solar system.

The mysterious floating mass, dubbed the Arsia Mons Elongated Cloud (AMEC), frequently emerges above Arsia Mons, a 12-mile-tall (20 km) extinct volcano located in the Tharsis region, just south of the Red Planet's equator. The water vapor cloud was first spotted in 2018 by the European Space Agency's Mars Express orbiter and has since appeared nearly every morning throughout Mars' spring and summer, when increased solar radiation triggers strong surface winds. But it lasts only a few hours each day, before fully evaporating.

The AMEC can stretch up to 1,100 miles (1,800 km) long, around one-twelfth of Mars' circumference. For context, that is roughly twice the length of the U.K. or the distance between New York City and Miami.

Although the Red Planet is no stranger to giant dust clouds and occasional "iridescent streaks" of carbon dioxide, it is almost completely devoid of atmospheric water vapor. That makes it extremely rare for puffy, Earth-like clouds to form there, let alone ones so vast. As a result, scientists have struggled to explain this whacky weather.

But in a new study published Wednesday (Oct. 7) in the journal Nature Geoscience, researchers used Mars Express data to create new simulations in an effort to finally explain the AMEC. Initially, the team struggled to recreate the puzzling phenomenon. But when they abandoned traditional meteorological principles in favor of a more out-of-the-box explanation, they were eventually successful.

"To create the AMEC in our modelling, we found that we needed to include some exotic physics … physics that, while included in textbooks, is treated as theoretical and usually thought not to happen in nature," study first author Jorge Hernández-Bernal, a planetary scientist at the University of the Basque Country in Spain who was affiliated with Sorbonne University in Paris at the time of the study, said in a statement. "Once we included this physics in our simulations, the AMEC emerged just as we hoped."

"Wholly unexpected"

The AMEC is an orographic cloud, meaning it forms as strong winds push water vapor up and over a raised structure, such as a mountain. Similar clouds also exist on Earth, including the "Levanter" cloud, which occasionally forms above the Rock of Gibraltar in southern Europe. However, the Martian equivalent cannot be explained by the same processes that occur on our planet.

On Earth, clouds form via a process called heterogeneous nucleation, in which moist air cools and condenses into ice crystals that form around tiny atmospheric particles, such as dust, salt, pollen or soot. But while Mars has plenty of atmospheric dust, that's not what's happening there.

"For the AMEC, it seems that cloud formation takes place without needing any of this 'stuff' [in the air]," said Hernández-Bernal, who has been studying the AMEC for the past six years. "Water vapour turns directly into icy cloud particles without any middle step. It's akin to droplets of condensation appearing in the middle of a room, rather than on a window."

The researchers call this "homogeneous nucleation" and say it has never been seen before in a planetary atmosphere. "It's wholly unexpected," Hernández-Bernal added.

Other scientists previously predicted that homogeneous nucleation could occur in Earth's upper atmosphere or in the skies above Venus. However, this has been deemed highly unlikely because it requires humidity levels roughly 100,000 times greater than those on our planet's surface.

Given that modern-day Mars is almost completely devoid of water, it may seem unlikely that its humidity levels could reach such lofty heights. However, the Mars Express data tells a different story.

As wind rises up the slopes of Arsia Mons, which is more than twice as tall as Mount Everest, it creates a powerful wave that shoots air into the upper atmosphere at tremendous speed. The researchers calculated that the temperature of this air can drop by up to 54 degrees Fahrenheit (30 degrees Celsius) in just 10 minutes. This not only makes it easy to freeze but also greatly increases the humidity within the wave, allowing homogeneous nucleation to take place, the simulations show.

So where does all this water come from? Some of it is already in the atmosphere, but some likely originates at the summit of Arsia Mons, which is covered with a thick layer of frost, the researchers suggested.

"A big success"

The new simulations mark a big step forward in our understanding of the AMEC and wider Martian meteorology.

"We don't have nearly as much information about Mars' atmosphere as we do about Earth's, so reproducing the AMEC to this degree is a big success for the model," Hernández-Bernal said.

