A new scan of the Titanic reveals details about its final hours

Footage from the moments the Titanic wreck was discovered

One of the most famous shipwrecks in modern history, the RMS Titanic sank after hitting an iceberg in April 1912. It was discovered on the seafloor in 1985 by a joint US-French research team about 370 miles southeast of Newfoundland.

See the last known image of the Titanic afloat (1912)

Three days before the tragedy unfolded, this photo was taken by an Irish Jesuit priest who sailed with the ship for the first part of its journey from England to Ireland.

An eyewitness account of the sinking of the Titanic

One of the most famous modern disasters, the Titanic sank in April, 1912, after colliding with an iceberg, killing an estimated 1,500 passengers and crew. One survivor, Washington Dodge, recorded his events just days after returning to land, offering one of the most immediate first-hand accounts of the ship's sinking.

Explore a database of more than 200,000 wrecks

Only a small fraction of shipwrecks occurring throughout human history have been discovered. This database is the largest compilation to date, and includes more than 80,000 images, with related news updated on a rolling basis.

The wife and mother of two of the Titan submersible victims shares her life since the tragic accident

The loss of the Titan submersible amid its June 2023 dive to explore the wreckage of the Titanic captured headlines worldwide. Christine Dawood had given up her seat on the trip of a lifetime to her 19-year-old son, Suleman, so he could experience the dive with his father. She has since written a book about her experience of the tragedy and about life in its aftermath.

Advanced forensic science has helped identify killed sailors decades later

When the USS Oklahoma capsized amid the attacks, hundreds of sailors were buried within the ship's hull. Officials have used advances in forensic science to analyze DNA and dental evidence to help identify nearly 400 sailors decades after the fact.

See images of shipwrecks from WWII's Battle of Midway

Deep-sea explorers have captured detailed images of three iconic shipwrecks from World War II's Battle of Midway, including the first up-close photos of the Japanese aircraft carrier Akagi since its sinking in 1942.

Mapping the Tongan eruption impact

A team of scientists—with the help of an uncrewed boat remotely controlled from the UK—join forces to produce one of the clearest pictures to date of what took place underneath the water as an enormous volcano erupted near the Tongan mainland.

Explore the animals that populate the depths of the ocean, from fish and coral in the first few hundred feet, all the way down to the bottom of the Mariana Trench.

An interactive of the deep sea

In 1915, workers recovered a submarine-like vessel from the Chicago River, prompting fears of German espionage

A Canadian tourism campaign turns every whale sighting—including ones from decades ago—into a live, crowdsourced migration biography

Humpback flukes (or tails) are as individually distinct as fingerprints, which means a single photo is enough to match a whale to its full sighting history. Every upload adds a chapter (the database goes back to the 1970s) and the site uses AI to render that data as narrative, not just data.

Evidence suggests some of the Challenger's crew may have been alive after the explosion

Recovery of the intact crew cabin and later analysis of flight data led investigators to conclude the astronauts likely survived the initial breakup and remained alive during the roughly two-minute descent before the cabin struck the ocean.

An illustrated guide to constructing a Viking ship

Using saga descriptions, museum consultations, and physical evidence, this guide tries to imagine what kind of ship Harald Hardrada would have sailed into Constantinople in 1034. The contemporary illustrations suggest technically precise craftsmanship.

Experts reconstruct Pompeii’s daily life—and whether disaster could strike again

This documentary utilizes archaeology, X-rays, and 3D reconstructions to reconstruct what the streets, homes, and rituals of Pompeii looked like before 79 CE. Scientists also use satellite imaging to track landslide risks that could damage the site today.

Digital twins create real-time 3D models of smart cities

These re-creations allow city planners to track changes and manage infrastructure more easily by testing strategies in virtual environments. Geospatial technologies, such as mobile mapping and satellite imaging, help cities assess urban layouts, plan for disasters, and manage resources more efficiently.

The art of 'undiscovering' phantom islands

Centuries of maps include islands and isles that appear to only exist on atlases. This article explores the discovery and "undiscovery" of such landscapes, which still persist despite modern technology. As recently as 2012, Google Maps showed an...

Scale models show the intricacy of WWI trench warfare

Every inch of these models of WWI soldiers in the trenches is crafted with amazing details, right down to the real-life letters written to home.

Fly through the deepest image of space ever taken by the Hubble Space Telescope

Taken over 11 days between 2003 and 2004, when the space telescope was aimed at a seemingly empty patch of the sky, the Hubble Ultra-Deep Field revealed about 10,000 sources of light, most of which are entire galaxies. This visualization expands the 2D image into a 3D view spanning 12 billion years.

Examine a 3D model of the Rosetta Stone

One of the most famous archaeological finds of all time, the 1799 discovery of the Rosetta Stone helped unlock the secrets of ancient Egypt. Inscribed on the granite slab was the same passage in three languages: hieroglyphics, Old Egyptian, and Greek, which enabled scholars to decode the ancient language. Take an up-close look with this 3D model made up of more than 200 composite photos.

