TomoNews US
Sun Erupting, Shooting Out Dangerous Balls of Energy
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- Sun Erupting, Shooting Out Dangerous Balls of Energy
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- 9:17
- Date posted
- 5 years ago
- Description
- WASHINGTON — The sun is getting violent, and shooting massive balls of energy into space. If any of these energy bombs hit Earth, humanity’s satellites and electrical systems will fry and burn out. Here are the details:
ScienceAlert reports that the Sun has been going through a rare period of explosive activity. The most violent moment happened on Tuesday, February 15, when the largest solar eruption in decades shot out of the Sun.
Luckily, that huge eruption happened on the far side of the Sun, so Earth has been spared its devastating impact.
Another lucky fact is that a large number of other recent coronal mass ejections have also exploded from the same area on the far side of the Sun.
However, as the Sun rotates on its own axis, it is quite possible that it might soon be firing a powerful broadside directly into Earth’s path.
If such a powerful electromagnetic storm were to hit Earth, it would cause massive d...
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- China Laser Incident: Chinese Ship Shines Laser At Australian Aircraft
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- 8:48
- Date posted
- 5 years ago
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- ARAFURA SEA, AUSTRALIA — Chinese laser incident summary.
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison has asked the Chinese government to explain what he called the ‘dangerous’ act of shining a laser at an Australian P-8A surveillance aircraft that was tracking two People’s Liberation Army Navy vessels through the Arafura Sea, inside Australia’s Exclusive Economic Zone, on February 17, according to CNN.
Chinese state newspaper The Global Times cited an anonymous military analyst who said the equipment involved in the incident was a laser range finder, used to measure the distance between the ship and the aircraft, and said its use was normal if an aircraft got too close to a vessel.
One maritime security expert cited by The Guardian, however, said if pilots were ‘dazzled,’ it could affect their ability to safely land and, more seriously, the use of a laser could be seen as a precursor to firing a weapon.
China’s defense m...
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- Children Sacrificed, Turned into Mummies for Aristocrats
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- 9:53
- Date posted
- 5 years ago
- Description
- CAJAMARQUILLA, PERU — Archaeologists in Peru have recently been finding the bodies of hundreds of children who were alive and kicking until they were turned into mummies — apparently to help dead aristocrats get into the afterlife. Here are the details:
Agence France Presse reports that archeologists have discovered six mummified children at the archeological site of Cajamarquila, which is located about 24 kilometers to the east of Lima, the capital of Peru.
The scientists believe the children had been sacrificed and placed in a nobleman’s tomb — apparently to accompany the dead aristocrat to the afterlife.
The tiny skeletons, wrapped tightly in cloth, were found last November in the grave of an important man, possibly a political figure.
Archeologist Pieter Van Dalen told the AFP: “The children could have been close relatives and were placed in different parts of the entrance of the tomb, one on top of the other.” He a...
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- Ship That Survived Tsunami Sets Hole-Drilling Record
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- 7:53
- Date posted
- 5 years ago
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- HAMAMATSU, JAPAN — A little known fact is that Japan’s massive 2011 tsunami almost destroyed a very expensive research ship that later came very close to becoming the first machine to drill through Earth’s crust. Here are the details:
Nature magazine reports that Japan’s Chikyu research vessel drilled the deepest undersea hole ever drilled by a research ship.
The massive ship cost $526 million to build and achieved its drilling record only a year after being badly damaged by the massive Japanese tsunami of 2011.
It is the first research ship to feature a massive tower that assembles a super-long pipe known as a “riser” which envelops the main drill pipe.
This riser technology is usually found on oil rigs and makes an undersea drill system much more stable, enabling the Chikyu to drill much deeper than normal research vessels.
The ship set out to drill through a very thin part of Earth’s crust, south of t...
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- China to Break Launch Record in 2022, Finish Space Station
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- 7:16
- Date posted
- 5 years ago
- Description
- BEIJING — China is planning to launch a record-breaking 60 missions into space this year. Among these would be the missions to transport the last two modules needed to complete its space station. Here are the details:
The South China Morning Post reports that the Chinese government plans to break its 2021 record this year by launching 60 missions into space.
Last year, the country sent 55 missions into space, compared to America’s 43 missions, which consisted mostly of SpaceX launches.
However, this year it could be hard for China to beat the U.S. number, as SpaceX alone plans to launch a rocket into space every week.
Among China’s planned 60 launches would be the last two modules needed to complete its Tiangong space station.
China says these modules would each weigh more than 20 tons and are designed to be used as science laboratories.
The first module is scheduled to launch around the middle of ...
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- New Heat-Seeking Satellites Can Measure Heat From Any Building on Planet
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- 9:03
- Date posted
- 5 years ago
- Description
- GUILDFORD, U.K. — A group of heat-sensing satellites are about to be launched into Earth orbit, using unique infrared cameras that can measure heat emissions from any building on the planet, according to The Guardian.
The project, run by British space company Satellite Vu, will act as the planet’s ‘energy meter’ by selling heat data to organizations looking to cut wasted energy and power bills, searching out badly insulated offices, homes and factories in order to identify where most waste occurs and clarify if attempted improvements have been successful.
More widely, the heat data could be used to help monitor river pollution from factories, and tech site TechCrunch suggests it can also help find warmer or cooler areas that suggest underground water, power lines or other heat-affecting objects.
Satellite Vu’s chief executive adds that while currently it is only possible to make broad surveys of heat being emitted in a neighborhood, Sate...
