Category: 7. Science

Amateur astrophotographer and full-time wildlife conservationist Tim Henderson captured a trio of breathtaking nebula scenes adorning the pristine skies above the Central Australian Desert.

Henderson was able to capture detailed portraits of the Carina Nebula, along with the emission nebulas NGC 6188 and Sh2-1 in late April and May earlier this year using an Askar SQA55 scope coupled with a high-end astronomy camera and mount.

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Here’s what you’ll learn when you read this story:

• Observations of the young HOPS-315 star system show an environment analogous to what our own nascent Solar System would have looked like billions of years ago.

• The star is surrounded by a protoplanetary disk, and this disk is the first evidence of debris condensing into what will eventually become planets and other objects.

• Observing this early phase of evolution around a protostar will allow scientists to learn more about the formation of our own Solar System.

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If our Solar System had baby pictures from over 4.5 billion years ago, they would look something like the otherworldly swirls of dust and gas surrounding the young star HOPS-315.

Nascent planets forming around young stars have been observed before, but until now, what hasn’t been seen is the phase of star system formation before that, when mineral particles condense at extreme temperatures from a protoplanetary disk to form what will later become those new planets. The enormous surrounding clouds of gas and dust tend to obscure what was going on.

But NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (by making observations at infrared and millimeter wavelengths) has finally revealed chemical signals that are, for a star system, what ultrasound images are for human pregnancies. The sources for these signals were crystalline minerals floating in hot silicon monoxide (SiO) gas in the inner region of the protoplanetary disk around HOPS-315. The star and its disk are located 1,300 light-years away, which means we are seeing them as they existed during humanity’s year 700. And because a thousand years is a blink of an eye in cosmic terms, HOPS-315 is probably still a developing protostar.

When an international team of researchers found out about the Webb observations, they zeroed in with ESO’s Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) and captured the moment that minerals (which had sublimated in the intense heat, meaning that they evaporated without turning liquid) started to condense into planetary embryos.

“The first high-temperature minerals to recondense from this gaseous reservoir start the clock on planet formation,” said the team (led by astronomer Melissa McClure of Leiden University in the Netherlands) in a study recently published in the journal Nature.

This is what McClure goes on to call a “t=0 moment” in the creation of a new planetary system. When she and her team compared their findings with models of how our Solar System came into being, they found that the formation of solids from cooling gases and mineral dust in the HOPS-315 system mirrored what is thought to have happened in our own stellar territory. The materials that form from the early phases of this process are known as refractory solids, which can survive intense heat without degrading. When our Solar System was forming, the temperature around proto-Earth is thought to have been around 327 degrees Celsius (620 degrees Fahrenheit).

Remnants of the first solids that ever condensed in this region of our Solar System can be found embedded in primordial meteorites that have crashed to Earth, taking the form of flecks of minerals. Some of these flecks are even older than the Solar System itself—the presolar grains in the Murchison meteorite, for instance, go back 7 billion years. They are thought to have come from the remains of ancient stars that were swept through the interstellar medium, forming a new nebula that eventually flattened into the protoplanetary disk from which our Solar System emerged.

“Comparison with condensation models with rapid grain growth and disk structure models suggests the formation of refractory solids analogous to those in our Solar System,” McClure said. And if the HOPS-315 system continues to evolve as our own system did, minerals will collide and stick to each other until they form larger and larger rocks, which will accrete into planetesimals and, eventually, actual planets.

We’ll just have to keep watching and learning.

