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Dramatic timelapse footage shows lava engulfing car in Hawaii

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Car with giant bull as passenger pulled over by Nebraska police

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A rare green comet that hasn't been seen by humans for 437 years could be visible in Australian skies later this month.

The comet, named Nishimura after the amateur* Japanese astronomer* who discovered it on August 11, is almost a kilometre wide and made from rock and ice.

Stargazers* in the northern hemisphere* are able to view the comet this week when it will be closest to Earth - just 125 million kilometres away.

It will be moving quickly across the sky as Nishimura is travelling at a super fast 386,000kmh.

The comet, which looks like a dirty snowball, will be closest to the Sun on September 17 and it's possible the intense* heat may destroy it.

However, Paul Chodas, manager of NASA's Centre for Near-Earth Object Studies, believes the comet is "likely to survive its passage" and, if so, would be visible to people in Australia and the rest of the southern hemisphere* around the end of September. It will appear very low in the western sky at dusk.

Nishimura, which has the scientific name C/2023 P1, won't grace our skies again until 2317, making this viewing truly a "once in a lifetime" opportunity.

"You really need a good pair of binoculars to pick it out, and you also need to know where to look," Mr Chodas said.

It is rare that comets reach peak* visibility so soon after being discovered, said Nicolas Biver, an astrophysicist* at the Paris Observatory.

"Most are discovered months, even years before they pass closest to the Sun," he said.

The comet's tail is greenish because it contains "more gas than dust", Mr Biver said.

The comet only swings by the Sun every 437 years, a long orbital period which sees it spend much of its time in the freezing outer solar system.

When comets approach the Sun from the vastness* of space, the heat causes its ice core* to turn into dust and gas, which forms a long tail.

The Sun's light reflects off this tail, allowing us to view comets from Earth.

It has been a good year for amateur astronomers to witness rare events in our solar system.

Earlier this year in February, stargazers were able to view the ultra-rare green comet C/2022 E3, which is only visible in Australian skies every 50,000 years and was last viewed by the Neanderthals*.

Throughout history, many cultures regarded comets as signs of good or evil or upcoming change. Their sudden appearance and brilliant displays often caused feelings of fear or wonder.

Today, we understand that comets are just leftover pieces of the early solar system. They serve as cosmic time capsules, preserving ancient* materials in their original state.

According to NASA, as of January 2023, the current number of known comets is 3743.
POLL GLOSSARY

amateur: not professional

astronomer: an expert in the study of celestial objects, space, and the physical universe

stargazers: people who studies the stars or have a strong interest in them

northern hemisphere: the half of Earth that is north of the Equator and includes Europe

intense: very strong

southern hemisphere: the half of Earth that is south of the Equator and includes Australia

peak: maximum or the highest level

astrophysicist: an expert who studies the physical nature of stars and other celestial bodies and how physics affects them

vastness: massive in size

core: centre

Neanderthals: an extinct species of human that lived in ice-age Europe between 120,000 and 35,000 years ago

ancient: very old

EXTRA READING
Whirlpool galaxy picture takes us back 30 million years LISTEN TO THIS STORY
Giant 'umbrella' could shield Earth from the Sun
Possible meteorite smashes into family home
1. What is the comet made from?
2. Why has it been named Nishimura?
3. Who were the last people on Earth to witness it?
4. Explain how we can observe comets from Earth.
5. What did ancient cultures believe comets represented?

CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES
1. Comet Viewing Party
Design an invitation and plan a gathering for your friends and family to get together to spot the comet Nishimura on a night towards the end of September.

Make your invitation look fun and exciting.
In your invitation include the following details;

Time: allow 30 minutes to complete this activity
Curriculum Links: English, Visual Art, Science, Personal and social, Critical and creative thinking.

2. Extension
The next time the comet Nishimura will be visible from Earth is 2317. Write five things you think might be radically different on Earth in 2317 compared to how it is now.

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

Time: allow 10 minutes to complete this activity
Curriculum Links: English, Science, Personal and social, Critical and creative thinking.

VCOP ACTIVITY
1. Literacy Game: Comet Adventure Story
Objective: Create an imaginative adventure story using key details from the article and exploring language features.
Instructions:
Students need to sit in a circle made up of about 4-5 students. Ask them to decide the order in which each person will add a sentence to the story. (You can start with a volunteer or come up with a fun way to choose the first storyteller- paper, scissors, rock, is always a hit).

Start the story with a sentence about the night sky and introduce the rare green comet named Nishimura.

Example Story Starter: "On a magical night, as we gazed up at the starry sky, we spotted a rare green comet named Nishimura streaking across the darkness, leaving a trail of emerald light."

Then ask the students to continue their story by going around the circle, with each person adding a new sentence to build the adventure story. Challenge them to use descriptive language to make their story exciting and imaginative. Maybe they would like to create an adventure story involving the green comet, space, and maybe even some curious characters.

Next, challenge them to try and include at least two details from the article in your story. Mention the comet's speed, its tail being greenish, or the fact that it won't be visible again for 437 years. Ask them to try to use words like "comet," "astronomer", "southern hemisphere", "orbit", or any other interesting words from the article.

Finish the story with an exciting ending that relates to the rare green comet. You can end with the comet lighting up the night sky or with the characters discovering something amazing in space, or ask the students to create their own engaging ending.

Adaptation: Ask more capable or older students to add a scribe to the group that will record the story as it is told. Once the story is complete, read it aloud to the group.

Remember, the goal is to have fun and for the students to let their imaginations run wild while incorporating the details from the article into their adventure story.

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Rare green comet to be visible in Australian skies for first time in centuries

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We've been expecting aliens from Mars for decades now, but what if life was vanquished on the red planet before evolution ever got the chance to take hold?

A pair of researchers recently published an analysis of 3.5 billion-years-old soil samples from Mars containing chemical compounds called "thiophenes" that could, potentially, be organic. If they are, it would be highly likely that bacteria once lived on the planet.

Terrestrial thiophenes are considered tell-tale signs of life by Earthbound biologists. The presence of these possibly-organic compounds in martian soil represents the strongest evidence yet that life may have once existed anywhere other than Earth.

Before we get ahead of ourselves, however, it's worth mentioning that even the duo who conducted the research are skeptical. A leading theory for the existence of Martian thiophenes is actually meteor impacts on the planet's surface, which would make them abiotic, meaning non-organic.
Read: NASA research shows alien life is far less likely than previously thought
Per a press release on the study from Washington State University:

Meteor impacts provide one possible abiotic explanation. Thiophenes can also be created through thermochemical sulfate reduction, a process that involves a set of compounds being heated to 248 degrees Fahrenheit (120 degrees Celsius) or more.

However, as the press release continues, a slightly less likely but still possible scenario exists where ancient bacteria produced the thiophenes:

In the biological scenario, bacteria, which may have existed more than three billion years ago when Mars was warmer and wetter, could have facilitated a sulfate reduction process that results in thiophenes. There are also other pathways where the thiophenes themselves are broken down by bacteria.

Unfortunately, the Mars rover isn't an astrobiologist. It may take human boots on Martian soil to ultimately determine the origin of the thiophenes. In the meantime, the team intends to conduct further research and, perhaps, get some more specific test data from the rover itself.