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- Mobile COVID-19 Vaccine Factories to be Shipped to Africa
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- 7:26
- Date posted
- 5 years ago
- Description
- MAINZ, GERMANY — A major maker of COVID-19 vaccines says it will ship pre-manufactured factories to African countries, so that African countries can produce their own COVID-19 vaccines. Currently, only a small fraction of Africa’s people have been vaccinated against the virus. Here are the details:
The Associated Press reports that vaccine maker BioNTech unveiled plans on Wednesday, February 16 to ship pre-manufactured COVID-19 vaccine factories to Africa.
These factories are modular units that are pre-fitted with all the equipment required to make COVID-19 vaccines.
Each factory is separated into 12 modules that are each the size of a standard shipping container.
The 12 containers will be shipped to a port nearest to the target site, where they will be placed on trucks and transported by road to the site.
There, the containers will be assembled into two separate units made up of six containers each. The first uni...
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- Dementia in Football: New Study Says Heading Football ‘Changes Blood Patterns in Brain’
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- 8:48
- Date posted
- 5 years ago
- Description
- OSLO, NORWAY— Heading footballs and other accidental head impacts that occur while playing football “change blood patterns in the brain,” according to a new study in the journal Brain Injury.
The study, cited by The Guardian, analyzed blood samples from 89 professional footballers in Norway's top division and discovered alterations in levels of microRNAs in the brain after heading the ball.
According to the Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center, microRNAs are a family of molecules that help cells control the kinds and amounts of proteins they make, controlling the way genes produce new proteins mainly by binding with messenger RNA and preventing it from being translated into proteins.
With proteins playing a fundamental role in the work of most cells, many microRNAs have been identified as key to the regulation of cognitive functions and memory processes lost in Alzeimer’s disease, according to an article in the journal Fronti...
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- Beijing 2022 Olympics: Games Of Shame
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- 0:36
- Date posted
- 5 years ago
- Description
- The International Olympic Committee says the Games are not about politics, and any form of political protest during the Games is banned. But some of the most important protests by athletes have taken place during the Olympics. Will anyone stand up to China’s human rights abuses at the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics?
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- U.S. Coastline to Sink 25 Inches by 2050
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- 6:24
- Date posted
- 5 years ago
- Description
- SILVER SPRING, MARYLAND — U.S. government scientists say sea level rise will combine with a continental sagging effect to hit the Texas and Florida coastlines hard with increased coastal flooding.
Galveston in Texas is expected to sink as much as 25 inches by 2050. Here are the details:
The U.S. National Ocean Service, or NOAA, published a report on Tuesday, February 15, warning that sea levels along the U.S. coastline are projected to rise an average of 10 to 12 inches in the next 30 years, which will be as much as the rise measured over the last 100 years — from 1920 to 2020.
The NOAA report says the sea level rise will vary regionally along the U.S. coastlines — not just because of the global rise of ocean height, but also because of differences in the relative movement of land height.
That’s because the southeastern part of the U.S. landmass is projected to sag much more than the northwestern part — which is why the s...
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- What Is Earth's Core Made of? Earth’s Inner Core 'Superionic', According to New Study
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- 8:00
- Date posted
- 5 years ago
- Description
- BEIJING — What is Earth's core made of? What is the inner core made of? Is Earth's core solid or liquid? Earth’s inner core is neither solid nor liquid, according to a new study in the Nature science journal cited by Science Alert. It’s in what is known as a superionic state.
Scientists from the Chinese Academy of Sciences used computer simulations of how seismic waves would travel through different combinations of elements to calculate that hydrogen, oxygen and carbon in hexagonal close-packed iron become superionic under the intense pressure and high temperatures of the inner core, meaning that while iron atoms remain “solid” in a crystalline lattice structure, the lighter carbon, hydrogen and oxygen molecules diffuse through it, creating a “liquid-like element.”
According to Science Alert, this superionic state could also be found at the heart of other planets, in the form of superionic ice.
Here, high temperatures and pressures b...
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- Sneaky Chinese Robotic Satellite Caught Red-Handed
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- 8:14
- Date posted
- 5 years ago
- Description
- WASHINGTON — A Chinese satellite was caught red-handed when it snuck away from its position in Earth orbit to do something very unsettling. Here are the details:
Deutsche Welle reports that a satellite tracking company spotted a Chinese satellite sneaking around in Earth orbit.
ExoAnalytic Solutions is a private U.S. company that tracks the position of satellites using a large global network of optical telescopes.
The company recently provided evidence that China’s SJ-21 satellite disappeared from its regular position on January 22.
This happened during daylight hours, when observations were difficult to make with optical telescopes.
SJ-21 was later spotted executing a “large maneuver” to bring it closely alongside another Chinese satellite, a dead BeiDou Navigation System satellite.
SJ-21 then grabbed the dead satellite. Over the course of the next few days, the two spacecraft moved together wes...
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- Alec Baldwin Animation: Actor Sued for Wrongful Death Over Rust Shooting
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- 7:01
- Date posted
- 5 years ago
- Description
- BONANZA CITY, NEW MEXICO — The family of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Alec Baldwin and others involved in the production of Rust, according to The New York Times.
Allegations of ‘corner cutting’ listed by the family’s lawyers include failing to thoroughly check the firearm before use and failing to receive it directly from or in the presence of the production’s armorer.
Also listed were failure to keep all personnel a safe distance from the line of fire and failure to have the camera operated remotely when the firearm was aimed at or near the camera.
Lawyers for Baldwin have previously attempted to dismiss a separate lawsuit alleging he should have checked the gun was safe to handle on the basis he had been told it was ‘cold,’ meaning it did not contain any live bullets.
However, in a press conference cited by Yahoo, lawyers for Hutchins’s family argued that ‘he has sign...
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- Beijing 2022 Olympics: Games Of Shame
- Runtime
- 0:42
- Date posted
- 5 years ago
- Description
- The International Olympic Committee says the Games are not about politics, and any form of political protest during the Games is banned. But some of the most important protests by athletes have taken place during the Olympics. Stand up to China’s human rights abuses at the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics.
