waters used by humans," Meyer said.

The other key factor is that giving birth is draining. Tiger sharks are ovoviviparous, which means their eggs hatch inside the mother's body, and the embryos receive additional nutrition beyond what was in the egg's yolk sac.The sharks also give birth to an average of about 30 pups after 15 to 16 months of gestation.

This means females, while pregnant and after they have given birth, are likely to need to actively forage to recover energy reserves, Meyer said. Other ecological factors may also contribute to the spike in bites, though, he added, such as seasonal increases in the availability of preferred prey, such as large reef fish. Attacks won't be down to the mothers protecting their young, though — once born, tiger shark pups are independent and often stay in shallow areas to avoid being eaten by bigger sharks, including their mother.

The available information suggests an increase in unprovoked shark bites around Hawaii, said Daryl McPhee, an environmental scientist at Bond University in Queensland, Australia, who studies shark attacks but wasn't involved in this study.

"Any seasonal behavioural change that can increase the potential overlap between large species of sharks such as tiger sharks, has the potential to increase the risk of a bite occurring," he told Live Science via email, adding that regardless of the circumstances, the risk of a bite remains low.

Meyer also noted the overall risk of shark bites is extremely low. "The key implication is awareness, not alarm," Meyer said. "Extra caution is advised during this month, particularly for high-risk, solo activities such as surfing or swimming in coastal areas."

Although the October peak revealed in the study is specific to Hawaii and tiger sharks, there may be similar patterns elsewhere in the world, Meyer said. "When large coastal sharks show strong seasonal shifts in habitat use, bite risk can also become seasonal. Other regions and species may experience similar patterns, but the timing and drivers will vary depending on local ecology."

Globally, three large coastal shark species account for most recorded unprovoked bites. These are great white sharks (Carcharodon carcharias), tiger sharks and bull sharks (Carcharhinus leucas), a type of requiem shark.

Bull sharks are thought to be behind a recent spate of bites near Sydney in New South Wales, Australia, with four events within 48 hours, and this period does roughly align with their southern hemisphere summer breeding period.

"Bull sharks along parts of the Australian east coast are more seasonally abundant nearshore and in rivers and estuaries during their reproductive period in the austral summer," McPhee said.

However, other factors may have been more influential to the recent bites in Australia, including a combination of increased summer water use by people, environmental conditions such as storm runoff and reduced water clarity.

"There was a set of environmental conditions that concentrated bull sharks towards the mouth of Sydney Harbour and adjacent beaches," McPhee said. "There was heavy rain in the catchment that would have flushed prey out and it made the water murky. Thus, prime conditions for bull sharks to feed in."

Despite substantial variation in the number of bites across time and in different places, there is a general long-term trend of increasing shark bites, particularly on surfers, McPhee added. In New South Wales there were four recorded bites between 1980 and 1999, while 63 bites were recorded between 2000 and 2019.

Globally the picture is similar, according to data from the Florida Museum. In the 1970s, there were a total of 157 attacks, but that hit 500 in the 1990s and totalled 803 between 2010 and 2019.

Shark quiz

A Category 4 hurricane in the eastern Pacific Ocean could hit Hawaii early next week, but it will weaken considerably before it gets there, storm predictions show.

Hurricane Kiko rapidly intensified from a tropical storm on Monday (Sept. 1) to a Category 4 hurricane on Wednesday (Sept. 3), according to The Weather Channel. The storm is moving westward and currently tracking across a region of warm water and low wind shear roughly 1,300 miles (2,100 kilometers) southeast of Hawaii, meaning it could strengthen in the next few hours, forecasters said.

The latest National Hurricane Center (NHC) forecast suggests Hurricane Kiko is heading for Hawaii and may reach the islands by Tuesday or Wednesday next week (Sept. 9 or 10). Kiko is whipping up winds of up to 145 mph (230 km/h), according to a CNN video — but meteorologists predict that these gusts will weaken over the weekend to the levels of a tropical storm or low-category hurricane.

Kiko is "yet another example of a hurricane undergoing rapid intensification amongst extremely warm waters," Brandon Miller, a senior meteorologist and supervising weather producer for CNN, said in the video. However, it's highly unlikely that the storm will remain as powerful as it is now through Sept. 9 or 10, Miller said, because it has to pass through a patch of relatively cold water and trade winds first.

Hurricane Kiko will likely hit the cool, windy patch on Sunday (Sept. 7), which will reduce some of the storm’s intensity, according to The Weather Channel. Pockets of dry air hovering to the east of Hawaii will further slow the storm and Kiko will also be forced to cross wind shear that will cut the ground from under its feet.

It's possible that Hurricane Kiko will miss Hawaii entirely, as the storm is expected to gain latitude through early next week. A "cone of uncertainty" shared by the NHC — which sums up the different paths that Hurricane Kiko might follow in the shape of an elongated, sideways teardrop — shows that Kiko's center track could move north of Hawaii, which would avert some of the storm's worst impacts on the archipelago.

Related: 'Now is the time': Hurricane category 6 could be introduced under new storm severity scale

But hurricanes don't have to make landfall to bring bad weather. "Don't let your guard down, Hawaiians," Miller said. "Kiko could still bring impacts to the island, such as flooding rainfall and gusty winds."

Swells caused by the storm could reach Hawaiian shores toward the end of the weekend, generating potentially life-threatening surf and rip currents, The Weather Channel warned. Many of the Hawaiian Islands also still sit within the NHC's uncertainty cone.

The distance between Kiko's center track and Hawaii's individual islands will determine how severe the impacts on those islands will be, according to The Weather Channel.

Residents should therefore check updates regularly and stay informed, forecasters said.

Hawaii's Kilauea volcano has been erupting with gigantic fountains of lava, the likes of which haven't been seen in around 40 years.

On Sunday (May 25), some of these lava fountains shot up more than 1,000 feet (300 meters) into the sky. Scientists estimated that while this was going on, the volcano was also emitting up to around 83,000 tons (75,000 metric tons) of toxic sulphur dioxide per day, according to an update on the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) website.

The ongoing eruption in the Halema'uma'u crater has been on pause since the dramatic scenes on Sunday, though magma remains close to the surface and the volcano continues to emit sulfur dioxide. The latest fountain activity marked the 23rd episode of Halema'uma'u crater's eruption cycle that began on Dec. 23, 2024.

Kilauea has been producing fountains of lava in waves that last anywhere from a few hours to over a week since the start of this eruption. In a volcano update on Tuesday (May 27), USGS representatives compared the ongoing activity to that of the historical Pu'u'ō'ō eruption on the eastern rift zone of Kilauea. The Pu'u'ō'ō eruption began in 1983 and didn't stop until 2018, but the early years were marked by high lava fountains, similar to those currently produced in the Halema'uma'u crater.

"The current eruption has been characterized by episodic fountaining not seen in any eruptions since the 1983-86 episodic fountains at the beginning of the Pu'u'ō'ō eruption," USGS representatives wrote.

Related: Heavy dusting of 'pineapple powder' paints Hawaii's volcanoes white after near-record snowfall — Earth from space

Kilauea volcano is one of the world's most active volcanoes and has erupted almost continuously on Hawaii's Big Island for more than 30 years. The volcano makes up about 14% of the island's land area and rises 4,190 feet (1,227 m) above sea level. Halema'uma'u crater is at the summit of the volcano and is said to be the home of Pele, the Hawaiian goddess of fire and volcanoes.

The Halema'uma'u eruption is taking place in a closed part of Hawaii's Volcanoes National Park. However, while the eruption itself is confined to the park, the gases it emits can travel beyond the park's limits.

"High levels of volcanic gas—primarily water vapor (H₂O), carbon dioxide (CO₂), and sulfur dioxide (SO₂)—are the primary hazard of concern, as this hazard can have far-reaching effects downwind," USGS representatives wrote.

The sulfur dioxide released from the volcano can mix with other gases and particles in the atmosphere to create a haze called volcanic smog (vog). Inhaling vog at high concentrations may cause respiratory problems and other health issues such as eye and skin irritation, according to USGS.

There are a variety of other hazards associated with the ongoing volcanic activity, including strands of windblown volcanic glass. These hair-like strands, named Pele's hair after the Hawaiian goddess, form when gas bubbles within lava burst at the surface, and their skin stretches into long threads. These strands are currently spread across the Kilauea summit. The extent to which they move depends on lava fountaining and wind conditions, but the USGS warned that they pose a threat to human health.

"Residents and visitors should minimize exposure to Pele's hair and other volcanic fragments, which can cause skin and eye irritation," USGS representatives wrote.

USGS offers views of the Kilauea summit through live webcams. These video feeds capture recordings of places that are off limits to the general public because they're unsafe to visit.

US volcano quiz: How many can you name in 10 minutes?

Researchers have found evidence that Earth's core is leaking gold and other precious metals, according to a new study.

The vast majority (99.9%) of Earth's gold and other precious metals are hidden in the center of our planet, with thousands of miles of near-impenetrable rock between us and these natural treasures. However, while humans are unlikely to ever mine Earth's core, new research indicates that some metals have migrated out of the core into enriched rocks that eventually ended up at the surface.

While investigating volcanic rocks in Hawaii, a team of scientists identified signs of the precious metal ruthenium — a platinum group metal — that they conclude could only have come from the core-mantle boundary, more than 1,800 miles (2,900 km) below the surface.

"When the first results came in, we realised that we had literally struck gold!" study first author Nils Messling, a researcher in the geochemistry department at Göttingen University in Germany, said in a statement. "Our data confirmed that material from the core, including gold and other precious metals, is leaking into the Earth's mantle above."

The researchers published their findings May 21 in the journal Nature.

Related: Heavy dusting of 'pineapple powder' paints Hawaii's volcanoes white after near-record snowfall — Earth from space

Earth is made up of three basic layers: a crust, mantle and core. The crust acts like a thin outer shell, the mantle is a less rigid middle layer of rocks that makes up most of the planet, and the core is the sphere in the middle. At the core, there's a sea of molten metals about 1,400 miles (2,300 km) thick – called the outer core — swirling around a mostly solid iron ball that's about 1,520 miles (2,440 km) wide — called the inner core.

Previous research has found that the make-up of Earth's Ru changed during the later stages of the planet's formation as it accumulated more material, so the Ru locked away in the core is slightly different from the Ru typically found in the mantle and crust.

For the new study, the researchers analyzed volcanic rock samples from Hawaii, including those collected at a lava lake in the active — and currently erupting — Kilauea volcano. They compared the Ru detected in these samples to Ru typically found in the mantle and found higher concentrations of the core Ru in Hawaii's volcanic rocks compared to other mantle rocks, suggesting that the Hawaii Ru originated from Earth's center.

The detection of Ru linked to the core demonstrates that precious metals, including gold, can move out of the center of the Earth. That means some of these precious metals we mine today may have originally come from the core. The study also tells scientists something about the formation of Hawaii and other regions tied to the core-mantle boundary.

"Our findings not only show that the Earth's core is not as isolated as previously assumed," study co-author Matthias Willbold, a professor in the geochemistry department at Göttingen University, said in the statement. "We can now also prove that huge volumes of super-heated mantle material — several hundreds of quadrillion metric tonnes of rock — originate at the core-mantle boundary and rise to the Earth's surface to form ocean islands like Hawaii."

Hawaii is thought to be sitting on a deep mantle plume of hot rock, driving volcanic activity in the region. Researchers recently found new evidence that Africa is being torn apart by another deep mantle plume, which also probably originated from the core-mantle boundary, like the ruthenium.

Striking satellite photos snapped in 2021 show the volcanic peaks of Hawaii's Big Island covered with a thick dusting of snow, also known by locals as "pineapple powder," following one of the island's most extreme snowfalls in recent history.

The first image (see above) shows the most extensive snow coverage on Mauna Loa, a 13,681-foot-tall (4,170 meters) volcano near the center of the Big Island. The second image (below) shows a slightly smaller white patch on Mauna Kea, a 13,796-foot-tall (4,205 m) peak located around 25 miles (40 kilometers) further north. Both images were taken on the same day.

Mauna Loa is still active and most recently erupted between November and December 2022, according to the Global Volcanism Program. Mauna Kea, meanwhile, is dormant and has not erupted for at least 4,600 years.

Hawaiian snow is more common than most people realize, and both Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea often receive at least a light dusting every year. However, 2021 was an extreme case.

When the photo was taken, the combined snow covering both peaks reached the second-highest amount for this time of the year since records began in 2001, according to NASA's Earth Observatory. At the peak of the preceding snowstorm, up to 2 feet (0.6 m) fell at the summit of both volcanoes in a single day.

Related: See all the best images of Earth from space

Local reports revealed that several islanders traded in their surfboards for snowboards and skis, and braved the trip up Mauna Kea to partake in some rare snow sports as soon as the roads were cleared.

Pineapple powder

Hawaiian snow is often linked to a weather phenomenon referred to as Kona low, according to the Earth Observatory. This is where winds shift from the typical northeast direction and start blowing from the southwest, or "Kona" side, drawing moisture from the tropical Pacific, which turns into rain and snow as it rises up the mountains' slopes.

Snow is most likely to occur between October and April, and both Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea experience an average of 20 days of snow cover every year, according to the Lyman Museum, based in the Big Island town of Hilo. On rare occasions, snow has also fallen on the volcanoes as late as June, according to The Weather Channel. However, the pineapple powder may not be as common in the future.

Recent research revealed that human-caused climate change will likely make snow much less likely in Hawaii as rising sea surface temperatures make Kona low less likely to occur, according to the University of Hawai'i at Manoa (UHM).

"Unfortunately, the projections suggest that future average winter snowfall will be 10 times less than present day amounts, virtually erasing all snow cover," Chunxi Zhang, an atmospheric modeling specialist at the International Pacific Research Center in Hawaii, said in a UHM statement.

In Hawaiian mythology, Mauna Kea is home to the snow goddess Poli'ahu, who had a fierce rivalry with Pele — the goddess of fire and volcanoes, for which the rare glass-like structures that form at Hawaii's Kilauea volcano are named. In one story, Poli'ahu defeated Pele in a sledding race, which caused the latter to unleash a series of major volcanic eruptions in anger, according to the University of Hawai'i at Hilo.

In a fiery display, Kilauea volcano, on Hawaii's Big Island, spewed a gigantic fountain of lava roughly 330 feet (100 meters) — the height of a small skyscraper, on Tuesday (Feb. 11), according to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS).

The towering lava fountain is part of an ongoing eruption that started Dec. 23, 2024. The latest volcanic activity is part of the ninth episode of eruptive activity, which started when lava began flowing on the Halema'uma'u crater floor Tuesday morning, according to reports from the USGS. A livestream of the eruption can be viewed on the USGS YouTube channel.

Kilauea is the youngest and most active volcano on the Big Island, which is also home to three other active volcanoes: Mauna Loa, Mauna Kea and Hualalai. About a half hour after the eruption started on Tuesday, the tall fountain of lava spewed from the north vent of the summit's caldera and continued to flow into the crater. As the episode continued into the night, lava fountains became shorter, averaging heights of 160 to 200 feet (50 to 60 m).

Although tall, these lava fountains aren't Kilauea's tallest. Back in 1959, the volcano spewed an "awesome and terrifying" lava fountain 1,900 feet (580 m) above its vent, according to the USGS. But even Tuesday's eruption posed problems to USGS equipment.

"Tall fountain heights from this latest episode of the eruption pose a threat to the cameras, which can begin to warp and melt if the erupting lava fountains reach high enough to get close to them," the USGS reported.

