Sadly, the second herpes virus-related death occurred after this story was released at the Albuquerque BioPark. The victim was a five-year old Asian elephant named Daizy.
Source:
The Scientist
Sadly, the second herpes virus-related death occurred after this story was released at the Albuquerque BioPark. The victim was a five-year old Asian elephant named Daizy.
Source:
The Scientist
This week, the Center for Public Integrity launched a new investigative series into the failure of regulators to protect workers for toxic exposures. The series begins with the story of a bricklayer who developed acute silicosis after exposure to silica, a deadly substance that threatens more than 2 million workers and that OSHA has been struggling to regulate for 40 years. The bricklayer, Chris Johnson, is just 40 years old and can expect to survive less than five years. Reporters Jim Morris, Jamie Smith Hopkins and Maryam Jameel write:
An 18-month investigation by the Center for Public Integrity has found that the epidemic of occupational disease in America isn’t merely the product of neglect or misconduct by employers. It’s the predictable result of a bifurcated system of hazard regulation — one for the general public and another, far weaker, for workers. Risks of cancer and other illnesses considered acceptable at a workplace wouldn’t be tolerated outside of it.
For years, the best OSHA has been able to do is set chemical limits so that no more than one extra cancer case would be expected among every 1,000 workers exposed at the legal maximum over their entire careers. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s standards for the public are 10 to 1,000 times more protective. The real gap is often worse, a former OSHA official says.
“I can’t see any justification for treating people that differently,” said Adam M. Finkel, who heads the Penn Program on Regulation at the University of Pennsylvania Law School and was director of health standards programs at OSHA from 1995 to 2000.
The reporters describe the toll of such occupational illnesses as a “slow-motion tragedy” that often unravels outside of the public eye. Among the investigation’s top findings is that the system for preventing occupational illnesses and fatalities linked to chemical, fume and dust exposure is so weak that “OSHA warns companies not to rely on its legal exposure limits to protect employees.” In addition, a Center for Public Integrity analysis found that U.S. workers face high cancer risks if exposed over their careers to certain chemicals at their legal limits. Going back to the example of silica exposure and the 40-year fight to protect worker health and safety, the reporters write:
In February 2011, OSHA finally sent a proposed silica rule to the Office of Management and Budget for vetting. It emerged 921 days later in 2013. OMB officials will not say why it took so long; 90 days, plus a single 30-day extension, is supposed to be the maximum unless the rulemaking agency asks for more time.
Apart from trimming the silica exposure limit to the NIOSH-recommended number for all workers, the proposed standard would require employers to control dust with methods such as water or vacuum systems and provide medical monitoring for highly exposed workers. OSHA predicted it would save nearly 700 lives and prevent 1,600 new cases of silicosis per year.
The Labor Department held 14 days of hearings in Washington, D.C., in the spring of 2014. Among the witnesses was construction worker Santiago Hernandez, who’d come to the United States five years earlier from Tlaxcala, Mexico, expecting to find safer conditions.
Instead, he said in written testimony, “things are actually much worse here than in Mexico. … The protections you receive here are useless. Employers give you a little paper mask that, when you finish, is just as dirty and dusty on the inside as on the outside.”
To read the full story, which was co-published with Slate, click here. To read the full investigative series, titled “Unequal Risk,” as well as future installments coming this week and stories from families affected by occupational illness, visit the Center for Public Integrity. Also, click here for a number of helpful infographics that illustrate the state of occupational illness and the regulatory response.
In other news:
Frontline: In “Rape on the Night Shift,” Bernice Yeung writes about the women janitors who face rape and sexual assault risks while they work in typically isolated surroundings and often for companies more concerned with public embarrassment than employee safety. Yeung begins the story with Erika Morales, who worked for a subsidiary of ABM Industries Inc., the largest cleaning company in the country. Morales said she faced persistent sexual harassment from a supervisor and one night, as she was cleaning a local branch of Bank of America, her supervisor cornered her and began forcefully taking off her clothes. Fortunately, Morales was able to fight him off. In her investigation, Yeung found 42 lawsuits from the past 20 years in which ABM janitors said they were sexually harassed, assaulted or raped at work. She writes: “The night shift janitor is an easy target for abuse. She clocks in after the last worker has flipped off the lights and locked the door. It’s tough work done for little pay in the anonymity of night, among mazes of empty cubicles and conference rooms. She’s even less likely to speak up if she’s afraid of being deported or fired.” To watch a Frontline investigative report about rape on the night shift and read more in-depth coverage on the issue, click here.
NPR: OSHA is launching a new program to protect the health and safety of nurses, reports Daniel Zwerdling, who earlier this year authored an in-depth series on the dangerous experiences and conditions nurses often face on the job as well as the employers who turn their backs on nurses who’ve sustained preventable injuries at work. In an exclusive interview with NPR, OSHA chief David Michaels said agency inspectors will begin investigating what hospitals are doing to protect nurses. While OSHA has previously made recommendations on how hospitals can prevent high rates of injuries among nurses, Michaels said OSHA will now move from “merely recommending safe practices to potentially fining hospitals if they do not adopt them,” Zwerdling reports. However, there is skepticism about just how much of a difference OSHA’s new actions can make. Zwerdling writes: “For instance, OSHA’s staff is so small compared to its mission that OSHA officials estimate it would take 100 years to inspect every workplace in the nation just once. So even though the agency has more than 1,000 inspectors, an OSHA official acknowledges that they will likely investigate dozens of the nation’s 4,000 hospitals each year, not hundreds.”
Huffington Post: Dave Jamieson reports that IKEA says its previous wage hike was so successful, the company plans to raise wages again — the new increase will bring starting wages at the furniture company to nearly $12 an hour. In January, IKEA implemented a system in which the starting wage for any given U.S. store takes into account that particular community’s cost of living as determined by the MIT Living Wage Calculator. Jamieson writes that IKEA reports a number of benefits after raising wages, including less employee turnover and the ability to attract more qualified applicants. Jamieson reports: “Ikea may have implemented its raises in the most unique manner, thanks to its reliance on the MIT Living Wage Calculator. For comparison, at the College Park, Maryland, store, in the Washington, D.C., suburbs, the minimum wage will be $14.54 next year, while at the store in Pittsburgh, it will be $10.”
Slate: Alison Griswold interviews Barbara Ann Berwick, the woman at the center of the recent California Labor Commission ruling that deemed Berwick an employee of the ride-hailing service Uber, as opposed to an independent contractor. While Uber is appealing the decision, the commission ruled that Uber owed her about $4000 in expenses. In response to the success, Berwick says she plans to launch a series of classes on how drivers can successfully file complaints against Uber and be deemed official employees of the company. Griswold writes: “(Berwick) breezes through the company’s ‘control mechanisms’ for its drivers— last-minute cancellations without pay, the five-star rating system, rider feedback, and weekly emails — as though she is delivering a well-practiced spiel. ‘Four mechanisms don’t just constitute pervasive control,’ Berwick says, citing a key phrase California uses to define an employer-employee relationship, ‘in my opinion, they constitute abject control.’”
Kim Krisberg is a freelance public health writer living in Austin, Texas, and has been writing about public health for more than a decade.
This week, the Center for Public Integrity launched a new investigative series into the failure of regulators to protect workers for toxic exposures. The series begins with the story of a bricklayer who developed acute silicosis after exposure to silica, a deadly substance that threatens more than 2 million workers and that OSHA has been struggling to regulate for 40 years. The bricklayer, Chris Johnson, is just 40 years old and can expect to survive less than five years. Reporters Jim Morris, Jamie Smith Hopkins and Maryam Jameel write:
An 18-month investigation by the Center for Public Integrity has found that the epidemic of occupational disease in America isn’t merely the product of neglect or misconduct by employers. It’s the predictable result of a bifurcated system of hazard regulation — one for the general public and another, far weaker, for workers. Risks of cancer and other illnesses considered acceptable at a workplace wouldn’t be tolerated outside of it.
For years, the best OSHA has been able to do is set chemical limits so that no more than one extra cancer case would be expected among every 1,000 workers exposed at the legal maximum over their entire careers. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s standards for the public are 10 to 1,000 times more protective. The real gap is often worse, a former OSHA official says.
“I can’t see any justification for treating people that differently,” said Adam M. Finkel, who heads the Penn Program on Regulation at the University of Pennsylvania Law School and was director of health standards programs at OSHA from 1995 to 2000.
The reporters describe the toll of such occupational illnesses as a “slow-motion tragedy” that often unravels outside of the public eye. Among the investigation’s top findings is that the system for preventing occupational illnesses and fatalities linked to chemical, fume and dust exposure is so weak that “OSHA warns companies not to rely on its legal exposure limits to protect employees.” In addition, a Center for Public Integrity analysis found that U.S. workers face high cancer risks if exposed over their careers to certain chemicals at their legal limits. Going back to the example of silica exposure and the 40-year fight to protect worker health and safety, the reporters write:
In February 2011, OSHA finally sent a proposed silica rule to the Office of Management and Budget for vetting. It emerged 921 days later in 2013. OMB officials will not say why it took so long; 90 days, plus a single 30-day extension, is supposed to be the maximum unless the rulemaking agency asks for more time.
Apart from trimming the silica exposure limit to the NIOSH-recommended number for all workers, the proposed standard would require employers to control dust with methods such as water or vacuum systems and provide medical monitoring for highly exposed workers. OSHA predicted it would save nearly 700 lives and prevent 1,600 new cases of silicosis per year.
The Labor Department held 14 days of hearings in Washington, D.C., in the spring of 2014. Among the witnesses was construction worker Santiago Hernandez, who’d come to the United States five years earlier from Tlaxcala, Mexico, expecting to find safer conditions.
Instead, he said in written testimony, “things are actually much worse here than in Mexico. … The protections you receive here are useless. Employers give you a little paper mask that, when you finish, is just as dirty and dusty on the inside as on the outside.”
To read the full story, which was co-published with Slate, click here. To read the full investigative series, titled “Unequal Risk,” as well as future installments coming this week and stories from families affected by occupational illness, visit the Center for Public Integrity. Also, click here for a number of helpful infographics that illustrate the state of occupational illness and the regulatory response.
In other news:
Frontline: In “Rape on the Night Shift,” Bernice Yeung writes about the women janitors who face rape and sexual assault risks while they work in typically isolated surroundings and often for companies more concerned with public embarrassment than employee safety. Yeung begins the story with Erika Morales, who worked for a subsidiary of ABM Industries Inc., the largest cleaning company in the country. Morales said she faced persistent sexual harassment from a supervisor and one night, as she was cleaning a local branch of Bank of America, her supervisor cornered her and began forcefully taking off her clothes. Fortunately, Morales was able to fight him off. In her investigation, Yeung found 42 lawsuits from the past 20 years in which ABM janitors said they were sexually harassed, assaulted or raped at work. She writes: “The night shift janitor is an easy target for abuse. She clocks in after the last worker has flipped off the lights and locked the door. It’s tough work done for little pay in the anonymity of night, among mazes of empty cubicles and conference rooms. She’s even less likely to speak up if she’s afraid of being deported or fired.” To watch a Frontline investigative report about rape on the night shift and read more in-depth coverage on the issue, click here.
NPR: OSHA is launching a new program to protect the health and safety of nurses, reports Daniel Zwerdling, who earlier this year authored an in-depth series on the dangerous experiences and conditions nurses often face on the job as well as the employers who turn their backs on nurses who’ve sustained preventable injuries at work. In an exclusive interview with NPR, OSHA chief David Michaels said agency inspectors will begin investigating what hospitals are doing to protect nurses. While OSHA has previously made recommendations on how hospitals can prevent high rates of injuries among nurses, Michaels said OSHA will now move from “merely recommending safe practices to potentially fining hospitals if they do not adopt them,” Zwerdling reports. However, there is skepticism about just how much of a difference OSHA’s new actions can make. Zwerdling writes: “For instance, OSHA’s staff is so small compared to its mission that OSHA officials estimate it would take 100 years to inspect every workplace in the nation just once. So even though the agency has more than 1,000 inspectors, an OSHA official acknowledges that they will likely investigate dozens of the nation’s 4,000 hospitals each year, not hundreds.”
Huffington Post: Dave Jamieson reports that IKEA says its previous wage hike was so successful, the company plans to raise wages again — the new increase will bring starting wages at the furniture company to nearly $12 an hour. In January, IKEA implemented a system in which the starting wage for any given U.S. store takes into account that particular community’s cost of living as determined by the MIT Living Wage Calculator. Jamieson writes that IKEA reports a number of benefits after raising wages, including less employee turnover and the ability to attract more qualified applicants. Jamieson reports: “Ikea may have implemented its raises in the most unique manner, thanks to its reliance on the MIT Living Wage Calculator. For comparison, at the College Park, Maryland, store, in the Washington, D.C., suburbs, the minimum wage will be $14.54 next year, while at the store in Pittsburgh, it will be $10.”
Slate: Alison Griswold interviews Barbara Ann Berwick, the woman at the center of the recent California Labor Commission ruling that deemed Berwick an employee of the ride-hailing service Uber, as opposed to an independent contractor. While Uber is appealing the decision, the commission ruled that Uber owed her about $4000 in expenses. In response to the success, Berwick says she plans to launch a series of classes on how drivers can successfully file complaints against Uber and be deemed official employees of the company. Griswold writes: “(Berwick) breezes through the company’s ‘control mechanisms’ for its drivers— last-minute cancellations without pay, the five-star rating system, rider feedback, and weekly emails — as though she is delivering a well-practiced spiel. ‘Four mechanisms don’t just constitute pervasive control,’ Berwick says, citing a key phrase California uses to define an employer-employee relationship, ‘in my opinion, they constitute abject control.’”
Kim Krisberg is a freelance public health writer living in Austin, Texas, and has been writing about public health for more than a decade.
In the binary system V404 Cygni, a stream of gas from a star much like the sun flows toward a 10 solar mass black hole. Instead of spiraling toward the black hole, the gas accumulates in an accretion disk around it. Every couple of decades, the disk switches into a state that sends the gas rushing inward, starting a new outburst.
On June 15, just before 2:32 p.m. EDT, a NASA satellite detected a rising tide of high-energy X-rays from the constellation Cygnus. About 10 minutes later, a Japanese experiment on the International Space Station (ISS) also picked up the flare.
The outburst came from V404 Cygni, a binary system located about 8,000 light-years away that contains a black hole. Every couple of decades the black hole fires up in an outburst of high-energy light, becoming an X-ray nova. Until now, it had been slumbering since 1989.