The findings would not have been possible without the Mars Express orbiter, which used three instruments — the Visual Monitoring Camera, the High Resolution Stereo Camera and the OMEGA instrument — to map out how the AMEC takes shape and evolves every day. It is also one of the only Mars spacecraft that can see Arsia Mons in daylight.

"Mars Express discovered the AMEC, has followed up and monitored it for years, and is now helping reveal the secrets of its formation," Colin Wilson, the project scientist for Mars Express, who was not involved in the new study, said in the statement.

The discovery is also a reminder that, despite sharing the same basic principles, weather systems do not behave the same on other worlds as they do on Earth, which could have big implications for solar system exploration and the hunt for extraterrestrial life on distant exoplanets.

"While clouds on Earth and Mars seem to be governed by the same 'rules', understanding this exotic Martian cloud required exotic physics — and this may be true elsewhere in the cosmos," Wilson said.

'> 1,000-mile-long cloud that forms and vanishes on Mars every day obeys 'exotic physics' never seen on Earth

The comments reflected this majority, as one reader wrote, "We're on the edge of an area at risk for grass fires, so we bought/stocked an RV as an emergency bugout vehicle. Felt extreme initially, less so as time goes by. Gives us 3-5 days of margin before we need to resupply, with food, water and first aid for people and dogs."

Another commenter responded to the rest of the comments, writing, "This is just the begining [sic]. Get a greenhouse, plant food, learn to harvest water, build an outside toilet (for later), learn to be self sufficient. trade with your neighbors. Plant fruit trees, get solar panels and an electric transporation (bike, car whatever). Keep a de humidifier in your home. it's back to the 1930ie[s]."

Do you agree with these readers? Let us know in the comments section.

'> 'We stocked an RV as an emergency bugout vehicle': Readers share how prepared they are for a disaster

The unnamed exoplanet was spotted circling the white dwarf HS 0209+0832, which is located roughly 270 light-years from Earth. White dwarfs are stellar remnants, sometimes dubbed "zombie stars," that form from the leftovers of massive red giants that run out of fuel before eventually collapsing into shriveled husks. HS 0209+0832 is a particularly young white dwarf, still burning at around 63,000 degrees Fahrenheit (35,000 degrees Celsius), which suggests it made this transition within the past few million years.

Scientists previously discovered some surprising heavy elements within the visible spectrum of HS 0209+0832, which was first captured by the Hubble Space Telescope in the late 1990s. These elements ‪—‬ which included aluminium, titanium and nickel ‪—‬ are not normally found inside white dwarfs, so their presence suggested that something unusual was going on. But until now, there was not enough data to figure out what.

In the new study, published Oct. 5 in the journal Nature Astronomy, researchers took a closer look at HS 0209+0832. Using some of Hubble's updated instruments and data from other observatories, the team captured a more detailed spectrum of the stellar zombie. This revealed a high concentration of additional heavy elements, including zinc and copper, as well as niobium, which has never been seen in a white dwarf before.

The researchers think these out-of-place elements were created during the death throes of the former red giant and later coalesced into a "second-generation" planet around the newly forged white dwarf. They suspect the atmosphere of this hypothetical planet is being stripped by the white dwarf's stellar winds, causing the rare elements to fall back onto the zombie star.

Follow-up observations then revealed a recurring dip in the brightness of HS 0209+0832, suggesting that an exoplanet was repeatedly passing in front of the undead star. Based on the alien world's orbit, which lasts approximately 4.4 Earth days, and the duration of its transits in front of the star, the team predicted that the planet is roughly the size of Jupiter. (Its close proximity to the white dwarf also supports the hypothesis that its atmosphere is being stripped away.)

"Second-generation planets are worlds that form out of the material a star casts off as it dies," study first author Jamie Williams, a doctoral candidate in astronomy and astrophysics at the University of Warwick in the U.K., said in a statement. "They're incredibly rare, and finding one around a white dwarf was completely unexpected. It's a bit like finding a planet that has risen from the ashes of the very star it once orbited."

"Completely unexpected"

This is not the first time astronomers have spotted an exoplanet around a white dwarf. For example, in 2019, some of the authors of the new study previously spotted an alien world surrounding the white dwarf WDJ0914+1914. However, in that case, they were confident that it was a first-generation world that somehow survived its star's fiery end.