The researchers aren't declaring the search for alien life complete just yet. While the presence of thiophenes in Martian soil is exciting, it's not the definitive confirmation scientists are looking for. It may be awhile before we can say for sure whether life - bacterial or otherwise - ever existed on Mars.

Let's say it does turn out that the thiophenes are organic, then what? Three million years ago there were at least four different hominid species roaming Earth, if Mars had living bacteria at the time, it would stand to reason that evolution would have lead to more complex life forms - unless something happened to prevent the next stage of biological development from occurring.

For more information check out the team's research paper in the Journal of Astrobiology.

Read next: App stores attempt to keep lid on coronavirus misinformation

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Scientists discover strong evidence of life on Mars

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We've been expecting aliens from Mars for decades now, but what if life was vanquished on the red planet before evolution ever got the chance to take hold? A pair of researchers recently published an analysis of 3.5 billion-years-old soil samples from Mars containing chemical compounds called "thiophenes" that could, potentially, be organic.

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Astronauts Return and Whirlpool Galaxy Photos

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Astronauts Return and Whirlpool Galaxy Photos

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Four astronauts* have safely returned to Earth after spending six months on the International Space Station*.

They used a SpaceX* capsule* to come back, and it landed safely in the Atlantic Ocean* near Florida*.

Returning were NASA* astronauts Stephen Bowen and Warren "Woody" Hoburg, Russia's Andrey Fedyaev, and the United Arab Emirates' Sultan al-Neyadi.

Sultan al-Neyadi was the first person from the Arab world* to spend an extended time in orbit*.

Before leaving the ISS, the astronauts talked about how much they missed everyday things like hot showers, coffee, and the smell of the ocean.

Their return had to be delayed by one day because of bad weather at the splashdown* locations.

But when they did come back, it was quite a sight as their capsule streaked through the night sky over Cape Canaveral* and landed near Jacksonville.

The astronauts said it was incredible to be back.

"You've got a roomful of happy people here," SpaceX Mission Control* radioed.

SpaceX had already sent up the next group of astronauts to take their place a week earlier.

This turnover shows that there are always people living and working on the ISS, with different crews* coming and going.

Later this month there will be more crew changes, including two Russian astronauts and one American, who will be coming back after spending a whole year in space.

They had to stay longer because their spaceship had a problem and they had to use a new one.

The astronauts' safe return to Earth comes after NASA released an incredible picture of the famous Whirlpool galaxy.

They took this picture using a powerful space telescope* called the James Webb Space Telescope.

It's being called the clearest image ever of the galaxy*, also known as M51.

But here's something fascinating: the picture shows how the galaxy looked nearly 30 million years ago.

That's because light takes time to travel, so when we look at objects in space, we're actually seeing them as they were in the past.

The Whirlpool galaxy is about 27 million light-years* away from Earth.

In the picture, you can see red areas that are warm dust*, and orange and yellow spots where new stars are forming.

There are also dark areas that look like black bubbles, and they show how stars in the galaxy affect the space around them.

Galaxies like the Whirlpool get their spiral shapes because they're spinning, and in this case, the nearby dwarf galaxy NGC 5195 also influences how it looks.

These galaxies tug on each other with their gravity*, and that shapes their appearance.
- additional reporting The Sun and AP GLOSSARY

astronauts: people trained to travel and work in space

International Space Station (ISS): a big spaceship where astronauts live and do experiments in space

SpaceX: a company that builds and launches spaceships

capsule: a small spaceship that can carry astronauts

Atlantic Ocean: a big body of water near Florida

Florida: a state in the United States

NASA: a space agency in the United States

orbit: going around the Earth or another object in space

splashdown: when a spaceship lands in the water

Arab world: a group of countries in the Middle East and North Africa

Cape Canaveral: a place in Florida where spaceships launch

SpaceX Mission Control: people who help with space missions

crews: groups of people who work together

space telescope: a big telescope in space to look at stars and galaxies

galaxy: a group of stars, like the Milky Way

light-years: a way to measure very long distances in space

warm dust: tiny pieces of stuff that give off heat

gravity: A force that pulls things together, like the way the Earth pulls us

EXTRA READING India celebrates moon landing Russian spacecraft crashes into moon Giant 'umbrella' could shield Earth from the sun Question mark spotted hanging in space QUICK QUIZ

1. Who were the four astronauts in the space story?

2. How did the astronauts return to Earth?

3. What is the name of the powerful space telescope that took a picture of the Whirlpool galaxy?

4. Why did the astronauts' return get delayed by one day?

5. What is light-years in space a measure of?

LISTEN TO THIS STORY
CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES 1. Life's treasures
In the Kids News article, the astronauts that have been living on the International Space Station for the past six months listed the things they missed most about Earth.

Think about if you were living up there for six months. List the top five things you would miss about living here on Earth, that doesn't include the people you would miss.

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

Time: allow 15 minutes to complete this activity
Curriculum Links: English, Personal and Social, Critical and Creative Thinking

2. Extension
The Whirlpool galaxy is one of the most famous galaxies. It is a spiral galaxy, just like our Milky Way.

Draw two sketches - one of the Whirlpool Galaxy and one of the Milky Way to compare them.

Show your sketches to some classmates near you.

Time: allow 20 minutes to complete this activity
Curriculum Links: Science, Visual Arts, Personal and Social, Critical and Creative Thinking

VCOP ACTIVITY
Aside from this, there is also this!
Brackets are a great literacy tool for adding aside comments, or comments that could be covered over and the sentence still makes sense. What's inside the brackets is extra information.

They can be used for a variety of effects: to add more detail, to add humour, to connect with the reader etc.

My little brother (the funniest kid I know) got himself into big trouble today.

Select 3 sentences from the article to add an aside comment to using brackets. Think about not only what you want to add to the sentence, but also what effect you are trying to create.

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national aeronautics and space administration

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Mind-blowing galaxy shots take us back 30 million years

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Russia's Luna-25 spacecraft crashed into the moon after it spun into an uncontrolled orbit*, the country's Roscosmos space agency said Sunday.

The pilotless spacecraft was aiming to be the first ever to land on the south pole of the moon, an area where scientists believe there could be important reserves* of frozen water and precious elements*. It had been expected to land Monday.

However, Roscosmos said it lost contact with the Luna-25 on Saturday after the spacecraft ran into difficulties and reported an "abnormal situation*".

"The apparatus* moved into an unpredictable* orbit and ceased to exist as a result of a collision with the surface of the moon," read a statement from the agency.

The Luna-25 was in a race with an Indian spacecraft launched on July 14 to be the first to reach the south pole. Both were expected to reach the moon between August 21 and 23.

Vitaly Egorov, a popular Russian space analyst*, said despite the crash the mission had some successes.

"Luna 25 showed important progress. It flew toward the moon, carried out orbit correction, and tested on-board electronics and scientific tools," he said via video call. "It even managed to collect some small scientific data during the flight and from the lunar orbit*. It also sent photos of the moon. Russian cosmonautics* was not at this level before. But then, an error occurred somehow."

The lunar mission was Russia's first since 1976, when it was part of the Soviet Union. Only three governments have managed successful moon landings: the Soviet Union, the United States and China.

The lunar south pole is of particular interest to scientists, who believe the permanently shadowed polar craters* may contain frozen water in the rocks that future explorers could transform into air and rocket fuel.

A previous Indian attempt to land at the south pole in 2019 ended when the spacecraft crashed into the moon's surface.

