Just like Earth, our cosmic neighbor Mars sometimes has auroras dance across its night sky. In March 2024, NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover imaged visible-light auroras for the first time during a major solar flare and coronal mass ejection. That exciting discovery confirmed that future astronauts on Mars could see (and feel) the impacts of the aurora and opened up some exciting new research possibilities.  

Scientists now believe that they have the tools to predict an aurora’s green glow in the night sky above Mars. Today in Helsinki, Finland, planetary scientist Elise Wright Knutsen of the University of Oslo presented a second photo of a Martian aurora at the Europlanet Science Congress–Division of Planetary Science (EPSC–DPS) Joint Meeting. 

“The fact that we captured the aurora again demonstrates that our method for predicting aurorae on Mars and capturing them works,” said Knutsen, who also was the science lead for the first image of a martian aurora seen from the ground.

Aurorae appear in the night sky when a burst of energetic particles in a solar wind are hurled out by a coronal mass ejection on the sun. These particles collide with molecules in the upper atmosphere of Earth’s magnetic field, causing them to glow. It’s sort of like the sun is burping at us, only instead of a noise, we see bright lights dance across the night sky. 

Aurora activity is typically highest at the North and South Pole, but even places in the topics like Key West, Florida have been lucky enough to see this natural wonder. 

On Earth, they come in a variety of colors depending on which types of atoms are present. According to the Canadian Space Agency, green auroras occur when charged particles collide with high concentrations of oxygen molecules in Earth’s atmosphere. Red auroras are less common than green. They are more associated with intense solar activity and are caused by solar particles reacting with oxygen at higher altitudes (about 180 to 250 miles high). Rare blues and purples occur when the solar particles interact with the nitrogen in Earth’s atmosphere.

On the Red Planet, aurorae glow green because the charged particles collide with oxygen atoms high above Mars. They may be bright enough that astronauts on Mars could spot them with their naked eye. Here on Earth, it’s usually helpful to have a telescope or even a phone camera filter to really see the aurora.

Since Mars does not have a magnetic field to direct the charged particles to the magnetic poles the way Earth does, aurorae here are seen all across the planet as a glow in the sky that is spread out like a thin fog. Scientists call this a diffuse aurora. 

Aurorae on Mars have previously been observed from orbit in ultraviolet light by the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Mars Express. NASA’s MAVEN missions have also detected auroras glowing in ultraviolet light that is invisible to the human eye. 

The addition of visible-light detections like the ones taken in March 2024 offer more for aurora predictions. While they are stunning to look at, the same radiation that causes the aurora could be dangerous to astronauts without warning. Having a warning system for when a powerful solar storm will hit Mars is important if humans are ever going to survive on the planet’s rocky surface. 

[ Related: 15 captivating photos of auroras seen from space. ]

On Mars, the observations to predict an aurora have to be planned and uploaded to the rover three days after a CME bursts out of the sun in the direction of Mars. This means a lot of guesswork as to which solar storms will produce an aurora.

“Predicting aurora down to an exact minute is incredibly challenging! But there are different challenges on Earth and Mars,” Knutsen tells Popular Science. “On Earth the aurora is limited to a specific area, it has a relatively narrow shape, and it is highly variable. But we can keep checking new data on Earth and adjust our forecast and consequent observations. On Mars there is no way for us to adjust our observation time.”

With that three day lead time, scientists have to lock in a time for only a few minutes. However, aurorae on Mars cover the entire planet, and last for several hours. 

“So there is more margin for error, so to speak,” says Knutsen

Between 2023 and 2024, Knutsen and her team made eight attempts to view the aurora with Perseverance’s SuperCam and MastCam cameras. They found this to be a true process of trial and error. 

On their first three attempts, they did not see anything. However, when analyzing the conditions that NASA’s MAVEN and the ESA’s Mars Express orbiters measured, they realized that the velocities of those CMEs were likely not fast enough to create a solar wind disturbance on Mars.