An X-ray nova is a bright, short-lived X-ray source that reaches peak intensity in a few days and then fades out over a period of weeks or months. The outburst occurs when stored gas abruptly rushes toward a neutron star or black hole. By studying the patterns of the X-rays produced, astronomers can determine the kind of object at the heart of the eruption.
Neil Gehrels is the NASA Swift satellite’s principal investigator at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. He said:
Relative to the lifetime of space observatories, these black hole eruptions are quite rare. So when we see one of them flare up, we try to throw everything we have at it, monitoring across the spectrum, from radio waves to gamma rays.
Astronomers classify this type of system as a low-mass X-ray binary. In V404 Cygni, a star slightly smaller than the sun orbits a black hole 10 times its mass in only 6.5 days. The close orbit and strong gravity of the black hole produce tidal forces that pull a stream of gas from its partner. The gas travels to a storage disk around the black hole and heats up to millions of degrees, producing a steady stream of X-rays as it falls inward.
But the disk flips between two dramatically different conditions. In its cooler state, the gas resists inward flow and just collects in the outer part of the disk like water behind a dam. Inevitably the build-up of gas overwhelms the dam, and a tsunami of hot bright gas rushes toward the black hole.
These images show the patch of the sky where the black-hole binary system V404 Cygni is located, as observed with the IBIS instrument on ESA’s Integral gamma-ray observatory. This system, comprising a black hole and a star orbiting one another, is located in our Milky Way galaxy, almost 8000 light-years away in the constellation Cygnus, the Swan. On 15 June 2015, V404 Cygni started showing signs of extraordinary activity, something that had not happened since 1989. The renewed activity is likely caused by material slowly piling up in the disc, until eventually reaching a tipping point that dramatically changes the black hole’s feeding routine for a short period.The image on the left was taken on 19 May 2015, before the outburst: V404 Cygni is not present, and its position is marked with a cross. The image on the right, taken on 18 June 2015, shows V404 Cygni as the brightest source in the field. Image credit: ESA/Integral/IBIS/ISDC
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Astronomers relish the opportunity to collect simultaneous multiwavelength data on black hole binaries, especially one as close as V404 Cygni. In 1938 and 1956, astronomers caught V404 Cygni undergoing outbursts in visible light. During its eruption in 1989, the system was observed by Ginga, an X-ray satellite operated by Japan, and instruments aboard Russia’s Mir space station.
V404 Cygni has flared many times since the eruption began, with activity ranging from minutes to hours.
Erik Kuulkers, at ESA’s European Space Astronomy Centre in Madrid, said:
It repeatedly becomes the brightest object in the X-ray sky … It is definitely a ‘once in a professional lifetime’ opportunity.
In a single week, flares from V404 Cygni generated more than 70 “triggers” of the Gamma-ray Burst Monitor (GBM) aboard Fermi. This is more than five times the number of triggers seen from all objects in the sky in a typical week. The GBM triggers when it detects a gamma-ray flare, then it sends numerous emails containing increasingly refined information about the event to scientists on duty.
Every time the GBM recovered from one trigger, V404 Cygni set it off again, resulting in a torrent of emails. The event prompted David Yu, a GBM scientist at the Max Planck Institute of Extraterrestrial Physics in Garching, Germany, to comment on social media: Achievement Unlocked: Mailbox spammed by a blackhole.
Bottom line: On June 15,2015, V404 Cygni, a system comprising a black hole and a star orbiting one another, made its comeback to the cosmic stage. Over the past week, astronomers around the world have been observing the exceptional outburst of high-energy light produced by the black hole that is devouring material from its stellar companion.
In the binary system V404 Cygni, a stream of gas from a star much like the sun flows toward a 10 solar mass black hole. Instead of spiraling toward the black hole, the gas accumulates in an accretion disk around it. Every couple of decades, the disk switches into a state that sends the gas rushing inward, starting a new outburst.
On June 15, just before 2:32 p.m. EDT, a NASA satellite detected a rising tide of high-energy X-rays from the constellation Cygnus. About 10 minutes later, a Japanese experiment on the International Space Station (ISS) also picked up the flare.
The outburst came from V404 Cygni, a binary system located about 8,000 light-years away that contains a black hole. Every couple of decades the black hole fires up in an outburst of high-energy light, becoming an X-ray nova. Until now, it had been slumbering since 1989.
An X-ray nova is a bright, short-lived X-ray source that reaches peak intensity in a few days and then fades out over a period of weeks or months. The outburst occurs when stored gas abruptly rushes toward a neutron star or black hole. By studying the patterns of the X-rays produced, astronomers can determine the kind of object at the heart of the eruption.
Neil Gehrels is the NASA Swift satellite’s principal investigator at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. He said:
Relative to the lifetime of space observatories, these black hole eruptions are quite rare. So when we see one of them flare up, we try to throw everything we have at it, monitoring across the spectrum, from radio waves to gamma rays.
Astronomers classify this type of system as a low-mass X-ray binary. In V404 Cygni, a star slightly smaller than the sun orbits a black hole 10 times its mass in only 6.5 days. The close orbit and strong gravity of the black hole produce tidal forces that pull a stream of gas from its partner. The gas travels to a storage disk around the black hole and heats up to millions of degrees, producing a steady stream of X-rays as it falls inward.
But the disk flips between two dramatically different conditions. In its cooler state, the gas resists inward flow and just collects in the outer part of the disk like water behind a dam. Inevitably the build-up of gas overwhelms the dam, and a tsunami of hot bright gas rushes toward the black hole.
These images show the patch of the sky where the black-hole binary system V404 Cygni is located, as observed with the IBIS instrument on ESA’s Integral gamma-ray observatory. This system, comprising a black hole and a star orbiting one another, is located in our Milky Way galaxy, almost 8000 light-years away in the constellation Cygnus, the Swan. On 15 June 2015, V404 Cygni started showing signs of extraordinary activity, something that had not happened since 1989. The renewed activity is likely caused by material slowly piling up in the disc, until eventually reaching a tipping point that dramatically changes the black hole’s feeding routine for a short period.The image on the left was taken on 19 May 2015, before the outburst: V404 Cygni is not present, and its position is marked with a cross. The image on the right, taken on 18 June 2015, shows V404 Cygni as the brightest source in the field. Image credit: ESA/Integral/IBIS/ISDC
Enjoying EarthSky? Sign up for our free daily newsletter today!
Astronomers relish the opportunity to collect simultaneous multiwavelength data on black hole binaries, especially one as close as V404 Cygni. In 1938 and 1956, astronomers caught V404 Cygni undergoing outbursts in visible light. During its eruption in 1989, the system was observed by Ginga, an X-ray satellite operated by Japan, and instruments aboard Russia’s Mir space station.
V404 Cygni has flared many times since the eruption began, with activity ranging from minutes to hours.
Erik Kuulkers, at ESA’s European Space Astronomy Centre in Madrid, said:
It repeatedly becomes the brightest object in the X-ray sky … It is definitely a ‘once in a professional lifetime’ opportunity.
In a single week, flares from V404 Cygni generated more than 70 “triggers” of the Gamma-ray Burst Monitor (GBM) aboard Fermi. This is more than five times the number of triggers seen from all objects in the sky in a typical week. The GBM triggers when it detects a gamma-ray flare, then it sends numerous emails containing increasingly refined information about the event to scientists on duty.
Every time the GBM recovered from one trigger, V404 Cygni set it off again, resulting in a torrent of emails. The event prompted David Yu, a GBM scientist at the Max Planck Institute of Extraterrestrial Physics in Garching, Germany, to comment on social media: Achievement Unlocked: Mailbox spammed by a blackhole.
Bottom line: On June 15,2015, V404 Cygni, a system comprising a black hole and a star orbiting one another, made its comeback to the cosmic stage. Over the past week, astronomers around the world have been observing the exceptional outburst of high-energy light produced by the black hole that is devouring material from its stellar companion.
There’s something puzzling about black holes, if you stop to consider it. On the one hand, they’re objects so massive and dense — compacted into such a small region of space — that nothing can escape from it, not even light. That’s the definition of a black hole, and why “black” is in the name.
Image credit: James Provost, sciencenews.org.
But gravity also moves at the speed of light, and yet the gravitational influence of a black hole has absolutely no problem extending not only beyond the event horizon, but infinite distances out into the abyss of space.
Image credit: Henze, NASA.
What’s the resolution to this puzzle? Jillian Scudder has the answer on Astroquizzical today!
There’s something puzzling about black holes, if you stop to consider it. On the one hand, they’re objects so massive and dense — compacted into such a small region of space — that nothing can escape from it, not even light. That’s the definition of a black hole, and why “black” is in the name.
Image credit: James Provost, sciencenews.org.
But gravity also moves at the speed of light, and yet the gravitational influence of a black hole has absolutely no problem extending not only beyond the event horizon, but infinite distances out into the abyss of space.
Image credit: Henze, NASA.
What’s the resolution to this puzzle? Jillian Scudder has the answer on Astroquizzical today!
The Supreme Court’s decision on EPA’s Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS) was disappointing to everyone working to protect public health by reducing emissions of mercury and other toxic air pollutants from coal- and oil-fired power plants. But as we take stock of what this decision means, there are some important factors that make me confident we are still on track to reduce this dangerous pollution and better protect America’s children, families and communities.
Most notably – the Administration remains committed to finalizing the Clean Power Plan this summer and yesterday’s ruling will have no bearing on the effort to reduce carbon pollution from the largest sources of emissions.
Second – this decision is very narrow. It did not invalidate the rule, which remains in effect today. In fact, the majority of power plants are already in compliance or well on their way to compliance. The Court found that EPA should have considered costs at an earlier step in the rulemaking process than it did. The court did not question EPA’s authority to control toxic air pollution from power plants provided it considers cost in that step. It also did not question our conclusions on human health that supported the agency’s finding that regulation is needed. And its narrow ruling does not disturb the remainder of the D.C. Circuit decision which unanimously upheld all other aspects of the MATS rule and rejected numerous challenges to the standards themselves.
Third – this decision does not affect other Clean Air Act programs that address other sources and types of air pollution. It hinged on a very specific section of the Act that applies exclusively to the regulation of air toxics from power plants. This is important to understand because it means that rules and programs that reduce other types of pollutants under other sections of the Clean Air Act—like ozone and fine particles (smog and soot) can continue without interruption or delay.
The decision does not affect the Clean Power Plan, which EPA will be finalizing later this summer and which will chart the course for this country to reduce harmful carbon from its fleet of existing power plants. That’s worth repeating: The Court’s conclusion that EPA must consider cost when determining whether it is “appropriate” to regulate toxic air emissions from utilities under section 112 of the Act will not impact the development of the Clean Power Plan under section 111. Cost is among the factors the Agency has long explicitly considered in setting standards under section 111 of the Act.
Fourth – America’s power sector is getting cleaner year after year by investing in more modern technologies. Since President Obama took office, wind energy has tripled and solar has grown ten-fold. The Clean Power Plan will build on these current positive trends. That means cleaner air in communities across the country, as well as a boost to our economy as we build the clean energy system of the future.
Finally – What’s next for MATS? From the moment we learned of this decision, we were committed to ensuring that standards remain in place to protect the public from toxic emissions from coal and oil-fired electric utilities. We will continue to work to make that happen. There are questions that will need to be answered over the next several weeks and months as we review the decision and determine the appropriate next steps once that review is complete. But as I’ve already noted, MATS is still in place and many plants have already installed controls and technologies to reduce their mercury emissions.
After nearly 45 years of the implementing the Clean Air Act, there have been many more victories than defeats as we’ve worked together to clean the air and raise healthier children and families. Despite the Supreme Court’s MATS decision, the agency remains confident that the progress we’ve made so far in improving air quality and protecting public health will continue.
The Supreme Court’s decision on EPA’s Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS) was disappointing to everyone working to protect public health by reducing emissions of mercury and other toxic air pollutants from coal- and oil-fired power plants. But as we take stock of what this decision means, there are some important factors that make me confident we are still on track to reduce this dangerous pollution and better protect America’s children, families and communities.
Most notably – the Administration remains committed to finalizing the Clean Power Plan this summer and yesterday’s ruling will have no bearing on the effort to reduce carbon pollution from the largest sources of emissions.
Second – this decision is very narrow. It did not invalidate the rule, which remains in effect today. In fact, the majority of power plants are already in compliance or well on their way to compliance. The Court found that EPA should have considered costs at an earlier step in the rulemaking process than it did. The court did not question EPA’s authority to control toxic air pollution from power plants provided it considers cost in that step. It also did not question our conclusions on human health that supported the agency’s finding that regulation is needed. And its narrow ruling does not disturb the remainder of the D.C. Circuit decision which unanimously upheld all other aspects of the MATS rule and rejected numerous challenges to the standards themselves.
Third – this decision does not affect other Clean Air Act programs that address other sources and types of air pollution. It hinged on a very specific section of the Act that applies exclusively to the regulation of air toxics from power plants. This is important to understand because it means that rules and programs that reduce other types of pollutants under other sections of the Clean Air Act—like ozone and fine particles (smog and soot) can continue without interruption or delay.
The decision does not affect the Clean Power Plan, which EPA will be finalizing later this summer and which will chart the course for this country to reduce harmful carbon from its fleet of existing power plants. That’s worth repeating: The Court’s conclusion that EPA must consider cost when determining whether it is “appropriate” to regulate toxic air emissions from utilities under section 112 of the Act will not impact the development of the Clean Power Plan under section 111. Cost is among the factors the Agency has long explicitly considered in setting standards under section 111 of the Act.
Fourth – America’s power sector is getting cleaner year after year by investing in more modern technologies. Since President Obama took office, wind energy has tripled and solar has grown ten-fold. The Clean Power Plan will build on these current positive trends. That means cleaner air in communities across the country, as well as a boost to our economy as we build the clean energy system of the future.
Finally – What’s next for MATS? From the moment we learned of this decision, we were committed to ensuring that standards remain in place to protect the public from toxic emissions from coal and oil-fired electric utilities. We will continue to work to make that happen. There are questions that will need to be answered over the next several weeks and months as we review the decision and determine the appropriate next steps once that review is complete. But as I’ve already noted, MATS is still in place and many plants have already installed controls and technologies to reduce their mercury emissions.
After nearly 45 years of the implementing the Clean Air Act, there have been many more victories than defeats as we’ve worked together to clean the air and raise healthier children and families. Despite the Supreme Court’s MATS decision, the agency remains confident that the progress we’ve made so far in improving air quality and protecting public health will continue.