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- SpaceX Moon Crash Update: Rocket Crashing Moon Actually Chinese Booster
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- 9:09
- Date posted
- 5 years ago
- Description
- BOWDOINHAM, MAINE — China's 'moon rocket crash' update. The rocket part crashing toward the Moon is not the upper stage of a SpaceX Falcon 9, as was suggested by astronomers last month, rather it is most likely to be part of the Long March 3C rocket that launched China's moonbound Chang'e 5-T1 mission in October 2014.
Explaining the Chang'e 5-T1 booster crash, astronomer Bill Gray, who originally identified unknown object WE0913A as a Falcon 9, published a correction on his Project Pluto blog on Saturday after receiving a note from Jon Giorgini, an engineer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
Giorgini said that the original trajectory of the SpaceX rocket did not go especially close to the moon when it launched the NOAA’s Deep Space Climate Observatory to the Lagrange Point 1 in 2015, and thus it would be “a little strange if the second stage strayed close enough to strike it.”
Confirming the misidentification, Gray explained he and othe...
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- How ‘Delta Force’ Killed One-Legged ISIS Boss
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- 7:32
- Date posted
- 5 years ago
- Description
- ATMEH, SYRIA — The Pentagon says one of its drones spotted a one-legged, bearded man bathing on a rooftop in Syria, and this is what sparked a Delta Force commando raid that killed the leader of ISIS. Here are the details:
The New York Times reports that Pentagon officials said they received a tip and then used a spy drone to identify the leader of ISIS, Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi, who was killed on Thursday, February 3.
The terrorist was identified as living in a rooftop apartment in the Syrian town of Atmeh. A commando team led by Delta Force soldiers then trained for months, using mock-ups of the three-storey building.
The team set off in helicopters from a base 800 miles away, having to refuel multiple times during the night-time flight.
As they approached the target they received air cover from helicopter gunships, armed drones and attack jets.
Upon landing, the team took fire from multiple locations, b...
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- Bob Saget Head Injury Like ‘Baseball Bat to the Head’ or Someone Who Had Fallen up to 30 Feet
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- 8:24
- Date posted
- 5 years ago
- Description
- ORLANDO, FLORIDA — Comedian Bob Saget died after a fall fractured his skull in several places, according to an autopsy report by the chief medical examiner of Orange and Osceola counties in Florida, and according to experts cited by The New York Times, the extent of these fractures complicates initial descriptions of Saget’s death, in which it was suggested he may have hit his head, “thought nothing of it and went to sleep.”
The basis for this conclusion is that it would be unusual for even a typical fall to cause fractures to the back, right side and front of the skull such as those suffered by Saget, with the chair in neurosurgery at Houston Methodist instead comparing the injuries to those found on someone hit with a baseball bat, or someone who has fallen from 20 or 30 feet.
The proposed impact ruptured veins in the space between the membrane covering the brain and the brain itself, causing blood to pool, and experts cited by The New York Times con...
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- Revolutionary Spine Implants Let Paraplegics Walk Again
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- 10:10
- Date posted
- 5 years ago
- Description
- LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND — Patients whose spinal columns had been severed in accidents can now walk again, thanks to an amazing medical invention. Here are the details:
The BBC reports that scientists in Switzerland have created a spinal implant system that is allowing paraplegic patients with severed spinal columns to walk and cycle.
The breakthrough system revolves around a soft gel pack filled with electric leads that has been personally tailored for each patient.
During surgery, the leads pack is implanted underneath the vertebrae, directly on the spinal cord. The leads are powered by a pacemaker implanted in the abdomen.
A wireless signal connects the pacemaker to software on a tablet. The patients use the software to select if they want to stand, walk, cycle or even swim.
The software sends instructions wirelessly to the pacemaker inside the patient’s abdomen, which then pulses electricity to different points in...
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- How the Sun Destroyed 40 SpaceX Satellites in One Day
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- 9:10
- Date posted
- 5 years ago
- Description
- KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, FLORIDA — Forty of SpaceX’s satellites crashed to Earth in flames after being hit by a solar flare. Here are the details:
CNBC reports that up to 40 of SpaceX’s Starlink satellites crashed to Earth after being hit by the effects of a solar flare.
The event unfolded on Friday, February 4, after SpaceX launched 49 new Starlink satellites on one of its Falcon 9 rockets.
The rocket released the cluster of satellites at a relatively low altitude.
This move unfortunately backfired, as the Earth was at that moment being hit by a solar flare.
The extra energy coming from the Sun heated the atmosphere and caused it to become 50 percent more dense.
This meant that the satellites became trapped in air that was too dense for their design.
The denser air caused more atmospheric drag around the satellites, forcing SpaceX to turn them sideways, to minimize atmospheric drag whil...
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- U.S. Space Force Launches Operation ‘Orbital Prime’
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- 9:22
- Date posted
- 5 years ago
- Description
- WASHINGTON — After a number of near misses in space, the U.S. Space Force wants to create an Earth-orbiting garbage-collection service for hire. Here are the details:
With governments and private organizations launching exponentially more objects into space than ever before, the hottest topic right now is how to get rid of all the dangerous junk that is starting to clog Earth orbit.
The U.S. Space Force recently announced its newest project, called Orbital Prime, which will work with private companies to produce technology to recycle, reuse or remove the millions of pieces of space debris that are flying around Earth at very high speeds.
The move comes a few months after Russia used a missile to destroy one of its old satellites, causing a huge cloud of space debris to spread out into Earth orbit.
China did the same thing in 2007, but last December China asked for rules to regulate such actions after its space station had to mane...