Related: Volcanoes like Kīlauea and Mauna Loa don't erupt like we thought they did, scientists discover

The ninth episode lasted 22.5 hours, ending on Wednesday (Feb. 12). Previous eruptions have lasted between 13 hours and eight days, with between 16 hours and 12 days of pauses between episodes. These episodic eruptions happen within the enclosed area of Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park.

"Current hazards include volcanic gas emissions and windblown volcanic glass (Pele's Hair) that may impact Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park and nearby communities," USGS officials warned in a statement. Pele's hair, named for the Hawaiian goddess of fire and volcanoes, forms when gas bubbles at the lava's surface burst, causing the bubble to stretch out into a long and sharp thread of glass as it cools. These glass threads can then end up in drinking water on farms or in people's personal rainwater catchment systems.

Additional hazards from the eruption include volcanic gas consisting of water vapor, carbon dioxide and sulfur dioxide, which could form hazy volcanic smog, known as vog, in the atmosphere, according to the USGS.

The area surrounding the Halema'uma'u caldera rim has remained closed to the public since late 2007 due to the risk of wall instability, ground cracking, and rockfalls triggered by earthquakes, according to the USGS.

Visitors can witness the current eruption from various viewing points along Crater Rim Drive in Hawaii Volcanoes National Park.

"Although lava may be visible within the national park, conditions can change at any time," officials wrote on the National Park Service's website.

US volcano quiz: How many can you name in 10 minutes?

The White Shark Café is a mysterious meeting spot for great white sharks (Carcharodon carcharias) located in the Pacific Ocean, halfway between Baja California and Hawaii. The sharks undertake a month-long journey from their usual habitat off the coast of California to reach the Café. The region was long thought to be an oceanic desert hosting very little life, raising questions about its role in the life of great whites.

Barbara Block, a professor of marine sciences at Stanford University's Hopkins Marine Station, came up with the name "White Shark Café" while researching the migration patterns of North Pacific great whites using electronic tags. Between 1999 and 2000, Block and her colleagues tagged six sharks off the coast of California, and examined their movements for up to six months.

Related: A really big shark got gobbled up by another, massive shark in 1st known case of its kind

Four of the sharks swam southwest toward Hawaii and remained in a remote patch of ocean the size of Colorado throughout winter and spring, revealing for the first time that North Pacific great whites spend extended periods of time in the open sea. The data also showed that the sharks took unusually deep dives down to about 1,500 feet (450 meters) below the surface in this location, leaving the scientists puzzled.

Over the following years, the researchers realized it wasn't just a handful of adventurous great whites that were migrating offshore but large crowds of them, deepening the mystery. The Californian coast offers great whites a rich food buffet of elephant seals and other marine mammals, so scientists couldn't fathom why the sharks traveled to a seemingly barren spot in the middle of the Pacific.

In 2018, a research team led by Block followed great whites to their Pacific lair to understand why the Café has become a gathering place. The researchers tagged 20 sharks using satellite tags that were programmed to drop off after a predetermined period of time, and later retrieved 10 tags containing information about the sharks' movements and deep-diving behavior. They also collected information about environmental conditions and marine life at the Café.

Instead of a watery desert, the researchers found an ocean oasis, according to a statement released at the time. Deep layers of microscopic algae and rich communities of marine animals showed the Café was much more lively and biologically productive than scientists thought, suggesting great white sharks gather there every year for food. Why the sharks actively seek out this food instead of the cornucopia that is their usual habitat is unclear.

"We found a high diversity of deep-sea fish and squids (over 100 species), which in combination with observations made by the ROV [remotely operated vehicle] and DNA sequencing, demonstrate a viable [food source] to support large pelagic organisms such as sharks and tunas," Block said in the statement.

The sharks' diving patterns mirrored the daily cycles of animals that migrate up and down the water column, suggesting great whites were following their food. But the dives also raised questions about a possible mating behavior, which researchers are still trying to work out.

Male sharks increased their diving activity in April, plunging up to 140 times per day, but the habits of females remained the same, the San Francisco Chronicle reported at the time. Researchers are still scratching their heads about what this might mean, but some experts suggest males could be diving deeper to increase their chances of mating.

Discover more incredible places, where we highlight the fantastic history and science behind some of the most dramatic landscapes on Earth.

NASA's Juno mission might have originally been all about Jupiter, but its extended mission has the spacecraft observing the gas giant's moons — and it's making some pretty interesting discoveries. Its latest find? The Jovian moon Io is covered in "fire-breathing" lava lakes.

Using its Jovian Infrared Auroral Mapper (JIRAM) instrument, a project by the Italian Space Agency originally used to peer beneath Jupiter's thick clouds, Juno has captured infrared images of these lakes peppered across Io's surface, which show hot rings of lava surrounding a cooler crust. In the images, the rings are bright white with a thermal signature between 450 and 1,350 degrees Fahrenheit (232 and 732 degrees Celsius). The rest of the lake is much cooler, measuring at some minus 45 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 43 degrees Celsius). 

"We now have an idea of what is the most frequent type of volcanism on Io: enormous lakes of lava where magma goes up and down," Alessandro Mura, a Juno co-investigator from the National Institute for Astrophysics in Rome, said in a statement. "The lava crust is forced to break against the walls of the lake, forming the typical lava ring seen in Hawaiian lava lakes."

The leading hypothesis is that magma undergoes upwelling in these lava lakes, causing the lakes to rise and fall. When the crust touches the lake's walls — which can be hundreds of meters tall — the friction causes it to break, exposing the lava along the edge of the lake.

RELATED: NASA reveals 'glass-smooth lake of cooling lava' on surface of Jupiter's moon Io

A secondary hypothesis suggests that magma wells up in the middle of the lake, pushing the crust outward until it sinks along the edge of the lake, again exposing the lava and forming those lava rings.

Researchers still have much to study on Io, particularly when it comes to Juno's infrared imagery. "We are just starting to wade into the JIRAM results from the close flybys of Io in December 2023 and February 2024," Scott Bolton, principal investigator for Juno at the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, said in the statement. "Combining these new results with Juno’s longer-term campaign to monitor and map the volcanoes on Io’s never-before-seen north and south poles, JIRAM is turning out to be one of the most valuable tools to learn how this tortured world works."

Originally posted on Space.com.

The world's oldest known wild bird is courting new mates on a remote island off Hawaii after potentially losing her lifelong sweetheart, researchers say. 

The female albatross, nicknamed Wisdom, is likely in her 70s and has been cruising around the North Pacific Ocean since the Eisenhower administration, according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS). 

Biologists first identified Wisdom in 1956 and put a band on her right leg that is still attached today. The albatross was already mature when she was banded, meaning she could be 72 years old — two decades older than the average lifespan of her species.

"Wisdom, the world's oldest known wild bird, was photographed again last month on Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge, dancing with potential mates," representatives of the Pacific Region of the USFWS wrote in a Facebook post. "Her long-term mate, Akeakamai, has yet to be seen and was absent the last two nesting seasons, too."

Laysan albatrosses (Phoebastria immutabilis), known as mōlī in Hawaiian, are long-living seabirds that pair for life with a single mate. They are named after a breeding colony of 145,000 pairs on Laysan, one of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands located 930 miles (1,500 kilometers) northwest of Honolulu.

Related: Adult albatrosses found gnawed to death by mice on 3rd remote island

Female Laysan albatrosses usually lay a single egg in the first half of December, but Wisdom was still participating in mating dances well into spring, said Jonathan Plissner, the supervisory wildlife biologist at Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge, a nature reserve 1,310 miles (2,110 km) northwest of Honolulu.

Midway Atoll, or Kuaihelani in Hawaiian, hosts the biggest colony of Laysan albatrosses in the world, with 600,000 breeding pairs returning to its two sandy islands every year.

"She was actively courting other birds in March," Plissner told USFWS representatives in an email. 

Wisdom has made sporadic appearances at Midway Atoll since the beginning of the nesting season in late November 2023. Plissner doesn't expect Wisdom to nest this year but said "she is quite spry for a septuagenarian," in a post on the social platform X. 

USFWS scientists estimate the elderly albatross has flown 3.5 million miles (5.6 million km) in her lifetime — the equivalent of 7 round trips to the Moon. Laysan albatrosses start breeding when they are 3 to 4 years old, according to the American Bird Conservancy, suggesting Wisdom has laid up to 60 eggs in her lifetime, roughly half of which may have hatched to produce fledglings while the other half may have failed or been lost to predators.

Between nesting seasons, Wisdom spends nearly half the year at sea, soaring across the Pacific Ocean sky for hours on end without a single flap of her narrow, 3-foot-long (0.9 m) wings. Like other Laysan albatrosses, she likely fuels her long flights by feeding on small squid, flying fish eggs, fish and crustaceans.

Scientists have documented five major mass extinction events in Earth's history, during which at least three-quarters of life went extinct. But with humans clearing habitats, exterminating species and changing the climate, are we now in a sixth mass extinction?

Many researchers claim the sixth mass extinction is underway, with one team describing "biological annihilation" and "mutilation of the tree of life" in their scientific studies. However, others argue that the mass extinction hasn't begun yet.

Robert Cowie, a research professor at the University of Hawaii, told Live Science that, strictly speaking, you can't declare a mass extinction until it's actually happened — once 75% of species are gone.

A 2022 study led by Cowie and published in the journal Biological Reviews estimated that up to 13% of known species have gone extinct since 1500 — well below the 75% mass extinction threshold.

"It hasn't happened yet," he said.

Some researchers have estimated that we'll reach the 75% threshold within 10,000 years, while other studies have concluded that we could be at this grim milestone in just a few centuries — with the potential for an even shorter time frame if things get worse.

Related: Scientists just found a hidden 6th mass extinction in Earth's ancient past

Mass extinctions occur within a short geological time period of less than 2.8 million years, according to the Natural History Museum in London. The centuries to millennia it could take to reach the mass extinction threshold is well within that time frame. So, if you take those estimates as predictive, researchers can argue that the event has already started.

"We are witnessing the sixth mass extinction in real time," Anthony Barnosky, a professor emeritus of integrative biology at the University of California, Berkeley, told Live Science in an email.

Studies have estimated that species are currently going extinct between 100 and 1,000 times faster than the normal background rate of extinction, calculated based on when species evolve and go extinct in the fossil record. "I think the rate is going to increase as we destroy more of the planet," Cowie said.

Barnosky noted that the species extinction rate may mask the rapid decline in wildlife populations because we don't count species as extinct until the last individual is gone. Species are often declared extinct decades after they are last seen in the wild, while others persist with conservation measures when most of their population is dead.

"We have killed almost 70% of the planet's wild animals since I was born," Barnosky said. "Obviously that can't go on too much longer without making the sixth mass extinction an actuality."

A 2022 WWF report found that monitored vertebrate populations of mammals, birds, amphibians, reptiles and fish declined by an average of 69% between 1970 and 2018. That figure is a global average; Latin America had the highest regional decline, with 94%.  Plus, that number doesn't include the more numerous invertebrate species.

Data on invertebrate decline is lacking, but some groups have suffered staggering losses. For instance, a 2015 study co-authored by Cowie and published in the journal Conservation Biology highlighted the decline of Hawaii's Amastridae snails due to invasive species and habitat loss. Of the 282 species that historically inhabited Hawaii, the researchers could only confirm that 15 were still alive. "That's a mass extinction," Cowie said.

Barnosky described the decimation of biodiversity and burgeoning mass extinction as "the bad news." But he said it's not too late to save most species heading for extinction and thus prevent us from reaching the sixth mass extinction threshold.

"Although we're wiping out populations and species astoundingly fast, we haven't completed the job yet," Barnosky said. "We still have a chance to turn things around, but the window of opportunity for that is slamming shut fast."

For the first time ever, researchers have documented penetrative sex between two humpback whales. What’s more, both whales were male.

A private vessel spotted the adult whales off the Hawaiian island of Maui in January 2022. Citizen scientists on board the boat noticed one of the animals was an unusual, brownish color and deployed cameras underwater to record the encounter. What they captured is the first known case of a male humpback whale (Megaptera novaeangliae) inserting its penis into another male's genital slit.

"This is the first report of penetration by a humpback whale, and the first report of sexual activity between two male humpback whales," researchers wrote in a study published Tuesday (Feb. 27) in the journal Marine Mammal Science. 

The whales swam in circles around the boat for 30 minutes, with one of the humpbacks (Whale B) seemingly pursuing the other (Whale A), according to the study. Whale A looked emaciated, had a significant jaw injury and was covered in whale lice (Cyamus boopis) — parasites that indicate poor health and are the probable cause of the skin discoloration noted by citizen scientists at the start of the encounter. Whale B, on the other hand, appeared healthy and strong.

Related: Kelping is a 'global phenomenon' sweeping the world of humpback whales, scientists say

Whale B also had its penis extruded from its usual hiding place inside the genital slit during the entire encounter. "Whale B repeatedly approached from the rear of Whale A and penetrated the second whale, appearing to hold Whale A in place with its pectoral fins," the researchers wrote.

In response to Whale B's advances, Whale A contorted its body into an "S" shape — a posture which previous research suggests humpbacks in Hawaii adopt when they feel threatened or stressed.

"It is possible that the use of this posture by Whale A meant that this behavior was unwelcome, but that Whale A lacked the energy to engage in avoidance strategies," the researchers wrote in the study. "It was slowly attempting to swim away from Whale B but was not making any sudden or powerful movements and did not dive out of sight at any point."

After penetrating Whale A several times, Whale B dove and did not reappear, according to the study. Whale A remained at the surface for a few minutes before also plunging out of sight. It is unclear what caused Whale A's jaw injury, but the researchers suggested it may be the result of a collision with a ship.

Male-male sex in cetaceans — a group of marine mammals that includes whales, dolphins and porpoises — is well documented for common bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) and several other species. Research suggests cetaceans engage in such homosexual activity to establish or reinforce dominance among males, to learn or practice reproductive behaviors, to form social alliances and even to reduce social tensions. 

Related: Orcas are learning terrifying new behaviors. Are they getting smarter?

Whale B may have mistaken Whale A for a female, the researchers suggested, or it could have been trying to reinforce their social relationship. But the sexual behavior may also have been "an expression of dominance over a weak and injured competitor," they wrote in the study.

While this is the first documented case of homosexual penetration in humpback whales, a similar incident reported in 1998 described a male humpback whale extruding its penis as it swam near the corpse of another male that had died shortly before.

"It is striking that the only two observations of such behavior in the scientific literature involve ailing or deceased whales," the researchers wrote in the new study. "Whether such behavior would occur between two healthy males is unknown."

Nearly 75% of the U.S. could be struck by damaging earthquakes, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) has discovered.

The new finding, made by a model used to build a color-coded earthquake map, reveals that millions of Americans live in areas with a high earthquake risk. That includes known earthquake hazard zones such as Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland and Seattle but also locations like Salt Lake City and Memphis.

According to the new model, 37 U.S. states have experienced earthquakes greater than magnitude 5 in the last 200 years. 

Related: Simultaneous rupture of faults triggered massive earthquake in Seattle area 1,100 years ago — and it could happen again

The new information helps to update the odds of harmful quakes in the seismically active regions of Alaska and California and highlights the possibility of more damaging earthquakes along the central and northeastern Atlantic coastal corridor, which includes the cities of Washington D.C., Philadelphia, New York and Boston. The researchers published their findings Dec. 29 in the journal Earthquake Spectra.

"Earthquakes are difficult to forecast but we've made great strides with this new model," lead author Mark Petersen, a geophysicist at the USGS, said in a statement. "The update includes more faults, better-characterized land surfaces, and computational advancements in modeling that provide the most detailed view ever of the earthquake risks we face."