Roscosmos said it wanted to show Russia "is a state capable of delivering a payload* to the moon," and "ensure Russia's guaranteed access to the moon's surface."

Egorov said Roscosmos needs the experience of landing on the moon.

"It will not be able to talk with China on equal terms, because China has already had three successful landings on the moon, while Roscosmos has none," he said. "Roscosmos will lag starkly behind the Chinese lunar program*."
POLL GLOSSARY

uncontrolled orbit: a path that an object takes in space without being properly controlled or directed

re serves: supplies or quantities of something that is stored or available for use

precious elements: valuable substances or materials, often rare and important for various purposes

abnormal situation: a situation that is not normal or expected, often indicating a problem or difficulty

apparatus: a device or equipment used for a specific purpose

unpredictable: something that cannot be predicted or foreseen accurately

lunar orbit: the path that a spacecraft takes around the moon

analyst: a person who examines and interprets information or data to draw conclusions

cosmonautics: the science and technology of space travel

permanently shadowed polar craters: parts on the moon's surface that never receive direct sunlight

payload: the cargo or equipment carried by a spacecraft

lunar program: a series of planned activities and missions related to the moon

EXTRA READING Keeping time on the moon Water found in tiny beads of glass on the moon Humans living on moon by 2030 QUICK QUIZ

1. Why did Russia's Luna-25 spacecraft crash into the moon according to the Roscosmos space agency?

2. What was the purpose of the Luna-25 spacecraft's mission before it crashed?

3. How did the Luna-25's mission compare with the Indian spacecraft's objective regarding the moon's south pole?

4. How did the Luna-25 spacecraft run into difficulties before losing contact with Roscosmos?

5. What significance did Vitaly Egorov attribute to the Luna-25 mission despite its crash?

LISTEN TO THIS STORY
CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES
1. Race to the moon
Is a 'race to the moon' a good idea between two rival countries?

What possible implications could this have for both countries in the race?

What were the wins and losses of the Luna-25 Russian spacecraft mission?

WINS:

LOSSES:

Time: allow 15 minutes to complete this activity
Curriculum Links: English, Science, Personal and Social, Critical and Creative Thinking

2. Extension
Roscosmos said it wanted to show Russia "is a state capable of delivering a payload to the moon," and "ensure Russia's guaranteed access to the moon's surface."

What do you think this statement means?

What is a "payload" to the moon?

How would this guarantee access to the moon?

Time: allow 15 minutes to complete this activity
Curriculum Links: English, Science, Critical and Creative Thinking

VCOP ACTIVITY
Show you have read and understood the article by writing three sentences using the connectives "because'', "and", and "but" (BAB). Your sentences can share different facts or opinions, or the same ones but written about in different ways.

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Russia's first lunar mission in 47 years smashes into the moon

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Two Yoda-like mummies have been presented in a government meeting in Mexico, causing social media users to question whether the alien figures were real.

Described as the mummified remains of two "non-human" beings by controversial Mexican journalist and researcher Jaime Maussan, the figures look very much like a mixture of Yoda from Star Wars and the alien creature from the movie E.T.

Mr Maussan said he had found the remains in Peru in 2017 and that they were not human.

"They are non-human beings. We don't want to call them extraterrestrials because we don't know," Maussan said during the session called by government official Sergio Gutierrez, who said the presentation was in the "public interest".

Maussan said carbon dating analysis by the National Autonomous University of Mexico showed the creatures were 1000 years old.

Gutierrez asked the speakers to swear to tell the truth. He said Maussan had asked to hold the session after a person working for the US government claimed in July that humans were not alone in the universe and American authorities were covering up the evidence.

In May, the US space agency NASA held its first public meeting about the possibility of aliens, and urged for a scientific way to confirm where unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAPs), or things unknown to our world, came from.

The Mexican hearing brought both shock and ridicule from people around the globe, with social media users posting photos of the alien creature in the movie E.T. and making jokes about the remains being fake.

The event "shows the contempt that this country has for science", one user wrote on the social media platform X, formerly called Twitter.

Others shared videos of the event with the words "The Martians have arrived", while there was a tongue-in-cheek call for Maussan to be named "president of intergalactic relations".

- with AFP
POLL GLOSSARY

mummified: a dead body that has been preserved using chemicals, embalming and wrapping

controversial: something that causes long public debate

extraterrestrials: creatures from another planet

carbon dating: a technique that measures the level of carbon stored in an object to figure out how old it is

authorities: people in charge

unidentified anomalous phenomena: unusual things that are unknown to earth, UAP

contempt: lack of respect

intergalactic: relating to outer space

EXTRA READING
Claims US collected UFOs in secret program LISTEN TO THIS STORY CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES
1. What is it really?
Can you believe this snake cat photo is for real?
Can we bring frozen humans back to life?
1. How old are the mummies thought to be?
2. Which scientific technique was used to find out their age?
3. In which country are they claimed to have been found?
4. To which country's government were the creatures presented?
5. How did social media users react to news of the presentation?

What do you think these objects really are? What would you do to investigate this question? Write a list of steps that you would take to find the answer to this question.

Time: allow at least 20 minutes to complete this activity
Curriculum Links: English, History

2. Extension
Use your research skills to find out more about carbon dating and other methods that archaeologists and scientists use to investigate ancient objects. Use the information that you have found to write a list of steps that you would recommend governments to test claims like those made in the story.

Time: allow 60 minutes to complete this activity
Curriculum Links: English, History

VCOP ACTIVITY
Imaginative dialogue
Imagine you were there during the event being discussed in the article, or for the interview.

Create a conversation between two characters from the article - you may need or want to include yourself as one of the characters. Don't forget to try to use facts and details from the article to help make your dialogue as realistic as possible.

Go through your writing and highlight any punctuation you have used in green. Make sure you carefully check the punctuation used for the dialogue and ensure you have opened and closed the speaking in the correct places.

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Mummies presented to Mexican government claimed 'non-human'

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Diehard gamers are at risk of a disorder that causes them to hallucinate images or sounds from the games they play in real life, research shows.

Teenagers that play video games for hours on end have reported seeing "health bars" above people's heads and hearing narration when they go about their daily lives.

A recent meeting of Australian and New Zealand psychiatrists discussed the condition, known as Gaming transfer phenomenon, or GTP, which can cause gamers to see things that aren't really there.

The condition is thought to be related to video game addiction or gaming disorder (GD) where gamers can't stop playing video games and will even skip meals so they can keep playing.

The Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists (RANZCP) said they believed about 10 per cent of young people had GD and that cases had exploded since the pandemic.

Perth's Fiona Stanley Hospital (FSH) opened a clinic dealing with cases of GD in 2021.

Psychiatrist Kavita Seth said the problems begin when gamers are playing to the point where they are unable to stop themselves and become angry if someone else tries to stop them.

"They prioritise it over sleep, over having meals, going to school, completing school homework, completing social activities," Dr Seth said.

Some GD patients can develop GTP when gamers start seeing elements of the game, or hearing audio, long after they put down the controller.

Psychologist Dr Angelica Ortiz de Gortari claims to have come up with the name "GTP" during a study in 2010.

She said a 17-year-old gamer that featured in the study started seeing "health bars" in real life.

"When I really was a hardcore player in WoW (World of Warcraft), when I got my adrenaline pumping, I started seeing health bars above people's heads," the gamer said.