“The faster the CME, the more likely it is to accelerate particles towards Mars that create aurorae, and the stronger the solar wind disturbance around Mars, the more likely it is that those particles make it into Mars’s nightside atmosphere,” said Knutsen. 

To adjust, they targeted more intense CMEs. That’s when they found their first two detections of aurorate. The final three CMEs did not produce aurorae, even though they had all of the signs that the team was looking for. However, just because there were no aurorae does not mean all was lost. 

“The most surprising part after three failed attempts, was that we did succeed in the end! Which meant that our strategy for predicting and our observation technique all worked,” says Knutsen. “It is incredibly gratifying when you work from a quite concrete hypothesis, and your results finally match your expectations.”

There are still a lot of mysteries locked inside the aurora’s glow both at home and on Mars. In the future, the team hopes to keep comparing the timing of solar wind and the arrival of solar energetic particles at Mars to further understand how they work–and better prepare future astronauts. 

The post Aurora over Mars gives Red Planet a green glow appeared first on Popular Science.

The U.S. population is projected to grow most in several key megaregions, with suburbs in Texas and Arizona predicted to have the biggest growth. “The biggest winners of the coming wave of urbanization will likely be suburban cities, towns, and villages on the fringe of major metropolitan areas.”

“According to population projections from the University of Illinois Chicago, there are 29 suburbs that will grow by at least 100,000 residents from 2020 to 2100,” explains Evan Comen in 24/7 Wall St. “Of the 40 suburbs projected to add the most residents from 2020 to 2100, five are in the Phoenix metro area, and five are in the Dallas metro area.” 

The article lists the 40 fastest-growing suburbs, with Frisco, Texas topping the list. Others in the top five include Garland, Texas; Enterprise, Nevada; and Spring Valley, Nevada.

• Population Growth
• Suburbs
• Sprawl

• AirPods Pro 3 - $249.00 [Best Buy/Amazon]


• Apple Watch Series 11 - $399.00 [Best Buy/Amazon]


• Apple Watch SE 3 - $249.00 [Best Buy/Amazon]


• Apple Watch Ultra 3 - $799.00 [Best Buy/Amazon]

What’s the weirdest thing you learned this week? Well, whatever it is, we promise you’ll have an even weirder answer if you listen to PopSci’s hit podcast. The Weirdest Thing I Learned This Week hits Apple, Spotify, YouTube, and everywhere else you listen to podcasts every-other Wednesday morning. It’s your new favorite source for the strangest science-adjacent facts, figures, and Wikipedia spirals the editors of Popular Science can muster. If you like the stories in this post, we guarantee you’ll love the show.

By Rachel Feltman

In August 1953, someone in Springfield, Missouri killed a snake in their yard with a garden hoe (which was, apparently, totally normal for Missouri). What was weird was that this snake had raised its head and spread a hood before succumbing to the gardening implement (which was definitely not normal for Missouri). A local pet shop owner claimed the carcass was just a “weird-looking hog nose snake,” but when another odd snake showed up across the street, a local science teacher realized it was a deadly Indian cobra. 

That kicked off one of the most bizarre animal panics in American history.

Over the next few months, at least 11 Indian cobras were captured or killed around town, mostly with garden hoes (the weapon of choice for Missourians, apparently). Kids were kept inside, hospitals stocked anti-venom, and the acting city manager drove around blasting “Indian snake charmer music” from a van while armed volunteers prowled the streets. One snake got tear-gassed by police, then shot at five times, and still escaped—only to finally meet its match with a garden hoe (obviously). 

The mystery of where these snakes came from went unsolved for 35 years, until a man named Carl Barnett came forward with the truth. When he was 14, the local pet shop owner—the same one who suspiciously misidentified the first deadly cobra—cheated him in a business deal. The boy had been trading in local snakes for exotic aquarium fish, but one of the fish he received turned out to be a dud that died immediately. He decided to get some revenge by opening a crate behind the shop and releasing what he (supposedly) thought were local snakes. Turns out they were venomous cobras, and his teenage tantrum nearly got people killed. Listen to hear how one kid’s bad day became an international news story. 