Earthquakes occur because tectonic plates get locked together as they move over the mantle. The forces that caused them to collide continue to build up until the plates suddenly shift . This creates a gigantic rupture, releasing energy in the form of potentially devastating seismic waves that violently shake the ground.

Scientists have searched for patterns that could forecast major earthquakes for decades, but without a precise map of Earth's subterranean crust, these efforts have come up short. Instead, geophysicists collate data on past earthquakes' locations and magnitudes to create risk maps indicating where the strongest and most frequent temblors could hit.

The new map is the first National Seismic Hazard Model to chart this risk across all 50 states, and is the result of a collaborative effort between federal, state and local officials.

Notably in the new model, the strength of the quakes in Hawaii have been upgraded — the consequence of increased volcanic activity witnessed in recent years in the region.

"This was a massive, multi-year collaborative effort between federal, state and local governments and the private sector," Petersen said. "The new seismic hazard model represents a touchstone achievement for enhancing public safety."

Researchers exploring an underwater mountain in Hawaii's deep sea recently stumbled across a rare, "ghostly" dumbo octopus — one of the deepest dwelling octopuses on Earth — flapping its large ear-like fins as it swam near the seafloor, a new video reveals. 

The unidentified species of dumbo octopus, from the genus Grimpoteuthis, was spotted Sept. 13 by researchers aboard Ocean Exploration Trust's (OET) Exploration Vessel "Nautilus." The team was exploring a seamount in the north of Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument (PMNM) — one of the world's largest marine protected areas — using a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) at a depth of around 5,500 feet (1,675 meters) when they came across the pale white cephalopod, researchers wrote in a statement. 

Video footage from the dive, which was live-streamed online, shows the dumbo octopus slowly pushing itself through the water with its ear-like fins just a few feet above the seafloor. This unusual form of locomotion strongly resembles the flying elephant Dumbo, from the classic Disney film, which inspired these octopuses' name. 

"Oh, look at the flappy ears!" one researcher exclaimed during a commentary of the live feed. "I'm so glad we got to see this beautiful creature," another added, "I've never seen one before."

Related: 10 bizarre deep sea creatures that washed ashore in 2022 

There are 15 species of dumbo octopus in the genus Grimpoteuthis, which is the deepest-dwelling known group of octopuses — most of which live deeper than 13,100 feet (4,000 m), according to the ocean conservation nonprofit Oceana. These creatures spend most of their lives hovering around the ocean floor in search of their prey.

The dumbo octopus' style of swimming is quite different to most other cephalopods, which use a funnel-like organ called a siphon to move by shooting out jets of water. This group also differs by having webbed arms and the female's being able to store sperm to fertilize their eggs at a later date, according to Oceana. Because it rarely encounters predators, dumbo octopuses do not have any ink sacs and have a reduced camouflage ability. 

The largest dumbo octopus ever found measured a whopping 5.9 feet (1.8 m) long, according to Oceana. But most individuals are between 8 to 12 inches (20 to 30 centimeters) long. It is unclear how large the octopus in the new video is.

Because of their deep sea habitat, dumbo octopuses are rarely seen in the wild and most of what we know about them comes from ROV sightings and individuals that get dragged up to the surface in fishing nets.

In 2020, scientists spotted a dumbo octopus at a depth of around 22,800 feet (6,950 m) in the Java Trench — the deepest part of the Indian Ocean. Another Nautilus expedition filmed a dumbo near Monterey Canyon, off the California coast in 2018. That same year, a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) expedition captured the first video of a dumbo hatchling in the mid-Atlantic. 

In 2021, researchers named a brand new species of dumbo octopus, the emperor dumbo (Grimpteuthis imperator), which was discovered near a seamount in the Pacific Ocean.  

A new satellite photo has captured a somber aerial view of the devastating wildfire that burned through the town of Lahaina on Hawaii's Maui island last week.

On Aug. 8, fast-moving flames appeared on Lahaina's border and rapidly spread through the town, burning down buildings, exploding cars and filling the air with ash and smoke. Many survivors, who either fled the town or escaped into the ocean, reported knowing almost nothing about the fire until the flames were almost right on top of them, CNN reported.

At least 99 people were killed by the fire, making it the most deadly U.S. fire in more than a century. But the death toll is expected to rise significantly as emergency responders continue to search destroyed buildings for people who are still missing, Hawaii governor Josh Green told CNN. 

Related: Canadian wildfire smoke detected thousands of miles away in Norway

The Landsat 8 satellite, which is co-owned by NASA and the U.S. Geological Survey, captured an image of Maui at around 10:25 p.m. local time on Aug. 8, which reveals the fires almost completely engulfing Lahaina, as well another large but less deadly wildfire northeast of Kihei. The satellite image shows the spike in infrared radiation given off by the flames overlaid on a natural color image of the island.

The Lahaina fire moved rapidly because it was fanned by unusually strong winds, which were fueled by a strong high-pressure area to the north of the island and the remnants of Hurricane Dora to the south, according to NASA's Earth Observatory. The gusts ranged from 45 to 67 mph (72 to 107 km/h). Green said that at its peak, the blaze traveled at around 1 mile (1.6 kilometers) every minute. 

The Federal Emergency Management Agency has said it is too early to calculate the cost of the damages caused by the fires, but Green told CNN the losses could equate to up to $6 billion. "This is the largest natural disaster we've ever experienced [in Hawaii]," he added. "It's going to also be a natural disaster that's going to take an incredible amount of time to recover from."

Name: Hawaiian boxer crab or pom pom crab (Lybia edmondsoni)

Where it lives: The Hawaiian Islands

What it eats: Shrimp, squid 

Why it's awesome: The pom pom crab grows to only around half an inch (13 millimeters) wide, and its soft exoskeleton means its armor is pretty useless. Yet despite its minuscule size, this pugnacious little crustacean likes to fight and eat while clutching dangerous weapons — sea anemones. 

The pom pom crabs, also known as Hawaiian boxer crabs, carry tiny sea anemones in each claw and use them to spar with competitors. This anemone species, Triactis producta, is venomous — and the crabs wave the anemones around as a way of defending against predators and catching food. 

But they also carry them during mini battles with each other. 

In a study of the behavior published in 1997, researchers selected 12 pairs of crabs — six males and six females — and pitted them against each other in a tiny crustacean gladiator arena. The winner was the crab that retreated or fled the least. 

Related: Why do animals keep evolving into crabs?

The videos showed that the crabs used the anemones more for show than for contact. When the anemones did touch opponents, it appeared to be by accident. So why bother wielding these anemones? 

The researchers had lots of ideas, but there was little consensus. There were several proposed (and contradictory) hypotheses. One was that the anemones are so toxic to the crabs that they're too risky to use as weapons — their use could result in severe harm to both fighters. 

On the flip side, they may actually be nontoxic to the crabs, so there's not much point to using them. 

Finally, the anemones may be so valuable that it wouldn't be worth it for the crabs to risk damaging the anemones. They do know the crabs use the anemones to collect food particles and eat from them. When they lose one of the anemones, the crabs split the remaining one in two, so it always has one in each claw.

Scientists are still sorting out why the boxer crabs cling to the sea anemones. What the anemone gets out of it is still unknown. 

A camera attached to a telescope on Hawaii's tallest peak recently captured footage of a series of eerie, bright green lines that shot across the night sky for just over a second. Experts say the unexpected light show resulted from a rapid burst of lasers fired toward Earth by a NASA spacecraft. 

The laser lines appeared on Jan. 28, flashing across the sky one by one in just over one second. A video of the lasers was captured by the Subaru-Asahi Star Camera — co-owned by the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ) and Japanese news agency Asahi Shimbun — attached to the Subaru telescope on top of Mauna Kea, a dormant volcano on Hawaii's Big Island. 

A time-lapse image of the lasers firing next to one another has drawn online comparisons with "digital rain," or the lines of green computer code that fall vertically down the screen during the Matrix movies. But instead of being a glitch in a simulated reality, the lasers were actually emitted by a device onboard NASA's ICESat-2 satellite, NAOJ representatives wrote on Twitter. 

ICESat-2 tracks changes in the cryosphere — the part of Earth covered by solid precipitation including snow, sea ice, lake and river ice, icebergs, glaciers, ice sheets, ice shelves and permafrost — and cloud cover caused by human-driven climate change. To do this, the satellite uses an altimeter (a gadget that measures altitude) to fire bright lasers toward Earth's surface, then measures how long it takes for those lasers to bounce back to the satellite's dish. The altimeter onboard ICESat-2, known as the Advanced Topographic Laser Altimeter System (ATLAS), is one of the most powerful ever made: It is capable of firing 10,000 green laser pulses per second, which allows the device to collect measurements every 2.3 feet (0.7 meters) across Earth's surface, according to the ICESat-2 website.

Related: Bizarre blue blobs hover in Earth's atmosphere in stunning astronaut photo. But what are they?

The ethereal green lines that appear in the video are a result of some of these laser pulses, each of which is made up of around 20 trillion photons, lining up exactly with the camera's lens. 

Perfectly positioned 

The laser light show is not the only unusual spectacle to be captured by the Subaru-Asahi Star Camera in the past month. 

On Jan. 18 an eerily perfect "whirlpool" of light in the shape of a spiral galaxy briefly appeared above Mauna Kea. Experts later discovered that the luminous spiral was the result of sunlight shining through a cloud of frozen rocket fuel that was ejected by a SpaceX rocket, shortly after it deployed a military GPS satellite and before it came crashing back down to Earth. 

The camera also captured another one of these "SpaceX" spirals shimmering over Hawaii in April 2022.

The summit of Mauna Kea is 13,803 feet (4,207 m) above sea level, which makes it the tallest point in Hawaii. Due to its lofty altitude, the Subaru-Asahi Star Camera has a near-uninterrupted view of the cosmos. As a result, it is in a prime location to detect unusual visual phenomena in the night sky. 

An eerily-perfect "whirlpool" of light in the shape of a spiral galaxy briefly appeared in the night sky above Hawaii. 

But what was it?

It turns out the stunning spiral was comprised of frozen rocket fuel that was ejected during a SpaceX launch.

A video of the ethereal light show was captured Jan. 18 by the Subaru-Asahi Star Camera — co-owned by the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ) and Japanese news agency Asahi Shimbun — attached to the Subaru telescope on top of Mauna Kea, a dormant volcano on Hawaii's Big Island. In the sped-up footage, a small blob of light unfurls into a perfect glowing whirlpool that moves across the sky for several minutes before fading away into nothingness. 

"The spiral seems to be related to the SpaceX company's launch of a new satellite," NAOJ representatives wrote on Twitter.

Related: Bizarre blue blobs hover in Earth's atmosphere in stunning astronaut photo. But what are they?

The SpaceX launch in question was a Falcon 9 rocket that successfully lifted off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida at 7:24 a.m. EST (1224 GMT) carrying a new GPS satellite for the U.S. Space Force, Live Science's sister site Space.com reported. 

The rocket's first stage, which provides the main propulsion for lift off, separated from the payload-carrying second stage around 3 minutes after launch and eventually returned to Earth. After separating from the first stage, the second stage used its small engine to propel itself into position to deploy the satellite. Once the satellite was deployed, any remaining fuel was then ejected before reentry, which caused the second stage to enter a spin before deorbiting and falling down to Earth in the Pacific ocean. The result was a cloud of frozen fuel crystals in the shape of a spiral, which were illuminated by sunlight, according to Spaceweather.com. 

This is not the first time that SpaceX rockets have caused dazzling light shows. In April 2022, the Subaru-Asahi Star Camera captured a shimmering spiral of light after SpaceX launched a spy satellite into orbit on another Falcon 9 rocket.  

The so-called "SpaceX spirals" are becoming "commonplace over the Pacific" because this is where most Falcon 9 rocket stages fall back to Earth, Spaceweather.com representatives wrote. 

Frozen rocket fuel has also created several other stunning visual anomalies in other parts of the globe. In March 2022, frozen fuel from a Chinese rocket created a large spinning orb of light that photobombed an aurora borealis in Alaska. In October 2017, an even larger blue orb was seen in the sky above Siberia, according to ScienceAlert. On that occasion, Russian military rocket tests left the frozen fuel in the area.

Hawaii's Mauna Loa, the world's largest active volcano, is erupting for the first time in nearly 40 years. 

Dozens of earthquakes — one of them a magnitude 4.2 quake — have swarmed the region after the volcano’s Moku'āweoweo summit caldera erupted on Sunday (Nov. 27) night. Officials have issued an ashfall advisory for Hawaii's Big Island and residents have been asked to remain vigilant. 

So far the eruption’s lava flows pose no risk to people living downhill from the eruption and air travel is currently unaffected, according to Hawaii's Tourism Agency.

"At this time, lava flows are contained within the summit area and are not threatening downslope communities," officials from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) wrote in a hazard notification. They warned, however, that, "based on past events, the early stages of a Mauna Loa eruption can be very dynamic and the location and advance of lava flows can change rapidly." 

Related: Deepest earthquake ever detected should have been impossible

The alert, issued in conjunction with USGS's Hawaiian Volcano Observatory (HVO), noted that the HVO is set to perform aerial reconnaissance flights as soon as possible "to assess hazards and better describe the eruption," and that "winds may carry volcanic gas and possibly fine ash and Pele's Hair downwind." Pele's hair are thin strands of volcanic glass formed from cooling lava, which can be carried aloft by strong winds and are sharp enough to lacerate skin and eyes.

Mauna Loa takes up more than half of Hawaii's Big Island and rises 13,679 feet (4,169 meters) above the Pacific Ocean, according to USGS. The volcano is fairly active, having erupted 33 times since its first well-documented eruption in 1843. Its last eruption was in 1984 when it sent a lava flow close to the city of Hilo. After that, Mauna Loa entered its longest dormant period in recorded history.

Warning signs of an eruption have gradually increased since September, as geologists tracked an uptick in earthquake frequency. This began with five to 10 earthquakes a day in June, and grew to up to around 40 a day in October. 

A team of marine biologists realized they definitely weren't in Kansas anymore after discovering what appeared to be a yellow brick road on top of an undersea mountain near Hawaii.

"The yellow brick road?" a scientist mused in a YouTube video of the discovery.

Others remarked that the rocks were reminiscent of a very different fictional world: "It's the road to Atlantis," one researcher said. 

The yellow rocks, divided from each other at neat 90-degree angles, form a narrow strip and look like they were carved and arranged by human hands.  However, the seemingly paved roadway was simply the natural result of ancient volcanic activity thousands of feet below the water's surface, the researchers said in a description below the video.

Related: Sunken cities: Discover real-life 'Atlantis' settlements hidden beneath the waves

"At the summit of Nootka Seamount, the team spotted a 'dried lake bed' formation, now IDed as a fractured flow of hyaloclastite rock (a volcanic rock formed in high-energy eruptions where many rock fragments settle to the seabed)," the researchers wrote.

The remarkably brick-like divisions between the rocks are likely the coincidental result of heating and cooling stresses from multiple volcanic eruptions over millions of years, the team added.

The researchers took a detour down this eerie undersea road while piloting a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) around the Papahānaumokuakea Marine National Monument, a protected conservation area encompassing about 582,578 square miles (1,508,870 square kilometers) of the Pacific Ocean northwest of Hawaii. The expedition is part of the Ocean Exploration Trust's Nautilus Exploration Program and aims to investigate the ancient seamounts near Liliʻuokalani Ridge, at the monument's western edge.