Another gamer, Daniel Owens, described his experience with insomnia when playing Portal 2.

"It was to the point that it interrupted my sleeping patterns," he said. "It felt as if my body went to sleep but my mind was still working. It seems to happen in games with frequent sidekick interaction or a narrator.

"I remember specifically on another occasion, after Super Mario Sunshine came out, that I could not sleep for a full night for nearly a week after playing it. That was the worst.

"I've never had anything bleed into my waking life, though, but could see that possibly happening to a person that plays video games more frequently."

Dr de Gortari said some of the key factors in prolonged game-play such as sensory overload and entering a trance state played a part in the condition.

She said GTP is a good reason to reflect on how well the human mind will cope as technology continues to advance.
POLL GLOSSARY

hallucinate: when the brain creates images or sounds that aren't real and can't be seen by others

psychiatrists: doctors that treat mental illnesses and disorders

phenomenon: an event that can be seen

addiction: a very strong urge to do something that is hard to control or stop

adrenaline: a hormone released in the body when feeling a strong emotion like anger or fear that give a person a jolt of energy

insomnia: a condition where a person can't sleep or has trouble sleeping enough

sidekick: a character that helps the main character

prolonged: a long period of time

sensory overload: when something around us overstimulates us and our brains struggle to process all the information given by our five senses

EXTRA READING
Apple headset mixes virtual reality with real world LISTEN TO THIS STORY
China cuts video gaming for kids
Healthy Harold's hints for calming down
1. What does GTP stand for?
2. What are two symptoms of GTP?
3. What is gaming disorder?
4. What did the 17-year-old gamer in Dr de Gortari's study 'see' above people's heads?
5. What symptom did Daniel Owens experience?

CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES
1. Virtual reality classroom
If you and your classmates got to decorate a classroom in your school as a gaming world, how would you decorate it? Think about all the elements you could reproduce in an appropriate manner for other kids in the school to experience.

Write down your ideas below and what resources you need to make it happen;

-

-

-

-

-

Time: allow 20 minutes to complete this activity
Curriculum Links: English, Visual Arts, Digital Technologies, Personal and Social, Critical and Creative Thinking

2. Extension
What do you think some of the early signs of gaming disorder might be, list them below;

-

-

-

-

If a friend was displaying some of these signs, what could you do to help them?

Time: allow 10 minutes to complete this activity
Curriculum Links: English, Personal and Social, Critical and Creative Thinking

VCOP ACTIVITY
Exploring Gaming transfer phenomenon (GTP)
1. Read the article about Gaming transfer phenomenon (GTP) and its effects on diehard gamers.

2. Take a moment to think about your own experiences with video games. Have you ever played video games for a long time, like hours on end?

3. Now, imagine you are a psychologist studying the effects of video games on young people. Write a short journal entry or a discussion response to the following questions:
a. Have you ever experienced GTP or know someone who has? If yes, what did you or they see or hear in real life that was related to the games you played?
b. How do you think playing video games for long periods can affect your daily life and activities like sleeping, eating, and studying?
c. Do you think it's important to find a balance between playing video games and other activities? Why or why not?
d. If you were to give advice to someone who loves playing video games, what would you tell them about managing their gaming time?
e. How do you feel about the idea of technology advancing and its potential effects on our minds and behaviour? Do you think we should be mindful of how much time we spend with technology?

4. (Optional) If you have a friend or family member who also enjoys playing video games, share your journal entry or discussion response with them. Ask them about their experiences and thoughts on the topic.

5. Remember to be honest in your response and share your own opinions. There are no right or wrong answers, and this is a chance for you to express your thoughts about video games and their impact on daily life.

Have fun exploring the world of video games and discussing their effects!

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Gamers at risk of gaming disorder and hallucinations, research shows

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Wait... the whole solar system doesn't orbit the sun???????

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Wait... the whole solar system doesn't orbit the sun???????

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It's common knowledge that the Sun is the centre of the Solar System. Around it, the planets orbit - along with a thick belt of asteroids, some meteor fields, and a handful of far-travelling comets.

But that's not the whole story.

"Instead, everything orbits the Solar System centre of mass," James O'Donoghue, a planetary scientist at the Japanese space agency, JAXA, recently explained on Twitter. "Even the Sun."

That centre of mass, called the barycenter, is the point of an object at which it can be balanced perfectly, with all its mass distributed evenly on all sides. In our Solar System, that point rarely lines up with the centre of the Sun.

To demonstrate this, O'Donoghue created the animation below, which shows how the Sun, Saturn, and Jupiter play tug-of-war around the barycenter, pulling our star in looping mini-orbits.

In his free time, O'Donoghue makes animations to show how the physics of planets, stars, and the speed of light work.

"The natural thinking is that we orbit the Sun's centre, but that very rarely happens," he said.

"It's very rare for the Solar System's centre of mass to align with the Sun's centre."

The Sun's movement is exaggerated in the video above to make it more visible, but our star does circle millions of kilometers around the barycenter - sometimes passing over it, sometimes straying away from it.

Much of that movement comes from Jupiter's gravity. The Sun makes up 99.8 percent of the Solar System's mass, but Jupiter contains most of the remaining 0.2 percent. That mass pulls on the Sun ever so gently.

"The Sun actually orbits Jupiter slightly," O'Donoghue said.

Within the Solar System, planets and their moons have their own barycenter. Earth and the Moon do a simpler dance, with the barycenter remaining inside Earth. O'Donoghue made a video of that, too:

The animation also shows how the Earth and Moon will move over the next three years, in 3D. (The distance between Earth and the Moon is not to scale.)

Pluto and its moon, Charon, do something similar, but with a unique twist: The barycenter is always outside of Pluto.

So, every planetary system orbits an invisible point, including the star or planet that appears to be at the centre. Barycenters sometimes help astronomers find hidden planets circling other stars, since they can calculate that the system contains mass they can't see.

"The planets do orbit the Sun of course," O'Donoghue said. "We are just being pedantic about the situation."
This article was originally published by Business Insider. More from Business Insider:

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Mesmerising Animation Reveals Our Entire Solar System Doesn't Exactly Orbit The Sun

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It's common knowledge that the Sun is the centre of the Solar System. Around it, the planets orbit - along with a thick belt of asteroids, some meteor fields, and a handful of far-travelling comets. But that's not the whole story.

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"Plumes of water erupt from Europa and Enceladus, so we can tell that these bodies have subsurface oceans beneath their ice shells, and they have energy that drives the plumes, which are two requirements for life as we know it," says Lynnae Quick, a NASA planetary scientist who specializes in volcanism and ocean worlds, about speculation that many of the more than 4,000 known exoplanets might resemble some of the watery moons around Jupiter and Saturn. "So if we're thinking about these places as being possibly habitable, maybe bigger versions of them in other planetary systems are habitable too."

Though some of our Solar System's moons don't have atmospheres and are covered in ice, they are still among the top targets in NASA's search for life beyond Earth. Saturn's moon Enceladus and Jupiter's moon Europa, which scientists classify as "ocean worlds," are good examples.

"NASA's search for life in the Universe is focused on so-called Habitable Zone planets, which are worlds that have the potential for liquid water oceans," said Stephanie Olson at the University of Chicago in an earlier, 2019 study of planets with oceans may be orbiting many of the Milky Way's one trillion stars. "But not all oceans are equally hospitable-and some oceans will be better places to live than others due to their global circulation patterns".