But the heavy elements that seem to be falling onto HS 0209+0832 — and the relative lack of other elements common in first-generation planets, such as silicon and iron — suggest that's not what's happened for this recently detected world.

"This pattern of elements is a telltale sign of the 's-process,' a nuclear reaction that builds heavy elements inside dying stars during their bloated red giant phase," study co-author Nicholas Stone, an astronomer at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said in the statement. "It's a chemical signature no ordinary, 'first-generation' planet should carry, which told us that this new planet was something different."

Instead, the newly detected exoplanet likely formed directly from the material that was shed by the dying red giant after it expanded and before it collapsed in on itself.

Similar phoenix planets have been spotted alongside other stellar remnants, such as pulsars, which form when stars explode as supernovas. However, until now, such worlds have never been seen around a white dwarf.

Rising from the ashes

"What's remarkable about the planet around HS 0209+0832 is that this isn't a planet from somewhere else, or a survivor from the system's birth, it looks like it was built from the very material its own star cast off as it died," study co-author Boris Gänsicke, an astrophysicist at the University of Warwick who also helped to discover the exoplanet around WDJ0914+1914 in 2019, said in the statement. "In a sense, this system has given birth to a new world using the foundations of the old one."

HS 0209+0832 may have once harbored other exoplanets when it was a red giant. But if they existed, these alien worlds likely perished in flames as the dying star ballooned — similar to what experts think will happen to Earth when the sun runs out of fuel and transitions into a red giant in around 5 billion years.

Once the sun has finished bulging, it will turn into a white dwarf too. The new discovery hints that our star could also host brand-new worlds after it has transformed, creating a sort of solar system 2.0.

"Finding this one example raises the question of how many more might be out there and might our own solar system host a second-generation planet formed from the ashes of our sun," Gänsicke said.

However, more work is required to figure out exactly how the newfound exoplanet formed and, as a result, how likely this scenario is. The researchers suspect that another object, such as a lost stellar sibling, may have been required to create the new world.

"Forming the protoplanetary disc in this situation is not easy and helps explain why these planets are so rare," Williams said. "To form a disc of material necessary to birth a planet, HS 0209+0832 likely required a companion star that pulled the ejected material back into orbit, rather than letting it escape."

'> 'Completely unexpected': Astronomers spy never-before-seen 'phoenix planet' rising from the ashes of a dead star

This photography competition showcases the amusing side of nature, usually by anthropomorphizing it in some way, and features a variety of comical critters from across the globe.

This year, a surprised owl and a brown bear striking a pose are featured among the more than 10,000 entries, with photographers competing for a luxury safari in Kenya's Maasai Mara National Reserve.

Live Science rounded up some of the funniest photos from the 2026 finalists for your enjoyment. And yes, the orangutan and mantis have made it to the finals.

"Are You Kidding Me?"

Here we see a squirrel launching itself at a great horned owl fledgling in Natural Bridges State Beach park in Santa Cruz, California. According to photographer Kevin Lohman, the squirrel knocked the owl off its perch three times.

Our video channels editor, Elise Poore, said this photo really made her laugh. I doubt the owl found it quite so funny. However, great horned owls (Bubo virginianus) do hunt squirrels, so it's no surprise that these rodents can get a little tetchy around the birds.

"Spicy Orangutan"

This "Spicy Orangutan" entry features a male Bornean orangutan (Pongo pygmaeus) raising one finger, giving the appearance that he's flipping off the camera. In the description accompanying the image, photographer Tanner Mansell explained that the orangutan was finishing his meal at the time.

"Even though he was completely wild and just enjoying his food, I couldn't help wondering, 'Does he know what he's doing?'" Mansell wrote.

No, Mansell, he doesn't.

"Ballet Dancer"

This photo of a sparrowhawk (Accipiter nisus) in Dumfries, Scotland, is titled "Ballet Dancer," but to me, the balancing bird looks more like an Olympic gymnast in the middle of a complex beam routine. Either way, perfect form!