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We dissent to changes to NASA’s Technical Authority capacities that are driven by anything other than safety and mission assurance. The culture of organizational silence promoted at NASA over the last six months already represents a dangerous turn away from the lessons learned following the Columbia disaster. Changes to the system of Technical Authority, as suggested would be made in the June 25th NASA Town Hall, should be made only in the interests of improving safety, not in anticipation of future budget cuts.
We dissent to the closing out of missions for which Congress has appropriated funding because it represents a permanent loss of capability to the United States both in space and on Earth. Once operational spacecraft are decommissioned, they cannot be turned back on. Additionally, cancelling missions in development threatens to end the next generation of crucial observations.
We dissent to implementing indiscriminate cuts to NASA science and aeronautics research because this will leave the American people without the unique public good that NASA provides. Basic research in space science, aeronautics, and the stewardship of the Earth are inherently governmental functions that cannot and will not be taken up by the private sector. Furthermore, NASA has a nearly threefold return on investment in economic activity, and supports national security by ensuring the United States maintains its lead in science and technology. We dissent to NASA’s non-strategic staffing reductions because they will jeopardize NASA’s core mission. Thousands of NASA civil servant employees have already been terminated, resigned or retired early, taking with them highly specialized, irreplaceable knowledge crucial to carrying out NASA’s mission.
We dissent to canceling NASA participation in international missions because in doing so, NASA is abandoning America’s allies. To date, 55 nations have signed on to the Artemis Accords, and withdrawing support from missions with our long-standing partners at the European Space Agency (ESA), Canadian Space Agency (CSA), the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), and others threatens NASA’s ability to lead the world in the future of space exploration. We dissent to the termination of NASA contracts and grants for reasons unrelated to performance because it weakens state and local economies across the country. Capriciously terminating contracts and grants reduces the number of private sector jobs associated with the space economy and discourages private entrepreneurship by negating competitive grant selection processes.
We dissent to the elimination of programs aimed at developing and supporting NASA’s workforce because it undermines the agency’s power to innovate for the benefit of humanity. Cuts to diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility programming that have already been implemented directly conflict with the agency’s core value of inclusion. Eliminating the Office of STEM Engagement would deliver a critical blow to the nation’s future space economy workforce.

Who We Are

The signatories of this letter are current and former NASA employees from every NASA center and mission directorate. In addition to named signatories, we include anonymous signatories who share our concerns but choose not to be identified due to the culture of fear of retaliation cultivated by this administration. As a group of individuals from a diversity of nationalities, races, abilities, sexualities, and gender identities, we stand unified in support of NASA’s core values: safety, integrity, teamwork, excellence, and inclusion.

In the scorching deserts of East Africa, the ground is slowly tearing itself apart — a slow-motion, geological drama. Over millions of years, the African continent will cleave in two, and scientists say a new ocean will one day fill the gap.

The Afar region is most famous for being one of the hottest and most inhospitable places on Earth. But for geologists, what’s more interesting is what lies beneath the scorching ground. The Afar sits at the crossroads of three tectonic plates — the Nubian, Somali, and Arabian — which are gradually pulling away from one another. This process, known as rifting, is reshaping the landscape and offering scientists a rare opportunity to study how continents split and oceans are born.

“This is the only place on Earth where you can study how continental rift becomes an oceanic rift,” Christopher Moore, a Ph.D. student at the University of Leeds, who uses satellite radar to monitor the region’s volcanic activity, told NBC.

A Geological Laboratory

The Afar region is home to the East African Rift Valley, a massive crack in the Earth’s surface that stretches through Ethiopia and Kenya. In 2005, a 35-mile-long fissure opened in the Ethiopian desert.  It measures more than 50 feet in depth and 65 feet across, according to National Geographic. A rift valley refers to a lowland region where tectonic plates rift, or move apart.

“The violent split was equivalent to several hundred years of tectonic plate movement in just a few days,” said Cynthia Ebinger, a geophysicist at Tulane University who has spent years studying the region.

Ebinger’s research suggests that the rifting process isn’t always smooth. Instead, it can be punctuated by sudden, explosive events. She likens the process to overfilling a balloon: “We’re trying to understand the straw that breaks the camel’s back.”

These events are driven by the buildup of pressure from rising magma, which eventually forces the crust to crack. Over time, these cracks will grow, and the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea will flood into the rift, creating a new ocean and breaking Africa into two continents: The smaller continent will include present-day Somalia and parts of Kenya, Ethiopia, and Tanzania, while the bigger one will include everything else in Africa. 

“A rift like this once eventually separated the African and South American continents to form the Atlantic Ocean, and the rift in east Africa may be the very early stages of this,” said Christy Till, an Arizona State University geologist. “The process just occurs very slowly and takes millions of years.”

A Sixth Ocean

For decades, scientists have studied the African rift, but modern technology has been a game-changer. GPS instruments, for example, allow researchers to measure the movement of tectonic plates with remarkable precision.

“With GPS measurements, you can measure rates of movement down to a few millimeters per year,” said Ken Macdonald, a marine geophysicist and professor emeritus at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

The Arabian plate is moving away from Africa at a rate of about 1 inch per year, while the Nubian and Somali plates are separating more slowly, at half an inch to 0.2 inches annually. These movements may seem insignificant, but over millions of years, they will completely reshape the region.

