1. Stunning Earthquake Map
If you've ever wondered where - and why - earthquakes happen the most, look no further than a new map, which plots more than a century's worth of nearly every recorded earthquake strong enough to at least rattle the bookshelves.
The map shows earthquakes of magnitude 4.0 or greater since 1898; each is marked in a lightning-bug hue that glows brighter with increasing magnitude.
2. Devastating Wildfires
Devastating wildfires scorching the state of Colorado [USA] are linked to a nasty streak of hot weather across the central part of the country, but it's tougher to link them definitively to global warming, climatologists say.
Earlier research has found broad trends linking earlier spring weather, rising temperatures and increased forest fires, suggesting that climate change may play a role in fires like the Waldo Canyon blaze outside of Colorado Springs, which has burned more than 18,000 acres and consumed about 300 homes here. But linking a specific fire to the long-term trend of global warming isn't possible.
3. Fiery Sunsets
In this photograph uploaded to the Poudre Fire Authority's Facebook page on June 18, the High Park fire near Fort Collins, Colorado, sets pine trees ablaze. As of June 28, the High Park fire had burned more than 87,000 acres and was 75 percent contained.
4. Living Brain Wins Photo Prize
Bright-red blood vessels and thick purple veins meander across the surface of a living human brain in the winning image in this year's Wellcome Image Awards contest.
A rare peak inside the skull beat out a plethora of other gorgeous shots for first prize, including a colourful caffeine crystal and a spiny, aqua-coloured moth fly that could pass as an extra-terrestrial.
5. Huge Solar Tornado
For years, scientists have struggled to determine why the sun's atmosphere is more than 300 times hotter than its surface. But a new study has found a possible answer: giant super-tornadoes on the sun that may be injecting heat into the outer layers of our star.
While comparing images from the Swedish Solar Telescope with others taken by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory, an international team of scientists noticed bright points on the sun's surface and atmosphere that corresponded with swirls in the so-called chromospheres, a region that is sandwiched between the two layers. The finding indicates that the solar tornadoes stretched through all three layers of the sun.
6. Mystical Fairy Circles
In the sandy desert grasslands of Namibia in southern Africa, mysterious bare spots known as "fairy circles" will form and then disappear years later for no reason anyone can determine. A new look at these strange patterns doesn't solve the wistful mystery but at least reveals that the largest of the circles can linger for a lifetime.
Small fairy circles stick around an average of 24 years, while larger ones can exist as long as 75 years, according to research detailed today (June 27) in the journal PLoS ONE. Still, the study sheds little light on why the circles form, persist and then vanish into the landscape after decades.
7. 40 Million Stars
Astronomers are mapping more than 40 million stars in the sky, recording the brightness and location of many faint stars that will be catalogued accurately for the first time, researchers say.
The stars are being charted as part of the American Association of Variable Star Observers Photometric All-Sky Survey (APASS), which is scanning the sky at a level 100 times fainter than any previous star-mapping expedition.
8. Saturn's Jet Streams
Saturn's turbulent jet streams are powered by the huge planet's internal heat rather than by energy from the sun, a new study suggests.
Heat from deep within Saturn causes water to condense, which in turn creates temperature differences in the atmosphere, researchers said. These temperature differences generate disturbances that accelerate the planet's jet streams - regions where winds blow much faster than in other parts of the atmosphere.
Top image: Namibia ‘fairy circles’ (left) and 3D numerical simulations of a magnetic solar tornado (right)
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