By Tina Wei
Great Swamp National Wildlife Refuge
On June 9th, I assisted David Kluesner, EPA Region 2 community affairs team leader, at an event with the Great Swamp Watershed Association where he gave a presentation to the community members of Morristown, NJ about the significant steps the EPA is taking to clean up the lower Passaic River.
At the meeting, we heard attendees express strong support for activities to conserve the environment and protect human health. To learn about the community’s relationship with the environment and to see an example of successful, impactful conservation efforts, we visited the nearby Great Swamp National Wildlife Refuge.
This refuge, established by Congress in 1960 and located in Morris County, NJ, is one of the 560 refuges in the Department of Interior’s U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service’s National Wildlife Refuge System. We toured the wonderful Helen C. Fenske Visitor Center, featuring interactive environmental education activities, friendly rangers, and live bird-cams. The refuge’s 7,768 acres of habitat allow for wildlife viewing, photography, and hunting.
We learned that North America is divided into four key flyways for migrating birds. New York City is located in the highly trafficked Atlantic Flyway. This refuge, located only 26 miles away from Times Square, is of great importance, providing a crucial resting place for over 244 species of birds who can’t rest in NYC.
Image by the the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service
We also learned about this refuge’s unique history. Beginning in 1844, this area’s marshlands were drained and converted to agricultural fields. As these farms became unprofitable and disappeared, alternative uses for this land were proposed, including a 1959 proposal to turn this area into a major airport (what is now Newark Liberty International Airport). In response, community members raised more than one million dollars to buy almost 3,000 acres of the Great Swamp land, donating it to the Department of the Interior to be conserved and reverted back to swampland.
This history is interesting for thinking about key questions regarding conservation:
Do you know about the local history of a National Wildlife Refuge? What do you think about conservation? Tell us in the comments section!
About the Author: Tina Wei is a summer intern in EPA’s Region 2 Public Affairs Division. She has loved this wonderful learning opportunity, and especially enjoys going on work-related fieldtrips. During the school year, she is an undergraduate student at Princeton University.
By Tina Wei
Great Swamp National Wildlife Refuge
On June 9th, I assisted David Kluesner, EPA Region 2 community affairs team leader, at an event with the Great Swamp Watershed Association where he gave a presentation to the community members of Morristown, NJ about the significant steps the EPA is taking to clean up the lower Passaic River.
At the meeting, we heard attendees express strong support for activities to conserve the environment and protect human health. To learn about the community’s relationship with the environment and to see an example of successful, impactful conservation efforts, we visited the nearby Great Swamp National Wildlife Refuge.
This refuge, established by Congress in 1960 and located in Morris County, NJ, is one of the 560 refuges in the Department of Interior’s U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service’s National Wildlife Refuge System. We toured the wonderful Helen C. Fenske Visitor Center, featuring interactive environmental education activities, friendly rangers, and live bird-cams. The refuge’s 7,768 acres of habitat allow for wildlife viewing, photography, and hunting.
We learned that North America is divided into four key flyways for migrating birds. New York City is located in the highly trafficked Atlantic Flyway. This refuge, located only 26 miles away from Times Square, is of great importance, providing a crucial resting place for over 244 species of birds who can’t rest in NYC.
Image by the the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service
We also learned about this refuge’s unique history. Beginning in 1844, this area’s marshlands were drained and converted to agricultural fields. As these farms became unprofitable and disappeared, alternative uses for this land were proposed, including a 1959 proposal to turn this area into a major airport (what is now Newark Liberty International Airport). In response, community members raised more than one million dollars to buy almost 3,000 acres of the Great Swamp land, donating it to the Department of the Interior to be conserved and reverted back to swampland.
This history is interesting for thinking about key questions regarding conservation:
Do you know about the local history of a National Wildlife Refuge? What do you think about conservation? Tell us in the comments section!
About the Author: Tina Wei is a summer intern in EPA’s Region 2 Public Affairs Division. She has loved this wonderful learning opportunity, and especially enjoys going on work-related fieldtrips. During the school year, she is an undergraduate student at Princeton University.
This is a re-post from Carbon Brief by Roz Pidcock
We need only look to the world's ice cover to see the urgency with which emissions need to come down, scientists told delegates at this week's climate talks in Bonn, Germany.
At a press conference today, US and German scientists updated negotiators and journalists with the latest science on the state of Arctic sea ice, the Antarctic continent and thawing permafrost.
New observations gathered since the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report show the cryosphere in serious and irreversible decline, they warned.
Pam Pearson, director of the International Cryosphere Climate Initiative, the network of policy experts and researchers holding the event, told the audience:
"This is not like air pollution or water pollution, where if you clean it up it will go back to the way it was before."
Arctic sea ice has been retreating rapidly in recent years as a result of greenhouse gases building up in the atmosphere, explained Dr Dirk Notz, sea ice expert at the Max Planck Institute in Germany. The biggest losses are happening in summer, he said:
"Over the past 10 years or so, we've roughly seen a 50% loss of Arctic sea ice area. So, the ice in the Arctic is currently retreating very, very rapidly."
In March, Arctic sea ice reached its lowest maximum extent in the satellite record. Last week, the US National Snow and Ice Data Centre confirmed Arctic sea ice extent for May was the third lowest on record.
Arctic sea ice extent for 2015 compared to the 1981-2010 long term average. Source: NSIDC
Antarctic sea ice has been at record high levels in 2015 but this should be viewed in perspective with what's happening at the other end of the planet, Notz said:
"There is a slight increase, but it's nothing compared to the very, very rapid loss that we've seen in the Arctic."
Scientists' current understanding is that temperature changes as a result of greenhouse gases are causing winds to blow stronger offshore in the Southern Ocean that surrounds Antarctica, driving the sea ice outwards. Notz said:
"Both in the Arctic and the Antarctic, the changes we are seeing in the sea ice are very clearly driven predominantly by human activities."
A slide from Dr Dirk Notz's presentation, putting Antartcic sea ice gain in perspective with the rate of Arctic sea ice loss. Source: ICCI press conference, Bonn June 2015
Model simulations suggest sea ice could be gone from the Arctic in summer by mid-century. But if we stop emitting greenhouse gases, the chances of losing sea ice diminish quickly, he said:
"Only a very strong and rapid reduction in carbon dioxide might allow for the survival of Arctic summer sea ice beyond this century."
Turning from sea ice to land ice, a few regions of West Antarctica have grabbed scientists' attention in the past year, explained Prof Ricarda Winkelmann from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. Each has the potential to destabilise, raising global sea levels.
The Amundsen Basin in West Antarctica, which houses the Pine Island and Thwaites glaciers, is one of these "hotspots." Winkelmann explains:
"It has been shown in a number of studies last year that [the region] has tipped, meaning that it has crossed that threshold and is now undergoing irreversible change."
Once the glaciers in this region drain into the ocean, the volume of water will raise global sea levels by one metre. The question is how fast that will happen, said Winkelmann.
"We've known that this kind of mechanism exists for a long time, it was first proposed in the 1970s. But the observation that something like this is actually happening right now - that's a new one."
Map shows changes in Antarctic ice shelves from 1994 to 2012. Shading of ice shelves shows rate of thickness change (in metres per decade), from thinning (red) to thickening (blue). Dots show percentage of thickness lost (red) or gained (blue). Source: Paolo et al. (2015)
A second region that's been discussed a lot this year is the Antarctic Peninsula. Warm water is reaching the ice shelves and thinning them from the bottom up, recent research shows.
The scientists are watching the Totten glacier in East Antarctica closely, as the same process of irreversible collapse could be at work there too, they say.
Totten is currently thinning faster than any other glacier in East Antarctica and, if it melts, could raise sea levels by 3.5m - more than the whole of the West Antarctic ice sheet put together.
Carbon has been accumulating in permafrost for many thousands of years, but it is starting to be released as warmer temperatures are causing the once-permanently frozen ground to thaw.
Scientists currently estimate there is 1,500bn tonnes of carbon currently locked away in permafrost. That's twice as much as in the atmosphere, explained Dr. Susan Natali, an expert in permafrost feedbacks on climate from the Woods Hole Research Center in the US.
If even a small amount of that carbon escapes to the atmosphere, it could lead to a significant increase in global greenhouse gas emissions, said Natali.
Polar night in mountains in northern tundra in Russia. Source: Kekyalyaynen, Shutterstock.
If emissions stay very high, scientists expect to see a 70% loss in permafrost worldwide by 2100. This could be reduced to 30% if global temperatures are limited to 2C above pre-industrial levels, Natali explained.
How much carbon will find its way to the atmosphere is a complex question. But current estimates are for 130-160bn tonnes of carbon to be released by 2100. That's on par with current rate of emissions from the whole of the United States, the world's second largest emitter.
The actions that we take now in terms of our fossil fuel emissions will have a significant impact on how much permafrost is lost and, in turn, how much carbon is released, said Natali:
"We know that permafrost emissions will be substantial and irreversible on a human-relevant timeframe and these emissions of greenhouse gases from permafrost need to be accounted for if we want to meet our global emissions targets."
This new science isn't feeding into international climate policy as it should be, said Pearson:
"What the IPCC scientists see is a lack of understanding of the urgency of slowing down these processes and the fact that they are irreversible … I think that is the most important aspect [of the science] that still hasn't made it into the negotiations."
Notz urged policymakers to view climate change as a current, not a future, challenge. He said:
"So far, these negotiations have been driven by the idea that this is something that will happen at some point. But if you really look at the developments that have happened over the past two, three or four years, especially in the cryosphere … [they] will have consequences for the next centuries ... We're not speaking about the future here, we're speaking about ongoing changes."
In light of the wealth of new science, Pearson said she would like to see ambitions raised ahead of a global climate agreement in Paris later this year. She said:
"It's clear that given these challenges, the current INDC's [Intended Nationally-Determined Contributions] are not sufficient."
As well as greater ambition, Pearson said she wants to see the flexibility in the final Paris text to enable countries to raise their targets without going through a lengthy negotiation process.
Changes are taking place faster in the cryosphere than anywhere else, making it an ideal lens through which to view climate change negotiations, Pearson concluded. The processes taking place cannot be reversed and while they won't happen while these policymakers are in office, limiting the damage for future generations is a critical part of leadership, she said.
UPDATE: The article was updated on June 10th once Dr Dirk Notz's slides became available online. The figure from his presentation compares changes in Arctic and Antarctic sea ice.
This is a re-post from Carbon Brief by Roz Pidcock
We need only look to the world's ice cover to see the urgency with which emissions need to come down, scientists told delegates at this week's climate talks in Bonn, Germany.
At a press conference today, US and German scientists updated negotiators and journalists with the latest science on the state of Arctic sea ice, the Antarctic continent and thawing permafrost.
New observations gathered since the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report show the cryosphere in serious and irreversible decline, they warned.
Pam Pearson, director of the International Cryosphere Climate Initiative, the network of policy experts and researchers holding the event, told the audience:
"This is not like air pollution or water pollution, where if you clean it up it will go back to the way it was before."
Arctic sea ice has been retreating rapidly in recent years as a result of greenhouse gases building up in the atmosphere, explained Dr Dirk Notz, sea ice expert at the Max Planck Institute in Germany. The biggest losses are happening in summer, he said:
"Over the past 10 years or so, we've roughly seen a 50% loss of Arctic sea ice area. So, the ice in the Arctic is currently retreating very, very rapidly."
In March, Arctic sea ice reached its lowest maximum extent in the satellite record. Last week, the US National Snow and Ice Data Centre confirmed Arctic sea ice extent for May was the third lowest on record.
Arctic sea ice extent for 2015 compared to the 1981-2010 long term average. Source: NSIDC
Antarctic sea ice has been at record high levels in 2015 but this should be viewed in perspective with what's happening at the other end of the planet, Notz said:
"There is a slight increase, but it's nothing compared to the very, very rapid loss that we've seen in the Arctic."
Scientists' current understanding is that temperature changes as a result of greenhouse gases are causing winds to blow stronger offshore in the Southern Ocean that surrounds Antarctica, driving the sea ice outwards. Notz said:
"Both in the Arctic and the Antarctic, the changes we are seeing in the sea ice are very clearly driven predominantly by human activities."
A slide from Dr Dirk Notz's presentation, putting Antartcic sea ice gain in perspective with the rate of Arctic sea ice loss. Source: ICCI press conference, Bonn June 2015
Model simulations suggest sea ice could be gone from the Arctic in summer by mid-century. But if we stop emitting greenhouse gases, the chances of losing sea ice diminish quickly, he said:
"Only a very strong and rapid reduction in carbon dioxide might allow for the survival of Arctic summer sea ice beyond this century."
Turning from sea ice to land ice, a few regions of West Antarctica have grabbed scientists' attention in the past year, explained Prof Ricarda Winkelmann from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. Each has the potential to destabilise, raising global sea levels.
The Amundsen Basin in West Antarctica, which houses the Pine Island and Thwaites glaciers, is one of these "hotspots." Winkelmann explains:
"It has been shown in a number of studies last year that [the region] has tipped, meaning that it has crossed that threshold and is now undergoing irreversible change."
Once the glaciers in this region drain into the ocean, the volume of water will raise global sea levels by one metre. The question is how fast that will happen, said Winkelmann.
"We've known that this kind of mechanism exists for a long time, it was first proposed in the 1970s. But the observation that something like this is actually happening right now - that's a new one."
Map shows changes in Antarctic ice shelves from 1994 to 2012. Shading of ice shelves shows rate of thickness change (in metres per decade), from thinning (red) to thickening (blue). Dots show percentage of thickness lost (red) or gained (blue). Source: Paolo et al. (2015)
A second region that's been discussed a lot this year is the Antarctic Peninsula. Warm water is reaching the ice shelves and thinning them from the bottom up, recent research shows.
The scientists are watching the Totten glacier in East Antarctica closely, as the same process of irreversible collapse could be at work there too, they say.
Totten is currently thinning faster than any other glacier in East Antarctica and, if it melts, could raise sea levels by 3.5m - more than the whole of the West Antarctic ice sheet put together.
Carbon has been accumulating in permafrost for many thousands of years, but it is starting to be released as warmer temperatures are causing the once-permanently frozen ground to thaw.
Scientists currently estimate there is 1,500bn tonnes of carbon currently locked away in permafrost. That's twice as much as in the atmosphere, explained Dr. Susan Natali, an expert in permafrost feedbacks on climate from the Woods Hole Research Center in the US.