One of the team's main goals is to collect geological samples from the area's seamounts — underwater mountains formed by volcanic activity — to better understand their ages and origins. Learning this may also yield new insights into the formation of the Hawaiian Islands, the researchers wrote on the Nautilus website. The team will also collect microbial samples, to study what kinds of oddball organisms have managed to thrive near the deep, underwater volcanoes of the Pacific.

"Our exploration of this never-before-surveyed area is helping researchers take a deeper look at life on and within the rocky slopes of these deep, ancient seamounts," the researchers added.

Previous expeditions aboard the Nautilus research vessel have turned up plenty of unnerving marine oddities. During a 2018 excursion to the Papahānaumokuakea Marine National Monument, researchers were dumbfounded by a wriggling, googly-eyed creature that seemed to change shape while in front of the camera. Researchers later identified the creature as a gulper eel (Eurypharynx pelecanoides), an incredibly big-mouthed fish that can unhinge its massive jaw to swallow prey even larger than itself.

The researchers controlling the ROV during that expedition also responded to the strange sight before them with a cultural reference.

"Looks like a Muppet," one researcher said.

Originally published on Live Science.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) has removed 23 species from those protected under the Endangered Species Act because they have not been seen in the wild for decades, meaning they are most likely extinct. 

The delisted species include the ivory-billed woodpecker (Campephilus principalis), which was formerly the largest woodpecker in the U.S., reaching a max height of 20 inches (51 centimeters), as well as 10 other birds; eight freshwater mussel species; two freshwater fish species; a fruit bat species; and a plant species, according to a USFWS statement. 

These species had been listed as protected under the ESA since at least 1993, with several having been included in the very first draft of the ESA in 1973. Under the ESA, listed species and their habitats are protected and receive funding to ensure their continued survival. However, only one of the delisted species has had a confirmed sighting this century, and 21 of the 23 species haven't been seen since 1990, according to the USFWS. 

Related: Wipe out: History's 7 most mysterious extinctions

"Each of these 23 species represents a permanent loss to our nation's natural heritage and to global biodiversity," Bridget Fahey, the USFWS biologist in charge of classification for the ESA, told The New York Times. "And it's a sobering reminder that extinction is a consequence of human-caused environmental change."

However, some experts believe that certain species, particularly the ivory-billed woodpecker, may have been delisted prematurely. 

Disappearing birds 

Birds are most represented among the newly delisted species, as they have been hit hardest by habitat loss, according to the USFWS.

One of the most notable is a small, yellow bird called the Bachman's warbler (Vermivora bachmanii). The species was formerly found in Florida and South Carolina and migrated to Cuba in the winter and has not been seen in either country since 1988.

"Most of these [bird] species have long been suspected of being extinct," John Fitzpatrick, former head of ornithology at Cornell University, told Live Science. "The Hawaiian birds, especially, are definitively gone, so it makes sense to list them as extinct."

For example, the Kauai nukupuu (Hemignathus hanapepe) from Hawaii has not had a confirmed sighting since 1899 and can be identified only from paintings, according to the USFWS. However, Fitzpatrick disagrees that there is sufficient evidence to give up on another species: the ivory-billed woodpecker.

"In my opinion, sufficient doubt remains about the woodpecker, that listing it as extinct now is grossly premature," Fitzpatrick said.

The USFWS lists the last date of a confirmed ivory-billed woodpecker sighting in the U.S. as 1944. However, the USFWS has overlooked numerous unconfirmed sightings, including in photographs, as well as secondhand evidence, such as feathers, to suggest that these birds were alive until at least the turn of the century, Fitzpatrick said.

In 2005, Fitzpatrick led a study, published in the journal Science, that announced the rediscovery of the ivory-billed woodpecker, after several reported sightings and an analysis of video captured in Arkansas. 

The ivory-billed woodpecker "has always been a very elusive species, and if it exists at all today, its numbers are extremely tiny, limited to difficult places to investigate, and behaviorally evasive," Fitzpatrick said. "But this species is by no means definitively extinct and, therefore, should not be listed alongside all the other species that really are."

Even so, a lot of expeditions to search for the ivory-billed woodpecker have come up empty-handed, Elizabeth Bennett, Vice President, Species Conservation at the Wildlife Conservation Society, told Live Science.

Delisting species has pros and cons, of course. "It raises awareness that things really are going extinct, including these big spectacular things that we really care about like the ivory-billed woodpecker," that are also vital to the ecosystem, Bennett said. "But the downside is that it means any action and funding if those species do reappear is going to be hard to mobilize again."

Freshwater failures

Some of the most notable freshwater mussel species now considered extinct are the flat pigtoe (Pleurobema marshalli), formerly found in Mississippi, and the southern acornshell (Epioblasma othcaloogensis), formerly found in Alabama, Georgia and Tennessee. 

The southeastern U.S. has historically been a hotspot for freshwater mussel diversity and is home to more than half of global freshwater mussel species, according to USFWS. However, freshwater mussels require healthy rivers with clean water to survive and pollution from agricultural runoff and increased sediment input from climate-change-induced changes in rain and snowfall have affected river ecosystems significantly.

In December, a study using satellite imagery revealed that a third of U.S. rivers have changed color significantly over the past 36 years, turning from blue to yellow and green, which indicates that their water quality has decreased  Live Science previously reported.

Similarly, the two freshwater fish species that the USFWS says have gone extinct — the San Marcos gambusia (Gambusia georgei), from the San Marcos River in Texas, and the Scioto madtom (Noturus trautmani), from the Scioto River in Ohio — are believed to have suffered from ecosystem changes in their native rivers, according to the USFWS. 

Isolated islands 

Just under half of the recently delisted species were endemic to Hawaii and the Pacific Islands — nine from Hawaii, and two from Guam, including the Little Mariana fruit bat (Pteropus tokudae), also known as the Guam flying fox.

Extinctions in Hawaii and Guam are not surprising; species endemic to islands face a heightened risk of extinction due to their isolation and small geographic ranges, according to the USFWS.

As a result, more than 650 species protected under the ESA are endemic to Hawaii and the Pacific Islands, the most of any U.S. state, according to the USFWS.

"It's heartbreaking that Hawaii is known as the extinction capital of the world," Maxx Phillips, director of the Center for Biological Diversity's Hawaii program, said in a statement. "Despite making up 30% of the nation's listed species, our incredibly rare Hawaiian plants and animals receive less than 10% of the money appropriated for recovery."

Originally published on Live Science.

Kilauea volcano is erupting, sending lava and thread-like pieces of  volcanic glass, known as Pele's hair, into Hawaii's skies, according to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and the National Weather Service.

The eruption began at about 3:20 p.m. local Hawaii time Wednesday (Sept. 29), when the USGS Hawaiian Volcano Observatory detected a glow from its webcam at Kilauea summit. That glow indicated a lava eruption happening at Halema'uma'u crater — a pit crater nestled in the much larger Kilauea caldera, or crater.

The webcam footage also revealed fissures at the base of Halema'uma'u crater that were releasing lava flows onto the surface of the lava lake that had been active until May 2021, the USGS said in a statement. However, the eruption at Kilauea — located within Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, on Hawaii's Big Island — is confined to Halema'uma'u crater, meaning it's not currently a threat to the public. 

Related: Photos: Fiery lava from Kilauea volcano erupts on Hawaii's Big Island

"At this time, we don't believe anybody or any residents are in danger, but we do want to remind folks the park remains open," Cyrus Johnasen, a Hawaii County spokesperson, told Hawaii news station KHON2 on Sept. 29. "It will remain open until the evening. Please proceed with caution," especially for those with respiratory conditions, he added. 

However, the part of the park where the eruption is happening is currently closed to the public, according to the USGS.

Due to the eruption, the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory has elevated Kilauea's volcano alert level from "watch" to "warning" and its aviation color code from orange to red, which warns pilots about possible ash emissions. Those are the highest warning levels, meaning a "major volcanic eruption is imminent, underway or suspected, with hazardous activity both on the ground and in the air," according to the USGS. 

Meanwhile, several pilots flying aircraft near Kilauea Wednesday evening reported seeing volcanic glass known as Pele's hair, according to the National Weather Service. The golden, sharp strands of glass — named for Pele, the Hawaiian goddess of fire and volcanoes — form when gas bubbles within lava burst at the surface.

"The skin of the bursting bubbles flies out, and some of the skin becomes stretched into these very long threads, sometime[s] as long as a couple of feet [more than half a meter] or so," Don Swanson, a research geologist at the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory, previously told Live Science.

Pele's hair can be beautiful, but it poses a danger if it's ingested through drinking water, Swanson cautioned.

The current eruption is the latest of a long string of volcanic activity at Kilauea. At an elevation of 4,009 feet (1,222 m) aboveground, the shield-shaped volcano has a magma-pumping system that extends more than 37 miles (60 kilometers) below Earth, according to the USGS. Kilauea has erupted 34 times since 1952, and it erupted almost continuously from 1983 to 2018 along its East Rift Zone. A vent at Halema'uma'u crater was home to an active lava pond and a vigorous gas plume from 2008 to 2018. 

Kilauea's volcanic activity also made headlines in May 2018, when the lava lake at the summit caldera drained just as the Eastern Rift Zone revved to life with lava fountains and new fissures, whose lava created a red-hot river that destroyed hundreds of houses before draining into the ocean.

From December 2020 to May 2021, a summit eruption made a lava lake within Halema'uma'u crater, and in August 2021, a series of small earthquakes rattled the summit. 

Originally published on Live Science.

Kilauea volcano gave scientists and local Hawaiians a scare this week, when a swarm of more than 140 earthquakes in just 12 hours prompted authorities to  raise the alarm over a possible imminent eruption. 

But now, Kilauea's brief rumble is over; the volcano did not erupt and is barely registering any earthquakes, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) reported on Thursday (Aug. 26).

However, Kilauea's flare of activity set scientists on edge. The earthquake swarm occurred between 4:30 p.m. local time (10:30 p.m. EDT) Monday (Aug. 23) and 4:30 a.m. local time (10:30 a.m. EDT) Tuesday (Aug. 24) beneath the south part of Kilauea's summit caldera, with a peak in activity around 1:30 a.m. local time (7:30 a.m. EDT) Wednesday, according to the USGS. 

The earthquakes were tiny; most registered at below magnitude 1.0, with the most violent reaching magnitude 3.3. The tectonic activity also coincided with a shift in the ground formation to the west of the swarm, which the USGS said "may indicate an intrusion of magma occurring about 0.6 to 1.2 miles (1 to 2 kilometers) beneath the south caldera."

Related: The 10 biggest earthquakes in history

As a result, the USGS raised the alert level for Kilauea from advisory/yellow to watch/orange, meaning an eruption was possible but not immediately imminent. Throughout the ordeal, there was no evidence of lava at the surface of the caldera — a large depression formed at the summit of the volcano, which was created by a previous eruption. Moreover, scientists did not detect any unusual activity at either of the volcano's two rift zones — a set of linear cracks on the sides of vents that are a common feature of shield volcanoes — to the east and southwest, according to the National Park Service (NPS). Levels of sulfur dioxide and hydrogen sulfide, two toxic gases produced during eruptions, also remained low, according to the NPS. 

Scientists and local residents were able to breathe a sigh of relief on Thursday, when the USGS downgraded the alert level to Advisory/Yellow. This was in response to diminished earthquake and ground deformation activity, which is indicative of magma movement underground. 

"Within the past 24 hours, only 10 earthquakes have been detected in this area," the USGS said in a statement released Thursday. "These observations indicate that the immediate potential for an eruption is diminished at this time."

Kilauea, which is a shield volcano located on the Big Island of Hawaii, is one of the most active volcanoes on Earth. Like other shield-shaped volcanoes, it formed over hundreds of thousands of years as runny lava erupted and flowed down its gradual slopes. It has erupted 34 times since 1952, including for 35 years continuously at a single vent between 1983 and 2018, according to the Associated Press. The most recent eruption began Dec. 20, 2020, and ended May 23, 2021. Kilauea had been quiet since May, according to the USGS.  

However, earthquake swarms like the one just detected have preceded major eruptions in recent years. More than 600 earthquakes were recorded at Kilauea, including more powerful quakes of magnitude 5.0, before a massive eruption on May 3, 2018, that destroyed residential homes and roads in the nearby Puna district, Live Science previously reported. Prior to that eruption, geologists also noticed an intrusion of magma by the volcano. But even then, scientists weren't sure whether it would erupt. 

"That's the million-dollar question," Janet Babb, a geologist and Hawaiian Volcano Observatory spokesperson, told Live Science in 2018. "Magma can intrude in an area and never reach the surface. But an intrusion of magma can also result in an eruption."

Increased earthquake activity was also recorded before the start of the most recent eruption, Live Science previously reported.

Originally published on Live Science.

When humans build the first bases and habitats on other worlds, they'll confront dangers and challenges unlike any faced by the astronauts who went before them. To prepare for such challenges, scientists are descending deep underground into lava tubes in Hawaii that simulate conditions on rocky alien worlds. 

There, mission crew members navigate uneven volcanic terrain and endure the physical constraints of performing research in a hostile environment. Wearing bulky suits like those required for extraterrestrial exploration, the scientists study the geology and organisms found in lava tunnels and caverns at Hawaii's Mauna Loa volcano. 

This unique research station at Mauna Loa is run by the International Moon Base Alliance (IMBA), an association working toward developing the first international moon base, according to the IMBA website. It is part of the Hawaii Space Exploration Analog and Simulation (Hi-SEAS), which organizes analog missions for "astronaut" scientists, mimicking the experience of living on Mars and the moon. Director of the Hi-SEAS habitat, Michaela Musilova offered a glimpse of such missions in a March 19 presentation at the 52nd annual Lunar and Planetary Science Conference (LPSC), held virtually this year due to COVID-19.

Related: 6 reasons astrobiologists are holding out hope for life on Mars

During Hi-SEAS missions, teams of no more than six crew members live in a lava-dome habitat for weeks or months at a stretch. Though each has a designated role — such as commander, operations officer, crew engineer and science communicator — tasks are often shared among the crew as needed, Musilova told Live Science.

"We usually have multiple crew members that can do similar tasks, and if someone is hurt or tired, there's always someone that can replace them," she explained.

Resources such as food, water and power are very limited and are therefore strictly monitored — as would be the case on the moon or Mars — and crew members exit the habitat only after donning protective suits, helmets and life-support systems. Analog astronauts who enter Mauna Loa's network of lava tubes perform their research while wearing the suits, gathering critical data on lava tube geology and ecosystems. Their work also sheds light on the difficulties of conducting science in extreme environments, according to the LPSC presentation. (Chelsea Gohd, a reporter at Live Science sister site Space.com, participated in a simulated Mars mission at Hi-SEAS in November 2020, and you can read her mission updates here.) 

"I've run almost 30 analog missions there since 2018," said Musilova, who is also an astrobiologist and serves as crew commander for the Hi-SEAS missions. "We have to prepare for everything in as much detail as you can, because in space, so many things can go wrong — even the smallest things can affect the mission and cost someone their life," she said.

Extreme life

Lava tubes on the moon and Mars are thought to be promising locations for finding signs of extraterrestrial life, and studying Mauna Loa's lava tubes could provide clues about extremophiles — organisms that thrive under extreme conditions — on other worlds. To that end, Hi-SEAS is partnering with NASA to study Mauna Loa's extremophiles, which create deposits in the lava tubes.

Sampling and studying these organisms and their by-products could reveal how different factors influence the behavior and survival of extremophiles in lava tube systems across the solar system, she explained.

But another important consideration when looking for life on the moon and Mars will be the physical toll of that work on human astronauts. Microbiology samples are easily contaminated, and performing sensitive tasks becomes much more challenging when wearing cumbersome gear, according to the report.