As the plates pull apart, material from deep within the Earth rises to the surface, forming new oceanic crust. “We can see that oceanic crust is starting to form, because it’s distinctly different from continental crust in its composition and density,” Moore explained.

Scientists estimate it will take at least 5 to 10 million years for the Afar region to be fully submerged. When that happens, the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea will flood into the rift, creating a new ocean basin and turning the Horn of Africa into its own small continent.

For now, the Afar region remains a harsh and unforgiving landscape. Daytime temperatures often soar to 130 degrees Fahrenheit (54 degrees Celsius), cooling only to a “balmy” 95 degrees (35 degrees Celsius) at night. Yet, for scientists like Ebinger, it’s a natural laboratory that offers unparalleled insights into the forces that shape our planet.

“It has been called Dante’s inferno,” she said. But for those willing to brave the heat, it’s a window into the future of Earth’s geology — a future where Africa is no longer one continent, but two; split by a new ocean.

This article originally appeared in February 2025 and was updated with new information.

In a thrilling milestone for the Beyond EPICA – Oldest Ice project, ancient Antarctic ice has arrived at the British Antarctic Survey in Cambridge. Retrieved from depths of nearly 2,800 metres at Little Dome C, these pristine cylinders of ice are no ordinary samples; they’re frozen snapshots of Earth’s distant past.

This ice was formed over 1.5 million years ago, locking in atmospheric gases and climate clues like pages from a prehistoric diary. Now, scientists across Europe will analyze each layer with painstaking care, hoping to reconstruct how greenhouse gases and global temperatures evolved long before human records began.

It’s more than chilly science; it’s a voyage into Earth’s climate memory.

Backed by the European Commission, the Beyond EPICA – Oldest Ice project is an extraordinary scientific collaboration that unites experts from 10 countries and 12 institutions across Europe. Their shared mission? To push the boundaries of climate history by analyzing the deepest and oldest ice ever recovered.

Currently, our most precise ice core data spans about 800,000 years. However, these newly retrieved samples could reveal up to 1.5 million years of Earth’s atmospheric evolution, more than doubling the current estimate of 0.6 million years. It’s a bold leap backward in time, with potential lessons for the future.

Dr Liz Thomas, Head of the Ice Cores team at the British Antarctic Survey, said: “It’s incredibly exciting to be part of this international effort to unlock the deepest secrets of Antarctica’s ice. The project is driven by a central scientific question: why did the planet’s climate cycle shift roughly one million years ago from a 41,000-year to a 100,000-year phasing of glacial-interglacial cycles? By extending the ice core record beyond this turning point, researchers hope to improve predictions of how Earth’s climate may respond to future greenhouse gas increases.”

“There is no other place on Earth that retains such a long record of the past atmosphere as Antarctica. It’s our best hope to understand the fundamental drivers of Earth’s climate shifts.”

At the heart of this breakthrough is the British Antarctic Survey’s ice core team, masters of continuous flow analysis, a precision method where ancient ice melts at a glacial pace, releasing a cascade of chemical clues. By tracking elements, particles, and isotopes in real-time, they’re revealing an archive that has been frozen for over 1.5 million years.

And here’s the secret sauce: air bubbles trapped in the ice, preserved snapshots of prehistoric skies. These tiny pockets hold direct evidence of greenhouse gases and climate conditions, far more vivid than anything marine sediment alone could offer.

Backed by UKRI and selected to lead impurity analysis, the UK team is helping decode the planet’s long-lost climate dialogue. It’s science that doesn’t just thaw the ice; it melts boundaries in our understanding of Earth’s deep past.

“Our data will yield the first continuous reconstructions of key environmental indicators, including atmospheric temperatures, wind patterns, sea ice extent, and marine productivity, spanning the past 1.5 million years. This unprecedented ice core dataset will provide vital insights into the link between atmospheric CO₂ levels and climate during a previously uncharted period in Earth’s history, offering valuable context for predicting future climate change,” concludes Dr Thomas.”