By Lauren Leffer 

Two Japanese scientists just wanted to study how streaked shearwaters run on water to take flight. Simple enough, right? They strapped matchbox-sized cameras to 15 birds, pointing backward at their legs. Their footage showed 36 hours of some of the most regular bowel movements in the animal kingdom.

These Pacific seabirds poop more than five times an hour—every four to 10 minutes—like clockwork. They’re so regular they make Jamie Lee Curtis’s Activia commercials look amateur. But here’s the weird part: they almost never poop while floating on water. Instead, they’ll take off into flight, drop their load mid-air, and immediately land again within a minute, if they’ve got nowhere else to be. It’s like they’re taking bathroom flights.

Remember, birds don’t have separate plumbing. Everything comes out of one all-purpose hole called the cloaca in a chunky white paste that’s both poop and pee combined. And these birds are producing 5 percent of their body weight in waste every single hour. That’s not just gross—it’s environmentally crucial. All that airborne guano is nature’s marine fertilizer, and scientists have been vastly underestimating how much seabird poop is actually fertilizing our oceans and coastlines. Listen to learn why these flying poop machines might be ocean heroes in disguise.

By Sarah Gailey

This week’s episode featured return guest Sarah Gailey (remember hippo ranching?) in honor of their new book “Spread Me,” which has been described as “John Carpenter’s The Thing but horny and with new forms of lichen.” 

For their weird fact, Sarah decided to give us the 411 on chameleon eyes. 

Pop quiz: when you picture a chameleon’s face, what are you actually looking at? If you said “eyeballs,” you’re wrong—you’re looking at fused eyelids with tiny pinholes where the pupils peek through. Their actual eyes are permanently sealed behind scaly skin, which sounds like a nightmare but is actually a great vision hack. 

Unlike humans, who need two eyes working together for depth perception, chameleons process distance information independently with each eye using built-in biological rangefinders. They have a concave lens inside each eye that works with their convex cornea to create the same focusing system you’d find on a fancy camera. When a chameleon spots a bug, tiny muscles adjust the lens until the target is perfectly in focus, and that adjustment tells them exactly how far away dinner is.

This matters because chameleons hunt by ballistically launching their tongues like slingshots, using a tapered bone in their throat as a ramp. One scientist in the 1960s proved this whole system by crafting tiny monocles for chameleons—half made them nearsighted, half farsighted—and watching them consistently miss bugs by the exact distance the lenses changed their focus. Listen to hear why chameleon eyes might actually be superior to human ones. As a bonus, you’ll also hear a deeply philosophical discussion about whether it’s better to eat a whole guy or just a bite of one. 

The post It took half a century to solve the mystery of Missouri’s deadly snake panic  appeared first on Popular Science.

The Corpus Christi, Texas city council canceled the contract for a proposed seawater desalination plant, putting the city’s water supply in jeopardy, reports Dylan Baddour in The Texas Tribune.

“The plant was first proposed to meet the water demands of industrial facilities that wanted to build around Corpus Christi, a refinery hub on the South Texas coast. But its cost ballooned from initial estimates of $160 million in 2019 to $1.2 billion last month.” Councilmembers said the city must find other ways to get water to the local oil refineries. However, oil companies had already begun using municipal water supplies, which are dangerously low after a seven-year drought.

“Without additional water supply, Corpus Christi could face an emergency situation by December 2026, city officials said, forcing a 25% reduction of water use by the large industrial users.” But speakers at a contentious, marathon council meeting railed against the project, citing concerns about the cost and its potential impacts on local ecology. 

One of the main concerns from city council members was the dramatic rise in the cost estimate of the project, which went from $222 million to $1.2 billion. “A representative from Freese and Nichols, the engineering contractor managing the project for Corpus Christi, said industry building costs nearly doubled between 2020 and 2024, while the capacity of the city’s plant design also grew.”