"Even without an analog spacesuit, it can take hours to collect certain samples when you're trying to do it carefully," Musilova told Live Science. "Now, you add a spacesuit. It restricts your movement and vision — you can only bend your head or turn it so much, because of the helmet. You can only bend and kneel on the ground so much, because of the way that the life-support system is attached to your helmet from your backpack. So you're very limited in what you can do." 

"The more we can prepare on Earth for what we're planning on doing in space, the better," Musilova said.

Originally published on Live Science.

Sprites and jets are fleeting atmospheric phenomena, hard enough to witness, let alone photograph. 

But a new image from an observatory in Hawaii captures both a red sprite and a blue jet in the same shot. The photo, released on Feb. 24, comes courtesy a "cloud cam" at the Gemini North telescope, part of the International Gemini Observatory located on Maunakea. 

Sprites and jets are upper-atmospheric phenomena caused by electrical discharges. Sprites, which are typically reddish-orange and sometimes blue-green, occur in the mesosphere, between 30 and 50 miles (50 and 80 kilometers) in altitude. They're often triggered by regular, lower-altitude lightning, but are much cooler in temperature. They're also sometimes shaped like jellyfish. Blue jets also occur at high altitude, triggered by a discharge of electricity from the positively-charged upper portion of a storm cloud to the negatively-charged cloud top, according to a paper published Jan. 20 in the journal Nature. They typically appear as blue streamers shooting spaceward. 

Related content: Elves, sprites and blue jets: Nature's weirdest lightning

The camera that captured the red sprite and blue jet was a modified consumer-grade DSLR (digital single-lens reflex), customized to take photographs within a fraction of a second to 30 seconds after lightning strikes. The cameras are mounted on the roof of the observatory, pointed toward the most likely locations of incoming storms. The Gemini North Observatory sits at 13,800 feet (4,200 meters), affording a fabulous view of the surrounding weather.

Though sprites and jets are rarely witnessed from the ground, they're not uncommon above thunderstorms. In 2017, an astronaut aboard the International Space Station witnessed 245 blue flashes in 160 seconds over one storm. Scientists debate whether these phenomena are simply transient or whether they have any lasting effects. For example, if their passage alters the chemistry of the upper atmosphere, they might have an effect on the ozone layer, researcher Hans Stenbaek-Nielsen of the University of Alaska at Fairbanks told Live Science in 2011.

Studying sprites and jets is difficult, physicist Ryan Haaland of Fort Lewis College in Colorado told Live Science in 2015. Scientists take measurements from ground-based observatories and sometimes fly specially-instrumented research aircraft close to storms to detect them. But as the phenomena last just tens of milliseconds, they remain mysterious.

Originally published on Live Science.

A new satellite image has captured the stunning white peaks of two volcanoes on the Big Island in Hawaii, which have experienced their second-most extensive snow coverage since current records began. 

The high-resolution image — snapped on Feb. 6  by the Operational Land Imager (OLI) onboard the Landsat-8 satellite — shows the striking contrast between the snow-covered peaks of Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa and the surrounding volcanic rock.

The OLI, is a joint venture between NASA and the U.S. Geological Survey, and the new image was recently released by NASA's Earth Observatory.

Snow and Hawaii may seem like an oxymoron, but the frozen precipitation falls in Hawaii quite a lot. The volcanic peaks of the dormant Mauna Kea and active Mauna Loa — both over 13,600 feet (4,200 meters) above sea leve, with Mauna Kea being taller by just 125 feet (38 m) — receive at least a light dusting every year, according to NASA’s Earth Observatory.

This year, heavy storms have blanketed the peaks in snow three times in the last three weeks, beginning Jan. 18, resulting in their second-biggest covering of snow since record keeping began in 2000. Haleakalā, an active volcano on the island of Maui which has not erupted for around 400 years, which stands at 10,000 feet (3,000 m), also received a rare covering of snow on Feb. 3, which has since melted away.

Related: Big blasts: History's 10 most destructive volcanoes

Residents of the Big Island have enjoyed the snow by swapping out their surfboards for snowboards to do some carving on what they refer to as "pineapple powder" before it disappears, according to Weatherboy. 

Snow in Hawaii also means that every U.S. state, except Florida, has now seen snowfall this winter, according to The Weather Channel.

Changing winds

Snow in Hawaii occurs as the result of a significant change in wind direction from a localized weather phenomenon known as a "Kona low," a Polynesian term that translates to "leeward storm."

During this phenomenon, cyclones caused by low-pressure systems to the north of the islands reverse the usual northeastern trade winds to a southwestern direction. This draws up water from the Pacific Ocean into storm clouds which get pushed over the islands. Cold air is also pushed across the islands which lowers the temperature at the peaks below freezing and causes snow to fall; that precipitation falls as rain across the rest of the island. 

Kona lows can also occur in the summer months, meaning it can snow in Hawaii during the summer, too, according to AccuWeather.

In addition to capturing beautiful images of the snow, satellites also measure it. NASA's Terra satellite has been calculating the Normalized Difference Snow Index (NDSI) — the most accurate measurement for snow coverage that can currently be achieved — on the Big Island since 2000. The NDSI uses measurements of both visible light and shortwave infrared to differentiate snow from clouds, which can appear identical from space, according to National Snow & Ice Data Center. 

The NDSI for Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa usually reaches its peak in the first week of February. This year, it was the highest NDSI since 2014 and the second-highest in the 21-year record. 

However, the days of regular Hawaii snowfall may be numbered.

A 2017 study led by the International Pacific Research Center (IPRC) at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, using satellite data and computer models, predicted that snowfall on the volcanoes is likely to diminish throughout the rest of the century due to rising temperatures caused by climate change.

"Unfortunately, the projections suggest that future average winter snowfall will be ten times less than present-day amounts, virtually erasing all snow cover," lead author Chunxi Zhang, a meteorologist at IPRC, said in a statement at the time.

Originally published on Live Science.

In what might be the last UFO sighting of 2020, a glowing blue blob streaked across the night sky and crashed into the waters by Oahu, Hawaii, on Dec. 29, according to news reports.

Multiple people on the ground saw the blue flying object, with some recording it; those reports and calls to 911 led the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to investigate the sighting.

However, FAA officials weren't able to shed much light on the mystery, saying there weren't any aircraft incidents or accidents reported in that area when the UFO sped by at about 8:30 p.m. local time, according to Hawaii News Now.

Related: Flying saucers to mind control: 22 declassified military & CIA secrets

Shaky, blurry footage of the blue light was posted to YouTube on Monday (Jan. 4). 

The strange incident has led to speculations about aliens and crashed aircraft, as well as more benign explanations; one person on Twitter wondered whether it was an LED kite, New Delhi Television reported.

A 38-year-old woman who goes by Moriah saw the bright blue object, which she said was as long as a telephone pole, whizzing over Princess Kahanu Estates on the western coast of Oahu. "I look up and then I was like oh s***!" she told Hawaii News Now. 

Moriah said she began filming and jumped into the car with her family, following the bright light for 3 miles (5 kilometers) before watching it silently plummet into the ocean. 

Shortly after they called 911, an officer arrived. That's when Moriah and her husband spotted another light. "My husband went 'Look up,'" she told Hawaii News Now. "The white one was smaller — was coming in the same direction as the blue one." But they weren't able to track that light after it disappeared over a nearby mountain.

Local police said they didn't have any additional information about the event, Hawaii News Now reported. While it's unknown what caused these mysterious lights, it's not uncommon for people to mistake human-made or natural objects — including lightning, missile tests, balloons and even Venus — for UFOs, Live Science previously reported. 

And though this might be the last UFO sighting of 2020, we can't wait to see what 2021 brings.

Originally published on Live Science.

Cameras on the backs of baby humpback whales have captured a rare glimpse of moms nursing their calves. 

In addition to a camera, the suction-cup tags also carry an acoustic recorder, depth sensor and accelerometer, which together, collect data on the behavior, movement and breathing patterns of the whales. Researchers also deployed drones to simultaneously watch the graceful creatures from above and observe their size and body condition. 

The team, which includes scientists from the University of Hawaii at Mānoa Marine Mammal Research Program, the Stanford University Hopkins Marine Station and the University of California, Santa Cruz, is interested in finding out how often and for how long the calves nurse — a behavior that's tricky for researchers to observe from the surface. 

Related: Watch rare footage of whales blowing 'bubble nets' to capture prey in a vortex of doom

"We can actually see what these animals are seeing and encountering and experiencing themselves," Lars Bejder, the director of the Marine Mammal Research Program, said in a statement. "Itʻs quite unique and rare footage that we're obtaining, which is allowing us to quantify these nursing and suckling bouts that are so important."

About 100,000 humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae) visit the crystal clear waters off the coast of Maui, Hawaii, between January and March each year. The whales spend this time exclusively breeding, and they rely solely on energy stored from their previous summer feeding season in Alaska. 

The data collected in this study will provide important insights into the nutritional needs of humpback mothers and calves while they're hanging out in their Maui breeding grounds. 

Humpback whale research in Hawaii is a largely collaborative effort. Tag deployment and retrieval were made possible with help from local whale conservation and ecotourism groups.  

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Originally published on Live Science.

Toxoplasma gondii, a "mind-controlling" parasite that causes the disease toxoplasmosis, has been found in public lands in Oahu, Hawaii for the first time, researchers have discovered. 

Though this parasite was previously found in people and in wildlife on the Hawaiian islands, it was unknown in Oahu's parks. And it hitchhiked there in free-ranging cats, which are a non-native species and are known hosts of the parasite. Thanks, cats.

Though, to be fair, cats aren't really to blame; people are the ones who first brought cats to the island and then allowed them to roam free. Felines that were abandoned then bred in the wild and formed feral colonies. These cat communities now threaten to expose local wildlife to a harmful and potentially deadly parasite, scientists wrote in a new study.

Related: 7 strange facts about the 'mind-control' parasite Toxoplasma gondii

Toxoplasma gondii is transmitted from cats to other animals — including humans — when cats expel the parasite in feces, in a capsulelike eggs, or oocysts. Once T. gondii oocysts enter a new host they transform to an actively multiplying form called tachyzoites, which can replicate so quickly that they overwhelm the host's immune system and lead to serious health problems.

One of the ways that Toxoplasma gondii affects mice and rats is by tweaking their brain chemistry to change their behavior. Rodents typically avoid cats, but under T. gondii's "mind control" they seek out felines. And that's exactly what T. gondii wants, because the infected rats need to be ingested by cats in order for T. gondii to complete its life cycle. 

And cats' impact on native wildlife doesn't stop with mind-controlling parasites; they are also highly efficient and deadly predators. Cats kill an estimated 2.4 billion birds per year in the U.S. alone, according to the Hawaii Invasive Species Council (HISC). They have contributed to the extinction of 33 island species and are recognized as the principal threat to 8% of all critically endangered reptiles, birds and mammals worldwide, according to the HISC.

Researchers recently looked for feral cat colonies and signs of Toxoplasma gondii at 32 locations on Oahu's parks and public lands inhabited by native bird species. They identified 25 cat colonies near places where native birds were plentiful. The exact number of cats in each colony was uncertain, but the scientists spotted roughly 23 cats on average at every location. Humans were feeding cats at most of these colonies, evidence suggested.

The scientists also gathered 56 fecal samples from four of the cat colonies. Three out of four of those colonies had cats shedding T. gondii, with about 10% of the samples testing positive for T. gondii. 

"The high percentage of T. gondii-positive feces samples suggests that Oahu's cats are contributing large quantities of this infectious parasite to parks and neighborhoods across the island," study co-author Grant Sizemore, the director of Invasive Species Programs at American Bird Conservancy, said in a statement. 

"What's particularly worrying is that these hardy oocysts move through the environment with the potential to infect any warm-blooded species in terrestrial, freshwater or marine ecosystems," he said.

As the team collected feces at only four locations, it's likely that T. gondii is even more widespread on Oahu — "and possibly other islands" — and poses an even greater threat to vulnerable native wildlife, the study authors reported.

"Our results should be considered an absolute minimum, and the occurrence of T. gondii in Oahu's environment is almost certainly higher," they wrote.

The findings were published online April 9 in the journal Conservation Science and Practice.

Editor's note: This article was updated on April 16 to clarify that while T. gondii had previously been found in humans and wildlife in Hawaii, this new evidence is the first to identify the parasite on public lands, and to link that presence to domestic cats.

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Originally published on Live Science.

Just like zits, volcanic islands don't last forever. Some are oldtimers, like the more than 20-million-year-old Canary Islands in the Atlantic, while others have already drowned, like some of the Galapagos Islands in the Pacific.

Why do some islands hit the longevity jackpot? The answer has to do with two factors; tectonic-plate speed and mantle-plume size, according to a new study published online Jan. 1 in the journal Science Advances.

These factors bode well for Hawaii, which was dealt a good hand in terms of lifespan, the researchers noted.

Related: Photos: Fiery Lava from Kilauea Volcano Erupts on Hawaii's Big Island

Volcanic islands form when hot plumes of rock rise out of the Earth's mantle, piercing the crust. As tectonic plates move,  but plumes stay in place, more islands can form, leading to chains known as archipelagos. 

However, Earth's relentless forces, such as waves and wind, constantly batter islands, eventually causing them to drown in the sea. Until now, it wasn't clear exactly what factors led some islands to live longer than others. 

Island time

To investigate, researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology looked at 14 major volcanic island chains around the world. They looked at the direction and speed the islands' tectonic plates were moving relative to the hotspot underneath. In addition, the research team measured the length of each swell, which is formed when the mantle plume raises the seafloor around the island, making it shallower than the surrounding seafloor. 

Then, the researchers divided the swells' lengths by their plate velocity. The resulting number showed the average time a volcanic island spent on top of a plume's swell, which in turn determined how long that island would remain above water.

When the team compared their calculations to the actual ages of each island, including drowned ones, they found a strong correlation between time spent on top of a swell and time spent above sea level. In essence, their results showed that a volcanic island's lifespan depends on its tectonic plate's speed and the size of the plume, or the swell it generated.

Put another way, if an island forms on a fast-moving tectonic plate, it will likely have a short lifespan, the researchers said. However, if there is a large plume, as the Hawaiian islands have, then the lifespan is much longer.

Hawaii is lucky in this regard; The islands sit on the fast-moving Pacific plate, but their plume is enormous — one of the largest plumes on Earth, the researchers said. Because the plume was so big, it took a long time for the plate to slide over it, ensuring the islands' longevity. 

The Galapagos Islands also sit on fast-moving tectonic plates, but they're situated over a much smaller plume, the scientists said. Meanwhile, the Canary Islands, one of the oldest known island chains in the world, sit on the slow-moving Atlantic plate, on top of a relatively big plume.

An island's lifespan plays a role in how its plants and animals evolve.

"If an island spends a long time above sea level, that provides a long time for speciation to play out," study lead researcher Kimberly Huppert, a former MIT graduate student of geology, said in a statement. (She is now a senior research scientist at the GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences in Potsdam, Germany.) "But if you have an island chain where you have islands that drown at a faster rate, then it will affect the ability of fauna to radiate to neighboring islands."

In some sense, tectonic speed and plume size can help scientists better understand evolution. 

"The Galapagos is a very fast-moving treadmill, with islands moving off very quickly, with not a long time to erode, and this was the system that led to people discovering evolution," study co-researcher Leigh Royden, professor of Earth, atmospheric and planetary sciences at MIT, said in the statement.

Some of these so-called treadmills move faster than others, however.