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- Nuclear Fusion Breakthrough: Oxford’s JET Nuclear Fusion Reactor Sets Major Fusion Record
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- 7:15
- Date posted
- 5 years ago
- Description
- OXFORD, U.K. — The U.K.-based Joint European Torus laboratory has broken its own world record for the largest amount of energy extracted from a nuclear fusion reaction, according to the BBC, more than doubling the previous record set in 1997.
The experiment was able to generate 59 megajoules of heat over five seconds by fusing two isotopes of hydrogen, known as deuterium and tritium, to form helium gas.
Though this is only about enough energy to boil 60 kettles’ worth of water, the project’s head of operations told the BBC that it demonstrates the ability to “create a mini star inside of our machine and hold it there for five seconds and get high performance,” and the BBC explains that, crucially, this “validates design choices” at the larger International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor being built in France.
The massive ITER facility is supported by a number of governments across the world, including EU member states, the U.S., ...
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- Mariana Trench Mystery: NASA Preparing to Map Ocean’s Deepest Points
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- 9:31
- Date posted
- 5 years ago
- Description
- WASHINGTON — The Mariana Trench mystery could be unlocked by NASA. NASA is using deep sea exploration of places like the Mariana trench as a means to look for clues of what oceans on other planets could look like and an extreme testing ground for its technology, according to the BBC.
The deepest parts of Earth's oceans, known as the hadal zone, are made up of trenches and troughs up to 11 kilometers below the surface of the planet’s oceans, and as part of its interest in this area, NASA is currently helping build a new autonomous underwater vehicle called Orpheus to help further map the more inaccessible parts and act as a ‘gateway’ vehicle for further exploration.
In a sign of the back and forth relationship between deep sea and space exploration, Orpheus, which follows on from an unsuccessful attempt to do the same thing in 2014, will use similar visual navigation technology to NASA's Perseverance Mars Rover to identify rock formations, shells and ot...
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- Earth’s Core Cooling Faster Than Scientists Thought
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- 11:15
- Date posted
- 5 years ago
- Description
- ZURICH, SWITZERLAND — Earth’s outer core is a spinning, molten mass that generates the electromagnetic shield that protects all life on Earth. When the outer core cools and becomes solid, Earth will die like Mars died. So it is quite significant that researchers recently found that the core is losing its heat faster than previously thought.
Here is what they found.
Deutsche Welle reports that scientists have found that the Earth might be losing its precious heat much faster than previously estimated.
In a study published in the journal Science Direct, researchers say they found evidence that the structure of minerals in the Earth’s core is better at radiating the core’s heat outward than previously thought.
In order to simulate conditions in the Earth’s core, the scientists had to create a mineral called bridgmanite, which only exists in the inner parts of the planet — even though it is the most abundant mineral inside E...
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- International Space Station Set to Plunge to Earth
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- 7:21
- Date posted
- 5 years ago
- Description
- WASHINGTON — NASA plans to burn the International Space Station in Earth’s atmosphere, before allowing the unburnt parts to crash into the ocean. Here are the details:
The BBC reports that NASA is preparing to burn up the International Space Station and letting the unburnt remains crash into a remote part of the Pacific Ocean. The news comes after the Biden administration said it had committed to extend the space station's activities until 2030.
NASA says the first part of the station’s termination will be to use the aging hulk as a platform for testing the modules that private companies will use to build their own private space stations.
Work on the ISS will continue as usual until 2030, but from 2026 the station will be allowed to gradually lose altitude.
Between June and November of 2030, three additional uncrewed cargo ships will dock with the station and use their engines to slow it down.
When the station r...
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- Greenland Ice Melting 2022: Arctic Ice Loss at 4,700 Gigatons in Two Decades
- Runtime
- 9:17
- Date posted
- 5 years ago
- Description
- GREENLAND — Greenland's ice melting as of 2022 is dramatic. It's sheet has lost 4,700 gigatons of ice since 2002, enough to submerge the entire U.S. under half a meter of water, according to a Polar Portal study.
Within the overall trend, there was actually a small increase in ice high on the central region of the ice sheet, but ice loss is most severe along the West Greenland coast.
The study used satellite data from GRACE (Gravity Recovery And Climate Experiment) and GRACE Follow On satellites to outline the dramatic changes in the ice, describing how the loss was most extreme along the edge of the ice sheet, where ice is thinning, and concluding that the melt has directly contributed 1.2 centimeters to sea level rise.
Climate scientist Andrew Shepherd, cited by Space.com, explains that for every centimeter rise in global sea level, another 6 million people are exposed to coastal flooding around the planet.
SOURCES: Polar Portal, ...
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- China Completes World’s First Artificial Moon
- Runtime
- 9:10
- Date posted
- 5 years ago
- Description
- XUZHOU, CHINA — China says it has built an artificial moon that can make frogs and pretty much anything else float in the air. Here are the details:
The South China Morning Post reports that China has built a research facility that simulates low-gravity environments like that found on the Moon.
Chinese scientists told the news outlet that the facility revolves around a chamber that is 60 centimeters wide.
The facility creates a vacuum inside the chamber, where strong electromagnets then create a magnetic field that pushes upward against objects that are placed in the chamber.
This allows scientists to recreate the lunar atmosphere by arranging dust and rocks that are similar to that found on the Moon, and then reducing their weight in the same way lunar gravity would reduce their weight.
Researchers can then test how different types of equipment will endure the temperatures and stresses of the real lunar surface. Th...
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- Antarctic Discovery: 300,000 Valuable Meteorites Hidden in Antarctic Ice
- Runtime
- 8:40
- Date posted
- 5 years ago
- Description
- ANTARCTICA — An artificial intelligence program has used satellite data to project that more than 300,000 meteorites may lie undiscovered on the surface of Antarctica, according to a new study in the Science Advances journal.