The city will now explore other ways to increase their water supply such as groundwater importing and wastewater recycling. 

• Corpus Christi
• Desalination
• Water Supply
• Refineries
• Water

• AirPods 4 – $129


• AirPods 4 with Active Noise Cancelation – $179


• AirPods Pro 3 – $249


• AirPods Max – $549

• iPhone 17: Best for those who need a good, practical all-round ‌iPhone‌ at an affordable price.


• iPhone Air: Best for those who want the thinnest and lightest ‌iPhone‌ in a groundbreaking new premium design with a medium-sized display, but are willing to accept noticeable compromises on camera features, battery life, charging speed, and speakers.


• iPhone 17 Pro: Best for those who want the versatile new 48-megapixel telephoto camera and a large range of additional camera features and hardware in a smaller package, along with better mics and faster USB speeds.


• iPhone 17 Pro Max: Best for "pro" users who need the rich feature set of the ‌iPhone 17 Pro‌, but with the largest possible display, battery life, and storage.

About 26.1 percent of U.S. homes, valued at around $12.7 trillion, are at “severe or extreme” climate risk from fires, hurricanes, or floods, according to the Realtor.com® 2025 Housing and Climate Risk report.

As Snejana Farberov explains, the report reflects a growing threat, even in areas previously considered immune to climate disasters, leading to soaring home insurance rates. “The most at-risk metros—predominantly clustered in the South—face the highest insurance costs, as reflected in the premium-to-market value ratio, which measures how much a homeowner is paying in insurance premiums each year relative to the market value of their property.”

Of the three major disasters, hurricanes threaten the most U.S. homes, with 18.3 percent of American homes at risk. The premium-to-market value ratio of most insurance policies is 1.25 percent, but in Miami, which carries the heaviest homeowners insurance burden among large U.S. metros, that rate is 3.7 percent. “In other words, a family owning a home with the median market value of $614,000 would be on the hook for $22,718 in insurance premiums every year under an HO-3 home insurance policy—the most common type of single-family homeowners insurance policy in the U.S.” In addition to Miami, four other of the top 10 most insurance-burdened cities are in Florida.

Of homes that face severe or extreme wildfire risk — 5.6 percent of the U.S. housing stock — 40 percent are in California, where some insurance companies are pulling out altogether. 

• home insurance
• Floods
• Hurricanes
• Wildfires
• Fires
• Climate Change
• Extreme Weather
• Natural Disasters

Washington-Dulles airport, red-eye to Berlin, time to kill and batteries to fill. Plenty of regrets but only two USB-C cables: one for a laptop and another for a 3-in-1 charging pad. Time was that would force a hard choice, because time was that the Bose QuietComfort Ultra Bluetooth earbuds didn’t charge wirelessly. Drop the new QC Ultra Gen. 2 case on the Qi pad, however, and it blinks to life, no awkward adapters or extra plugs required. And the phone sips energy simultaneously. It’s a little win that brings a big grin, and it’s one of many in a subtly upgraded travel essential.

Pushback, taxi, takeoff. Engines gather speed, cabin hum stiffens, and Gen. 2 serenity settles in. Bose active noise cancellation has always brought that blackout, but this sequel leans harder into the mids, carving fatigue-causing congestion—roar, rattle, the annoying row behind. And AI-juiced adaptive algorithms do it with more grace and less invasive inversion. Pressurized hiccups stifled, you just feel the dBs drop and your shoulders relax. Switching to the original QC Ultra, the difference is small but felt. Bring back that extra notch of next-gen. sigh-level quiet, please. A few hours of sleep across the Atlantic is worth $299.

The QC Ultra Gen. 2 earbuds maintain their familiar shell with a lighter faceplate, and the stability bands are a secret handshake that signals confidence. Twist, tuck, less fiddle, faster seal. Set and mostly forget. More comfortable than the neck pillow. Max Richter for the long haul, waking up hot spot free for another win.