"What Kim [Huppert] has shown is, there's a geophysical mechanism that controls how fast this treadmill is moving and how long the island chains go before they drop off the end," study co-researcher Taylor Perron, associate head of MIT's Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences, said in the statement.

The research was paid for, in part, by NASA.

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Originally published on Live Science.

After weeks spent surveying an area of ocean about the size of Houston, historians aboard the research vessel Petrel spotted the wreckage of a World War II ship on the floor of the Pacific. 

The Japanese vessel, a flagship carrier called Kaga, sank on June 4, 1942, during the Battle of Midway, a U.S. victory and major turning point in the war, the Associated Press reported. 

"You see the damage these things took, and it's humbling to watch some of the video of these vessels, because they're war graves," historian Frank Thompson told the Associated Press. Thompson, a historian with the Naval History and Heritage Command in Washington, D.C., was onboard the Petrel when the crew discovered the sunken ship. The Kaga sank after taking fire from 30 dive bombers and two torpedoes from an American submarine, the USS Nautilus. Researchers found it more than 17,000 feet (5,400 meters) beneath the ocean surface, according to a video released by the Petrel crew. 

Related: The Pacific War: WWII in the East

The Kaga joins a list of 30 other warships uncovered by the research vessel Petrel, a 250-foot-long (76 meters) vessel whose crew has been tasked with locating historically significant shipwrecks and exploring underwater ecosystems, according to the R/V Petrel website. Funded by the estate of late Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, the crew collaborates with the U.S. Navy and international authorities to explore underwater military gravesites and help solve lingering mysteries about WWII battles.

The Battle of Midway stands out as a decisive confrontation between Japanese and U.S. forces in the Pacific, but many artifacts from the clash have yet to be recovered, according to the AP.

"This mission is unique because we're surveying an entire battlefield," Rob Kraft, director of undersea operations for Vulcan Inc., the company that operates the Petrel, told the AP in a video interview. "This is one of the largest battles of World War II. … The information we have is limited, but the battlefield itself was extremely large."

The Battle of Midway took place between warships and aircraft near Midway Atoll, a group of islands about 1,300 miles (2,090 kilometers) northwest of Honolulu. Japanese forces intended to launch an attack in secret, but U.S. cryptographers decoded covert Japanese correspondence leading up to the attack, according to The National WWII Museum. 

Raging for several days, the battle took more than 3,000 Japanese and 360 U.S. lives. The Japanese lost four aircraft carriers, the Akagi, Soryu, Hiryu and Kaga; one cruiser, the Mikuma; and several hundred aircraft. The U.S. lost one carrier, the USS Yorktown; one destroyer, the USS Hammann; and 144 aircraft. Before the Kaga discovery, the only other sunken ship that researchers had found was the Yorktown, the AP reported. 

The Petrel crew found the Kaga wreck within the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument, an area of more than 580,000 square miles (1.5 million square kilometers) of the Pacific Ocean, according to the monument website. The vessel launched its two onboard robots, an autonomous underwater vehicle and a remotely operated vehicle, all charged with investigating and collecting video footage of the scene. 

(You can read more about the discovery at the Associated Press.) 

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 Originally published on Live Science.

Hawaii's Kilauea volcano, which just quieted down after a 30-year active stint, harbors a previously unknown patch of water at the bottommost part of its crater, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. And it might have the potential to trigger explosive eruptions in the future.

A couple of weeks ago, a helicopter pilot flying over Kilauea noticed a small, green patch at the bottom of the volcano's crater. The pilot alerted his friend of the mysterious find, who then told his friend, Don Swanson, scientist emeritus at the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory, part of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS).

On Aug. 1, scientists from the observatory flew over the site and confirmed that what they were seeing was in fact water. This is the first time water has been found to exist on the volcano. [Photos: Fiery Lava from Kilauea Volcano Erupts on Hawaii's Big Island]

More recent observations revealed that the patch of water actually consisted of three separate ponds, the largest of which is between 36 and 46 feet (11 to 14 meters) wide — with unknown depths, Swanson said.

The ponds most likely formed from groundwater seeping in through cracks in the rocks, Swanson said. Last year's large, damaging eruptions led to the collapse of the floor of the crater at the top of the volcano; the crater is now more than 1,000 feet (300 meters) deeper than what it was before the eruption. With this new access to groundwater, the ponds will likely continue to grow, he said.

"We have no reason to think that the ponds won't coalesce and grow into something that maybe would be large enough to be called a lake," Swanson told Live Science. "This is assuming that no eruption destroys it, of course."

An eruption could vaporize the water, which could be carried away as a steam cloud, he said. But if this doesn't happen, and the ponds keep growing larger, they could cause explosive eruptions, as the fast-rising magma rapidly heats that water into steam, Swanson said.

Such steam would then expand, break up the magma into tiny pieces called volcanic ash and eject them into the air, he said. What's more, if the magma was already filled with gas bubbles, they would also expand and help drive the explosion.

Either scenario could occur, and a combination of both could even arise, he said.

"We don't see anything in our monitoring data that might suggest an eruption is imminent," Swanson said. "One will certainly occur again — there's almost no doubt about that." Kilaeau has always been stir-crazy, and throughout its history, it has gone through periods of explosive and nonexplosive, slower eruptions. It's been in this relatively calmer state for the past couple hundred years. 

"Although the explosion potential is there, it's very unlikely that it's going to be in the near term, because there's so little water in the ponds now," Swanson said. "What we're talking about is long term," or years before this would be of concern.

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Originally published on Live Science.

Native Hawaiian groups are protesting and peacefully blocking construction of the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) on Mauna Kea, the dormant volcano and sacred site that's the highest point in the Hawaiian Islands.

Since July 17, thousands of activists have peacefully blocked the road leading to the site, dancing, singing and stymying construction of the $1.4 billion instrument. Dozens of Hawaiians were arrested during the protests July 17, according to the Honolulu Star Advertiser, after Gov. David Ige issued an emergency proclamation. Actors Dwayne Johnson and the Hawaii-born Jason Momoa (best known for his roles in "Aquaman" and "Game of Thrones") have both joined the protestors.

Johnson visited the protests July 24 and met with opponents of the telescope construction, later appearing on "The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon" and saying, "The truth is, this mountain is their church — like building on their church."

A post shared by therock (@therock) on Jul 27, 2019 at 11:53am PDT

Momoa joined the protests July 31 with his children — Lola, 10, and Nakoa-Wolf, 12 — saying of the TMT, "There's one thing that's not gonna happen — they're not building it here," according to Hawaii News Now.

The underlying conflict around the TMT has gone on for years in the form of legal battles and periodic protests. The TMT project won final approval from the state's supreme court in 2017 and was slated to begin construction on July 15. Astronomers involved in the project have pointed to the scientific benefits the gargantuan telescope could offer; it's expected to take images that are 12 times sharper than what the Hubble Space Telescope captures. Proponents also point to the benefits offered by the observatories already constructed on the volcano. Indigenous activists and their supporters have pointed to the environmental and cultural problems the telescope poses, arguing that native groups were not sufficiently consulted in the process of planning the instrument.

"We are taking a stand not only to protect our 'mauna' and 'aina,' our land, who we have a genealogical connection to," protestor Kaho'okahi Kanuha told CNN. "We are fighting to protect it because we know if we cannot stop this, there is not very much we can fight for or protect. … This is our last stand."

Inside Higher Ed reported that Mauna Kea is revered as the "realm of the Hawaiian gods." It was, historically, a place only priests and royalty — deposed with the help of 300 U.S. marines in the 1890s — were allowed to visit.

Astronomers selected the Mauna Kea site, according to a TMT statement, after a "rigorous" five-year search for a place above the clouds that is stable, dry and protected from light pollution.

Brent Tully, a University of Hawaii astronomer involved in the TMT project, told Inside Higher Ed that Mauna Kea is "unrivaled as the best place north of the equator for ground-based observations" and "the planet's gift to humanity as a place to observe the heavens."

He acknowledged that Hawaiians "have a legitimate grievance with the loss of their independence as a sovereign nation," adding that it's unfortunate that the TMT has become "embroiled in the sovereignty issue." The construction became a sovereignty issue because it touches on who makes decisions regarding sacred Hawaiian land.

Henry Yang, chair of the TMT's board of governors, said in a July 10 statement, the most recent official statement from the observatory, "We have learned much over the last 10-plus years on the unique importance of Mauna Kea to all, and we remain committed to being good stewards on the mountain and inclusive of the Hawaiian community."

The language of "stewardship" used by the TMT is part of the problem that Hawaiians see with the project, Iokepa Casumbal-Salazar, an indigenous studies professor at Ithaca College in New York, said during an April webinar hosted by the Union of Concerned Scientists, according to Space.com.

"If we don't take into account the ways in which scientists who practice their work on Mauna Kea today are inheritors of the privileges that were established for them through U.S. militarism … it will be impossible to understand why Hawaiians stand against the astronomy expansion," Casumbal-Salazar said.

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Hard to express how strong the mana and how heavy the heart was when I walked this sacred land with these people - our people. This issue is much greater than a thirty meter telescope to be constructed on the Mauna. It’s humanity and compassion. Its respect for culture and approaching this with deep care and sensitivity. I’ll always be strong advocate for the advancement of science and technology, but never at the sacrifice of human beings who’s hearts are hurting thru mismanagement and breach of trust. I believe in forward progress, but only when it comes thru humanity. I don’t believe in leaving people behind, I believe in bringing people with us. The best of leaders find a way to make progress thru humanity and will always lead with empathy. I’m hopeful that leader will emerge to take care of the thing that matters most in this situation - the people. I appreciate the views shared with me from reps on both sides of this issue. It’s always healthy and critical to have open heart to heart dialogue. In the end, I stand with the people. #ProgressThruHumanity #LeadWithEmpathy #MaunaKea

A post shared by therock (@therock) on Jul 27, 2019 at 11:53am PDT

Building the nearly 100-foot-wide mirror of the TMT will mean moving a significant amount of earth on Mauna Kea, a requirement that leaves little of the environmental impacts up for negotiation, Christophe Dumas, TMT observatory scientist and head of operations, told Physics Today.

Some astronomers and astrophysicists have raised questions about the project. As of this writing, 150 astronomers from TMT-affiliated institutions and 947 astronomers from non-TMT-affiliated institutions (including professors and students) have signed a letter calling for police and military forces to leave the site, writing, "We write today not to place a value judgment on the future of TMT on Maunakea, but to question the methods by which we are getting the telescope on the mountain in the first place."

University of New Hampshire astrophysicist Chanda Prescod-Weinstein and University of California, San Diego biologist Keolu Fox (now a visiting professor at the University of Hawaii), wrote in The Nation that "far from some replay of an ancient clash between tradition and modernity, this is a battle between the old ways of doing science, which rely on forceful extraction (whether of natural resources or data), and a new scientific method, which privileges the dignity and humanity of indigenous peoples.

"If we were to examine each stage of approval in the process of developing the TMT, it seems painfully obvious that the long legacy of colonialism played a significant role in determining which stakeholders had a seat at the table and which ones didn't," the two professors added.

Astronomers behind the TMT continue to insist that the project should go forward in Hawaii, but in 2016, they selected La Palma in Spain's Canary Islands as an "excellent" alternative for performing the telescope's core science operations, noting good relations with the alternative host country. (Momoa wrote "TMT + Canary Islands = Discovery" on his own chest and "TMT + Mauna Kea = Desecration" on Nakoa-Wolf's.)

Right now, other telescopes already on Mauna Kea are offline, as staff have left the site during the protests.

Editor's note: This story was updated to note the 150 signatories of the letter from TMT-affiliated institutions. Thanks to Eric Gaidos, a researcher at the University of Hawaii, for identifying the omission.

Originally published on Live Science.

Back in 2013, Tamu Massif — a giant underwater volcano off the coast of Japan — stole Hawaii's crown as the largest single volcano in the world. But it's not a true single volcano at all.

Researchers published a paper in 2013 in the journal Nature Geoscience concluding that Tamu Massif was a giant "shield volcano" — even bigger than Hawaii's Mauna Loa, which rises 30,085 feet (9,170 meters) from the ocean floor and covers thousands of square miles with its ancient, solidified magma flows. Now, in a new paper, researchers conclude that the 2013 paper was wrong, and Tamu Massif isn't a shield volcano. The crown, according to this new research, returns to Mauna Loa.

Shield volcanoes form when a single volcanic plume spills enough lava over time, and that lava spreads far enough, to form a bulge-shaped mountain around the volcano's opening. Mauna Loa is a shield volcano. So are most of the much smaller volcanoes in Iceland. (Cone-shaped volcanoes, like Mount St. Helens, aren't shields but "stratovolcanoes.") In 2013, researchers thought that Tamu Massif formed in this same way. But the new paper suggests they're wrong. [5 Colossal Cones: Biggest Volcanoes on Earth]

Tamu Massif is a shallow volcanic system, with gently sloping sides; it extends about 400 miles (650 kilometers) wide, rising about 2.5 miles (4 km) tall. The massive underwater volcano lies along part of the mid-ocean ridge system, the world-encircling series of boundaries between different tectonic plates. This enormous system is, in a sense, the true largest volcano in the world, because magma can bulge upward and spill out as lava on top of the crust all along its range. But that volcanism doesn't look like the volcanism that forms a shield volcano.

Though Tamu Massif sits along the ridge, researchers thought it formed when a plume of magma burst from its center and flowed outward as lava to cool. That's why they claimed in 2013 it was a single-shield volcano. Now, researchers think it formed when, as part of the ridge's ongoing volcanism, magma squeezed its way slowly up into the crust, causing material that was already there to bulge and spread outward across the seafloor.

The evidence for this is magnetic anomalies — magnetic field lines the researchers detected in Tamu Massif that follow the arrangement of other field lines of the ridge, not the magnetism you'd expect from a shield volcano.

This means that rather than being a single, self-generated volcano placed along the ridge, Tamu Massif is just a part of the ridge system, which forms underwater mountains all over the world. Mauna Loa reigns supreme.

The paper documenting this work was published July 8 in Nature Geoscience.

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Originally published on Live Science.

On Wednesday evening (May 1), a man plummeted into Hawaii's Kīlauea caldera — and survived.

The man had climbed over a railing at the Steaming Bluff overlook to get closer to the edge of the cliff, which dropped down 300 feet (91 meters) into the caldera. At about 6:30 p.m. local time, he lost his footing and fell, according to a statement from the National Park Service.

A search team found the man a couple of hours later "alive, but seriously injured," according to the statement. He had fallen onto a narrow ledge about 70 feet (21 m) down from the cliff's edge. Using ropes, a stretcher and a helicopter, the rescue team airlifted the man to Hilo Medical Center. [Photos: Fiery Lava from Kilauea Volcano Erupts on Hawaii's Big Island]

Army officials said he was a Schofield Barracks soldier who was on a training mission in Pohakuloa, Hawaii. The 32-year-old man was in stable condition on Thursday, according to Hawaii News Now. 

Kīlauea, though not currently erupting, is one of the most active volcanoes on the planet — just last year, a large eruption destroyed 700 homes and forced thousands of people to evacuate. 

"Visitors should never cross safety barriers, especially around dangerous and destabilized cliff edges," John Broward, the chief ranger at Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, said in the statement. "Crossing safety barriers and entering closed areas can result in serious injuries and death."

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Originally published on Live Science.

An enormous male sperm whale carcass that looks like the world's biggest marshmallow has been haunting the beaches of Oahu, Hawaii, for the past month. Now, scientists are taking advantage of the dead sperm whale's close proximity to the shore and using it as an opportunity to learn more about these large marine mammals.