"Push Over"

This lion snapshot, taken in the Ruckomechi riverbed in Zimbabwe, is one of many finalists that appear to show animals laughing or joking around.

"#ForTheGram"

Photographer Rosie Barrett was getting shots of three yearling brown bears (Ursus arctos) in Finland when one appeared to strike a pose.

"Pretty sure he knew it was for Instagram..un-bear-lieavable!" Barrett wrote in a description of her photo.

S-bear me.

"Sexy Mantis"

I know what you're thinking: This mantis looks like it's saying, "Draw me like one of your French girls." However, if you can look past the sexualization of an insect, you might notice a pretty neat trick in how the photo was framed.

Half of the mantis's body is hidden behind the leaf. What appears to be a torso and legs are actually the creature's forelimbs, which it uses to catch prey. Photographer Diego Perez explained that he snapped the mantis while documenting wildlife in the proposed Bosques del Araza Regional Conservation Area in Peru, which is currently threatened by illegal gold mining.

"Sea Gangsters"

Here we see a herd of walruses on the coast of Svalbard in Norway. The photo is titled "Sea Gangsters," implying that the walruses look like tough guys. You'd probably feel tough, too, if your tusks (which are actually sabers) grew to around 3 feet (1 meter) long.

"Little Godzilla"

Ten out of 10. No notes. But, in all seriousness, red squirrels (Sciurus vulgaris) are known to grab materials like dried grass and moss to line their nests, called dreys, so maybe this little fellow is working on its home sweet home.

"The Different One"

Sometimes, all a photographer needs is the Maasai Mara, three young giraffes and a perfectly placed acacia tree. It's nice that the photographer caught them at a standstill, since these ungulates can run up to 35 mph (56 km/h) in short bursts.

This is just a selection of the finalists. You can see the rest of the contenders in Nikon's 2026 finalists gallery. The winners will be announced Dec. 8.

What do you know about the animal kingdom? Test your knowledge with our animal quiz!

'> 'Sexy Mantis,' obscene orangutan and prancing sparrowhawk feature in 2026 Nikon Comedy Wildlife Awards

The Draconid meteor shower takes place Oct. 6-10 each year, peaking on Oct. 8-9, when around 10 "shooting stars" per hour are expected. Whereas most meteor showers are best seen after midnight or during the dark hours before dawn, the best time to view the Draconids is in the evening, according to Timeanddate.com, making it one of the more convenient meteor showers of the year. Just after dark Thursday (Oct. 8) will be the best time to look.

The Draconids are different from most other showers because their radiant — the point from which their meteors appear to originate — is in the constellation Draco, the Dragon, which is highest in the sky in the evening. It's also circumpolar in much of the Northern Hemisphere, so it never sets below the horizon. However, there's no need to stare directly at Draco, because meteors can appear anywhere in the sky.

This year, the Draconid meteor shower peaks at the perfect time of the month for dark skies. Because the new moon occurs Saturday (Oct. 10), there will be no significant moonlight when the Draconids reach maximum activity.

However, the Draconids are notoriously unpredictable; while just a handful of meteors per hour are expected, the shower can sometimes produce huge meteor storms. For example, during the Draconids' peak in 1933, Europe saw 500 meteors per minute, according to NASA, and during the 1946 peak, 50 to 100 meteors were seen per minute in the U.S.

The source of the Draconids is Comet 21P/Giacobini-Zinner, which was discovered in 1900 and orbits the sun every 6.6 years. It was last in the inner solar system in 2025 and will return in 2031.

Each October, Earth passes through streams of dust and debris left along the comet's orbit. When those tiny particles strike Earth's atmosphere, they heat up and vaporize, creating streaks of light in the night sky.

Most observers will probably see only a few Draconids this year, but with a meteor shower this unpredictable, it's always worth looking up. The best way to see the Draconids is with the naked eye, but a good pair of stargazing binoculars or a nice backyard telescope will help you enjoy the feast of fall skywatching events on the horizon. Amazon has great deals on skywatching gear this week, so it's a perfect time to get involved.

'> The Draconids, an unpredictable shower that can bring hundreds of meteors per minute, has begun