The Discoveries Department
Reporting from the working edges of archaeology, marine biology, paleontology, and the physical sciences. Specific finds, named expeditions, methods explained, sources checked.
10 pieces in this section
On its 67th close approach, the Juno spacecraft photographed an unexpected reflective feature inside the Asgard crater system on Jupiter's outermost large moon.
Marcus Bell · Jun 4, 2026 · 7 min read
A six-person team descended 213 meters into a previously unexplored chamber under the Austfonna ice cap, finding 700-year-old air and the remains of a bowhead whale.
Wren Calloway · May 26, 2026 · 8 min read
A new uranium-series analysis of a hunting scene at Leang Karampuang pushes back the earliest known figurative art by at least 6,000 years.
Lila Renshaw · May 19, 2026 · 8 min read
A 2.4-kilogram stone collected near the Erg Chech dune field returned an age of 4.612 billion years, predating the solar system by roughly 45 million years.
Owen Tate · May 14, 2026 · 7 min read
A team at the University of Glasgow used neutron tomography to show that a small bronze lump dismissed as debris is actually a separate, simpler astronomical instrument.
Priya Mehta · May 7, 2026 · 8 min read
A retired theology professor cleaning out his late aunt's house found a 12th-century codex containing fourteen previously unknown letters of the visionary abbess.
Marcus Bell · Apr 30, 2026 · 7 min read
Workers digging a ventilation shaft near Piazza Municipio struck the corner of a 2nd-century BCE chamber tomb containing intact frescoes and a sealed sarcophagus.
Lila Renshaw · Apr 23, 2026 · 8 min read
At 6,212 meters below the South Pacific, a Japanese-New Zealand expedition captured 47 minutes of footage of a creature most marine biologists had only ever seen as a blur.
Owen Tate · Apr 16, 2026 · 7 min read
A graduate student in Leipzig cracked a stubborn cluster of Old Babylonian administrative tablets, revealing a forgotten queen and a famine that reshaped a kingdom.
Priya Mehta · Apr 9, 2026 · 8 min read
A ROV survey north of Scatarie Island lifted a corroded bronze bell from 142 meters down, ending a 228-year search for a vanished Acadian brig.
Wren Calloway · Apr 3, 2026 · 7 min read