Vertebrate fossils can help scientists better understand evolutionary timelines. But plant fossils give paleontologists and paleobotanists a more complete story.

Hidden inside ordinary-looking rocks, an astonishing trove of fossils paints a dramatic picture of how rat-sized creatures ballooned in size and began to evolve into the vast array of species—from cheetahs to bats to whales to humans—that rule our planet today.

To test self-driving cars without putting lives at risk, most companies do a lot of their training in environments they can fully control. But ultimately, the only way to know how a car will perform on public roads is to test it in the real world.

After years of anticipation, autonomous vehicles are now being tested on public roads around the world. As ambitious innovators race to develop what they see as the next high-tech pot of gold, some experts warn there are still daunting challenges ahead, including how to train artificial intelligence to be better than humans at making life-and-death decisions. How do self-driving cars work?

In August of 2018, an 800-foot section of Genoa, Italy's Ponte Morandi Bridge collapsed, killing 43 people. Two survivors reflect on the event.

In 2018, Italy’s Morandi Bridge collapsed, tragically killing 43 people. For 50 years, the iconic bridge had withstood the elements—and stress from ever-increasing traffic. What went wrong that fateful day? And how can new engineering technology protect bridge infrastructure to prevent such tragic failures in the future?

In a single-point bridge failure, one component breaks and brings down an entire structure. See how this happened 52 years ago to West Virginia’s Silver Bridge.

To match human drivers, an automated vehicle needs to learn how to handle three distinct tasks: seeing everything around the car, understand what it’s seeing, and planning the car’s path.

In the far reaches of the solar system, Uranus and Neptune dazzle with unexpected rings, supersonic winds, and dozens of moons. And NASA’s New Horizons gets a stunning up-close view of Pluto before venturing deep into the Kuiper Belt.

Despite Neptune's distance from the Sun, the Voyager mission discovers that Neptune is warmer than its neighbor, Uranus. And, it has the strongest winds of any planet in the Solar System.

Pluto has a thin atmosphere with a blue tint. Find out what else makes Pluto interesting.

Neptune has the fastest winds in the solar system—up to 1,500 mph. What else makes it unique?

Uranus, despite not being the farthest, is the coldest planet in our solar system. What else makes the seventh planet from the Sun special?

NASA's Cassini explored Saturn for over a decade, making incredible discoveries about its rings, storms, and moons. Here are the spacecraft's final moments.

NASA’s Cassini explores Saturn for 13 years, looping through its icy rings and flying by its moons. The probe captures stunning ring-moon interactions, but when it finds the ingredients for life on the moon Enceladus, a bittersweet decision is made.

Saturn is one of the most recognizable planets in our solar system. Here are five cool facts.

Jupiter’s massive gravitational force made it a wrecking ball when it barreled through the early solar system. But it also shaped life on Earth, delivering comets laden with water—and perhaps even the fateful asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs.

About 5 billion years ago, as our sun forms, most planets around it are still dust. But Jupiter's core already begins to grow.

What's so special about Jupiter? Here are five facts about the planet that's home to the "Great Red Spot."

"The Planets" is a five-part series telling the extraordinary story of all eight planets and Pluto.