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Excuse you. Researchers have found that immense herbivorous dinosaurs may have produced enough methane gas - essentially burps and flatulence - to substantially boost global temperatures. The group of dinosaurs known as sauropods - plant eaters famed for their long necks and gargantuan size, such as those shown in an artist’s reconstruction above - were common members of many ancient ecosystems.

This observation highlights Martian terrain that looks like an elephant. Actually, this image covers the margin of a lava flow in Elysium Planitia, the youngest flood-lava province on Mars. Flood lavas cover extensive areas, and were once thought to be emplaced extremely rapidly, like a flood of water.

Photo Album ‘Switzerland 2012’

When a scientist can’t give you an answer, ask a garden gnome. Researchers have long hypothesized that objects weigh less at Earth’s equator because the planet’s spin and shape lessen gravity’s pull here versus at the poles.

Photo Album ‘Oostvaardersplassen’

Just in time for the holidays, the folks at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Maryland, give us a glimpse of a heavenly angel - not literally one of the seraphim, of course, but an astronomical delight nonetheless.

How often do stars eat their young? Almost never, according to a paper submitted to The Astrophysical Journal. While planets typically migrate inward due to the torque (or gravitational push) of the pancake-like proto-planetary disks of dust and gas in which they form (seen in this picture), what hasn’t been clear until now is what causes them to stop.

Scientists analyzing decades-old images with new eyes are seeing signs that Jupiter’s radiation-blasted moon Europa may harbor giant under-ice “lakes” that could sustain life. Europa doesn’t lack for the prime ingredient for life: liquid water.