Researchers have discovered bundles of “dark oxygen” being formed on the ocean floor. 

In a new study, over a dozen scientists from across Europe and the United States studied “polymetallic nodules,” or chunks of metal, that cover large swaths of the sea floor. Those nodules and other items found on the ocean floor in the deep sea between Hawaii and Mexico were subjected to a range of experiments, including injection with other chemicals or cold seawater. 

The experiments showed that more oxygen — which is necessary for all life on Earth — was being created by the nodules than was being consumed. Scientists dubbed this output “dark oxygen.” 

About half of the world’s oxygen comes from the ocean, but scientists previously believed it was entirely made by marine plants using sunlight for photosynthesis. Plants on land use the same process, where they absorb carbon dioxide and produce oxygen. But scientists for this study examined nodules about three miles underwater, where no sunlight can reach. 

This isn’t the first time attention has been drawn to the nodules. The chunks of metal are made of minerals like cobalt, nickel, manganese and copper that are necessary to make batteries. Those materials may be what causes the production of dark oxygen. 

“If you put a battery into seawater, it starts fizzing,” lead researcher Andrew Sweetman, a professor from the Scottish Association for Marine Science, told CBS News partner BBC News. “That’s because the electric current is actually splitting seawater into oxygen and hydrogen [which are the bubbles]. We think that’s happening with these nodules in their natural state.”

The metals on the nodules are valued in the trillions of dollars, setting of a race to pull the nodules up from the ocean’s depths in a process known as deep sea or seabed mining. Environmental activists have decried the practice.  

Sweetman and other marine scientists worry that the deep sea mining could disrupt the production of dark oxygen and pose a threat to marine life that may depend on it. 

“I don’t see this study as something that will put an end to mining,” Sweetman told the BBC. “[But] we need to explore it in greater detail and we need to use this information and the data we gather in future if we are going to go into the deep ocean and mine it in the most environmentally friendly way possible.”

Energy cannot be created from nothing, but physicists found a way to do the next best thing: extract energy from seemingly empty space, teleport it elsewhere and store it for later use. The researchers successfully tested their protocol using a quantum computer.

The laws of quantum physics reveal that perfectly empty space cannot exist – even places fully devoid of atoms still contain tiny flickers of quantum fields. In 2008, Masahiro Hotta at Tohoku University in Japan proposed that those flickers, together with the …

Yellowstone National Park visitors were sent running and screaming Tuesday when a hydrothermal explosion spewed boiling hot water and rocks into the air. No one was injured, but it has left some wondering: How does this happen and why wasn’t there any warning? 

The Weather Channel’s Stephanie Abrams said explosions like this are caused by underground channels of hot water, which also create Yellowstone’s iconic geysers and hot springs. 

“When the pressure rapidly drops in a localized spot, it actually forces the hot water to quickly turn to steam, triggering a hydrothermal explosion since gas takes up more space than liquid,” Abrams said Wednesday on “CBS Mornings.” “And this explosion can rupture the surface, sending mud and debris thousands of feet up and more than half a mile out in the most extreme cases.” 

Tuesday’s explosion was not that big, Abrams said, “but a massive amount of rocks and dirt buried the Biscuit Basin,” where the explosion occurred.   

A nearby boardwalk was left with a broken fence and was covered in debris. Nearby trees were also killed, with the U.S. Geological Survey saying the plants “can’t stand thermal activity.” 

“Because areas heat up and cool down over time, trees will sometimes die out when an area heats up, regrow as it cools down, but then die again when it heats up,” the agency said on X.

The USGS said it considers this explosion small, and that similar explosions happen in the national park “perhaps a couple times a year.” Often, though, they happen in the backcountry and aren’t noticed.

“It was small compared to what Yellowstone is capable of,” USGS Volcanoes said on X. “That’s not to say it was not dramatic or very hazardous — obviously it was. But the big ones leave craters hundreds of feet across.”

The agency also said that “hydrothermal explosions, “being episodes of water suddenly flashing to steam, are notoriously hard to predict” and “may not give warning signs at all.” It likened the eruptions to a pressure cooker.

While Yellowstone sits on a dormant volcano, officials said the explosion was not related to volcanic activity. 

“This was an isolated incident in the shallow hot-water system beneath Biscuit Basin,” the USGS said. “It was not triggered by any volcanic activity.” 

SpaceX has just performed a static fire of the six engines on its Starship spacecraft as it awaits permission from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) for the fifth test flight of the world’s most powerful rocket.

The Elon Musk-led spaceflight company shared footage and an image of the test fire on X (formerly Twitter) on Thursday. It shows the engines firing up while the vehicle remained on the ground.

Six engine static fire of Flight 6 Starship pic.twitter.com/fzJz9BWBn6

— SpaceX (@SpaceX) September 19, 2024

For flights, the Starship spacecraft is carried to orbit by the first-stage Super Heavy booster, which pumps out 17 million pounds of thrust at launch, making it the most powerful rocket ever built.

The Super Heavy booster and Starship spacecraft — collectively known as the Starship — have launched four times to date, with the performance of each test flight showing improvements over the previous one.

The first one, for example, exploded shortly after lift off from SpaceX’s Starbase facility in Boca Chica, Texas, in April last year, while the second effort, which took place seven months later, achieved stage separation before an explosion occurred — an incident that was captured in dramatic footage. The third and fourth flights lasted much longer and achieved many of the mission objectives, including getting the Starship spacecraft to orbit.

The fifth test flight isn’t likely to take place until November at the earliest, according to a recent report. It will involve the first attempt to use giant mechanical arms to “catch” the Super Heavy booster as it returns to the launch area. SpaceX recently expressed extreme disappointment at the time that it’s taking the FAA to complete an investigation that will pave the way for the fifth Starship test, and has said that it’ll be ready to launch the vehicle within days of getting permission from the FAA.

Once testing is complete, NASA wants to use the Starship, along with its own Space Launch System rocket, to launch crew and cargo to the moon and quite possibly for destinations much further into space such as Mars. NASA is already planning to use a modified version of the Starship spacecraft to land the first astronauts in five decades on the lunar surface in the Artemis III mission, currently set for 2026.