If even a small amount of that carbon escapes to the atmosphere, it could lead to a significant increase in global greenhouse gas emissions, said Natali.
Polar night in mountains in northern tundra in Russia. Source: Kekyalyaynen, Shutterstock.
If emissions stay very high, scientists expect to see a 70% loss in permafrost worldwide by 2100. This could be reduced to 30% if global temperatures are limited to 2C above pre-industrial levels, Natali explained.
How much carbon will find its way to the atmosphere is a complex question. But current estimates are for 130-160bn tonnes of carbon to be released by 2100. That's on par with current rate of emissions from the whole of the United States, the world's second largest emitter.
The actions that we take now in terms of our fossil fuel emissions will have a significant impact on how much permafrost is lost and, in turn, how much carbon is released, said Natali:
"We know that permafrost emissions will be substantial and irreversible on a human-relevant timeframe and these emissions of greenhouse gases from permafrost need to be accounted for if we want to meet our global emissions targets."
This new science isn't feeding into international climate policy as it should be, said Pearson:
"What the IPCC scientists see is a lack of understanding of the urgency of slowing down these processes and the fact that they are irreversible … I think that is the most important aspect [of the science] that still hasn't made it into the negotiations."
Notz urged policymakers to view climate change as a current, not a future, challenge. He said:
"So far, these negotiations have been driven by the idea that this is something that will happen at some point. But if you really look at the developments that have happened over the past two, three or four years, especially in the cryosphere … [they] will have consequences for the next centuries ... We're not speaking about the future here, we're speaking about ongoing changes."
In light of the wealth of new science, Pearson said she would like to see ambitions raised ahead of a global climate agreement in Paris later this year. She said:
"It's clear that given these challenges, the current INDC's [Intended Nationally-Determined Contributions] are not sufficient."
As well as greater ambition, Pearson said she wants to see the flexibility in the final Paris text to enable countries to raise their targets without going through a lengthy negotiation process.
Changes are taking place faster in the cryosphere than anywhere else, making it an ideal lens through which to view climate change negotiations, Pearson concluded. The processes taking place cannot be reversed and while they won't happen while these policymakers are in office, limiting the damage for future generations is a critical part of leadership, she said.
UPDATE: The article was updated on June 10th once Dr Dirk Notz's slides became available online. The figure from his presentation compares changes in Arctic and Antarctic sea ice.
“Lenticular cloud outside my window in Dublin Ireland this morning. I was surprised to see this as we don’t get them too often here,” by Anthony Lynch Photography June, 2015.
Enjoy these photos and a video of beautiful lenticular clouds taken in places around the world, and shared with us by EarthSky friends on Facebook and Google+.
These lens-shaped clouds typically form where stable moist air flows over a mountain or a range of mountains. When this happens, a series of large-scale standing waves may form on the mountain’s downwind side. If the temperature at the crest of the wave drops to the dew point, moisture in the air may condense to form lenticular clouds. As the moist air moves back down into the trough of the wave, the cloud may evaporate back into vapor. So lenticular can appear and disappear relatively quickly. Plus they’re not familiar to people who live in low-lying or flat terrain. And, just to confound things, lenticular clouds have also been known to form in non-mountainous places, as the result of shear winds created by a front. For all of these reasons, lenticular clouds are often mistaken for UFOs (or “visual cover” for UFOs). Enjoy the photos! Thank you to all who posted.
Enjoying EarthSky? Sign up for our free daily newsletter today!
View larger. | Lenticular clouds over Sangre de Cristos mountains, New Mexico – in January, 2015 – by EarthSky Facebook friend Geraint Smith.
Angela Mosley caught this lenticular cloud from Denver, Colorado in December, 2014.
Lenticular Timelapse from Michael Fuchs on Vimeo.
Lenticular clouds by Richard T. Hasbrouck in Truchas, New Mexico, January, 2014.
David Marshall captured this lenticular cloud above the Alps in northern Italy.
John Lloyd Griffith in north Wales captured this lenticular cloud on December, 2013.
This last photo comes from Michel Studinger of Project IceBridge. It’s a lenticular cloud over Antarctica, November, 2013.
Radek Zek Photography caught this lenticular cloud in September, 2013.
Emilio Lepeley of Vicuna, Chile captured this lenticular cloud in August, 2013.
Jackie Phillips in Virginia caught this lenticular cloud in October, 2012.
Beautiful shot of lenticular cloud at sunset by Chris Walker in Dayton, Nevada. Taken in spring 2008.
Bottom line: Photos and video of lenticular clouds in various parts of the world, from EarthSky’s community on Facebook and G+.
“Lenticular cloud outside my window in Dublin Ireland this morning. I was surprised to see this as we don’t get them too often here,” by Anthony Lynch Photography June, 2015.
Enjoy these photos and a video of beautiful lenticular clouds taken in places around the world, and shared with us by EarthSky friends on Facebook and Google+.
These lens-shaped clouds typically form where stable moist air flows over a mountain or a range of mountains. When this happens, a series of large-scale standing waves may form on the mountain’s downwind side. If the temperature at the crest of the wave drops to the dew point, moisture in the air may condense to form lenticular clouds. As the moist air moves back down into the trough of the wave, the cloud may evaporate back into vapor. So lenticular can appear and disappear relatively quickly. Plus they’re not familiar to people who live in low-lying or flat terrain. And, just to confound things, lenticular clouds have also been known to form in non-mountainous places, as the result of shear winds created by a front. For all of these reasons, lenticular clouds are often mistaken for UFOs (or “visual cover” for UFOs). Enjoy the photos! Thank you to all who posted.
Enjoying EarthSky? Sign up for our free daily newsletter today!
View larger. | Lenticular clouds over Sangre de Cristos mountains, New Mexico – in January, 2015 – by EarthSky Facebook friend Geraint Smith.
Angela Mosley caught this lenticular cloud from Denver, Colorado in December, 2014.
Lenticular Timelapse from Michael Fuchs on Vimeo.
Lenticular clouds by Richard T. Hasbrouck in Truchas, New Mexico, January, 2014.
David Marshall captured this lenticular cloud above the Alps in northern Italy.
John Lloyd Griffith in north Wales captured this lenticular cloud on December, 2013.
This last photo comes from Michel Studinger of Project IceBridge. It’s a lenticular cloud over Antarctica, November, 2013.
Radek Zek Photography caught this lenticular cloud in September, 2013.
Emilio Lepeley of Vicuna, Chile captured this lenticular cloud in August, 2013.
Jackie Phillips in Virginia caught this lenticular cloud in October, 2012.
Beautiful shot of lenticular cloud at sunset by Chris Walker in Dayton, Nevada. Taken in spring 2008.
Bottom line: Photos and video of lenticular clouds in various parts of the world, from EarthSky’s community on Facebook and G+.
By Jessica Hill
Homeland Defense & Security Information Analysis Center
Determining the characteristics of above-ground explosions could be instrumental in the military gaining a better understanding of the exact cause of a blast. Historically, researchers have used seismic monitors to gather information about earthquakes and other below-ground natural and manmade events, but a pair of researchers at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) have developed a method for determining the characteristics of near and above-ground explosions using the same seismic technology.
High-speed photographs of a controlled surface explosion at Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque, New Mexico, similar to the explosions at White Sands Missile Range were used in a study of seismic signals to detect above-ground explosions. (Photo: Defense Threat Reduction Agency Counter-WMD Test Support Division/Released)
In a project funded by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, Michael Pasyanos and Sean Ford were able to show that the explosion of an above-ground tunnel bomb planted by Syrian rebels was smaller than sources claimed. The blast under the Wadi al-Deif Army Base in Syria was originally said to be 60 tons, but the scientists proved the explosion was likely closer to 40 tons.
The team used data from regional seismic stations in Turkey, as well as video footage, to study the Syrian explosion. The equivalent to 100 tons of TNT would be needed produce the seismic signal found in the Syrian blast if it occurred well above the Earth’s surface.
“We estimate a chemical yield ranging from 6 and 50 tons depending on the depth, with the best estimate between 20-40 tons,” Pasyanos said in a press release. “Including independent information on the depth, we could narrow this considerably. If, for instance, we definitively knew that the explosion occurred at 2 meters below the surface, then we would estimate the yield at 40 tons.”
The team tested their method using shallow explosions in New Mexico where the yields and depths of the explosions were known. The method characterizes underground explosions based on regional amplitude envelopes across a broad range of frequencies.
Seismology is an integral part of nuclear explosion monitoring and has been used to show the yield and depth of underground explosions. This new technique can be used by governmental agencies to understand the exact cause of an explosion. “By allowing the methodology to consider shallow, uncontained events just below, at, or even above the Earth’s surface, we make the method relevant to new classes of events including mining events, military explosions, industrial accidents, plane crashes or potential terrorist attacks,” Pasyanos said.
New technologies to detect or mitigate explosive devices are imperative to homeland security as terrorist attacks using explosive materials are a clear threat to public safety and national security. Understanding the characteristics of an explosion will assist the military in preparing for and preventing future attacks and in gaining knowledge of weapons used by adversaries. In addition, research into above-ground explosions has the potential to enhance the nation’s counter-improvised explosive device (IED) capabilities.
Story and information provided by the Homeland Defense & Security Information Analysis Center
Follow Armed with Science on Facebook and Twitter!
———-
Disclaimer: Re-published content may have been edited for length and clarity. The appearance of hyperlinks does not constitute endorsement by the Department of Defense. For other than authorized activities, such as, military exchanges and Morale, Welfare and Recreation sites, the Department of Defense does not exercise any editorial control over the information you may find at these locations. Such links are provided consistent with the stated purpose of this DoD website.
By Jessica Hill
Homeland Defense & Security Information Analysis Center
Determining the characteristics of above-ground explosions could be instrumental in the military gaining a better understanding of the exact cause of a blast. Historically, researchers have used seismic monitors to gather information about earthquakes and other below-ground natural and manmade events, but a pair of researchers at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) have developed a method for determining the characteristics of near and above-ground explosions using the same seismic technology.
High-speed photographs of a controlled surface explosion at Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque, New Mexico, similar to the explosions at White Sands Missile Range were used in a study of seismic signals to detect above-ground explosions. (Photo: Defense Threat Reduction Agency Counter-WMD Test Support Division/Released)
In a project funded by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, Michael Pasyanos and Sean Ford were able to show that the explosion of an above-ground tunnel bomb planted by Syrian rebels was smaller than sources claimed. The blast under the Wadi al-Deif Army Base in Syria was originally said to be 60 tons, but the scientists proved the explosion was likely closer to 40 tons.
The team used data from regional seismic stations in Turkey, as well as video footage, to study the Syrian explosion. The equivalent to 100 tons of TNT would be needed produce the seismic signal found in the Syrian blast if it occurred well above the Earth’s surface.
“We estimate a chemical yield ranging from 6 and 50 tons depending on the depth, with the best estimate between 20-40 tons,” Pasyanos said in a press release. “Including independent information on the depth, we could narrow this considerably. If, for instance, we definitively knew that the explosion occurred at 2 meters below the surface, then we would estimate the yield at 40 tons.”
The team tested their method using shallow explosions in New Mexico where the yields and depths of the explosions were known. The method characterizes underground explosions based on regional amplitude envelopes across a broad range of frequencies.
Seismology is an integral part of nuclear explosion monitoring and has been used to show the yield and depth of underground explosions. This new technique can be used by governmental agencies to understand the exact cause of an explosion. “By allowing the methodology to consider shallow, uncontained events just below, at, or even above the Earth’s surface, we make the method relevant to new classes of events including mining events, military explosions, industrial accidents, plane crashes or potential terrorist attacks,” Pasyanos said.
New technologies to detect or mitigate explosive devices are imperative to homeland security as terrorist attacks using explosive materials are a clear threat to public safety and national security. Understanding the characteristics of an explosion will assist the military in preparing for and preventing future attacks and in gaining knowledge of weapons used by adversaries. In addition, research into above-ground explosions has the potential to enhance the nation’s counter-improvised explosive device (IED) capabilities.
Story and information provided by the Homeland Defense & Security Information Analysis Center
Follow Armed with Science on Facebook and Twitter!
———-
Disclaimer: Re-published content may have been edited for length and clarity. The appearance of hyperlinks does not constitute endorsement by the Department of Defense. For other than authorized activities, such as, military exchanges and Morale, Welfare and Recreation sites, the Department of Defense does not exercise any editorial control over the information you may find at these locations. Such links are provided consistent with the stated purpose of this DoD website.
Late last week, something happened that I never would have predicted, and it’s all due to how the politics of the issue changed in the wake of the Disneyland measles outbreak earlier this year. The state that contains some of the most famous pockets of low vaccine uptake and some of the most famous antivaccine “luminaries,” including pediatricians like Dr. Bob Sears and Jay Gordon, as well as actual celebrities like Rob Schneider, Alicia Silverstone, Bill Maher, Charlie Sheen, and Mayim Bialik, actually passed a law, SB 277, that eliminates non-medical exemptions to school vaccine mandates. It’s now been sent to Governor Jerry Brown’s desk for his signature:
Gov. Jerry Brown must now decide whether to sign into law a bill that would require mandatory vaccinations for nearly all California schoolchildren.
The measure, spawned by an outbreak of measles at Disneyland that ultimately infected more than 150 people, cleared its final legislative hurdle Monday in the state Senate. Brown has not said publicly whether he would sign it.
The measure — one of the toughest vaccination bills in the nation — would require children enrolling in school or day care to be immunized against diseases including measles and whooping cough.
Parents would no longer be able to cite personal or religious beliefs to decline the vaccinations, although children with certain medical problems, such as immune system deficiencies, would be exempt.
Those who decline the vaccinations would have to enroll their children in a home-based private school or public independent study program based off campus.
The bill was one of the most contentious taken up by the Legislature this year, attracting large, vocal crowds of parents during a series of legislative hearings on the measure.
