Did you panic when you heard in recent news that two massive solar flares from the Sun were hitting Earth’s atmosphere? The coronal mass ejections, or CMEs, typically produced by solar flares might pose a danger, if not for Earth’s protective atmosphere and magnetosphere. Using International Space Station research and technology, scientists continue to learn more about the atmosphere, adding important new data to the collective understanding of this important defensive veil.

Since the explosion on the BP Deepwater Horizon drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico in April of 2010, scientists have been working to understand the impact the disaster has had on the environment. For months, crude oil gushed into the water before the well was capped. A new study confirms that oil from the Macondo well made it into the ocean’s food chain through the tiniest of organisms, zooplankton.