When meteorites fall on Antarctica, snow accumulates on top of them before compacting and becoming ice. The ice sheets flow toward the ocean, dragging the meteorites with them, but if conditions are right the meteorites can become trapped near the surface of bare, blue ice, which makes them easy to recover.
Having successfully identified almost 83 percent of known meteorite-rich Antarctic zones, the new AI program projected more than 600 potentially meteorite-rich zones, with many unexplored, and the study’s lead author told Space.com that new recovery techniques, such as the use of drones, could combine with the projections to create a “new era of Antarctic meteorite recovery missions.”
SOURCES: Science Advan...
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- Mount Vesuvius Eruption: Magma Building Below Pompeii Volcano
- Runtime
- 9:28
- Date posted
- 5 years ago
- Description
- POMPEII, ITALY — Any eruption at Mount Vesuvius comparable to the one that destroyed Pompeii in 79 A.D. is unlikely in the next few decades. However, magma is building up in a chamber below the volcano and smaller but still very dangerous eruptions like the ones in 1944 or 1631 are harder to predict, according to scientists behind a new Science Advances study.
The scientists used garnet crystals from the four largest eruptions of the last 10,000 years to calculate how long magma resided in a chamber below the volcano before being spewed out, and thus when equivalent eruptions are likely in future.
The crystals helped show that rather than magma coming directly up from deep below the volcano, larger eruptions all involve a top chamber filling with magma that subsequently cools and crystallizes over hundreds and even thousands of years.
When hotter magma later flows into the top chamber from below, it causes pressure rises which can force the cool...
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- Chinese Zodiac Signs Explained (Personality Traits, Best Love Matches)
- Runtime
- 4:32
- Date posted
- 5 years ago
- Description
- CHINA — Followers of Chinese astrology believe someone’s personality and compatibility with other people are associated with their Chinese zodiac sign, or sheng xiao, which is determined by one’s birth year.
Each year is represented by 12 animals. These are in order: the Rat, Ox, Tiger, Rabbit, Dragon, Snake, Horse, Goat, Monkey, Rooster, Dog and Pig. Here’s what your Chinese zodiac sign says about you.
SOURCES: China Highlights, Chinese New Year
https://www.chinahighlights.com/travelguide/chinese-zodiac/
https://chinesenewyear.net/zodiac/
- Title
- $10 Billion Dollar Telescope Reaches Magical Spot in Space
- Runtime
- 9:38
- Date posted
- 5 years ago
- Description
- WASHINGTON — This week, NASA’s $10 billion space telescope reached a magical balance point in space — and it’s now getting ready to look back in time to 13.7 billion years ago. Here are the details:
The BBC reports that the world’s most powerful space telescope has reached the point from where it will observe the stars and planets in distant solar systems.
The $10 billion spacecraft reached Earth’s Lagrange Point 2 on Monday, January 24.
This position is 1.5 million kilometers from Earth, and it’s one of five positions in the space around Earth where gravitational forces and the orbital motion of a body like the space telescope balance each other.
Therefore, these points can be used by a spacecraft to stay in the same position relative to Earth, without drifting closer or farther away.
Lagrange Point 2 is located 1.5 million kilometres directly behind the Earth as viewed from the Sun.
When ...
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- SpaceX Moon Crash: Falcon 9 Rocket Crashing Into the Moon Will Collide March 4
- Runtime
- 8:03
- Date posted
- 5 years ago
- Description
- BOWDOINHAM, MAINE — A Falcon 9 collision with the moon is certain, with part of the SpaceX rocket crashing into the Moon on March 4. The upper stage of the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket is on a collision course with the Moon, according to a suite of astronomical software called Project Pluto, and news website Ars Technica.
According to The Guardian, the rocket was launched in 2015 to send the NOAA’s Deep Space Climate Observatory to the Lagrange Point 1, a gravity-neutral position four times farther than the Moon and in direct line with the Sun, where it can monitor solar winds.
However, while Falcon 9’s upper stages are usually redirected back to Earth’s atmosphere to burn up, this one needed all of its propellant to send the DSCOVR satellite so far out, and also ‘lacked the energy to escape the gravity of the Earth-Moon system,’ according to Ars Technica.
The result was that for the last seven years the derelict upper stage, weighing aroun...
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- Climate Change Causing Floating Rivers in the Sky
- Runtime
- 11:11
- Date posted
- 5 years ago
- Description
- TSUKUBA, JAPAN — Scientists say that if the world keeps warming up, the rivers of water vapor that sometimes flow in Earth’s atmosphere will become more frequent and cause more extreme flooding. Here are the details:
Researchers from the University of Tsukuba in Japan were surprised by the unusual extreme rainfall over Asia in the July months of 2018 and 2020.
So they created climate models to study the impact of a warming global climate on rainfall patterns in Asia.
In the research paper, published recently in the American Geophysical Union’s journal, the scientists say they found that if the global average temperature rises by 4 degrees Celsius, the global weather system will create more “atmospheric rivers” over Asia, Europe and North America.
Atmospheric rivers are narrow bands of very wet air that sometimes form in the atmosphere and tend to flow in a way similar to rivers on land.
When these atmospheri...
- Title
- Omicron Breakthrough Infections: Omicron’s Dangerous Ability to Evade and Infect Explained
- Runtime
- 8:10
- Date posted
- 5 years ago
- Description
- SEATTLE — Precise structural changes to the omicron variant’s spike protein have been identified that mean it is capable of breakthrough infections which afflict both vaccinated people and those who have previously been infected, according to a new study in the journal Science which looked at the variant’s ability to both evade antibodies that protect against previous variants and still remain highly infectious.
The infectiousness of the variant is in part determined by the 37 mutations in the amino acid sequences of its spike protein that distinguish it from the virus strain discovered in Wuhan.