The floating, bloated white carcass first showed up on Jan. 10 near Oahu's south shore. Twice, authorities towed the carcass out to sea in an effort to keep it away from the beach. "The thinking is that they [whale carcasses] often have sharks feeding on them, and if they get close to a beach, they could get close to shore where people are swimming," said Kristi West, director of the marine mammal stranding program at the Hawai'i Institute of Marine Biology.

But after both tows, just days later, the carcass returned to shore. After the second attempt failed, authorities decided to leave the carcass where it landed, on a remote beach on Oahu's west side that's not frequented by swimmers. [Whale Album: Giants of the Deep]

During its floating journey around Oahu, the whale carcass was in a pretty advanced state of decomposition, appearing like a slightly cooked, puffy marshmallow. That's because the whale's outer layer of gray-colored skin very quickly sloughed off after it died, revealing the top of the whale's thick, white blubber layer, West said.

"When they're [whales] alive and well, you wouldn't see the white," she said. Inside the carcass, gases were released that caused the abdominal cavity to expand outward. "That explains the balloon look."

Bloated, white whale carcasses aren't researchers' favorite form of marine mammals to examine because it means the animal has been dead for quite a while. Not only are they really smelly and kind of gross, but "we can't do all the testing we could do on a really fresh [dead] whale that strands," West said.

Nonetheless, West and her colleagues are doing their best to learn what they can about the animal and why it died. "We've been monitoring it every day," she said.

The whale is positioned right along the shoreline, so during a recent low tide, scientists worked quickly to necropsy the abdomen of the whale. They were most interested in the whale's stomach contents, West said. The researchers found no evidence of plastic or marine debris ingestion, which has been known to cause harm to sperm whales and other whale species around the world. Instead, the whale's stomach was empty, "so that tells us the animal hadn't foraged," West said.

West and her colleagues suspect that the empty stomach means the animal was probably sick when it died. Sperm whales dive thousands of feet to hunt their preferred prey: deep-water squid and octopuses. These marine giants consume about 2,000 lbs. (900 kilograms) of food each day, according to the American Cetacean Society, and it takes a lot of energy to catch that much prey. If this sperm whale wasn't in good health, it wouldn't have had the energy to hunt, West said.

The necropsy also allowed the researchers to take measurements and estimate that the whale was about 55 feet (16.7 meters) long, which is around the maximum size for a male sperm whale, West said. As the carcass continues to decompose, West and her team will examine the whale's bone material to determine if the creature was struck by a ship. But so far, not enough bone has been exposed to definitively say there was a ship strike.

When people come across a dead marine mammal, they should be sure to let authorities know immediately so that researchers can examine the animal as soon as possible, West said. "As the decomposition goes on and on, there's less detailed information that we can gain from these animals that live far out at sea," she said. "We really depend on the public to report them."

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Originally published on Live Science.

A fleet of floating robots has figured out why the Galápagos Islands exist. And, according to the robots' creators, the discovery could help explain why the Earth isn't a floating ball of ice.

The Galápagos Islands are a volcanic archipelago in the Pacific Ocean, about 600 miles (1,000 kilometers) off the coast of Ecuador. The islands are most famous as hosts to a large number of species not found anywhere else in the world, which helped the biologist Charles Darwin develop the theory of evolution. Now, according to an international team of researchers, we know that the islands were formed by a thin tunnel bringing magma up from a "mantle plume" 1,200 miles (1,900 km) below the surface. Scientists had suspected such a plume might exist before, but this is the most direct evidence yet that it’s down there.

The researchers published their description of the mantle plume, and the floating robots that helped discover it, today (Feb. 4) in the journal Nature Scientific Reports. [The 10 Most Pristine Places on Earth]

"Mantle plumes" are giant bubbles of very hot magma that sit much closer to the Earth's crust than usual. For decades, scientists have proposed that plumes like this could explain why certain regions of the planet are very volcanically active, even though they're far from the edges of tectonic plates where volcanism is more expected. (Hawaii is a famous example.) Not every volcanologist accepts this explanation, but those who do think it explains why the Earth hasn't run out of heat.

While the planet has had temperature swings in its history significant enough to radically transform the climate (we're in the middle of an unnaturally sudden one right now), its temperature has remained fairly constant from a geological perspective. The planet hasn't cooled over time from its internal heat running out. And, according to the study authors, this requires some explanation.

Earth could have only maintained its temperature, lead author Guust Nolet, a geoscientist at the University of Nice/Sophia Antipolis in France, said in a statement, "if some of the original heat from its accretion, and that created since by radioactive minerals, could stay locked inside the lower mantle. But most models of the Earth predict that the mantle should be [pushing heat up to the surface] and releasing this heat much more quickly. These results of the Galápagos experiment point to an alternative explanation: The lower mantle may well resist [transferring heat up through the body of the planet], and instead only bring heat to the surface in the form of mantle plumes such as the ones creating Galápagos and Hawaii."

The result would be a kind of trickle effect, where the hot innards of the planet would release enough geothermal heat to keep the crust warm, but not so much that it burned itself out.

To detect this possible mantle plume feeding the Galápagos, the researchers deployed nine robots called "MERMAIDS," which would float freely about a mile (1.6 km) under the ocean surface, listening for underwater earthquakes.

Scientists figure out what's going on inside the planet by carefully studying how earthquakes move through it. It's a technology that's a bit like an ultrasound, but on a massive scale. The problem is, most earthquake data comes from land, which covers just a third of the planet's surface. The MERMAIDS are designed to fill in the gaps. [Channel Islands: Photos of North America's Galapagos]

Whenever they hear an earthquake, according to the statement, the MERMAIDS rise to the ocean surface and use GPS data to figure out their location on Earth. Then they transmit home their GPS and seismic data. This is the sort of data the researchers used to reconstruct the plume under the Galápagos, which is the first published result from the MERMAIDs project.

It's worth noting that not every seismologist accepts that mantle plumes really exist. As Sara Pratt reported in 2015 for Earth Magazine, some seismologists doubt that there's enough information in seismic waves to offer clear pictures of what's going on that far below the crust. Opponents of the theory point out that the various definitions of "mantle plume" are often so broad as to contradict one another, and that while many mantle plumes have been "discovered," no one's been able to produce a confirmed list of ones that really exist. These doubters offer alternative, modified theories of plate tectonics that explain volcanic hotspots like Hawaii and the Galápagos.

Still, mantle plumes remain the dominant explanation in seismology for places on this planet like the Galápagos. And this plume discovered under those islands would be the first major discovery accomplished using free-floating seismometers. Scientists now have an exciting new method for peering deep into the planet.

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Originally published on Live Science.

A hurricane has wiped a Hawaiian island completely off the map.

East Island, a tiny speck of land in Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument in northwest Hawaii, was washed away by Hurricane Walaka on Oct. 3 and 4, Honolulu Civic Beat reported Tuesday (Oct. 23). The island had been a critical nesting site for threatened Hawaiian green sea turtles and critically endangered Hawaiian monk seals, biologists told the news organization. 

"There's no doubt that it was the most important single islet for sea turtle nesting," National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) biologist Charles Littnan told Civic Beat.

East Island was a mere 11 acres (0.04 square kilometers) in area. Between 1944 and 1952, it hosted a small Coast Guard station, but the island has otherwise been a haven for wildlife, ranging from albatross to turtles and seals. Satellite imagery has confirmed the island's demise, but a marine debris team will be headed to the area to survey the damage this week, the Civic Beat reported.

Researchers told Civic Beat that the island's seals and turtles had left the island after their breeding season but before the hurricane struck. It's unclear, so far, whether they'll find a new haven on one of the nearby shoals.

"Species are resilient up to a point," Littnan told Civic Beat. "But there could be a point in the future where that resilience isn't enough anymore."

The Hawaiian green sea turtle (Chelonia mydas) is a genetically distinct species of green sea turtle found almost exclusively around Hawaii, according to NOAA. They are legally protected under Hawaiian law and the U.S. Endangered Species Act, and those protections have resulted in a 53 percent increase in population since the late 1970s. Their primary nesting grounds are the French Frigate Shoals, including the former East Island.

The Hawaiian monk seals (Neomonachus schauinslandi), which used East Island as breeding grounds, are in a more precarious position. These seals are found only in Hawaii, and despite their protections as a critically endangered species, their numbers are still declining, according to NOAA. Only about 1,400 Hawaiian monk seals are left in the wild, NOAA estimates. A couple hundred of those call the French Frigate Shoals home, Littnan told Civic Beat. And of those, about 30 percent were born on East Island.

The shoal was the victim of bad luck, given the storm's direct hit. But researchers told Civic Beat that Walaka was strengthened by warmer-than-average ocean waters, a trend scientists predict will only worsen as the globe warms.

Originally published on Live Science.

A baby octopus the size of a pea was hitchhiking on a piece of plastic floating in the Pacific Ocean when Hawaiian researchers spotted it and scooped up the smol, smol cephalopod.

Photos shared on Facebook by Hawaii's Kaloko-Honokōhau National Historical Park show the wee baby rescued from the trash and huddled in a plastic tub, its spotted arms curled daintily under its bulging eyes and mantle.

In one of the park's images, the baby cephalopod is dwarfed by a marine biologist's fingertip; the octopus is too tiny to comfortably hug a human finger with all its arms. [8 Crazy Facts About Octopuses]

Park researchers were monitoring coral reefs in August when they spotted the charismatic eight-armed stowaway on a piece of floating plastic debris, park representatives wrote on Facebook. After posing for a few pictures, the octopus was released "safe and sound in a small protected space" by a member of the Geoscientists in Parks dive team, according to the post (an image of the octopus recently went viral after the U.S. Department of the Interior shared it on Instagram earlier this week).

Even though baby octopuses are small, they can also be deadly (to other very small creatures, that is). A second tiny octopus, also found on the plastic trash by the Hawaiian dive team, was discovered while squeezing the life out of equally tiny prey — a baby crab — prompting a park representative to pose the question: "Maybe they aren't so cute?"

The babies were likely day octopuses (Octopus cyanea) or night octopuses (Callistoctopus ornatus), two species that inhabit Hawaiian waters, Sallie Beavers, a marine ecologist with the park, told the Associated Press. Day octopuses can grow to have an armspan measuring about 3 feet (80 centimeters), while adult night octopuses can have an armspan measuring up to 7 feet (2 meters), according to the University of Michigan's Animal Diversity Web.

Octopuses are known for their intelligence, and their oddball biology is so unusual that it recently inspired a team of 33 researchers to report that octopuses were extraterrestrial in origin, their frozen eggs carried to Earth millions of years ago by icy comets. However, biologists scoffed at the prospect of alien octopuses — a hypothesis that has zero evidence to back it up, Live Science previously reported.

As one of the baby octopuses swam away from its human rescuers, it bid them farewell with a tiny squirt of ink, Beavers told the AP.

Originally published on Live Science.

If you have never been prank-called by a lizard, you probably don't live in Hawaii.

Dr. Claire Simeone, the director of the Kei Kai Ola hospital for Hawaiian monk seals, definitely does. Earlier this week, Simeone had just left work for lunch when her phone started ringing. A lot.

"I thought maybe someone had a seal-related question," Simeone wrote on Twitter earlier today (Oct. 5). "I picked up. Silence."

Seconds later, Simeone's phone rang again — and then again, and again. Each time she answered, there was nothing but eerie silence. After receiving nine identical calls in 15 minutes, Simeone "started to panic," she said. The calls were apparently coming from inside the hospital, so she rushed back to work, worried that a "seal emergency" was transpiring in her absence.

There was no emergency (thankfully), seal or otherwise. In fact, Simeone's co-workers said nobody had tried to call her at all.

"Meanwhile," Simeone wrote, "several other people call the hospital, asking WHY WE ARE CALLING THEM INCESSANTLY?"

When Simeone called the hospital's phone company to get to the bottom of the phantom calls, a technician confirmed that "a bazillion calls" had indeed been dialed from one particular line in the hospital. Simeone hunted from room to room until she finally tracked the mystery dialer to the center's laboratory. There, she caught her perpetrator red-handed … or rather, green-footed.

"THERE IS A GECKO SITTING ON THE TOUCH SCREEN OF THE PHONE, MAKING CALLS WITH HIS TINY GECKO FEET!!!" Simeone tweeted. "This gecko has called me 15 times and everyone in our recent call list."

Mystery solved. Simeone said she "immediately hired the gecko" and drafted an apology to everyone on staff who may have gotten a call from the tiny, green menace.

Originally published on Live Science.

Hawaii got a lot of rain today. It will get more this weekend.

Hurricane Lane, the once-Category-4 storm that rapidly declined to a Category-2 as it moved over Hawaii's Big Island today, had as of this morning dumped 31 inches (78 centimeters) of rain on Hakalau Forest Biological Field Station in the southeastern portion of the state, and is expected to continue to drop water on the island state for days to come. The National Weather Service (NWS) Honolulu office warned of flooding and high surf into the weekend, with potentially devastating consequences for a state unused to this kind of weather.

That rainfall tally puts Lane on the far end of landfalling hurricanes, though not yet in the territory of the record-setting Harvey, which dropped more than 50 inches (127 cm) on Houston last year.

With a lot more rain still to come, Dale Eck, director of the Global Forecast Center for The Weather Channel (NWS), said that 60-inch (152 cm) totals from Lane aren't out of the question. [See Photos of Lane from Space]

Why?

"You have a situation of very wet tropical air running into high mountains," he told Live Science.

Normally, Eck explained, wet air following trade winds runs from the southeast into the tall volcanic mountains on Hawaii and drops its water, leading to a steady drumbeat of small showers and occasional thunderstorms.

Lane's powerful winds follow that same path as it sits offshore, he said, only they carry the enormous water content of a tropical system. So when they run into the mountains and drop their water, a whole lot more falls. That will be bad news for regions on the windward side of Hawaii's mountains, Eck said, though areas on the leeward side — including Honolulu — may experience somewhat less rain for the same reason.

The other major factor behind Lane's intense rains, he said, is how slow the storm is moving. As of 8 a.m. Hawaiian time, it was crawling north at just 2 mph (3.2 km/h). That gives the storm lots of time to dump rain over any bit of land it crosses.

That slow speed can lead to other problems, said Lynn McMurdie, a professor in the Department of Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Washington. Hurricanes are low pressure systems, she told Live Science, and water levels rise inside them as pressures drop, causing coastal flooding called a "storm surge."

The longer a hurricane sits in one place, she said, the more it tugs on that water, leading it to rise higher, which can cause more flooding.

Lane's winds will continue to weaken over the weekend, Eck said — though not for quite the same reason that hurricanes weaken when they hit the mainland. Hawaii isn't a big enough speck of land to strip lane of its warm water energy, he explained, but it happens to be that as the storm strikes Hawaii it's also running into northerly winds of the kind that tend to make hurricanes lose power, he said.

Originally published on Live Science.

Hawaii's Big Island is being battered by heavy rainfall, wind and "catastrophic flooding" this morning (Aug. 24) as the entire state braces for the advance of Hurricane Lane, a Category 3 storm in the central Pacific Ocean with sustained winds of up to 120 mph (193 km/h), according to updates from the National Weather Service (NWS).

The NWS reported that parts of the Big Island are currently submerged in 2 feet (0.6 m) of rushing floodwater and that rain accumulation up to 40 inches (100 centimeters) is expected in some areas by the end of the weekend. As of 11 p.m. HST Thursday night (5 a.m. EDT on Friday), Hurricane Lane was located about 165 miles (265 kilometers) southwest of the town of Kailua-Kona (located on the west coast of the Big Island) and was creeping northward at about 6 mph (10 km/h).