An extreme example was detected in 2016, when Kepler astronomers discovered planets that are unlike anything in our solar system -a "water world" planetary system orbiting the star Kepler-62. This five-planet system has two worlds in the habitable zone - their surfaces completely covered by an endless global ocean with no land or mountains in sight.

"Unfathomable Abodes of Life?" -Water Worlds of the Milky Way
Europa & Enceladus as Models
Quick, of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, decided to explore whether-hypothetically-there are planets similar to Europa and Enceladus in the Milky Way galaxy. And, could they, too, be geologically active enough to shoot plumes through their surfaces that could one day be detected by telescopes.

Through a mathematical analysis of several dozen exoplanets, including planets in the nearby TRAPPIST-1 system, Quick and her colleagues learned something significant: More than a quarter of the exoplanets they studied could be ocean worlds, with a majority possibly harboring oceans beneath layers of surface ice, similar to Europa and Enceladus. Additionally, many of these planets could be releasing more energy than Europa and Enceladus.
Mathematical Models as Predictors
Scientists may one day be able to test Quick's predictions by measuring the heat emitted from an exoplanet or by detecting volcanic or cryovolcanic (liquid or vapor instead of molten rock) eruptions in the wavelengths of light emitted by molecules in a planet's atmosphere. For now, scientists cannot see many exoplanets in any detail. Alas, they are too far away and too drowned out by the light of their stars. But by considering the only information available-exoplanet sizes, masses and distances from their stars-scientists like Quick and her colleagues can tap mathematical models and our understanding of the solar system to try to imagine the conditions that could be shaping exoplanets into livable worlds or not.

While the assumptions that go into these mathematical models are educated guesses, they can help scientists narrow the list of promising exoplanets to search for conditions favorable to life so that NASA's upcoming James Webb Space Telescope or other space missions can follow up.
Global Biospheres
"Future missions to look for signs of life beyond the solar system are focused on planets like ours that have a global biosphere that's so abundant it's changing the chemistry of the whole atmosphere," says Aki Roberge, a NASA Goddard astrophysicist who collaborated with Quick on this analysis. "But in the solar system, icy moons with oceans, which are far from the heat of the Sun, still have shown that they have the features we think are required for life."
Radiogenic Heat Sources of 53 Earth-Sized Planets
To look for possible ocean worlds, Quick's team selected 53 exoplanets with sizes most similar to Earth, though they could have up to eight times more mass. Scientists assume planets of this size are more solid than gaseous and, thus, more likely to support liquid water on or below their surfaces. At least 30 more planets that fit these parameters have been discovered since Quick and her colleagues began their study in 2017, but they were not included in the analysis, which was published on June 18 in the journal Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific.

Water Worlds of the Milky Way -"Not Life as We Know It" (Today's Most Popular)

With their Earth-size planets identified, Quick and her team sought to determine how much energy each one could be generating and releasing as heat. The team considered two primary sources of heat. The first, radiogenic heat, is generated over billions of years by the slow decay of radioactive materials in a planet's mantle and crust. That rate of decay depends on a planet's age and the mass of its mantle. Other scientists already had determined these relationships for Earth-size planets. So, Quick and her team applied the decay rate to their list of 53 planets, assuming each one is the same age as its star and that its mantle takes up the same proportion of the planet's volume as Earth's mantle does.

This animated graph shows levels of predicted geologic activity among exoplanets, with and without oceans, compared to known geologic activity among solar system bodies, with and without oceans. (Lynnae Quick & James Tralie/NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center)
Heat from Tidal Force
Next, the researchers calculated heat produced by something else: tidal force, which is energy generated from the gravitational tugging when one object orbits another. Planets in stretched out, or elliptical, orbits shift the distance between themselves and their stars as they circle them. This leads to changes in the gravitational force between the two objects and causes the planet to stretch, thereby generating heat. Eventually, the heat is lost to space through the surface.

One exit route for the heat is through volcanoes or cryovolcanoes. Another route is through tectonics, which is a geological process responsible for the movement of the outermost rocky or icy layer of a planet or moon. Whichever way the heat is discharged, knowing how much of it a planet pushes out is important because it could make or break habitability.

"A Miniature Earth Beneath Europa's Chaos?"

For instance, too much volcanic activity can turn a livable world into a molten nightmare. But too little activity can shut down the release of gases that make up an atmosphere, leaving a cold, barren surface. Just the right amount supports a livable, wet planet like Earth, or a possibly livable moon like Europa.
On Deck -NASA's Europa Clipper
In the next decade, NASA's Europa Clipper will explore the surface and subsurface of Europa and provide insights about the environment beneath the surface. The more scientists can learn about Europa and other potentially habitable moons of our solar system, the better they'll be able to understand similar worlds around other stars-which may be plentiful, according to today's findings.

"Forthcoming missions will give us a chance to see whether ocean moons in our solar system could support life," says Quick, who is a science team member on both the Clipper mission and the Dragonfly mission to Saturn's moon Titan. "If we find chemical signatures of life, we can try to look for similar signs at interstellar distances."

When Webb launches, scientists will try to detect chemical signatures in the atmospheres of some of the planets in the TRAPPIST-1 system, which is 39 light years away in the constellation Aquarius. In 2017, astronomers announced that this system has seven Earth-size planets. Some have suggested that some of these planets could be watery, and Quick's estimates support this idea. According to her team's calculations, TRAPPIST-1 e, f, g and h could be ocean worlds, which would put them among the 14 ocean worlds the scientists identified in this study.
Planet's Lower Density Hint of an Ocean World
The researchers predicted that these exoplanets have oceans by considering the surface temperatures of each one. This information is revealed by the amount of stellar radiation each planet reflects into space. Quick's team also took into account each planet's density and the estimated amount of internal heating it generates compared to Earth.

"If we see that a planet's density is lower than Earth's, that's an indication that there might be more water there and not as much rock and iron," Quick says. And if the planet's temperature allows for liquid water, you've got an ocean world.

"But if a planet's surface temperature is less than 32 degrees Fahrenheit (0 degrees Celsius), where water is frozen," Quick says, "then we have an icy ocean world, and the densities for those planets are even lower."

Source: Lynnae C. Quick et al, Forecasting Rates of Volcanic Activity on Terrestrial Exoplanets and Implications for Cryovolcanic Activity on Extrasolar Ocean Worlds, Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific (2020). DOI: 10.1088/1538-3873/ab9504

The Daily Galaxy, Max Goldberg, via NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center

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"The Ocean Galaxy" --Many of Milky Way's 4,000 Known Exoplanets May Be Water Worlds | The Daily Galaxy

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"Plumes of water erupt from Europa and Enceladus, so we can tell that these bodies have subsurface oceans beneath their ice shells, and they have energy that drives the plumes, which are two requirements for life as we know it," says Lynnae Quick, a NASA planetary scientist who specializes in volcanism and ocean worlds, [...]

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The initiative that seeks to galvanise the creation of a full map of the ocean floor says one-fifth of this task has now been completed.

When the Nippon Foundation-GEBCO Seabed 2030 Project was launched in 2016, only 6% of the global ocean bottom had been surveyed to what might be called modern standards.

That number now stands at 19%, up from 16% in just the last year.