To say it was contentious is an understatement. Indeed, as I’ve repeated—probably more times than regular readers want to hear—even in the wake of the Disneyland measles outbreak, I expected this bill to fail. I was more than pleasantly surprised as the bill cleared hurdle after hurdle despite all opposition and attempts to water it down to uselessness to the point of taking on an air of inevitability last week in the days leading up to the final vote in the state assembly last week that sent SB 277 to the governor’s desk. That’s great. But we can’t let up the pressure. As you might recall, when an earlier bill in California, AB 2109, was passed into law its intent was to make it more difficult to obtain non-medical exemptions was sabotaged by Governor Brown when he added a signing statement to it. That signing statement directed the California Department of Public Health to add a checkbox on the form for a religious exemption that basically permitted any parent who checked it to skip the Law’s requirement to obtain counseling from specified health care practitioners regarding the risks and benefits of vaccination before a non-medical exemption would be granted. There was no provision in the law for this, and Governor Brown’s action was a profound betrayal of the children of California. We hope he won’t do something like that again, but I sure as hell don’t trust him not to. So if you live in California, keep up the pressure. Certainly the antivaccinationists are. If SB 277 becomes law and California joins Mississippi and West Virginia as states that permit no non-medical exemptions, it will be a watershed. It might even be a turning point that persuades other states to pass similar laws.
It might be a watershed event, a turning point, in a different sort of way. Specifically, the antivaccine war against SB 277, for the first time that I can remember, resulted in the nastiness in the antivaccine movement to percolate up through the media noise to reach the attention of ordinary Americans, most of whom had no idea just how looney and nasty these people can be. Let’s just put it this way. Those of us who stand up for science with respect to vaccines and have been doing so for more than a brief period of time have all experienced varying degrees of vilification and even outright harassment. I myself have had antivaccine zealots contact my bosses at work on a number of occasions; on one occasion our old friend Jake Crosby wrote a post accusing me of an undisclosed conflict of interest and being in the pocket of big pharma, thus inspiring knuckle draggers from the antivaccine crank blog Age of Autism to sent complaints to my dean, my cancer center director, and the board of directors at my university. While I must admit that their actions caused me considerable agita at the time, in the end I emerged with much less concern and fear over such attacks because I realized that my university values academic freedom, as do most universities. Of course, the same doesn’t apply to private companies, and people who work in industry or non-university settings can be basically screwed when antivaccine activists target them.
One thing’s for sure, though. Antivaccinationists did themselves no favors in their war against SB 277. Whether it was a persecution complex that led some of them to compare their plight to that of Jews during the Holocaust, a campaign of harassment and vilification of lawmakers and supporters of SB 277 on social media like Twitter, or cozying up to the Nation of Islam and the Church of Scientology in full-on conspiracy mode, antivaccine activists did a better job than I (or any other bloggers ever could) of making themselves look like total loons to anyone with half a brain.
Evidence of this just appeared yesterday in an article in Jezebel by Anna Merlan entitled, Meet the New, Dangerous Fringe of the Anti-Vaccination Movement. Basically, it is about examples of antivaccine nastiness culled from the Anti-Vax Wall of Shame (AVWoS), a Facebook group that collects examples of the most outrageously stupid and/or nasty rhetoric from antivaccine activists on social media. The group exists to expose (and mock), things like what the Jezebel article describes, such as vile messages sent to a mother who belonged to AVWoS.
One thing I learned from the article as well is that there exists another Facebook page, Anti Vax Wall of Shame – The Fall of the Wall that is, apparently, the response of antivaccine activists to AVWoS. I took a few minutes to peruse this AVWoS mirror image and was rather puzzled. For one thing, unlike AVWoS, it wasn’t particularly funny, an it’s not just because of what side I’m on. Believe it or not, I can appreciate truly clever jabs directed at “my side,” even chuckle at them. There really wasn’t anything to chuckle at there that I saw. In fact, I agree with Merlan’s characterization:
Fall of the Wall tends to skew a little less snarky than the Wall of Shame, and a little weirder. It uses an image of someone in a Guy Fawkes mask, clearly taken from a screengrab of an Anonymous video, and makes some wild claims, including that the Anti-Vax Wall of Shame folks are cleverly infecting anti-vaccination activists with computer viruses embedded in photos and links.
Because, obviously, you can’t have antivaccine activism without conspiracy theories. After all, these are the people who, upon learning that the body of one of their most admired “autism biomed” quacks, Jeffery Bradstreet, had been found in a river with a gunshot wound to the chest that appeared to be due to suicide, immediately went into full conspiracy mode, speculating that big pharma had put the hit on him for threatening them. It also has to do with harassing their enemies:
According to pro-vaccination groups, other opponents of SB 277 resorted to harassment, threats, doxxing and nasty impersonation. The mother of the 11-year-old girl—who asked that her name and her daughter’s name be withheld to protect their privacy and safety—told Jezebel that she’s a frequent commenter on Anti-Vax Wall of Shame, and that her daughter was contacted after a Fall of the Wall commenter started combing through her own public Facebook photos.
“She made it clear she was going through my pictures, making remarks about my husband having AIDS and how ugly my children are,” the woman says. “That their teeth are rotting out and they look retarded.”
Next, she says, came the message to her daughter (she provided a screenshot of the message to Jezebel, saying that it came from a sock puppet account impersonating her sister, which has since been taken down). She’s not sure whether the intention was to frighten her child, make her angry, or just show that she could find the woman’s family, but in any case, she’s furious.
And:
One woman who’s testified in favor of the bill—who also asked not to be named, for fear of drawing more troll attention—said that photos of her, her husband and her baby have been tweeted by anti-vaxxers. The day after she spoke in favor of the bill at a public hearing, she saw groups on Facebook speculating that she was affiliated with Merck, the drug company.
“I went home and they’d started posting all my stuff to their Facebook group,” she says. “Things like, ‘She’s an investor paid by Merck. I’ve never met anybody from Merck in my entire life.’”
In an email sent to Jezebel in May, the same woman said the group also speculated about whether someone needed to call Child Protective Services on her.
“Today the anti-vaxxers were discussing calling CPS on me because they think I have ‘mental health problems,’’ she wrote. “They think if they file a case report someone will come to my house and discover that my son is in danger, and then I will leave them alone. They have no fucking boundaries.”
And:
But the doxxing, harassment, and unhinged Hitler comparisons have SB 277 supporters feeling frightened too. While Jezebel spoke with several supporters who said they’d been threatened, doxxed, harassed, or Twitter-mobbed by anti-vax groups, only [Dorit] Reiss and [Alison] Hagood, the Colorado professor, would allow us to use their names. Both women are tenured, and both of them said it’s made it easier for them to continue talking and writing about vaccines in the face of so much increasingly delusional opposition.
This is a phenomenon that is all too familiar to anyone opposing the antivaccine movement. Indeed, to turn the penchant of antivaccinationists for going Godwin and invoking Hitler and Holocaust analogies when describing laws like SB 277 and those who refute antivaccine misinformation. As I said, people who have academic positions, like myself and these women, tend to be more resistant to these tactics at work.
I’ve always said that antivaccine zealots are their own worst enemies. I know it. My regular readers know it. Those dedicated souls who’ve worked to get SB 277 passed in California know it. Another salutary effect of the passage of SB 277 is that the rest of the country is coming to know it as well. If other states follow California’s lead, the reaction will be the same, only in more parts of the country.
Late last week, something happened that I never would have predicted, and it’s all due to how the politics of the issue changed in the wake of the Disneyland measles outbreak earlier this year. The state that contains some of the most famous pockets of low vaccine uptake and some of the most famous antivaccine “luminaries,” including pediatricians like Dr. Bob Sears and Jay Gordon, as well as actual celebrities like Rob Schneider, Alicia Silverstone, Bill Maher, Charlie Sheen, and Mayim Bialik, actually passed a law, SB 277, that eliminates non-medical exemptions to school vaccine mandates. It’s now been sent to Governor Jerry Brown’s desk for his signature:
Gov. Jerry Brown must now decide whether to sign into law a bill that would require mandatory vaccinations for nearly all California schoolchildren.
The measure, spawned by an outbreak of measles at Disneyland that ultimately infected more than 150 people, cleared its final legislative hurdle Monday in the state Senate. Brown has not said publicly whether he would sign it.
The measure — one of the toughest vaccination bills in the nation — would require children enrolling in school or day care to be immunized against diseases including measles and whooping cough.
Parents would no longer be able to cite personal or religious beliefs to decline the vaccinations, although children with certain medical problems, such as immune system deficiencies, would be exempt.
Those who decline the vaccinations would have to enroll their children in a home-based private school or public independent study program based off campus.
The bill was one of the most contentious taken up by the Legislature this year, attracting large, vocal crowds of parents during a series of legislative hearings on the measure.
To say it was contentious is an understatement. Indeed, as I’ve repeated—probably more times than regular readers want to hear—even in the wake of the Disneyland measles outbreak, I expected this bill to fail. I was more than pleasantly surprised as the bill cleared hurdle after hurdle despite all opposition and attempts to water it down to uselessness to the point of taking on an air of inevitability last week in the days leading up to the final vote in the state assembly last week that sent SB 277 to the governor’s desk. That’s great. But we can’t let up the pressure. As you might recall, when an earlier bill in California, AB 2109, was passed into law its intent was to make it more difficult to obtain non-medical exemptions was sabotaged by Governor Brown when he added a signing statement to it. That signing statement directed the California Department of Public Health to add a checkbox on the form for a religious exemption that basically permitted any parent who checked it to skip the Law’s requirement to obtain counseling from specified health care practitioners regarding the risks and benefits of vaccination before a non-medical exemption would be granted. There was no provision in the law for this, and Governor Brown’s action was a profound betrayal of the children of California. We hope he won’t do something like that again, but I sure as hell don’t trust him not to. So if you live in California, keep up the pressure. Certainly the antivaccinationists are. If SB 277 becomes law and California joins Mississippi and West Virginia as states that permit no non-medical exemptions, it will be a watershed. It might even be a turning point that persuades other states to pass similar laws.
It might be a watershed event, a turning point, in a different sort of way. Specifically, the antivaccine war against SB 277, for the first time that I can remember, resulted in the nastiness in the antivaccine movement to percolate up through the media noise to reach the attention of ordinary Americans, most of whom had no idea just how looney and nasty these people can be. Let’s just put it this way. Those of us who stand up for science with respect to vaccines and have been doing so for more than a brief period of time have all experienced varying degrees of vilification and even outright harassment. I myself have had antivaccine zealots contact my bosses at work on a number of occasions; on one occasion our old friend Jake Crosby wrote a post accusing me of an undisclosed conflict of interest and being in the pocket of big pharma, thus inspiring knuckle draggers from the antivaccine crank blog Age of Autism to sent complaints to my dean, my cancer center director, and the board of directors at my university. While I must admit that their actions caused me considerable agita at the time, in the end I emerged with much less concern and fear over such attacks because I realized that my university values academic freedom, as do most universities. Of course, the same doesn’t apply to private companies, and people who work in industry or non-university settings can be basically screwed when antivaccine activists target them.
One thing’s for sure, though. Antivaccinationists did themselves no favors in their war against SB 277. Whether it was a persecution complex that led some of them to compare their plight to that of Jews during the Holocaust, a campaign of harassment and vilification of lawmakers and supporters of SB 277 on social media like Twitter, or cozying up to the Nation of Islam and the Church of Scientology in full-on conspiracy mode, antivaccine activists did a better job than I (or any other bloggers ever could) of making themselves look like total loons to anyone with half a brain.
Evidence of this just appeared yesterday in an article in Jezebel by Anna Merlan entitled, Meet the New, Dangerous Fringe of the Anti-Vaccination Movement. Basically, it is about examples of antivaccine nastiness culled from the Anti-Vax Wall of Shame (AVWoS), a Facebook group that collects examples of the most outrageously stupid and/or nasty rhetoric from antivaccine activists on social media. The group exists to expose (and mock), things like what the Jezebel article describes, such as vile messages sent to a mother who belonged to AVWoS.
One thing I learned from the article as well is that there exists another Facebook page, Anti Vax Wall of Shame – The Fall of the Wall that is, apparently, the response of antivaccine activists to AVWoS. I took a few minutes to peruse this AVWoS mirror image and was rather puzzled. For one thing, unlike AVWoS, it wasn’t particularly funny, an it’s not just because of what side I’m on. Believe it or not, I can appreciate truly clever jabs directed at “my side,” even chuckle at them. There really wasn’t anything to chuckle at there that I saw. In fact, I agree with Merlan’s characterization:
Fall of the Wall tends to skew a little less snarky than the Wall of Shame, and a little weirder. It uses an image of someone in a Guy Fawkes mask, clearly taken from a screengrab of an Anonymous video, and makes some wild claims, including that the Anti-Vax Wall of Shame folks are cleverly infecting anti-vaccination activists with computer viruses embedded in photos and links.
Because, obviously, you can’t have antivaccine activism without conspiracy theories. After all, these are the people who, upon learning that the body of one of their most admired “autism biomed” quacks, Jeffery Bradstreet, had been found in a river with a gunshot wound to the chest that appeared to be due to suicide, immediately went into full conspiracy mode, speculating that big pharma had put the hit on him for threatening them. It also has to do with harassing their enemies:
According to pro-vaccination groups, other opponents of SB 277 resorted to harassment, threats, doxxing and nasty impersonation. The mother of the 11-year-old girl—who asked that her name and her daughter’s name be withheld to protect their privacy and safety—told Jezebel that she’s a frequent commenter on Anti-Vax Wall of Shame, and that her daughter was contacted after a Fall of the Wall commenter started combing through her own public Facebook photos.
“She made it clear she was going through my pictures, making remarks about my husband having AIDS and how ugly my children are,” the woman says. “That their teeth are rotting out and they look retarded.”
Next, she says, came the message to her daughter (she provided a screenshot of the message to Jezebel, saying that it came from a sock puppet account impersonating her sister, which has since been taken down). She’s not sure whether the intention was to frighten her child, make her angry, or just show that she could find the woman’s family, but in any case, she’s furious.
And:
One woman who’s testified in favor of the bill—who also asked not to be named, for fear of drawing more troll attention—said that photos of her, her husband and her baby have been tweeted by anti-vaxxers. The day after she spoke in favor of the bill at a public hearing, she saw groups on Facebook speculating that she was affiliated with Merck, the drug company.
“I went home and they’d started posting all my stuff to their Facebook group,” she says. “Things like, ‘She’s an investor paid by Merck. I’ve never met anybody from Merck in my entire life.’”
In an email sent to Jezebel in May, the same woman said the group also speculated about whether someone needed to call Child Protective Services on her.
“Today the anti-vaxxers were discussing calling CPS on me because they think I have ‘mental health problems,’’ she wrote. “They think if they file a case report someone will come to my house and discover that my son is in danger, and then I will leave them alone. They have no fucking boundaries.”