Newswise — Flooding affects more people globally than any other environmental hazard, yet accurate monitoring remains a challenge. Public satellite sensors often suffer from limited spatial resolution, revisit frequency, or cloud cover interference. While commercial satellites offer sharper imagery, their cost and restricted access hinder broad usage. Meanwhile, deep learning requires large, high-quality datasets to train models effectively. Most existing datasets use coarser labels that limit model accuracy. As interest grows in geo-foundation models and climate-adaptive infrastructure, the need for precise, accessible inundation data becomes pressing. Due to these challenges, a comprehensive high-resolution dataset is needed to advance satellite-based flood detection and machine learning capabilities.

Researchers from the University of Arizona and collaborators from institutions including NASA and Columbia University have developed FloodPlanet, a new global flood dataset released (DOI: 10.34133/remotesensing.0575) on May 15, 2025, in the Journal of Remote Sensing. The dataset addresses key limitations in satellite-based inundation monitoring by providing manual annotations derived from 3-meter resolution commercial imagery. Designed to improve flood detection by public sensors like Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2, this effort enhances data quality for training deep learning models and supports the development of more robust disaster response systems.

The study found that models trained on FloodPlanet labels significantly outperformed those trained on lower-resolution public datasets. For example, using FloodPlanet data improved intersection-over-union (IoU) scores by up to 15.6% when evaluating flood detection via Sentinel-1 imagery. When tested on the same flood events, FloodPlanet-trained models consistently delivered more precise flood extent mapping, particularly in diverse ecoregions and complex terrain. The dataset enabled public sensors to achieve near-commercial accuracy levels, providing a cost-effective way to boost model performance without requiring continuous access to expensive satellite data. This innovation addresses a critical gap in the field: how to bridge high-resolution data advantages with publicly available resources.

FloodPlanet contains 366 manually labeled image chips from 19 global flood events between 2017 and 2020. Labels were created using 3-meter resolution PlanetScope imagery and co-aligned with Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2 data. The team evaluated model performance through a leave-one-region-out cross-validation method, training a UNet-based deep learning model on public and commercial sensors. Models trained on FloodPlanet labels showed clear gains across all performance metrics. For instance, Sentinel-1 models improved IoU scores from 0.52 (NASA IMPACT) to 0.601, while Sentinel-2 models saw a jump from 0.571 (S1F11) to 0.624. PlanetScope models achieved a mean IoU of 0.691, outperforming both public sensors. Additionally, spatial analysis showed better results in vegetated and coastal regions, with lower performance in arid zones due to spectral confusion. The research also found that integrating even limited commercial data into model training can dramatically enhance performance, helping public-sector agencies and global researchers improve flood mapping at scale.

“Our goal was to make high-resolution flood data more accessible and impactful,” said co-author Dr. Zhijie Zhang. “Even without real-time commercial imagery, training public satellite models with FloodPlanet labels bridges the performance gap. It’s a scalable solution for global flood monitoring, particularly in vulnerable regions where timely, accurate information is vital for disaster response.”

The research team curated FloodPlanet by selecting diverse flood events across continents and ecoregions. Each event was represented by 1,024×1,024-pixel chips manually labeled using NASA’s ImageLabeler software, combining true- and false-color composites to identify water. Models were trained using a UNet architecture in PyTorch, with PlanetScope, Sentinel-1, and Sentinel-2 imagery resampled to match spatial resolutions. Performance was assessed through precision, recall, F1-score, and IoU, using cross-validation to ensure generalizability across unseen flood events.

FloodPlanet sets a new standard for training flood detection models with high-quality data. Its open-access format allows researchers worldwide to develop more accurate flood prediction systems, especially in regions underserved by commercial satellite access. The dataset could inform early warning systems, emergency response planning, and climate adaptation strategies. As foundation models for Earth observation evolve, integrating FloodPlanet may further unlock insights into hydrological extremes and accelerate the development of AI-driven environmental monitoring tools.

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References

DOI

10.34133/remotesensing.0575

Original Source URL

https://spj.science.org/doi/10.34133/remotesensing.0575

Funding Information

This work was funded by the NASA CSDA Program (award number 80NSSC21K1163).

About Journal of Remote Sensing

The Journal of Remote Sensing, an online-only Open Access journal published in association with AIR-CAS, promotes the theory, science, and technology of remote sensing, as well as interdisciplinary research within earth and information science.

People have long wondered what life was first like on Earth, and if there is life in our solar system beyond our planet. Scientists have reason to believe that some of the moons in our solar system – like Jupiter’s Europa and Saturn’s Enceladus – may contain deep, salty liquid oceans under an icy shell. Seafloor volcanoes could heat these moons’ oceans and provide the basic chemicals needed for life.