These mutations have been shown to help the variant evade antibodies generated by the six most commonly used vaccines, and all but one of monoclonal antibodies used to counter infections.
As the mutations also affect the structure of the region of the spike protein responsible for attaching to and entering cells, a tradeoff had been expected where t...
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- Piece of Russian Satellite Almost Vaporized Chinese Satellite
- Runtime
- 7:58
- Date posted
- 5 years ago
- Description
- BEIJING — A few years after creating a cloud of space debris by blowing up one of its satellites, China is now screaming for the U.N. to stop such actions — after a piece of Russian debris came within a hair of hitting a Chinese satellite.
The China National Space Administration, or CNSA, says that a piece of space debris from a Russian missile test came within 15 meters of hitting a Chinese satellite on Tuesday, January 18.
CNSA officials say they tracked the piece of debris hurtling past China’s Tsinghua science satellite at a relative speed of 19,000 kilometers per hour.
The piece of space junk is part of a debris cloud that contains around 1,500 pieces that are big enough to be tracked via Earth-based radar. The cloud was created when an old Russian spy satellite was blown apart by a Russian anti-satellite missile in November.
Experts say the cloud of Russian debris will cause chaos for spacecraft for decades to come. The...
- Title
- Boris Johnson Partygate: Full Timeline of Allegations Against British Prime Minister
- Runtime
- 7:16
- Date posted
- 5 years ago
- Description
- LONDON — A report into the allegations that U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson and the team around him have repeatedly broken COVID-19 protocols is due this week, according to The Guardian, with Johnson facing pressure to resign.
On May 15, 2020, legal restrictions stated people in England could not leave their house without reasonable excuse, but the prime minister and his staff were photographed with bottles of wine in the Downing Street garden, and five days later witnesses told the BBC that Johnson was among around 30 people who attended a separate drinks event.
On November 13, 2020, former Johnson adviser Dominic Cummings alleges that a boisterous party took place on the night he was fired, at Johnson’s Downing Street flat, before, days later, on November 27, sources say Johnson made a speech at a leaving event for a Number Ten aide in which people were drinking, according to Agence France Presse.
On December 15, Johnson was photographed s...
- Title
- F-35 Crashes on Aircraft Carrier USS Carl Vinson in South China Sea
- Runtime
- 10:42
- Date posted
- 5 years ago
- Description
- SOUTH CHINA SEA — A U.S. Navy F-35C Lightning II crashed while attempting to land on the USS Carl Vinson, injuring seven sailors, according to a statement by the U.S. Pacific Fleet Command.
The Monday statement said the fighter jet was “was conducting routine flight operations” when the ‘landing mishap’ occurred, and “The pilot safely ejected from the aircraft and was recovered via U.S. military helicopter.”
Three of the injured sailors had to be evacuated for treatment in the Philippines, where they have been described as “stable.”
The South China Sea has frequently played host to naval activity in recent years as China has asserted claims over almost all of the area by building up and militarizing islands and reefs, while the U.S. has sought to assert its right to operate freely in what are international waters with carrier deployments.
In line with that agenda, the USS Carl Vinson was operating alongside the USS A...
- Title
- Indonesia’s New Capital Nusantara: A Utopian City in the Borneo Jungle
- Runtime
- 10:47
- Date posted
- 5 years ago
- Description
- JAKARTA, INDONESIA — Indonesia’s parliament passed a bill on Tuesday, January 18 to relocate the country’s capital from the sinking city of Jakarta 2,000 kilometers east to the island of Borneo.
The city will be named “Nusantara,” the Javanese word for “archipelago.” The site was chosen because it reflects Indonesia’s geography and was iconic internationally, the national development planning minister was quoted by the Guardian as saying.
Nusantara will cover about 56,180 hectares in East Kalimantan province. A total of 256,142 hectares — almost all of it currently rainforest — has been set aside for the initial project and future expansion.
Statements from officials and renderings depict Nusantara as a utopian design and an eco-friendly ‘smart’ city, but few details have been confirmed.
Construction was planned to begin in 2020 but was delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Indonesia’s minister o...
- Title
- Chinese New Year: World’s Largest Human Migration Beginning Amid COVID Outbreaks
- Runtime
- 11:37
- Date posted
- 5 years ago
- Description
- BEIJING — China’s 40-day Spring Festival travel rush began on January 17, with the start of the world’s largest human migration event coming as the country faces growing concerns over omicron outbreaks.
The period involves hundreds of millions of trips and, on January 19, Guangzhou and Dongguan were the top two cities for departures, according to Chinese tech company Baidu, with Guangzhou and Chengdu the most popular destinations.
COVID-19 means total trips will remain down from around 3 billion in 2019, sitting at round 1.1 billion, according to Asia News International, citing the state-backed Global Times.
However, as The Guardian reported that at least nine cities across six provinces in China have reported Omicron cases in the last two weeks, Asia News International reports that 280 million railway passenger trips and nearly 600,000 passenger flights are scheduled in total, explaining that if outbreaks occur, railway services are ready t...
- Title
- Israel Indicts Five Israelis in Alleged Iran Spy Network
- Runtime
- 8:00
- Date posted
- 5 years ago
- Description
- ISRAEL — Israel’s Shin Bet security agency has arrested five Israelis of Iranian descent — four of them women — who allegedly worked for an Iranian intelligence agent, the agency said on Wednesday, January 12.
Citing the agency, the Jerusalem Post reports the agent, known as “Rambod Namdar,” approached the women on Facebook as an Iranian Jew and kept in touch with them for several years using encrypted messaging app WhatsApp.
One of the suspects, a woman in her forties, allegedly agreed to photograph the U.S. embassy in Tel Aviv, take pictures inside the Interior and Social Affairs ministries buildings, and photograph a shopping center in Holon.