And:
But the doxxing, harassment, and unhinged Hitler comparisons have SB 277 supporters feeling frightened too. While Jezebel spoke with several supporters who said they’d been threatened, doxxed, harassed, or Twitter-mobbed by anti-vax groups, only [Dorit] Reiss and [Alison] Hagood, the Colorado professor, would allow us to use their names. Both women are tenured, and both of them said it’s made it easier for them to continue talking and writing about vaccines in the face of so much increasingly delusional opposition.
This is a phenomenon that is all too familiar to anyone opposing the antivaccine movement. Indeed, to turn the penchant of antivaccinationists for going Godwin and invoking Hitler and Holocaust analogies when describing laws like SB 277 and those who refute antivaccine misinformation. As I said, people who have academic positions, like myself and these women, tend to be more resistant to these tactics at work.
I’ve always said that antivaccine zealots are their own worst enemies. I know it. My regular readers know it. Those dedicated souls who’ve worked to get SB 277 passed in California know it. Another salutary effect of the passage of SB 277 is that the rest of the country is coming to know it as well. If other states follow California’s lead, the reaction will be the same, only in more parts of the country.
Tonight – June 30, 2015 – and tomorrow night, look for the sky’s brightest and second-brightest planets to stage their closest conjunction until August, 2016. Venus and Jupiter will be less than one-half degree apart. That’s less than the moon’s diameter on our sky’s dome.
Venus is currently about to pass between the sun and Earth. It will sweep some 8 degrees S. of the sun on August 15. Meanwhile, Earth passed between Jupiter and the sun in February, 2015. So Jupiter and Venus are no where near each other in space. And yet, as we look outward from Earth, we see these two planets aligned on nearly the same line of sight.
Best photos: Venus and Jupiter, west after sunset
Here’s approximately how Venus and Jupiter would look now if you could view them from a larger perspective. Not to scale. Chart via Jay Ryan at ClassicalAstronomy.com. Used with permission.
So Venus and Jupiter are not close together in space. Venus, the second planet outward from the sun, presently resides a little over 0.5 astronomical units from Earth. In contrast, Jupiter, the fifth planet outward, looms way beyond Venus some 6 astronomical units away from Earth.
By the way, one astronomical unit = the mean sun/Earth distance (approximately 150 million kilometers or 93 million miles).
Venus is a small, rocky planet like Earth. Jupiter is a huge gas giant planet.
And yet Venus and Jupiter do have things in common. They both appear bright in Earth’s sky in part because the cloud cover on these worlds is so good at reflecting sunlight.
Jupiter is much farther away than Venus, and yet its sheer size guarantees the king planet’s brilliance. Jupiter’s diameter is nearly 12 times greater than Venus’ diameter. And Jupiter is nearly 12 times farther away from Earth than Venus is tonight. That means, as seen through the telescope, the apparent angular diameters of Venus and Jupiter would appear about equal.
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This artist’s concept depicts the relative sizes of Venus and Jupiter. Jupiter is the biggest one. Venus is the little world to the right of Earth – about the same size as Earth.
Jupiter, the largest planet in the solar system, rotates more quickly than any other planet. It spins full circle relative to the backdrop stars in less than 10 hours. Venus, the sixth largest planet, rotates more slowly than any other solar system planet, rotating full circle relative to the backdrop stars in 243 days.
So enjoy Jupiter and Venus tonight! They are very different worlds, but both spectacularly bright in Earth’s sky – and spectacularly near each other!
Also, be sure to circle July 18, 2015 on your calendar. Venus will be almost in conjunction with the star Regulus, brightest star in the constellation Leo the Lion. On July 18, the crescent moon, Venus and Jupiter will all fit within a circle sporting a diameter of less than four degrees (approximately two finger-widths at an arms length). Don’t miss out on this close-knit celestial grouping on July 18, featuring the moon, Venus and Jupiter – the brightest, second-brightest and third-brightest orbs of nighttime, respectively.
Circle July 18, 2015, on your calendar. The waxing crescent moon, Venus, Jupiter and Regulus will convene in the west at dusk/nightfall.
Bottom line: On June 30, 2015 – and on July 1 – shortly after sunset, watch for Venus and Jupiter! They are the sky’s brightest and second-brightest planets. This is their closest pairing in the evening sky until August 27, 2016.
EarthSky logo tees back for a limited time, but going fast. Order today!
Donate: Your support means the world to us
Tonight – June 30, 2015 – and tomorrow night, look for the sky’s brightest and second-brightest planets to stage their closest conjunction until August, 2016. Venus and Jupiter will be less than one-half degree apart. That’s less than the moon’s diameter on our sky’s dome.
Venus is currently about to pass between the sun and Earth. It will sweep some 8 degrees S. of the sun on August 15. Meanwhile, Earth passed between Jupiter and the sun in February, 2015. So Jupiter and Venus are no where near each other in space. And yet, as we look outward from Earth, we see these two planets aligned on nearly the same line of sight.
Best photos: Venus and Jupiter, west after sunset
Here’s approximately how Venus and Jupiter would look now if you could view them from a larger perspective. Not to scale. Chart via Jay Ryan at ClassicalAstronomy.com. Used with permission.
So Venus and Jupiter are not close together in space. Venus, the second planet outward from the sun, presently resides a little over 0.5 astronomical units from Earth. In contrast, Jupiter, the fifth planet outward, looms way beyond Venus some 6 astronomical units away from Earth.
By the way, one astronomical unit = the mean sun/Earth distance (approximately 150 million kilometers or 93 million miles).
Venus is a small, rocky planet like Earth. Jupiter is a huge gas giant planet.
And yet Venus and Jupiter do have things in common. They both appear bright in Earth’s sky in part because the cloud cover on these worlds is so good at reflecting sunlight.
Jupiter is much farther away than Venus, and yet its sheer size guarantees the king planet’s brilliance. Jupiter’s diameter is nearly 12 times greater than Venus’ diameter. And Jupiter is nearly 12 times farther away from Earth than Venus is tonight. That means, as seen through the telescope, the apparent angular diameters of Venus and Jupiter would appear about equal.
Enjoying EarthSky so far? Sign up for our free daily newsletter today!
This artist’s concept depicts the relative sizes of Venus and Jupiter. Jupiter is the biggest one. Venus is the little world to the right of Earth – about the same size as Earth.
Jupiter, the largest planet in the solar system, rotates more quickly than any other planet. It spins full circle relative to the backdrop stars in less than 10 hours. Venus, the sixth largest planet, rotates more slowly than any other solar system planet, rotating full circle relative to the backdrop stars in 243 days.
So enjoy Jupiter and Venus tonight! They are very different worlds, but both spectacularly bright in Earth’s sky – and spectacularly near each other!
Also, be sure to circle July 18, 2015 on your calendar. Venus will be almost in conjunction with the star Regulus, brightest star in the constellation Leo the Lion. On July 18, the crescent moon, Venus and Jupiter will all fit within a circle sporting a diameter of less than four degrees (approximately two finger-widths at an arms length). Don’t miss out on this close-knit celestial grouping on July 18, featuring the moon, Venus and Jupiter – the brightest, second-brightest and third-brightest orbs of nighttime, respectively.
Circle July 18, 2015, on your calendar. The waxing crescent moon, Venus, Jupiter and Regulus will convene in the west at dusk/nightfall.
Bottom line: On June 30, 2015 – and on July 1 – shortly after sunset, watch for Venus and Jupiter! They are the sky’s brightest and second-brightest planets. This is their closest pairing in the evening sky until August 27, 2016.
EarthSky logo tees back for a limited time, but going fast. Order today!
Donate: Your support means the world to us
Canadian Geese. Image take near Lakeview, OR. Image from: Bureau of Land Management
A new study conducted by researchers
Map of Canadian goose migration from the Wisconsin Sea Grant.
Source:
Fuel metabolism in Canada geese: effects of glucagon on glucose kinetics.
Canadian Geese. Image take near Lakeview, OR. Image from: Bureau of Land Management
A new study conducted by researchers
Map of Canadian goose migration from the Wisconsin Sea Grant.
Source:
Fuel metabolism in Canada geese: effects of glucagon on glucose kinetics.
Is it Shark Week again? I wouldn’t know, because their destructive and dishonest portrayals of these amazing animals was a major factor leading me to turn off the Discovery Channel and never watch it again.
Read David Shiffman’s essay on the abuses of sharks, and join the rest of us in contributing to Discovery’s declining audience share.
Is it Shark Week again? I wouldn’t know, because their destructive and dishonest portrayals of these amazing animals was a major factor leading me to turn off the Discovery Channel and never watch it again.
Read David Shiffman’s essay on the abuses of sharks, and join the rest of us in contributing to Discovery’s declining audience share.
A view of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko from Rosetta, showing the spacecraft’s huge solar panels. This “selfie” was actually taken by Philae while still attached on Sep. 7, 2014. Image credit: ESA/Rosetta/Philae/CIVA
By Paul Southerland, sen.com
Space scientists’ joy at renewing contact with their comet lander Philae has turned to frustration over efforts to establish a stable connection between the probe and its mothership Rosetta.
Since Philae phoned home on June 13 for the first time after losing power last November, communications have been intermittent. Confirmed contacts have occurred during seven spells on June 14, 19, 20, 21, 23, and 24 but have not been enough to allow a useful exchange of data.
Image via ESA of Philae’s wake-up
Reporting on the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Rosetta blog, space science editor Emily Baldwin says that contact on June 19, for example, was stable but split into two periods lasting just two minutes each. A link on June 23 lasted only 20 seconds and was unstable. The following day, a 20-minute link was established, but the quality was patchy, allowing just 80 packets of telemetry to be received.
Part of the problem is the geometry of the two spacecraft as they study Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. Rosetta is orbiting the comet, but the comet itself is also rotating with a period of 12.4 hours, which means that Philae’s landing site is not always in view of Rosetta. The comet’s rotation also means that there are periods when Philae is out of sunlight and so failing to generate enough power via its solar panels to communicate.
Computer models of how the comet is rotating beneath Rosetta suggest to the mission team that there should be windows during which they achieve contact between the mothership and Philae lasting between a few tens of minutes and up to three hours. The dream situation at such times would be for Philae to be powered-up and listening for Rosetta, establishing a link and then transmitting data, with a minimum contact period lasting at least 50 minutes. Dr Baldwin explains that the lander holds two mass memories and it takes about 20 minutes to send the contents of each to the orbiter.
The situation is not helped by the need to keep Rosetta at a greater “safe” distance from Comet 67P at the moment as it becomes more active, warmed by the Sun and spraying jets of gas and dust on its approach to perihelion, the innermost point in its elliptical orbit through the Solar System, on Aug. 13. This greater distance means that Philae’s signal is much weaker than it would otherwise be. How the orbiter is oriented in space, and thus the way its antenna is pointed, can also affect communications.
View larger. | The Philae Lander against black space just off the comet’s surface during the first bounce off Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko. Image via ESA ESA/Rosetta/MPS for OSIRIS Team MPS/UPD/LAM/IAA/SSO/INTA/UPM/DASP/IDA.
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Because the mission scientists are unable to make any changes to Philae at present, their efforts are being focused on changing the orbit and orientation of Rosetta itself, while keeping the spacecraft’s safety the top priority. Its trajectory currently carries it over the comet’s terminator—the boundary between the lit and unlit sides. The ground track of this orbit is being shifted from +55° on June 24 to -8° on June 26, because better quality signals have been received when Rosetta was flying at lower latitudes. Following the landing in November, Rosetta was flying between latitudes of +15° to +25°, and Rosetta will gradually move northwards again from its -8° point to allow mission controllers to assess when it is at its optimum position.
ESA’s Rosetta team is working closely with the Lander Control Centre at the German Aerospace Center (DLR) in Cologne, and the Lander Science Operations and Navigation Centre at the French space agency (CNES) in Toulouse to try to establish a useful and reliable link with Philae again.
Dr. Stephan Ulamec, Philae Project Manager at DLR, told Sen:
We are still trying hard to get longer and stable RF link between Lander and Orbiter.
Image credit: ESA/ATG medialab.
More from Sen:
ESA approves extension for comet mission Rosetta
Cassini spends week observing Saturn’s magnetic personality
Original story from Sen. © Sen TV Limited 2015, all rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. For more space news visit sen.com and follow @sen on Twitter.
A view of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko from Rosetta, showing the spacecraft’s huge solar panels. This “selfie” was actually taken by Philae while still attached on Sep. 7, 2014. Image credit: ESA/Rosetta/Philae/CIVA
By Paul Southerland, sen.com
Space scientists’ joy at renewing contact with their comet lander Philae has turned to frustration over efforts to establish a stable connection between the probe and its mothership Rosetta.
Since Philae phoned home on June 13 for the first time after losing power last November, communications have been intermittent. Confirmed contacts have occurred during seven spells on June 14, 19, 20, 21, 23, and 24 but have not been enough to allow a useful exchange of data.
Image via ESA of Philae’s wake-up
Reporting on the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Rosetta blog, space science editor Emily Baldwin says that contact on June 19, for example, was stable but split into two periods lasting just two minutes each. A link on June 23 lasted only 20 seconds and was unstable. The following day, a 20-minute link was established, but the quality was patchy, allowing just 80 packets of telemetry to be received.
Part of the problem is the geometry of the two spacecraft as they study Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. Rosetta is orbiting the comet, but the comet itself is also rotating with a period of 12.4 hours, which means that Philae’s landing site is not always in view of Rosetta. The comet’s rotation also means that there are periods when Philae is out of sunlight and so failing to generate enough power via its solar panels to communicate.
Computer models of how the comet is rotating beneath Rosetta suggest to the mission team that there should be windows during which they achieve contact between the mothership and Philae lasting between a few tens of minutes and up to three hours. The dream situation at such times would be for Philae to be powered-up and listening for Rosetta, establishing a link and then transmitting data, with a minimum contact period lasting at least 50 minutes. Dr Baldwin explains that the lander holds two mass memories and it takes about 20 minutes to send the contents of each to the orbiter.
The situation is not helped by the need to keep Rosetta at a greater “safe” distance from Comet 67P at the moment as it becomes more active, warmed by the Sun and spraying jets of gas and dust on its approach to perihelion, the innermost point in its elliptical orbit through the Solar System, on Aug. 13. This greater distance means that Philae’s signal is much weaker than it would otherwise be. How the orbiter is oriented in space, and thus the way its antenna is pointed, can also affect communications.