Similar deep-sea volcanoes found on Earth support microbial life that lives inside solid rock without sunlight and oxygen. Some of these microbes, called thermophiles, live at temperatures hot enough to boil water on the surface. They grow from the chemicals coming out of active volcanoes.

Because these microorganisms existed before there was photosynthesis or oxygen on Earth, scientists think these deep-sea volcanoes and microbes could resemble the earliest habitats and life on Earth, and beyond.

To determine if life could exist beyond Earth in these ocean worlds, NASA sent the Cassini spacecraft to orbit Saturn in 1997. The agency has also sent three spacecraft to orbit Jupiter: Galileo in 1989, Juno in 2011 and most recently Europa Clipper in 2024. These spacecraft flew and will fly close to Enceladus and Europa to measure their habitability for life using a suite of instruments.

However, for planetary scientists to interpret the data they collect, they need to first understand how similar habitats function and host life on Earth.

My microbiology laboratory at the University of Massachusetts Amherst studies thermophiles from hot springs at deep-sea volcanoes, also called hydrothermal vents.

Diving deep for samples of life

I grew up in Spokane, Washington, and had over an inch of volcanic ash land on my home when Mount St. Helens erupted in 1980. That event led to my fascination with volcanoes.

Several years later, while studying oceanography in college, I collected samples from Mount St. Helens’ hot springs and studied a thermophile from the site. I later collected samples at hydrothermal vents along an undersea volcanic mountain range hundreds of miles off the coast of Washington and Oregon. I have continued to study these hydrothermal vents and their microbes for nearly four decades.

Submarine pilots collect the samples my team uses from hydrothermal vents using human-occupied submarines or remotely operated submersibles. These vehicles are lowered into the ocean from research ships where scientists conduct research 24 hours a day, often for weeks at a time.

The samples collected include rocks and heated hydrothermal fluids that rise from cracks in the seafloor.

The submarines use mechanical arms to collect the rocks and special sampling pumps and bags to collect the hydrothermal fluids. The submarines usually remain on the seafloor for about a day before returning samples to the surface. They make multiple trips to the seafloor on each expedition.

Inside the solid rock of the seafloor, hydrothermal fluids as hot at 662 degrees Fahrenheit (350 Celsius) mix with cold seawater in cracks and pores of the rock. The mixture of hydrothermal fluid and seawater creates the ideal temperatures and chemical conditions that thermophiles need to live and grow.

When the submarines return to the ship, scientists – including my research team – begin analyzing the chemistry, minerals and organic material like DNA in the collected water and rock samples.

These samples contain live microbes that we can cultivate, so we grow the microbes we are interested in studying while on the ship. The samples provide a snapshot of how microbes live and grow in their natural environment.

Thermophiles in the lab

Back in my laboratory in Amherst, my research team isolates new microbes from the hydrothermal vent samples and grows them under conditions that mimic those they experience in nature. We feed them volcanic chemicals like hydrogen, carbon dioxide, sulfur and iron and measure their ability to produce compounds like methane, hydrogen sulfide and the magnetic mineral magnetite.

Oxygen is typically deadly for these organisms, so we grow them in synthetic hydrothermal fluid and in sealed tubes or in large bioreactors free of oxygen. This way, we can control the temperature and chemical conditions they need for growth.

From these experiments, we look for distinguishing chemical signals that these organisms produce which spacecraft or instruments that land on extraterrestrial surfaces could potentially detect.

We also create computer models that best describe how we think these microbes grow and compete with other organisms in hydrothermal vents. We can apply these models to conditions we think existed on early Earth or on ocean worlds to see how these microbes might fare under those conditions.

We then analyze the proteins from the thermophiles we collect to understand how these organisms function and adapt to changing environmental conditions. All this information guides our understanding of how life can exist in extreme environments on and beyond Earth.

Uses for thermophiles in biotechnology

In addition to providing helpful information to planetary scientists, research on thermophiles provides other benefits as well. Many of the proteins in thermophiles are new to science and useful for biotechnology.