Some 14.5 million sq km of new bathymetric (depth) data was included in the GEBCO grid in 2019 - an area equivalent to almost twice that of Australia.

It does, however, still leave a great swathe of the planet unmapped to an acceptable degree.

"Today we stand at the 19% level. That means we've got another 81% of the oceans still to survey, still to map. That's an area about twice the size of Mars that we have to capture in the next decade," project director Jamie McMichael-Phillips told BBC News.

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The map at the top of this page illustrates the challenge faced by GEBCO in the coming years.

Black represents those areas where we have yet to get direct echosounding measurements of the shape of the ocean floor. Blues correspond to water depth (deeper is purple, shallower is lighter blue).

It's not true to say we have no idea of what's in the black zones; satellites have actually taught us a great deal. Certain spacecraft carry altimeter instruments that can infer seafloor topography from the way its gravity sculpts the water surface above - but this only gives a best resolution at over a kilometre, and Seabed 2030 has a desire for a resolution of at least 100m everywhere.

Better seafloor maps are needed for a host of reasons.

They are essential for navigation, of course, and for laying underwater cables and pipelines.

They are also important for fisheries management and conservation, because it is around the underwater mountains that wildlife tends to congregate. Each seamount is a biodiversity hotspot.

In addition, the rugged seafloor influences the behaviour of ocean currents and the vertical mixing of water.

This is information required to improve the models that forecast future climate change - because it is the oceans that play a critical role in moving heat around the planet. And if you want to understand precisely how sea-levels will rise in different parts of the world, good ocean-floor maps are a must.

Much of the data that's been imported into the GEBCO grid recently has been in existence for some time but was "sitting on a shelf" out of the public domain. The companies, institutions and governments that were holding this information have now handed it over - and there is probably a lot more of this hidden resource still to be released.

But new acquisitions will also be required. Some of these will come from a great crowdsourcing effort - from ships, big and small, routinely operating their echo-sounding equipment as they transit the globe. Even small vessels - fishing boats and yachts - can play their part by attaching data-loggers to their sonar and navigation equipment.

One very effective strategy is evidenced by the British Antarctic Survey (BAS), which operates in the more remote parts of the globe - and that is simply to mix up the routes taken by ships.

"Very early on we adopted the ethos that data should be collected on passage - on the way to where we were going, not just at the site of interest," explained BAS scientist Dr Rob Larter.

"A beautiful example of this is the recent bathymetric map of the Drake Passage area (between South America and Antarctica). A lot of that was acquired by different research projects as they fanned out and moved back and forth to the places they were going."

New technology will be absolutely central to the GEBCO quest.

Ocean Infinity, a prominent UK-US company that conducts seafloor surveys, is currently building a fleet of robotic surface vessels through a subsidiary it calls Armada. This start-up's MD, Dan Hook, says low-cost, uncrewed vehicles may be the only way to close some of the gaps in the more out-of-the-way locations in the 2030 grid.

He told BBC News: "When you look at the the mapping of the seabed in areas closer to shore, you see the business case very quickly. Whether it's for wind farms or cable-laying - there are lots of people that want to know what's down there. But when it's those very remote areas of the planet, the case then is really only a scientific one."

Jamie McMichael-Phillips is confident his project's target can be met if everyone pulls together.

"I am confident, but to do it we will need partnerships. We need governments, we need industry, we need academics, we need philanthropists, and we need citizen scientists. We need all these individuals to come together if we're to deliver an ocean map that is absolutely fundamental and essential to humankind."

GEBCO stands for General Bathymetric Chart of the Oceans. It is the only intergovernmental organisation with a mandate to map the entire ocean floor. The latest status of its Seabed 2030 project was announced to coincide with World Hydrography Day.

Jonathan.Amos-INTERNET@bbc.co.uk and follow me on Twitter: @BBCAmos

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One-fifth of Earth's ocean floor is now mapped

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The initiative that seeks to galvanise the creation of a full map of the ocean floor says one-fifth of this task has now been completed. When the Nippon Foundation-GEBCO Seabed 2030 Project was launched in 2016, only 6% of the global ocean bottom had been surveyed to what might be called modern standards.

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These two new images from the Hubble Space Telescope depict two nearby young planetary nebulae, NGC 6302, dubbed the Butterfly Nebula, and NGC 7027, which resembles a jewel bug. Both are among the dustiest planetary nebulae known and both contain unusually large masses of gas. Credit: NASA, ESA, and J. Kastner (RIT)

The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope demonstrates its full range of imaging capabilities with two new images of planetary nebulae. The images depict two nearby young planetary nebulae, NGC 6302, dubbed the Butterfly Nebula, and NGC 7027. Both are among the dustiest planetary nebulae known and both contain unusually large masses of gas, which made them an interesting pair for study in parallel by a team of researchers.

As nuclear fusion engines, most stars live placid lives for hundreds of millions to billions of years. But near the end of their lives they can turn into crazy whirligigs, puffing off shells and jets of hot gas. Astronomers have used Hubble to dissect such crazy fireworks happening in these two planetary nebulae. The researchers have found unprecedented levels of complexity and rapid changes in the jets and gas bubbles blasting off of the stars at the center of each nebula. Hubble is now allowing the researchers to converge on an understanding of the mechanisms underlying this chaos.

The Hubble Space Telescope has imaged these objects before, but not for many years and never before with the Wide Field Camera 3 instrument across its full wavelength range-making observations in near-ultraviolet to near- infrared light. "These new multi-wavelength Hubble observations provide the most comprehensive view to date of both of these spectacular nebulae," said Joel Kastner of the Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester, New York, leader of the new study. "As I was downloading the resulting images, I felt like a kid in a candy store."

The new Hubble images reveal in vivid detail how both nebulae are splitting themselves apart on extremely short timescales-allowing astronomers to see changes over the past couple of decades. In particular, Hubble's broad multi-wavelength views of each nebula are helping the researchers to trace the histories of shock waves in them. Such shocks are typically generated when fresh, fast stellar winds slam into and sweep up more slowly expanding gas and dust ejected by the star in its recent past, generating bubble-like cavities with well-defined walls.

Researchers suspect that at the heart of each nebula were two stars orbiting around each other. Evidence for such a central "dynamic duo" comes from the bizarre shapes of these nebulas. Each has a pinched, dusty waist and polar lobes or outflows, as well as other, more complex symmetrical patterns.

A leading theory for the generation of such structures in planetary nebulae is that the mass-losing star is one of two stars in a binary system. The two stars orbit one another closely enough that they eventually interact, producing a gas disc around one or both stars. The disc then launches jets that inflate polar-directed lobes of outflowing gas.

Another, related, popular hypothesis is that the smaller star of the pair may merge with its bloated, more rapidly evolving stellar companion. This very short-lived "common envelope" binary star configuration can also generate wobbling jets, forming the trademark bipolar outflows commonly seen in planetary nebulae. However, the suspect companion stars in these planetary nebulae have not been directly observed. Researchers suggest this may be because these companions are next to, or have already been swallowed by, far larger and brighter red giant stars.

NGC 6302, commonly known as the Butterfly Nebula, exhibits a distinct S-shaped pattern seen in reddish-orange in the image. Imagine a lawn sprinkler spinning wildly, throwing out two S-shaped streams. In this case it is not water in the air, but gas blown out at high speed by a star. And the "S" only appears when captured by the Hubble camera filter that records near- infrared emission from singly ionised iron atoms. This iron emission is indicative of energetic collisions between both slow and fast winds, which is most commonly observed in active galactic nuclei and supernova remnants.