View larger. | The Philae Lander against black space just off the comet’s surface during the first bounce off Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko. Image via ESA ESA/Rosetta/MPS for OSIRIS Team MPS/UPD/LAM/IAA/SSO/INTA/UPM/DASP/IDA.
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Because the mission scientists are unable to make any changes to Philae at present, their efforts are being focused on changing the orbit and orientation of Rosetta itself, while keeping the spacecraft’s safety the top priority. Its trajectory currently carries it over the comet’s terminator—the boundary between the lit and unlit sides. The ground track of this orbit is being shifted from +55° on June 24 to -8° on June 26, because better quality signals have been received when Rosetta was flying at lower latitudes. Following the landing in November, Rosetta was flying between latitudes of +15° to +25°, and Rosetta will gradually move northwards again from its -8° point to allow mission controllers to assess when it is at its optimum position.
ESA’s Rosetta team is working closely with the Lander Control Centre at the German Aerospace Center (DLR) in Cologne, and the Lander Science Operations and Navigation Centre at the French space agency (CNES) in Toulouse to try to establish a useful and reliable link with Philae again.
Dr. Stephan Ulamec, Philae Project Manager at DLR, told Sen:
We are still trying hard to get longer and stable RF link between Lander and Orbiter.
Image credit: ESA/ATG medialab.
More from Sen:
ESA approves extension for comet mission Rosetta
Cassini spends week observing Saturn’s magnetic personality
Original story from Sen. © Sen TV Limited 2015, all rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. For more space news visit sen.com and follow @sen on Twitter.
by Peter Dooley, CSP, CIH
On Thursday June 25 forty groups around the country delivered 25,000 petition signatures calling on Hyundai to support good jobs throughout its supply chain. Altogether, about 25 national, state and local organizations—unions, the faith community, community groups, health and safety advocates (COSH groups), student groups and others—participated in the delegations to support workers who are organizing to form their union with the United Auto Workers (UAW).
SoCal COSH and delegation at Hyundai headquarters in Fountain Valley, CA
Workers at Lear Corporation, a Hyundai supplier in Selma, AL, have reported severe and disabling health effects from exposure to isocyanates (toluene diisocyanate (TDI)) while manufacturing car seats. Alarms that signal dangerous levels of the toxic chemical TDI in the air are frequent. Hyundai needs to take responsibility for the working conditions of companies in its supply chain. Lear ignored safety issues to the point that the OSHA stepped in on three separate occasions (e.g., here) to cite the company for breaking health and safety laws.
When one of the workers at the Selma plant—Kimberly King, who suffers from asthma she developed while working with these chemicals at the plant—joined a community delegation this spring to the Hyundai plant in Montgomery AL, Lear fired her, then sued her. A federal court slapped Lear with a restraining order and preliminary injunction, but Kim’s fight to get her job back—and, above all, to make these good, safe, family-sustaining jobs —continues. Workers at the plant make around $12 per hour.
Hyundai has the power to step in and tell Lear to make things right.
Student groups, the AFL-CIO young worker councils, and COSH groups were especially important in getting out the message that all workers deserve fair wages and safe conditions. The delegations delivered a letter from United Students Against Sweatshops reporting that the average starting wage for a job at a Hyundai supplier in the Montgomery, AL, area is just $9.07 per hour, and that three-quarters of those employers hire exclusively through temporary staffing agencies. One shocked dealership manager remarked, “Those are McDonald’s wages!” National COSH and affiliates have highlighted how dangerous TDI and other isocyanate chemicals are to workers and the need to have corporations raise the bar for better safety conditions.
Workers in Selma and elsewhere are fighting to be protected from toxic chemical exposure for all workers. The public needs to know that corporations like Hyundai must step up to the plate and insist that their parts supply chains provide safe and healthy workplaces. Customers need to know that buying a Hyundai car is a vote against social justice if the company refuses to be responsible to workers.
Peter Dooley CSP, CIH is a workplace health and safety consultant with thirty five years of experience in safety inspections, fatality investigations, worker education and other related aspects.
by Peter Dooley, CSP, CIH
On Thursday June 25 forty groups around the country delivered 25,000 petition signatures calling on Hyundai to support good jobs throughout its supply chain. Altogether, about 25 national, state and local organizations—unions, the faith community, community groups, health and safety advocates (COSH groups), student groups and others—participated in the delegations to support workers who are organizing to form their union with the United Auto Workers (UAW).
SoCal COSH and delegation at Hyundai headquarters in Fountain Valley, CA
Workers at Lear Corporation, a Hyundai supplier in Selma, AL, have reported severe and disabling health effects from exposure to isocyanates (toluene diisocyanate (TDI)) while manufacturing car seats. Alarms that signal dangerous levels of the toxic chemical TDI in the air are frequent. Hyundai needs to take responsibility for the working conditions of companies in its supply chain. Lear ignored safety issues to the point that the OSHA stepped in on three separate occasions (e.g., here) to cite the company for breaking health and safety laws.
When one of the workers at the Selma plant—Kimberly King, who suffers from asthma she developed while working with these chemicals at the plant—joined a community delegation this spring to the Hyundai plant in Montgomery AL, Lear fired her, then sued her. A federal court slapped Lear with a restraining order and preliminary injunction, but Kim’s fight to get her job back—and, above all, to make these good, safe, family-sustaining jobs —continues. Workers at the plant make around $12 per hour.
Hyundai has the power to step in and tell Lear to make things right.
Student groups, the AFL-CIO young worker councils, and COSH groups were especially important in getting out the message that all workers deserve fair wages and safe conditions. The delegations delivered a letter from United Students Against Sweatshops reporting that the average starting wage for a job at a Hyundai supplier in the Montgomery, AL, area is just $9.07 per hour, and that three-quarters of those employers hire exclusively through temporary staffing agencies. One shocked dealership manager remarked, “Those are McDonald’s wages!” National COSH and affiliates have highlighted how dangerous TDI and other isocyanate chemicals are to workers and the need to have corporations raise the bar for better safety conditions.
Workers in Selma and elsewhere are fighting to be protected from toxic chemical exposure for all workers. The public needs to know that corporations like Hyundai must step up to the plate and insist that their parts supply chains provide safe and healthy workplaces. Customers need to know that buying a Hyundai car is a vote against social justice if the company refuses to be responsible to workers.
Peter Dooley CSP, CIH is a workplace health and safety consultant with thirty five years of experience in safety inspections, fatality investigations, worker education and other related aspects.
“Now, Venus is an extremely hostile environment, and as such presents a lot of challenges for a science fiction author who wants to create life there. However, as I began to research it more thoroughly, I found myself intrigued by the possibilities the world offers.” –Sarah Zettel
Of all the worlds in our Solar System, Venus is perhaps the most like Earth. It’s the closest to us in size, in mass, in orbit, and in elemental content. The biggest difference, of course, is Venus’ atmosphere.
Image credit: ESA/MPS, Katlenburg-Lindau, Germany / Venus Express.
Over 90 times as thick as Earth’s and composed of carbon dioxide and thick sulfuric acid clouds, the surface of Venus is at a constant 465°C (870 °F), making it the hottest planet in the Solar System. Yet we’ve both landed on the surface and imaged the entire world through its clouds, finding out exactly what the Venusian surface looks like.
Image credit: USSR Venera 14 lander, © 2003,2004 Don P. Mitchell.
“Now, Venus is an extremely hostile environment, and as such presents a lot of challenges for a science fiction author who wants to create life there. However, as I began to research it more thoroughly, I found myself intrigued by the possibilities the world offers.” –Sarah Zettel
Of all the worlds in our Solar System, Venus is perhaps the most like Earth. It’s the closest to us in size, in mass, in orbit, and in elemental content. The biggest difference, of course, is Venus’ atmosphere.
Image credit: ESA/MPS, Katlenburg-Lindau, Germany / Venus Express.
Over 90 times as thick as Earth’s and composed of carbon dioxide and thick sulfuric acid clouds, the surface of Venus is at a constant 465°C (870 °F), making it the hottest planet in the Solar System. Yet we’ve both landed on the surface and imaged the entire world through its clouds, finding out exactly what the Venusian surface looks like.
Image credit: USSR Venera 14 lander, © 2003,2004 Don P. Mitchell.
Image via riaus.org
A leap second will be added to official timekeeping on Tuesday, June 30, 2015. That means your day – and my day and everyone’s day – will officially be one second longer.
Leap seconds have been added 25 times since 1972. They’re inserted at the end of the last day of either June or December. This time, it will be just before 8 p.m. EDT (midnight UTC) on June 30. The extra second is added to our official timekeeping mainly to keep our increasingly electronic world in sync. The most recent such leap second was added on June 30, 2012, and the one before that was December 31, 2008.
Why do we need a leap second? Isn’t the length of our day set by the rotation of the Earth? Like the ancients who insisted that all motion in the heavens must be perfect, uniform and unvarying, many of us today assume that the Earth’s rotation – its spin on its axis – is perfectly steady. We learned, correctly, that the sun, moon, stars and planets parade across our sky because the Earth turns. So it is easy to understand why we assume that the Earth’s rotation is precise and unwavering. Yet Earth’s rotation does not stay perfectly steady.
Instead, compared to modern timekeeping methods such as atomic clocks, the Earth is a notoriously poor timepiece. Not only is Earth’s spin slowing down, but it also is subject to effects that cannot even be predicted well.
The last leap second was added on June 30, 2012 just before midnight UTC. Image via NASA
Ocean tides are what is causing Earth to slow down in its rotation
If you have ever been to the beach, you will be familiar with the main reason our planet is slowing down. That reason is ocean tides. As our planet rotates, it plows past the great watery bulges (raised mostly by the gravitational interaction of the Earth and moon), which serves to slow it down much like a brake on a rotating wheel. This effect is small, actually very small. According to calculations based on the timing of ancient astronomical events (eclipses), the Earth’s rotation has slowed down by about .0015 to .002 seconds per day per century.
That in itself is not much, and is not enough to justify adding a “leap second” every few years, as has been done since 1972. The length of a day today is almost imperceptibly longer than the length as the same day last year. In the 1800s, a day was defined as 86,400 seconds. Today it is 86,400.002 seconds, roughly.
The discrepancy comes by comparing the Earth’s daily rotation relative to astronomical objects (which show the planet slowing down), to a extremely high precision atomic clock (which is accurate to about a billionth of a second per day).
This U.S. Naval Observatory graphic depicts small changes in the rate at which Earth spins.
Chip scale atomic clock, introduced by U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology in 2004. Time is now measured using stable atomic clocks. Meanwhile, the rotation of Earth is much more variable.
The Earth is slowing down, very slowly. It takes about 100 years for Earth’s rotation to add just 0.002 seconds to the time it takes Earth to spin once on its axis. What happens, though, is that the daily 0.002-second difference between the original definition of a day as being 86,400 seconds builds up.
After one day is it 0.002 seconds. After two days it is 0.004 seconds. After three days it is 0.006 seconds and so on. After about a year and a half, the difference mounts to about 1 second. It is this difference that requires the addition of a leap second.
The situation is not quite that clear cut, however. The figure of 0.002 seconds per day per century is an average and it can, and does, change. For example, you might recall that the Fukushima earthquake in 2011 resulted from displacements of portions of the Earth’s crust that actually speeded up the Earth’s rotation, shortening the day by 1.6 millionth of a second! While that is not much, keep in mind that such changes are cumulative, too.
Other short term and unpredictable changes can be caused by a variety of events, ranging from slight changes in the distribution of mass in the Earth’s molten outer core, to movement of large masses of ice near the poles, and even density and angular momentum variations in the Earth’s atmosphere.
The bottom line is that the actual variation day to day is not always plus 2 milliseconds. According to a U.S. Naval Observatory document, between 1973 to 2008, it has ranged from a plus 4 milliseconds to a minus 1 millisecond. Over time, that could necessitate a negative leap second, signifying an increase in the Earth’s rotation speed, but since the concept was introduced in 1973, this has never been done.
Telecommunications relies on precise timing, and the addition of a leap second forces many systems to be turned off for a second every year or two.
This all may seem pretty esoteric and unimportant, but not to the telecommunications industry.
We’ll say here that everyone thinks a leap second is a good idea. The International Telecommunications Union (ITU), a United Nations body that governs some global issues related to time, has been contemplating leap seconds for some time. They considered abolishing the practice, but in late January 2012 – with delegates from more than 150 nations meeting in Geneva – the ITU decided to defer a proposal to dump the leap second until their 2015 meeting. That meeting is not scheduled until this October, but the decision to add the leap second on June 30 has been deemed necessary.
So consider the ITU’s situation. Telecommunications relies on precise timing, and the addition of a leap second forces many systems to be turned off for a second every year of two. To get all such systems in a global industry cycled on and off in sync can be a major headache. Consider also that the global positioning system (GPS) does not use the leap second system, which causes further confusion. Many in the industry feel that the periodic addition of a “leap second” to keep the to measurements in step is cumbersome and wasteful.
Although dropping the idea of a leap second would be a convenience for telecommunication and other industries, in the long (very long) run, it would cause clocks to get out of synch with the Sun, eventually causing 12 p.m. (noon) to occur in the middle of the night, for example. But at the current rate of change in Earth’s rotation rate, it would take about 5,000 years to amass just a one-hour difference between the Earth’s actual rotation rate and the atomic clock.
But how, you may ask, do we even measure such small changes in the Earth’s rotation? Historically, astronomers (such as those at Britain’s famed Royal Greenwich Observatory near London) have used a telescope to watch a star pass through their eyepiece, crossing an imaginary line called the meridian. Then they time how long it takes for the Earth to bring that around star back around to cross the meridian again. This is highly accurate for everyday purposes, but for scientific use it is limited in accuracy because of the wavelengths used and the murkiness of the atmosphere.
A much more accurate method is to use two or more radio telescopes separated by thousands of miles, in a technique called Very Long Baseline Interferometry. By carefully combining the data from each of the telescopes, astronomers effectively have a telescope thousands of miles in size, which provides much greater resolution (detecting fine detail) and measurement of position. This allows them to determine the planet’s rotation rate to an accuracy of less than a thousandth of a second. They do not observe stars, however, but very distant objects called quasars. The NASA video below will tell you more …
Bottom line: A leap second will be added to the clock on June 30, 2015. Leap sOeconds have been added every so often since 1972. The last one was June 30, 2012. The International Telecommunications Union (ITU), a U.N. body that governs some global issues related to time, has considered abolishing the practice of inserting a leap second into official time-keeping. But the ITU decided in 2012 to defer a proposal to dump the leap second until October, 2015. Stay tuned, timekeepers!