This real-time tracking of the hantavirus cruise ship outbreak in May 2026 offers a unique glimpse into the global reach of the outbreak and whether the virus sickened passengers and their communities around the world.

Deepfake Tom Cruise goes viral

Tom Cruise isn’t on TikTok. But you might think that he actually does have an account on the service if you came across the TikTok deepfakes of the actor that have gone viral. They’re the work of a visual and AI effects artist named Chris Umé and a Cruise stand-in, actor Miles Fisher, who already bears a vague resemblance to the actor. Watch what happens after Cruise’s face is superimposed onto Fisher’s.

In 2025, UK scientists began studying climate data from a 1.5-million-year-old ice core

The Antarctica sample will be melted and analyzed in Cambridge to learn about prehistoric environmental conditions. Researchers hope the ice core reveals how Earth's glacial cycles shifted dramatically around 800,000 years ago.

Whirlpool Rapids formed in a matter of days during the last ice age

Niagara Falls' dramatic whirlpool rapids were created in a matter of weeks when the retreating Falls intersected a buried ice age riverbed—generating North America's largest standing waves.

Audio and visual cues from "Titanic," Pink Floyd, and more can provoke goose bumps

These audio and visual snippets have been used in research studies to elicit goose bumps.

Explore the known asteroids, comets, and spacecraft involved in asteroid studies within our solar system with 'Eyes on Asteroids,' a 3D visualization from NASA.

Picasso’s early masterpiece conceals a long-lost secret

Art historians have studied Picasso's Blue Period throughout the last century, but researchers have now uncovered something previously unknown: an underpainting of a woman under one of the artist's portraits.

CT scanners at airports take images across energy bands to identify baggage contents

Old X-ray scanners' inability to distinguish between water and explosives has driven strict liquid bans and longer wait times through airport security. New scanners combine multi-angle images across the energy spectrum to determine an object's density and atomic composition for improved threat detection.

The claims that Jesus was buried in the Shroud of Turin, preserved since 1578

The 14-foot linen cloth bears a faint image of a crucified man and is the most scientifically studied relic in history. The core dispute hasn't moved much: 1988 radiocarbon dating placed it in the 13th-14th century, while defenders argue the sample was contaminated by medieval repairs. No one disputes that scientists can't explain how the image was formed, which acts like a photographic negative and has no trace of paint or dye.

For centuries, Niagara Falls has been a magnet for daredevils seeking to conquer one of nature's most powerful wonders, with its 200-foot drop and water rushing at 32 feet per second with 280 tons of force.

See a 3D reconstruction of Tenochtitlan, the Aztec capital that was home to an estimated population of 200,000 to 400,000.

Explore the archaeological treasures of Pompeii, the city buried under volcanic ash when Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79 CE.

The animatronic shark from Steven Spielberg's 'Jaws,' the first modern blockbuster, was a complex underwater apparatus called 'Bruce.'

An investigation suggests a Scottish island became awash in forever chemicals via seafoam and seaspray—raising questions about what that means for the safety of other coastal areas.

The first image of a black hole was captured by creating an Earth-sized virtual observatory from a network of eight radio telescopes.

See 33 images that became central to huge scandals, including a young Charles and Camilla, Michael Jackson's baby on a hotel balcony, and Hugh Grant's mugshot.

Objects can be 3D printed with light by projecting 2D computerized tomography (CT) scans onto rotating cylinders of resin, which solidify upon exposure.

The Mona Lisa's celebrity status and repeated restorations have obscured what made the painting so revolutionary for its time

Scientists can determine Earth's past climate conditions by analyzing air trapped in microscopic bubbles within ice cores—columns of compressed snow layers that build up over hundreds of thousands of years.

Against his wishes, Albert Einstein's brain was removed before his cremation, and the pathologist responsible stored it for decades in mason jars within a beer cooler.

Recent research found that the brain doesn't seem to massively rewire following amputation—upending earlier beliefs about the cause of phantom limb pain.

In 1945, Surrealist artist Salvador Dalí and legendary animator Walt Disney began collaborating on a short film that was not completed until 2003, years after both men had died.

A Yale student wrote a profound essay about the consulting industry's influence on elite college students that was published in a book of her writing after she died in a post-graduation car accident.

Browse a detailed visual analysis of over 200,000 similes—comparisons that often use 'like' or 'as'—from popular fiction to see how frequently writers the same idiomatic expressions.

Netflix profits when you're not watching, and its movies are designed that way—read a detail-rich critical essay exposing lesser-known Netflix takes

Visualize how CRISPR-Cas9—a type of immune system used by single-celled organisms to attack invasive viruses—targets and makes precise changes to a gene's DNA.

Explore an interactive map of battles from the American Revolution, along with detailed summaries of each engagement

The American Society of Civil Engineers' infrastructure report card gave the US a C in 2025, its highest grade since the project launched in 1998.

English mathematician Ada Lovelace wrote the first computer algorithm a century before computers existed and hypothesized that computing devices would one day be able to compose music—foreseeing the generative AI systems of today.

To reduce wrinkles in clothing, research recommends gentle wash cycles with more water and tumble drying with smaller loads and longer times.