"This is very rarely seen in planetary nebulae," explained team member Bruce Balick of the University of Washington in Seattle. "Importantly, the iron emission image shows that fast, off-axis winds penetrate far into the nebula like tsunamis, obliterating former clumps in their paths and leaving only long tails of debris."

The accompanying image of NGC 7027, which resembles a jewel bug, indicates that it had been slowly puffing away its mass in quiet, spherically symmetric or perhaps spiral patterns for centuries-until relatively recently. "Something recently went haywire at the very centre, producing a new cloverleaf pattern, with bullets of material shooting out in specific directions," Kastner explained.

The team's paper, "First Results from a Panchromatic HST/WFC3 Imaging Study of the Young, Rapidly Evolving Planetary Nebulae NGC 7027 and NGC 6302" was published on 15 June 2020 in the journal Galaxies.

More information: Joel H. Kastner et al. First Results from a Panchromatic HST/WFC3 Imaging Study of the Young, Rapidly Evolving Planetary Nebulae NGC 7027 and NGC 6302, Galaxies (2020). DOI: 10.3390/galaxies8020049

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Stunning new Hubble images reveal stars gone haywire

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The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope demonstrates its full range of imaging capabilities with two new images of planetary nebulae. The images depict two nearby young planetary nebulae, NGC 6302, dubbed the Butterfly Nebula, and NGC 7027.

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All your questions answered :)

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The ultimate kids' guide to the new coronavirus

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"Will school be closed?" and "Should I be worried about getting sick?"

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Scientist who cloned Dolly the Sheep has died

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Scientist who cloned Dolly the Sheep has died

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Lasting legacy of Dolly the Sheep’s creator

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lake erie houses found completely encased in ice  - cnn

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Homes along Lake Erie are covered in ice following two days of gale-force winds

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Instead of a winter wonderland, residents living along the shore of Lake Erie in New York woke up this weekend to a winter nightmare when they found their homes completely encased in thick ice.

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(Image: © NASA Earth Observatory)

It's easy to forget that Antarctica is technically a desert, until you see it without snow.

A new pair of satellite images shared by NASA's Earth Observatory makes that stark reality clear as ice. NASA's Landsat-8 satellite snapped the two images of Eagle Island (a small island off Antarctica's northwest tip) on Feb. 4 and Feb. 13, 2020, bookending a period of record high temperatures in the southernmost continent. Between the two images, a significant amount of the island's glacial ice disappeared, revealing huge swaths of the barren brown rock underneath.

According to glaciologist Mauri Pelto, a professor of environmental science at Nichols College in Massachusetts, the island lost about 20% of its seasonal snow accumulation in just a few days.

"You see these kinds of melt events in Alaska and , but not usually in Antarctica," Pelto told NASA.
Related: One of Antarctica's fastest-shrinking glaciers just lost an iceberg twice the size of Washington, D.C.
The melt coincided with not one, but two record-high temperatures recorded on Antarctica this month. On Feb. 6, a research station on the northern edge of the Antarctic Peninsula (the finger of land on the continent's northwest tip, closest to South America) recorded a new record-high temperature of 64.9 degrees Fahrenheit (18.3 degrees Celsius) - surpassing the previous record of 63.5 F (17.5 C), set in March 2015.

Days later, on Feb. 9, researchers on the nearby Seymour Island saw their thermometers hit 69.35 F (20.75 C), setting another all-time high for the continent. (For comparison, that's about the same temperature reported in Los Angeles, on the same day. Balmy!)

As the new images show, those high temperatures caused significant melting on nearby glaciers. According to Pelto, Eagle Island lost nearly 1 square mile (1.5 square kilometers) of snowpack to the heat, creating several large ponds of bright blue meltwater at the island's center.

While every season has its highs, this summer has been especially warm for Antarctica, Pelto said. The continent has already seen two heatwaves this season - one in November 2019 and one in January 2020 - reminding us that significant melt events like these are becoming more common as global warming continues unchecked.
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See record-high temperatures strip Antarctica of huge amounts of ice

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(Image: © NASA Earth Observatory) It's easy to forget that Antarctica is technically a desert, until you see it without snow. A new pair of satellite images shared by NASA's Earth Observatory makes that stark reality clear as ice. NASA's Landsat-8 satellite snapped the two images of Eagle Island (a small island off Antarctica's northwest tip) on Feb.

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Antarctica, home to the coldest place on Earth, experienced a worrying heat wave earlier in February, possibly even setting a record high temperature for the normally frigid continent. A NASA satellite has taken stock of what that heat meant to the local ice cap and glaciers.

NASA's Earth Observatory released two images from the agency's Landsat 8 satellite. They highlight dramatic changes in the ice and snow along the northern tip of the Antarctic peninsula.

A close-up look at Eagle Island on Feb. 4 showed plenty of snow coverage. A follow-up view from Feb. 13 revealed bright-blue melt ponds and exposed ground.

"I haven't seen melt ponds develop this quickly in Antarctica," said Mauri Pelto, a glaciologist at Nichols College in Massachusetts, in a NASA post on Friday.

Eagle Island isn't far from Argentina's Esperanza research base where a record high temperature was logged Feb. 6.

A World Meteorological Organization committee is working to verify the record temperature reading, but the results of the warm spell are easy to spot in the satellite views. The heat wave liquefied around 20% of Eagle Island's seasonal snow accumulation in a matter of days.

The heat and related meltwater formation is part of a pattern. "If you think about this one event in February, it isn't that significant," said Pelto. "It's more significant that these events are coming more frequently."

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See how the Antarctica heat wave turned ice and snow into puddles at a shocking rate

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Antarctica, home to the coldest place on Earth, experienced a worrying heat wave earlier in February, possibly even setting a record high temperature for the normally frigid continent. A NASA satellite has taken stock of what that heat meant to the local ice cap and glaciers.

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algae Single-celled organisms, once considered plants (they aren't). As aquatic organisms, they grow in water. Like green plants, they depend on sunlight to make their food.

aquatic An adjective that refers to water.

aquifer Rock that can contain or transmit groundwater.

biodegrade (adj. biodegradable) To break down into simpler materials, based on the activity of microbes. This usually occurs in the presence of water, sunlight or other conditions that help nurture those organisms.

cancer Any of more than 100 different diseases, each characterized by the rapid, uncontrolled growth of abnormal cells. The development and growth of cancers, also known as malignancies, can lead to tumors, pain and death.

carbon The chemical element having the atomic number 6. It is the physical basis of all life on Earth. Carbon exists freely as graphite and diamond. It is an important part of coal, limestone and petroleum, and is capable of self-bonding, chemically, to form an enormous number of chemically, biologically and commercially important molecules.

carbon dioxide (or CO ₂) A colorless, odorless gas produced by all animals when the oxygen they inhale reacts with the carbon-rich foods that they've eaten. Carbon dioxide also is released when organic matter burns (including fossil fuels like oil or gas). Carbon dioxide acts as a greenhouse gas, trapping heat in Earth's atmosphere. Plants convert carbon dioxide into oxygen during photosynthesis, the process they use to make their own food.

carbon nanotube A nanoscale - billionth-of-a-meter scale - tube-shaped material that is made from carbon. It conducts heat and electricity well.