The best example of this is an enzyme called DNA polymerase, which is used to artificially replicate DNA in the lab by the polymerase chain reaction. The DNA polymerase first used for polymerase chain reaction was purified from the thermophilic bacterium Thermus aquaticus in 1976. This enzyme needs to be heat resistant for the replication technique to work. Everything from genome sequencing to clinical diagnoses, crime solving, genealogy tests and genetic engineering uses DNA polymerase.

My lab and others are exploring how thermophiles can be used to degrade waste and produce commercially useful products. Some of these organisms grow on waste milk from dairy farms and brewery wastewater – materials that cause fish kills and dead zones in ponds and bays. The microbes then produce biohydrogen from the waste – a compound that can be used as an energy source.

Hydrothermal vents are among the most fascinating and unusual environments on Earth. With them, windows to the first life on Earth and beyond may lie at the bottom of our oceans.

Footage of black hole in space

2 View gallery

Illustration of black hole drawing in a star

(Illustration: Ignacio de la Calle – Quasar Science Resources for ESA)

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Prof. Iair Arcavi (right) with the reserach team

(Photo: Tel Aviv University)

Aboard the International Space Station, astronauts work to study how the microgravity atmosphere affects human health, such as muscle development and bone structure.

What is it?

As part of a project to look at how microgravity affects cellular health, ISS Commander Takuya Onishi of JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) and NASA Expedition 73 Flight Engineer Nichole Ayers collect blood samples from the astronauts on the space station.

A recent study published in the Cambridge Archaeological Journal examines the evolution of elk petroglyphs in western Mongolia, which span over a period of 12,000 years. Initially, these carvings depicted elk with remarkable realism, reflecting an intimate understanding of the natural world. However, as time progressed, these representations transformed into more abstract, wolf-like symbols. According to Archaeology Magazine, this shift not only represents changes in artistic style but also indicates significant transformations in the environment, human mobility, and cultural identity. The evolution of these petroglyphs offers a fascinating insight into the complex interplay between art, society, and the surrounding landscape.

The Evolution of Elk Images: From Realism to Abstraction

In the early depictions of elk in the Altai region, these majestic animals were drawn in meticulous detail, showcasing natural poses and even interactions with other extinct species like mammoths and woolly rhinos.

However, over time, these realistic images began to transform.

By the Bronze Age, elk were depicted with exaggerated features and distorted facial characteristics, hinting at an evolution from observational art to more abstract, symbolic forms.

The Role of Environment and Climate in Shaping These Changes

As the climate shifted during the Holocene, the Eurasian steppe grew cooler and drier. Forests—once home to elk (Cervus elaphus sibiricus)—receded, pushing the elk to migrate westward. In response to these changes, human populations also adapted, increasingly embracing pastoralism and moving to higher altitudes.

This transformation is mirrored in the rock art, where carvings appear at progressively higher elevations over time. The Altai region itself, where Mongolia, Russia, China, and Kazakhstan meet, holds one of the longest continuous rock art traditions in the world, spanning from the Late Paleolithic (around 12,000 years ago) to the Bronze Age and Early Iron Age.

Elk as a Symbol: A Shift in Cultural and Social Identity

By the later stages of the Bronze Age, the elk ceased to be merely a representation of the natural world. Instead, it became a symbol, possibly reflecting status, clan affiliation, or spiritual beliefs. Over time, the elk’s representation became more stylized and abstract, eventually disappearing from art altogether by the Turkic period. One of the most fascinating aspects of this shift is the discovery of an elk image carved on a vast glacial boulder in Tsagaan Salaa IV. Dr. Esther Jacobson-Tepfer, who discovered this artifact in 1995, remarked,

“It seemed to reflect a complex interweaving of deep geological time, iconography, and its social implications,” she described the boulder as not only an artifact

—but a symbol of evolving cultural identity, highlighting how art transformed alongside environmental and societal changes.

The Impact of Mobility and Social Hierarchy on Artistic Traditions

Dr. Jacobson-Tepfer’s fieldwork in the region also illustrates how these petroglyphs represent a broader shift in human social structures. As mounted travel became more prevalent, art began to incorporate stylized depictions of animals on personal items, signaling the emergence of new social hierarchies and a more mobile way of life.

Over time, the elk’s representation evolved, becoming an emblem of changing social identities rather than a mere depiction of nature. The elk, once a central element of life in the region, completely vanished from the art tradition by the time of the Turkic period, marking a distinct break in the cultural continuity of these ancient peoples.