The storm is expected to turn westward toward the other Hawaiian Islands on Saturday (Aug. 25), the NWS reported. [Hurricane Season 2018: How Long It Lasts and What to Expect]

"On the latest forecast track, the center of Lane will move over, or dangerously close to portions of the main Hawaiian islands later today through Saturday," The NWS reported Friday morning at 12:25 a.m. HST (6:25 a.m. EDT). "Regardless of the hurricane track, life threatening impacts will extend far beyond the center position of Lane."

Multiple highways on the Big Island were closed Thursday night (Aug. 23) due to flooding, landslides and fallen trees, and more than 260 residents and visitors have voluntarily evacuated to shelters. Hawaii Gov. David Ige told residents to avoid floodwaters and runoff "due to possible overflowing cesspools, sewer, manholes, pesticides, animal fecal matter, dead animals, pathogens, chemicals, and associated flood debris."

The storm is also expected to stir up "life-threatening surf" and dangerous rip currents along many of the state's exposed coastlines, the NWS reported. Waves as high as 10 to 15 feet (3 to 4.5 m) are predicted to hit the southwestern side of the Big Island today, while surf height will rise 15 to 25 feet (4.5 to 7.5 m) this afternoon in Maui County, Oahu and Kauai County.

Most of Hawaii's population lives on Oahu island, where Honolulu is located, according to NPR. Residents of Hawaii are advised to listen to local officials for instructions on evacuation throughout the weekend.

Originally published on Live Science.

Hurricane Lane, a Category 4 storm in the central Pacific Ocean with 150 mph (241 km/h) winds, is now lashing Hawaii with rain and tropical-storm-force winds from its outer bands as it approaches the state, according to the National Weather Service (NWS). The peak of the storm is likely to arrive sometime today or tomorrow (Aug. 23 or 24), depending on the storm's track. [Hurricane Season 2018: How Long It Lasts and What to Expect]

The NWS issued a flash flood warning for Hawaii's Big Island and other hurricane-related warnings and alerts for the rest of the state. Hawaii Gov. David Ige announced that President Donald Trump had approved his request for a federal disaster declaration, freeing up funds and resources to help the state. Ige also warned Hawaii residents, who haven't experienced a major hurricane since Hurricane Iniki killed six people and caused $1.8 billion in damage back in 1992, that the storm's heavy rainfall would cause dangerous floods and landslides, and urged people not to attempt to cross moving water.

It's not yet clear from forecast maps whether Lane will actually make landfall, meaning that its eye wall crosses over land, in Hawaii.

However, the NWS has said that the storm, which is more than 200 miles (322 kilometers) wide, will cause significant dangerous weather in Hawaii even if it only skirts the state.

CNN reported that state officials were encouraging people outside coastal evacuation zones to shelter in place with enough supplies for two weeks after the storm. Many state workers were sent home indefinitely, according to CNN, and buses had been dispatched to pick up vulnerable people in Honolulu and move them to the state's limited public shelters.

The state has published a guide on storm preparedness for Hawaiians.

Original article on Live Science.

The hurricane, which is forecast to begin pummeling the islands later today (Aug. 22), has already prompted the governor of Hawaii to declare a state of emergency, and views from space offer a shocking look at just how daunting the storm is. It was briefly a Category 5 storm but has now been downgraded to a Category 4.

Today, NASA astronaut Ricky Arnold tweeted two photographs showing the view of the storm from the International Space Station and offered best wishes to people in Hawaii.

NASA's Twitter account dedicated to the space station also shared a video showing the huge size of the hurricane. The video includes two different perspectives from the space station, both of which highlight the clear eye of the storm at the heart of the giant knot of clouds.

Right now, meteorologists are expecting that the storm's center will pass uncomfortably close to the state between today and Saturday (Aug. 25).

Hawaii is expected to experience extremely powerful winds, heavy rain, storm surge and potentially even tornadoes and waterspouts as the hurricane progresses, according to a statement from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) National Weather Service.

A fleet of government satellites is also working to support the meteorologists watching Hurricane Lane strengthen and approach Hawaii.

Those include NASA's Terra satellite, which gathers infrared data that tells scientists how hot storm clouds are — a crucial piece of information for understanding the probability of serious thunderstorms and heavy rainfall.

The Geostationary Operational Environment Satellite, which is operated via a partnership between NASA and NOAA, is also hard at work observing the storm using visible and infrared light and watching for flashes of lightning.

A third satellite, co-run with the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency and called the Global Precipitation Measurement mission, can build 3D models of the storm. The models will give scientists a better understanding of the cloud structure inside the hurricane.

Taken together, this satellite data can help meteorologists better predict what the storm will do and how the residents of Hawaii can stay safe.

Email Meghan Bartels at mbartels@space.com or follow her @meghanbartels. Follow us& @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com.

A very big storm is coming for Hawaii, an island state that's largely avoided encounters with major cyclones in recent memory.

Hurricane Lane is set to strike Hawaii from the southeast as a Category 4 storm, most directly threatening the Big Island. Officials have encouraged residents to stock up on supplies and prepare their homes for the storm, creating scenes more familiar in southeastern U.S. states. [Hurricane Season 2018: How Long It Lasts and What to Expect]

But why is it so unusual for Hawaii to find itself in this position at all? It's an island state in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. And Pacific cyclones regularly reach terrifying intensities when they strike farther to the west.

In fact, Hawaii has weathered landfalls from only two tropical storms and two hurricanes since 1959, CNN reported. In 2014, two hurricanes appeared ready to hit Hawaii with a one-two punch, the Associated Press reported at the time. But only one, Iselle, downgraded to a tropical storm, actually made landfall. Hurricane Julio, Iselle's twin, tracked too far north and missed Hawaii.

And that, it turns out, explains a lot of Hawaii's usual hurricane luck.

"Hawaii is a small target in the big ocean, so it just has to be really good timing and the conditions have to be right for us to get a direct hit," Eric Lau, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service in Honolulu, told the Associated Press in 2014.

Even with hurricanes periodically skirting past the Hawaiian islands, the Pacific has been big enough and Hawaii small and lucky enough that few of those storms have actually landed.

There are also broader forces in the Pacific that tend to push hurricanes toward Asia. As Live Science reported in 2009, hurricanes form in the tropics. And prevailing winds in the tropics flow west. In the Atlantic Ocean, this shoves storms up against the U.S. and Mexican coastlines. But in the Pacific, those winds tend to shove the storms toward Asia. ("Typhoon" is the term for a hurricane that forms in the western Pacific.) This is why hurricanes almost never strike California.

When powerful hurricanes do strike Hawaii though, they can be very dangerous. Hurricane Iniki, the most powerful Hawaiian hurricane recorded before Lane, killed six people, injured more than 1,000 and caused $1.8 billion in damage back in 1992, according to TK. More so than in certain regions of the U.S. southeast, large-scale evacuations are challenging on Hawaii's remote, cramped islands.

Hawaii emergency officials have opened up limited shelters to the public but have encouraged residents to shelter in safe rooms in their homes if possible.

Originally published on Live Science.

Updated on Wednesday, Aug. 22, at 2:30 p.m. ET

Hawaii is bracing for a Category 4 hurricane, with high winds forecast to hit the Big Island as early as this afternoon.

Yesterday (Aug. 21), Hurricane Lane was bumped up to a Category 5 storm — the highest ranking assigned to a storm based on wind speeds and expected damage. [Hurricane Season 2018: How Long It Lasts and What to Expect] Today, it was downgraded back to a Category 4.

A hurricane warning is in place for Hawaii County on the Big Island and Maui County, while a hurricane watch is in effect over Kauai County and all of Oahu, according to the National Weather Service. All of Hawaii is under a flash flood watch.

The storm is currently southeast of the Hawaiian Islands and is expected to turn northwest and pass the south-southeastern part of the Big Island tonight (Aug. 22). Damaging winds from the storm could hit the Big Island as early as this afternoon. But the center of the storm, carrying maximum winds of around 155 mph (250 km/h), is expected to move "dangerously close" to the main Hawaiian Islands Thursday through Saturday (Aug. 23 to Aug. 25), according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

Over 20 inches (50 centimeters) of rainfall — as well as flooding, tornadoes and high surf — are possible, according to NOAA.

"Hurricane Lane is not a well-behaved hurricane," Hawaii Gov. David Ige said in a statement. "I've not seen such dramatic changes in the forecast track as I've seen with this storm. I urge our residents and visitors to take this threat seriously and prepare for a significant impact."

In anticipation of the storm, Ige signed an emergency proclamation that declares certain counties of Hawaii disaster areas and allows for the spending of state money for quick and efficient relief for damages, loss and suffering.

Residents can find information about how to prepare here.  

Editor's Note: This story was updated. As of 2 pm ET, Hurricane Lane has weakened to a Category 4 storm and a hurricane warning was also added for Maui county and a watch was added for Kauai County.

Originally published on Live Science.

There's some quiet mingling of the marine-mammal kind going on in Hawaiian waters.

Last year, off the coast of the island of Kauai, researchers spotted the adorable result of that mingling: a marine mammal that's a cross between a melon-headed whale and a rough-toothed dolphin.

This hybrid male has a blotchy color pattern that matches that of the rough-toothed dolphin and also sports the melon-headed whale's dorsal cape — a darker coloring on its back just below its dorsal fin.

Now, you may be tempted to call this unique individual a "wholphin," but the researchers said you probably shouldn't. That's because the melon-headed whale is not a true whale but rather a species in the oceanic dolphin family, according to Robin Baird, co-author of a new report on the hybrid individual and a research biologist at the nonprofit Cascadia Research Collective. The report detailed the results of a field study funded by the U.S. Navy that involved an investigation of the newfound hybrid, as well as satellite tagging and photo identification of other species. [Deep Divers: A Gallery of Dolphins] 

"Before anyone had a good idea of the actual taxonomic relationship among species, whalers and early scientists called a number of species 'whales,'" Baird told Live Science. As understandings of the relatedness among species increased, all of those species were lumped into one family — the oceanic dolphins, or Delphinidae.

The name "wholphin" was first given to a hybrid born to a false killer whale (a species that also has the term "whale" in its common name but is in fact a dolphin) and an Atlantic bottlenose dolphin — an individual named Kekaimalu who lives at Sea Life Park in Hawaii.

"Some people are stuck on the [idea of the] whale-dolphin hybrid, but really what it is, is two different species of dolphins," Baird said.

In any case, the discovery is exciting because "different species of dolphins in captivity hybridize all the time, but documenting such hybrids in the wild is relatively infrequent," Baird said. Indeed, it is the first known hybrid between a melon-headed whale and a rough-toothed dolphin, and the third known hybrid among oceanic dolphins.

To confirm the animal's mixed ancestry, the researchers took a skin biopsy from afar using a crossbow. Then, they compared its DNA to genetic data of the two species collected throughout the years for population genetic studies.

An analysis of the non-wholphin dolphin's mitochondrial DNA — genetic information passed down from mothers — indicated that the melon-headed whale was the mother. The hybrid was spotted swimming next to a melon-headed whale, which the researchers suspect could be its mom.

Though it's a new hybrid, this animal is definitely not a new species, Baird said.

"It is certainly possible for hybrid speciation to occur," Baird said. Such was the case with the Clymene dolphin that is thought to be a hybrid of the spinner and striped dolphins. "But that type of hybrid speciation is extremely rare," she said. For such a new species to emerge, hybridization would have to occur much more frequently, and the hybrids would have to be able to reproduce, and prefer to reproduce with one another, he added.

Next week, the group is heading back to Kauai for another project. If they encounter the hybrid again, they hope to get a skin biopsy of the melon-headed whale that hangs out with him to see if it might be the mother. They also hope to figure out, using an underwater GoPro camera, whether the hybrid has what's called a "post-anal keel" or a sack of connective tissue, that would indicate that it is sexually mature.

Originally published on Live Science.

A burning chunk of lava plummeted down and punctured the roof of an offshore Hawaiian tour boat yesterday (July 16), injuring 23 people who likely weren't expecting to get up close and personal with a lava bomb.

The so-called bomb — named because of the rounded, aerodynamic, bomb-like shape the lava takes as it hurtles through the air — punctured the metal roof of a Lava Ocean Tours vessel shortly after 6 a.m. local time, the Hawaii Department of Land and Natural Resources (DLNR) reported.

Four people were rushed to Hilo Medical Center by ambulance, nine others went to the hospital in private vehicles and an additional 10 were treated at the scene for minor injuries and burns, according to the Hawaii County Fire Department. A 20-year-old woman sustained the most serious wound: a fractured femur. [Photos: Fiery Lava from Kilauea Volcano Erupts on Hawaii's Big Island]

After the basketball-size lava bomb struck the boat, the vessel returned to Wailoa Small Boat Harbor, in Hilo, where emergency responders and officers met it. The Hawaii Division of Conservation and Resources Enforcement and the U.S. Coast Guard are now investigating the incident.

One of the people on the boat recorded the event, showing the dark, billowing smoke envelop the vessel as the red-hot lava burns in the distance. Then, suddenly, a loud thwack is followed by screams of his fellow passengers, according to his Facebook video.

"Clearly everyone is interested to learn what happened this morning," Suzanne Case, Hawaii DLNR chairwoman, said in a statement. "In the meantime, all of those injured today are very much in our thoughts for speedy and full recoveries."

The owner of the tour boat has a current and valid permit to operate commercial ocean tours at Kapoho, a now-uninhabited area of the Big Island's Puna district, where the lava is erupting, the DLNR said.

Lava has been erupting on the Big Island since early May, when geologists noticed unusual activity at Kilauea volcano. The eruption has led to rarely seen events on the Big island — including blue flames from burning methane, glass strands called Pele's hair and hundreds upon hundreds of earthquakes.

More recently, lava from this eruption led to the formation of a small island, the U.S. Geological Survey reported July 13. The island is tiny — less than 30 feet (9 meters) in diameter — but it's a reminder that volcanoes built Hawaii in the past and that they're not stopping anytime soon.

Original article on Live Science.

A dark, oblate thing drifts serenely on a surging river of lava , apparently immune to the immense heat and kinetic energy around it. Slowly, it trundles forward until, just in front of the camera, its prow reaches a deep riverbed. There, as if indulging in the display for the sake of the viewer, the black berg cracks open, lewdly spilling its hot, glowing guts. Red and warmed-over and satisfied, it sits in its own goop for a few moments, briefly damming up the flow behind it before proceeding onward downriver in its slow, diabolical way. [Photos: Fiery Lava from Kilauea Volcano Erupts on Hawaii's Big Island]

That stunning video was captured in Hawaii alongside "fissure no. 8," one of the rapid lava flows to emerge from the ongoing Kilauea Volcano eruption. Ikaika Marzo, a local community activist, captured the video and shared it with Hawaii News Now. Hawaii News Now reporter shared it on Twitter, where it went viral:

Hawaii News Now's report on the strange formation states that U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) researchers said the object was an "accretionary lava ball." A website created by San Diego State University (SDSU)'s geology department describes accretionary lava balls as objects that form when a hard piece of of solid rock starts to roll along the surface of a flow. It grows as surrounding lava sticks to the hard core in a spiral pattern "much like snow sticks to a rolling snowball."

When cracked open, they reveal a spiral structure to the rock, according to SDSU. Typically, such lava balls range from a few inches to 10 feet wide, SDSU said.

It's not clear from the video just how large this lava ball was, but it does appear to be larger than 10 feet. Live Science reached out to USGS with follow-up questions about both this lava ball and the observed emergence of lava balls in general from this eruption, but several USGS researchers did not return requests for comment.

Originally published on Live Science.