She was also asked to encourage her son, who was about to be drafted, to serve in Military Intelligence.
Another suspect, a 57-year-old woman from Beit Shemesh, is alleged to have performed various tasks for a $5,000 payment.
She encouraged her son to serve in the Inte...
- Title
- Russia-Ukraine Border: Biden Predicts Russia Will ‘Move In’ to Ukraine
- Runtime
- 11:19
- Date posted
- 5 years ago
- Description
- WASHINGTON — U.S. President Joe Biden predicted in a press conference that Russia will ‘move in’ to Ukraine after amassing 100,000 troops around its borders in recent weeks, according to CNN, however, White House officials were forced to clarify that any incursion would be met with a severe response after Biden suggested a ‘minor incursion’ could be treated differently to a full invasion.
The precise definitions matter because NATO allies are not united on how to respond to Russia, and there are a number of different forms any Russian action could take.
Deutsche Welle reported last month, for instance, that a Russian court had acknowledged Russian soldiers are already present in the Donbas region of Ukraine, though the Kremlin denies it, while a press statement by White House spokesperson Jen Psaki suggested aggression short of military action, including cyberattacks and paramilitary tactics, would be treated separately to “any Russian military for...
- Title
- Woman Poses for Selfie on Top of Sinking Car in Frozen River
- Runtime
- 11:17
- Date posted
- 5 years ago
- Description
- OTTAWA, ONTARIO — A Canadian woman posed for a selfie while standing on top of her car as it sank into an icy river — and people were trying to rescue her.
Ottawa emergency crews responded to the incident on the Rideau River, Manotick after a yellow vehicle sank into the frozen water around 4:30 p.m. on Sunday, January 16, police said.
The driver was seen climbing on top of the vehicle as it slowly sank and appeared to capture the moment with a selfie.
At the same time, two men were seen running to get a kayak which they tied a rope to. After that they flung the kayak onto the frozen river.
The driver grabbed the kayak while another resident pulled her out of the icy water. As soon as the driver was ashore, the car went under.
A man was heard telling the woman, “Don’t go towards the car, please come closer in.”
Witnesses say the woman was driving about 40 miles per hour on top of the ice of Rideau R...
- Title
- Abu Dhabi Drone Attack: Houthi Rebels Target Abu Dhabi Airport in Deadly Exchange
- Runtime
- 8:21
- Date posted
- 5 years ago
- Description
- ABU DHABI, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES — Yemen’s Houthi rebels say they are responsible for deadly drone attacks in the United Arab Emirates on Monday, according to The Wall Street Journal.
One attack caused fires that saw three petroleum tankers explode near state oil firm ADNOC’s storage facilities, killing three people, while a second attack occured at a construction site near Abu Dhabi International Airport, according to an Abu Dhabi police statement cited by CNBC, disrupting flights.
The Houthis are thought to have been retaliating against the UAE’s increased role in the Saudi-led coalition that is fighting against it in the Yemen civil war, with the Yemeni Foreign Ministry saying it reflected “Houthi desperation after rebel defeats in Marib and Shabwa provinces.”
In retaliation for this attack, Saudi coalition airstrikes killed 11 people in Yemen, including at least five civilians, according to the U.N.
The MIT Center for I...
- Title
- Texas Synagogue Hostage Standoff: Animated Timeline
- Runtime
- 1:28
- Date posted
- 5 years ago
- Description
- COLLEYVILLE, TEXAS — Following the resolution of the Texas synagogue hostage standoff, details of the terrorist’s timeline have begun to emerge.
Citing unnamed sources, the BBC reports Malik Faisal Akram, a 44-year-old from Blackburn, England, flew to New York’s JFK international airport on December 29.
Akram made his way to Dallas, where he bought a handgun and stayed at at least two homeless shelters, according to the Dallas Morning News.
At around 11:00 a.m. on Saturday, January 15, he entered the Congregation Beth Israel synagogue in the suburb of Colleyville.
Rabbi Charlie Cytron-Walker told CBS he welcomed Akram into the synagogue and made him a cup of tea.
When the rabbi turned to face Jerusalem as he prayed, Akram produced a gun. He took the rabbi and thee others hostage and demanded the release of Islamist prisoner Aafia Siddique.
One hostage was freed at around 5 p.m. At around 9 p.m. the rabb...
- Title
- Ocean Warming: 2021 Oceans Hottest Ever Recorded, Offer Major Climate Warning
- Runtime
- 7:38
- Date posted
- 5 years ago
- Description
- BEIJING — 2021 saw the hottest ocean temperatures ever recorded, adding to previous records in 2018 and 2019, according to an Advances in Atmospheric Sciences study cited by The Guardian.
Greenhouse gases released by humans are responsible for the rises, with more than 90 percent of heat generated by global warming absorbed by the oceans.”
Temperatures taken at least 2,000 meters deep are increasing fastest in the Atlantic, Indian and northern Pacific Oceans, but are rising everywhere relative to a 1981 to 2010 baseline.
In 2021 alone, oceans heated by around 14 zettajoules, equivalent to 440 billion toasters running — or seven Hiroshima bombs detonating — every second for a year. As oceans warm in this way, they threaten sea life, make cyclones and hurricanes more powerful and cause rains to fall harder. The process also directly causes sea level rises because as water warms it expands.
The study cited climate model simulatio...
- Title
- NASA Says Asteroid 2017 XC62 Coming Toward Earth January 24
- Runtime
- 9:52
- Date posted
- 5 years ago
- Description
- WASHINGTON — An asteroid the size of the Washington Monument will come around 7.2 million kilometers from Earth on January 24, according to NASA.
