Ancient Underground City Found

Archaeologists have discovered a previously unknown ancient underground city in the Cappadocia region of central Turkey, a massive complex dating back to the Byzantine Empire dug into the volcanic rock estimated at 5 million square feet and possibly once housing 20,000 people.

Bulge Found on Ganymede

Planetary scientists have discovered a previously unknown 3-km-high equatorial bulge on Jupiter's moon Ganymede, suggesting it formed at the poles and once massive enough rotated on a hidden global ocean separated from the rocky crust of the moon.

Most Massive Black Hole

Astronomers have discovered an ultraluminous quasar (SDSS J0100+2802) powered by the most supermassive black hole yet known with 12 billion solar masses, presenting a theoretical puzzle as to how such large objects quickly formed a mere 900 million years after the Big Bang.

Largest Asteroid Crater Found

Geophysicists have accidentally discovered a 400-km-wide impact zone in the Warburton Basin of Central Australia due to an asteroid that broke into two pieces before striking Earth an estimated 300 million years old, twice the size of the Chicxulub crater of Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula.

Filter-Feeding "Giant Lobster"

Paleontologists have discovered a previously unknown giant fossil (Aegirocassis benmoulae) of the anomalocaridids group living about 480 million years ago that used tiny spines on appendages to filter-feed much like modern-day whales, providing insight into that early marine environment.

Oldest Known Human Ancestor

Researchers have unearthed a jawbone in Ethiopia of an as-yet unnamed Homo ancestor dating back about 2.8 million years, more than 400,000 years earlier than the oldest previously known human fossil evidence and supporting timelines of the transition of our species from Australopithecus to Homo.