Image via riaus.org
A leap second will be added to official timekeeping on Tuesday, June 30, 2015. That means your day – and my day and everyone’s day – will officially be one second longer.
Leap seconds have been added 25 times since 1972. They’re inserted at the end of the last day of either June or December. This time, it will be just before 8 p.m. EDT (midnight UTC) on June 30. The extra second is added to our official timekeeping mainly to keep our increasingly electronic world in sync. The most recent such leap second was added on June 30, 2012, and the one before that was December 31, 2008.
Why do we need a leap second? Isn’t the length of our day set by the rotation of the Earth? Like the ancients who insisted that all motion in the heavens must be perfect, uniform and unvarying, many of us today assume that the Earth’s rotation – its spin on its axis – is perfectly steady. We learned, correctly, that the sun, moon, stars and planets parade across our sky because the Earth turns. So it is easy to understand why we assume that the Earth’s rotation is precise and unwavering. Yet Earth’s rotation does not stay perfectly steady.
Instead, compared to modern timekeeping methods such as atomic clocks, the Earth is a notoriously poor timepiece. Not only is Earth’s spin slowing down, but it also is subject to effects that cannot even be predicted well.
The last leap second was added on June 30, 2012 just before midnight UTC. Image via NASA
Ocean tides are what is causing Earth to slow down in its rotation
If you have ever been to the beach, you will be familiar with the main reason our planet is slowing down. That reason is ocean tides. As our planet rotates, it plows past the great watery bulges (raised mostly by the gravitational interaction of the Earth and moon), which serves to slow it down much like a brake on a rotating wheel. This effect is small, actually very small. According to calculations based on the timing of ancient astronomical events (eclipses), the Earth’s rotation has slowed down by about .0015 to .002 seconds per day per century.
That in itself is not much, and is not enough to justify adding a “leap second” every few years, as has been done since 1972. The length of a day today is almost imperceptibly longer than the length as the same day last year. In the 1800s, a day was defined as 86,400 seconds. Today it is 86,400.002 seconds, roughly.
The discrepancy comes by comparing the Earth’s daily rotation relative to astronomical objects (which show the planet slowing down), to a extremely high precision atomic clock (which is accurate to about a billionth of a second per day).
This U.S. Naval Observatory graphic depicts small changes in the rate at which Earth spins.
Chip scale atomic clock, introduced by U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology in 2004. Time is now measured using stable atomic clocks. Meanwhile, the rotation of Earth is much more variable.
The Earth is slowing down, very slowly. It takes about 100 years for Earth’s rotation to add just 0.002 seconds to the time it takes Earth to spin once on its axis. What happens, though, is that the daily 0.002-second difference between the original definition of a day as being 86,400 seconds builds up.
After one day is it 0.002 seconds. After two days it is 0.004 seconds. After three days it is 0.006 seconds and so on. After about a year and a half, the difference mounts to about 1 second. It is this difference that requires the addition of a leap second.
The situation is not quite that clear cut, however. The figure of 0.002 seconds per day per century is an average and it can, and does, change. For example, you might recall that the Fukushima earthquake in 2011 resulted from displacements of portions of the Earth’s crust that actually speeded up the Earth’s rotation, shortening the day by 1.6 millionth of a second! While that is not much, keep in mind that such changes are cumulative, too.
Other short term and unpredictable changes can be caused by a variety of events, ranging from slight changes in the distribution of mass in the Earth’s molten outer core, to movement of large masses of ice near the poles, and even density and angular momentum variations in the Earth’s atmosphere.
The bottom line is that the actual variation day to day is not always plus 2 milliseconds. According to a U.S. Naval Observatory document, between 1973 to 2008, it has ranged from a plus 4 milliseconds to a minus 1 millisecond. Over time, that could necessitate a negative leap second, signifying an increase in the Earth’s rotation speed, but since the concept was introduced in 1973, this has never been done.
Telecommunications relies on precise timing, and the addition of a leap second forces many systems to be turned off for a second every year or two.
This all may seem pretty esoteric and unimportant, but not to the telecommunications industry.
We’ll say here that everyone thinks a leap second is a good idea. The International Telecommunications Union (ITU), a United Nations body that governs some global issues related to time, has been contemplating leap seconds for some time. They considered abolishing the practice, but in late January 2012 – with delegates from more than 150 nations meeting in Geneva – the ITU decided to defer a proposal to dump the leap second until their 2015 meeting. That meeting is not scheduled until this October, but the decision to add the leap second on June 30 has been deemed necessary.
So consider the ITU’s situation. Telecommunications relies on precise timing, and the addition of a leap second forces many systems to be turned off for a second every year of two. To get all such systems in a global industry cycled on and off in sync can be a major headache. Consider also that the global positioning system (GPS) does not use the leap second system, which causes further confusion. Many in the industry feel that the periodic addition of a “leap second” to keep the to measurements in step is cumbersome and wasteful.
Although dropping the idea of a leap second would be a convenience for telecommunication and other industries, in the long (very long) run, it would cause clocks to get out of synch with the Sun, eventually causing 12 p.m. (noon) to occur in the middle of the night, for example. But at the current rate of change in Earth’s rotation rate, it would take about 5,000 years to amass just a one-hour difference between the Earth’s actual rotation rate and the atomic clock.
But how, you may ask, do we even measure such small changes in the Earth’s rotation? Historically, astronomers (such as those at Britain’s famed Royal Greenwich Observatory near London) have used a telescope to watch a star pass through their eyepiece, crossing an imaginary line called the meridian. Then they time how long it takes for the Earth to bring that around star back around to cross the meridian again. This is highly accurate for everyday purposes, but for scientific use it is limited in accuracy because of the wavelengths used and the murkiness of the atmosphere.
A much more accurate method is to use two or more radio telescopes separated by thousands of miles, in a technique called Very Long Baseline Interferometry. By carefully combining the data from each of the telescopes, astronomers effectively have a telescope thousands of miles in size, which provides much greater resolution (detecting fine detail) and measurement of position. This allows them to determine the planet’s rotation rate to an accuracy of less than a thousandth of a second. They do not observe stars, however, but very distant objects called quasars. The NASA video below will tell you more …
Bottom line: A leap second will be added to the clock on June 30, 2015. Leap sOeconds have been added every so often since 1972. The last one was June 30, 2012. The International Telecommunications Union (ITU), a U.N. body that governs some global issues related to time, has considered abolishing the practice of inserting a leap second into official time-keeping. But the ITU decided in 2012 to defer a proposal to dump the leap second until October, 2015. Stay tuned, timekeepers!
Wet suit? ✓
Breathing apparatus? ✓
Submarine that would make even the least claustrophobic person twitch? ✓
Submarine storage container belonging to an International Submarine Races team at NAVSEA Warfare Center – Carderock Division. (Photo: Yolanda R. Arrington/Defense Media Activity/Released)
That must mean it’s time for the 13th International Submarine Races, or ISR.
University teams from around the globe converged on Naval Surface Warfare Center Carderock Division in Bethesda, Maryland, June 22 – 26 to show off their feats of engineering.
History
University submarine teams prepare for the morning’s start of the International Submarine Races on June 25, 2015 at NAVSEA Warfare Center – Carderock Division. (Photo: Yolanda R. Arrington/Defense Media Activity/Released)
Human-powered submarine races were first held in 1989 in Florida with 19 teams from various universities and groups. In addition to university participants, the biennial event also welcomes younger science, technology, engineering and math students to learn about engineering and build underwater vehicles. The submarines can be one or two person vehicles and are propeller or non-propeller driven.
This year, 26 teams showcased their single- and double-occupancy human-powered underwater vehicles in the 3,200-foot-long David Taylor tow tank. Reaching depths of 20 feet, the teams pushed their subs underwater while one or two team members released the hatch and entered the vehicles – all while underwater.
Video: Step inside a human-powered submarine
Navy Welcome
In a written message to the student participants, U.S. Navy Capt. Rich Blank, commander of the Carderock Division, welcomed the submarine racers and encouraged their development as scientists and engineers. “Your participation in the ISR is an important component of our innovative culture — pushing the boundaries of what you think is possible, tackling new challenges head-on, and thinking outside the box in creative ways,” Blank said.
Blank also used the event as an opportunity to encourage team members to consider Navy careers. “The exact qualities that make you a competitive candidate in the ISR are the skills we look for in our world-class workforce,” Blank added.
Video: Tour a human-powered submarine
Why They Do It
Vincent Smart, a repeat ISR participant, traveled to Maryland from Quebec, Canada. His team, the Montreal-based Archimede, has modeled its vehicle after a tuna fish. And, they’ve had good results with it, so much that they’ve used the single-person “Archimede VI MK II” vehicle in three races.
The Virginia Tech HPS team works on its “Phantom 6″ vehicle outside the International Submarine Races on June 25, 2015 at NAVSEA Warfare Center – Carderock Division. (Photo: Yolanda R. Arrington/Defense Media Activity/Released)
Thomas Maulbeck, a freshman from Virginia Beach, Virginia, majoring in material science engineering, is on the Virginia Tech HPS team, racing the “Phantom 6.” It’s his first year participating in the ISR. The 2-person “Phantom 6” vehicle has been in use for eight years. The team’s goal is to get it to complete a run so that it can be decommissioned for the next step of Virginia Tech’s ISR quest, the “Phantom 7.”
“Our whole team is volunteers. We don’t get credit. We’re here because we want to be here. This program supplements what I get in the classroom,” Maulbeck said.
Winners
The winners take home trophies or plaques, and various amounts of cash awards. The winning teams were announced late Friday, June 26.
One person – propeller: WASUB 5, Delft University (Delft, Netherlands)
One person – propeller (woman): WHAT SUB DAWG, University of Washington (Seattle, Washington)
One person – non-propeller: TANIWHA, University of Auckland (Auckland, New Zealand)
One person – non-propeller (woman): INIA, Rhein-Waal University of Applied Science (Kleve, NRW, Germany)
Two person – propeller: OMER 9, École de Technologie Supérieure (Montreal, Québec, Canada)
Two person – propeller (woman): FAU-BOAT II, Florida Atlantic University (Boca Raton, Florida)
Visit our Facebook and Twitter pages for more videos and photos from the ISR!
Yolanda R. Arrington is the content manager for Armed with Science. She is a journalist and social media-ista with a flair for moving pictures and writing.
———-
Disclaimer: Re-published content may have been edited for length and clarity. The appearance of hyperlinks does not constitute endorsement by the Department of Defense. For other than authorized activities, such as, military exchanges and Morale, Welfare and Recreation sites, the Department of Defense does not exercise any editorial control over the information you may find at these locations. Such links are provided consistent with the stated purpose of this DoD website.
Wet suit? ✓
Breathing apparatus? ✓
Submarine that would make even the least claustrophobic person twitch? ✓
Submarine storage container belonging to an International Submarine Races team at NAVSEA Warfare Center – Carderock Division. (Photo: Yolanda R. Arrington/Defense Media Activity/Released)
That must mean it’s time for the 13th International Submarine Races, or ISR.
University teams from around the globe converged on Naval Surface Warfare Center Carderock Division in Bethesda, Maryland, June 22 – 26 to show off their feats of engineering.
History
University submarine teams prepare for the morning’s start of the International Submarine Races on June 25, 2015 at NAVSEA Warfare Center – Carderock Division. (Photo: Yolanda R. Arrington/Defense Media Activity/Released)
Human-powered submarine races were first held in 1989 in Florida with 19 teams from various universities and groups. In addition to university participants, the biennial event also welcomes younger science, technology, engineering and math students to learn about engineering and build underwater vehicles. The submarines can be one or two person vehicles and are propeller or non-propeller driven.
This year, 26 teams showcased their single- and double-occupancy human-powered underwater vehicles in the 3,200-foot-long David Taylor tow tank. Reaching depths of 20 feet, the teams pushed their subs underwater while one or two team members released the hatch and entered the vehicles – all while underwater.
Video: Step inside a human-powered submarine
Navy Welcome
In a written message to the student participants, U.S. Navy Capt. Rich Blank, commander of the Carderock Division, welcomed the submarine racers and encouraged their development as scientists and engineers. “Your participation in the ISR is an important component of our innovative culture — pushing the boundaries of what you think is possible, tackling new challenges head-on, and thinking outside the box in creative ways,” Blank said.
Blank also used the event as an opportunity to encourage team members to consider Navy careers. “The exact qualities that make you a competitive candidate in the ISR are the skills we look for in our world-class workforce,” Blank added.
Video: Tour a human-powered submarine
Why They Do It
Vincent Smart, a repeat ISR participant, traveled to Maryland from Quebec, Canada. His team, the Montreal-based Archimede, has modeled its vehicle after a tuna fish. And, they’ve had good results with it, so much that they’ve used the single-person “Archimede VI MK II” vehicle in three races.
The Virginia Tech HPS team works on its “Phantom 6″ vehicle outside the International Submarine Races on June 25, 2015 at NAVSEA Warfare Center – Carderock Division. (Photo: Yolanda R. Arrington/Defense Media Activity/Released)
Thomas Maulbeck, a freshman from Virginia Beach, Virginia, majoring in material science engineering, is on the Virginia Tech HPS team, racing the “Phantom 6.” It’s his first year participating in the ISR. The 2-person “Phantom 6” vehicle has been in use for eight years. The team’s goal is to get it to complete a run so that it can be decommissioned for the next step of Virginia Tech’s ISR quest, the “Phantom 7.”
“Our whole team is volunteers. We don’t get credit. We’re here because we want to be here. This program supplements what I get in the classroom,” Maulbeck said.
Winners
The winners take home trophies or plaques, and various amounts of cash awards. The winning teams were announced late Friday, June 26.
One person – propeller: WASUB 5, Delft University (Delft, Netherlands)
One person – propeller (woman): WHAT SUB DAWG, University of Washington (Seattle, Washington)
One person – non-propeller: TANIWHA, University of Auckland (Auckland, New Zealand)
One person – non-propeller (woman): INIA, Rhein-Waal University of Applied Science (Kleve, NRW, Germany)
Two person – propeller: OMER 9, École de Technologie Supérieure (Montreal, Québec, Canada)
Two person – propeller (woman): FAU-BOAT II, Florida Atlantic University (Boca Raton, Florida)
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Yolanda R. Arrington is the content manager for Armed with Science. She is a journalist and social media-ista with a flair for moving pictures and writing.
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