At between 84 and 190 meters wide, NASA considers asteroid 2017 XC62 ‘potentially hazardous’ because asteroids over 140 meters could release at least a thousand times more energy than the first atomic bomb on impact with Earth, according to the Davidson Institute of Science.
Of course, it's unlikely the asteroid will hit earth, as the closest asteroid 2017 XC62 is predicted to come to Earth is more than 17 times the distance between the Earth and the Moon.
However, even at such a safe distance, it’s clear why asteroids like this one occupy such an oversized place in the popular imagination.
The last time a large asteroid struck the planet was in 2013, when a 19-meter-wide asteroid exploded over the Russian city of Chelyabinsk, causing damage to around 7,500 buildings and 1,500 peopl...
- Title
- Taiwanese F-16V Nosedives, Crashes Into Sea
- Runtime
- 9:36
- Date posted
- 5 years ago
- Description
- TAIPEI, TAIWAN — Taiwan’s air force has suspended combat training for its F-16 fleet after the latest in a series of military aviation accidents.
A recently upgraded Taiwanese F-16V, the country’s most advanced fighter jet, crashed into the ocean off western Taiwan on Tuesday, January 11.
Air Force Command Headquarters said in a statement cited by Reuters that the F-16V took off from Chiayi Air Base at 2:55 p.m. on a routine training mission.
The F-16V suddenly went missing from the radar screens at 3:23 p.m., about 30 minutes after take-off, SET News reports.
According to Taiwan’s National Rescue Command Center, debris from the missing jet was found on Wednesday. But there were no signs of its pilot.
Taiwan’s Central News Agency reports local residents witnessed the jet plunge into the sea near Aogu Wetland in Chiayi’s Dongshi Township.
Another pilot and a ground controller confirmed that the pla...
- Title
- Tonga Volcano Eruptions: Underwater Volcano Erupts, Triggering Tsunami Warnings
- Runtime
- 11:37
- Date posted
- 5 years ago
- Description
- THE HUNGA-TONGA-HUNGA-HA'APAI VOLCANO, TONGA — The “once in 1,000 years” eruption of the Hunga-Tonga Hunga-Ha'apai volcano on Saturday did not emerge from smaller volcanic cones as in previous eruptions in 2009 and across 2014 and 2015. Rather, it blasted out of a five-kilometer-wide underwater caldera, according to Shane Cronin, Professor of Earth Sciences at the University of Auckland.
The power of the explosion is likely because magma rose up from the caldera so quickly there was no time for a film of steam to form and allow the magma’s surface to cool as it passed through the water.
Instead, hot magma came into direct contact with cold water, creating explosions which split the magma up and forced it into further contact with additional cold water, causing additional explosions.
The resulting blast reached supersonic speeds, sending out a sonic boom that reached New Zealand, according to The Associated Press.
Unusually hig...
- Title
- Air Yacht: Superyacht Concept Flies on Blimp Catamaran
- Runtime
- 8:20
- Date posted
- 5 years ago
- Description
- ROME — Italian firm Lazzarini Design has unveiled a flying superyacht concept called Air Yacht that is propelled by two blimp-like airships.
Constructed with dry carbon fiber, the vessel’s overall length is 150 meters, with a blimp catamaran connected by four carbon bridges. The main deck would measure 80 meters in length.
Lazzarini says the two blimps use compressed helium for propulsion. Its eight counter-rotating engines are powered by ultra-light batteries and solar panels.
Lazzarini says the vessel could fly up to 48 hours at maximum speeds of 60 knots. When cruising on the water, the Air Yacht will “sail quietly” at 5 knots.
Air Yacht’s lavish concept has all the features of a luxury yacht.
Its central hull or main deck acts as a communal space. It has a carpeted lounge, a spacious living room, and dining facilities, with accommodations for 22 guests. On top there is a helipad and a rooftop swimming pool.
But Air...
- Title
- Nuclear Fusion Breakthrough: China’s Tokamak Fusion Reactor Sets Major Record
- Runtime
- 11:19
- Date posted
- 5 years ago
- Description
- HEFEI, CHINA — China's $1 trillion Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak fusion reactor has superheated a loop of plasma to 70 million degrees Celsius, or five times hotter than the sun, for a new record of just over 17 minutes, according to Live Science, breaking the previous record of 390 seconds set by France's Tore Supra tokamak in 2003.
Nuclear fusion involves using extremely high pressures and temperatures to induce collisions between hydrogen atoms to make helium, which sees matter converted into light and heat.
This process is at the heart of how stars are fuelled, and mimicking it is extremely desirable because it does not generate greenhouse gasses, or nuclear waste.
One key difficulty, though, is that fusion reactors cannot recreate the same intense pressure for the reactions as stars, and thus must operate at much higher temperatures.
Controlling plasma at these temperatures so it doesn’t burn through reactor w...
- Title
- San Francisco's Millennium Tower Tilting 3 Inches Per Year
- Runtime
- 8:48
- Date posted
- 5 years ago
- Description
- SAN FRANCISCO — San Francisco’s infamous Millennium Tower keeps on tilting at breakneck speed after work to save the skyscraper was abandoned last summer. Here are the details:
The Guardian reports that San Francisco’s infamous Millennium Tower keeps on tilting over more and more — at about 3 inches, or 7.5 centimeters, per year.
A $100 million dollar construction project to stop the tilting on the leaning tower of San Francisco was abandoned in the summer of 2021, when it became clear that the construction did nothing to stop the building from tilting over at a speed of 3 inches per year.
San Francisco’s leaning tower opened to great fanfare in 2009, and its 400 apartments quickly sold out for a total of $750 million.
Soon after, some of the apartments reached prices of more than $5 million each, but all that came crashing down when it became apparent that the building was sinking into the soft soil, and also tilting at ...