Gen. 1 is on the left in each image, Gen. 2 on the right …

Keflavík connection, 6:25 a.m., dodging a Samsonite stampede to get coffee that tastes like desperate resolve. Sweat from the brisk gate jog? IPX4 says carry on dragging that carry-on. A quick reseat without triggering ghost taps and Moderat motivation digs deep. The driver hasn’t changed, but the tuning has.

Top end is smoothed from “glassy” to “glossy.” Kicks grip harder, cymbals shimmer longer, hi-hats brake faster. The change from Gen. 1 to Gen. 2 isn’t turning on more stadium lights or reorienting the stage, but it’s moving you to a row with better sightlines. Sound by Bose is still center-weighted; it’s just punchier, clearer, tidier at the edges. It’s the kind of refinement you notice over a whole playlist, not a single chorus.

Berlin. S-Bahn. Transients start sharper, decay hangs longer—both noticeable through multiple stops. That’s the headspace Quiet mode buys you. And Aware mode feels less open window and more focused optics, allowing in street announcements without sting. Toggle through the app or long-press muscle memory. 

Taking a call on the street to finalize the next trip, and there are no “huh? … what’s that?” loops, despite weaving around cars and people in line for a currywurst. AI-assisted “SpeechClarity” mic processing collapses background clatter down to whisper wallpaper. Shuffling to a less chaotic cafe to take a video call on the laptop confirms Multipoint swap works: two devices, one pair of buds, no drama. As for Bluetooth 5.3 connections, AAC keeps iPhones rolling and aptX Adaptive rides shotgun for Androids, while SBC sits quietly in the back.

Days later, return leg. BER > KEF > IAD, a second A/B in the name of [popular] science. Parked securely, Gen. 2 still trims a whisker more runway rumble and frequency friction. Back-to-back tracks confirm the vibe: Gen. 1 is a hush machine, Gen. 2 just adds that extra bit of convenience, that quality-of-life polish.

Operational notes from 23C: Immersive mode adds some seasoning to spatial audio tracks and YouTube videos, but it’s ultimately a garnish on the ANC entree and will cost you battery life. Which still tops out at six hours, 24 with the case. 

Touchdown, D.C. Both cases scuffed, both pairs proven. If you’ve got QC Ultra Gen. 1 earbuds still humming, you don’t have to upgrade. But if you’re looking to make long days and longer miles feel more bearable, the Bose QuietComfort Ultra Gen. 2 is that boring kind of better you don’t see but you definitely notice.

[If over-ear personal audio is more your jam, Bose has announced that a refresh of the flagship QuietComfort Ultra Headphones coming Oct. 2 will add the AI-assisted improvements of the Gen. 2 earbuds, as well as lossless audio over USB-C and a newly optimized, spatialized Cinema mode.]

The post Bose QuietComfort Ultra Earbuds (2nd Gen) review: Subtle never seemed so obvious appeared first on Popular Science.

• Support for Apple Log 2, giving users the ability to record in an even wider color gamut in ProRes or HEVC with iPhone 17 Pro. Users can apply the Log 2 LUT in Final Cut Pro for iPad and Mac to view and edit their footage with the vibrancy of the original scene.


• The ability to enable Timecode with options like Time of Day, Record Run, or external timecode for precise identification of footage during post-production.


• Support for video capture using the new 200 mm Telephoto camera using ProRes up to 4K60 fps on iPhone 17 Pro for even more framing options.

• Event/Announcement: Tuesday, September 9


• Pre-Orders: Friday, September 12 at 5 a.m. Pacific Time / 8 a.m. Eastern Time


• Release Date: Friday, September 19

• Apple Announces iPhone 17 Featuring Larger 6.3-Inch Display With ProMotion Support


• Apple Announces iPhone Air With Ultra-Thin Design


• Apple Announces iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max With New Design, Larger Battery, and More