cavity (in geology or physics) A large rigid pocketlike structure. (in biology) An open region pocketlike structure surrounded by tissues.

cell The smallest structural and functional unit of an organism. Typically too small to see with the unaided eye, it consists of a watery fluid surrounded by a membrane or wall. Depending on their size, animals are made of anywhere from thousands to trillions of cells. Most organisms, such as yeasts, molds, bacteria and some algae, are composed of only one cell.

chemical A substance formed from two or more atoms that unite (bond) in a fixed proportion and structure. For example, water is a chemical made when two hydrogen atoms bond to one oxygen atom. Its chemical formula is H ₂ O. Chemical also can be an adjective to describe properties of materials that are the result of various reactions between different compounds.

chemical engineer A researcher who uses chemistry to solve problems related to the production of food, fuel, medicines and many other products.

coil Concentric rings or spirals formed by winding wire or some other fiber around and around a core; or the shape that such a wire would make.

component Something that is part of something else (such as pieces that go on an electronic circuit board or ingredients that go into a cookie recipe).

compost The end product in the breakdown, or decomposition, of leaves, plants, vegetables, manure and other once-living material. Compost is used to enrich garden soil, and earthworms sometimes aid this process.

compound (often used as a synonym for chemical) A compound is a substance formed when two or more chemical elements unite (bond) in fixed proportions. For example, water is a compound made of two hydrogen atoms bonded to one oxygen atom. Its chemical symbol is H ₂ O.

coral Marine animals that often produce a hard and stony exoskeleton and tend to live on reefs (the exoskeletons of dead ancestor corals).

DDT (short for dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane) This toxic chemical was for a time widely used as an insect-killing agent. It proved so effective that Swiss chemist Paul Müller received the 1948 Nobel Prize (for physiology or medicine) just eight years after establishing the chemical's incredible effectiveness in killing bugs. But many developed countries, including the United States, eventually banned its use for its poisoning of non-targeted wildlife, such as birds.

decay The process (also called "rotting") by which a dead plant or animal gradually breaks down as it is consumed by bacteria and other microbes.

develop To emerge or come into being, either naturally or through human intervention, such as by manufacturing. (in biology) To grow as an organism from conception through adulthood, often undergoing changes in chemistry, size and sometimes even shape.

environment The sum of all of the things that exist around some organism or the process and the condition those things create. Environment may refer to the weather and ecosystem in which some animal lives, or, perhaps, the temperature and humidity (or even the placement of things in the vicinity of an item of interest).

environmental engineer A person who uses science to study and solve problems in ecosystems - from forests to the human body.

fabric Any flexible material that is woven, knitted or can be fused into a sheet by heat.

fiber Something whose shape resembles a thread or filament.

filter (in chemistry and environmental science) A device or system that allows some materials to pass through but not others, based on their size or some other feature.

groundwater Water that is held underground in the soil or in pores and crevices in rock.

hormone (in zoology and medicine) A chemical produced in a gland and then carried in the bloodstream to another part of the body. Hormones control many important body activities, such as growth. Hormones act by triggering or regulating chemical reactions in the body. (in botany) A chemical that serves as a signaling compound that tells cells of a plant when and how to develop, or when to grow old and die.

journal (in science) A publication in which scientists share their research findings with experts (and sometimes even the public). Some journals publish papers from all fields of science, technology, engineering and math, while others are specific to a single subject.

landfill A site where trash is dumped and then covered with dirt to reduce smells. If they are not lined with impermeable materials, rains washing through these waste sites can leach out toxic materials and carry them downstream or into groundwater. Because trash in these facilities is covered by dirt, the wastes do not get ready access to sunlight and microbes to aid in their breakdown. As a result, even newspaper sent to a landfill may resist breakdown for many decades.

litter Material that lies around in the open, having been discarded or left to fall where it may.

magnet A material that usually contains iron and whose atoms are arranged so they attract certain metals.

manganese Chemical element with the atomic number 25. It's a hard gray metal in the transition series. Manganese is an important component of special steels.

marine Having to do with the oceans and their environment.

microbe Short for microorganism. A living thing that is too small to see with the unaided eye, including bacteria, some fungi and many other organisms such as amoebas. Most consist of a single cell.

microplastic A small piece of plastic, 5 millimeters (0.2 inch) or smaller in size. Microplastics may have been produced at that small size, or their size may be the result of the breakdown of water bottles, plastic bags or other things that started out larger.

microscope An instrument used to view objects, like bacteria, or the single cells of plants or animals, that are too small to be visible to the unaided eye.

molecule An electrically neutral group of atoms that represents the smallest possible amount of a chemical compound. Molecules can be made of single types of atoms or of different types. For example, the oxygen in the air is made of two oxygen atoms (O ₂); water is made of two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom (H ₂ O).

nanometer A billionth of a meter.

nanotechnology Science, technology and engineering that deals with things and phenomena at the scale of a few billionths of a meter or less.

New Zealand An island nation in the southwest Pacific Ocean, roughly 1,500 kilometers (some 900 miles) east of Australia. Its "mainland" - consisting of a North and South Island - is quite volcanically active. In addition, the country includes many far smaller offshore islands.

nitrogen A colorless, odorless and nonreactive gaseous element that forms about 78 percent of Earth's atmosphere. Its scientific symbol is N.

nutrient A vitamin, mineral, fat, carbohydrate or protein that a plant, animal or other organism requires as part of its food in order to survive.

nylon A silky material that is made from long, manufactured molecules called polymers. These are long chains of atoms linked together.

oxygen A gas that makes up about 21 percent of Earth's atmosphere. All animals and many microorganisms need oxygen to fuel their growth (and metabolism).

particle A minute amount of something.

PCBs Short for polychlorinated biphenyls. A family of 209 chlorine-based compounds with a similar chemical structure. They were used for many decades as a nonflammable fluid for insulating electrical transformers. Some companies also used them in making certain hydraulic fluids, lubricants and inks. Their production has been banned in North America and many countries throughout the world since around 1980.

pesticide A chemical or mix of compounds used to kill insects, rodents or other organisms harmful to cultivated plants, pets or livestock; or unwanted organisms that infest homes, offices, farm buildings and other protected structures.

petroleum A thick flammable liquid mixture of hydrocarbons. Petroleum is a fossil fuel mainly found beneath the Earth's surface. It is the source of the chemicals used to make gasoline, lubricating oils, plastics and many other products.

phthalates A family of chemicals used as solvents and sometimes added to plastics to increase their flexibility.

plastic Any of a series of materials that are easily deformable; or synthetic materials that have been made from polymers (long strings of some building-block molecule) that tend to be lightweight, inexpensive and resistant to degradation.

polyester A synthetic material used chiefly to make fabrics. The actual chemical name for the material used is polyethylene terephthalate.

polyethylene A plastic made from chemicals that have been refined (produced from) crude oil and/or natural gas. The most common plastic in the world, it is flexible and tough. It also can resist radiation.

polyvinyl chloride (abbrev. PVC) This is a plastic formed by using heat to turn a liquid resin into a solid. The plastic can be soft and flexible or rigid and hard. The raw ingredients consist primarily of chlorine and carbon.

range The full extent or distribution of something.

reactive (in chemistry) The tendency of a substance to take part in a chemical process, known as a reaction, that leads to new chemicals or changes in existing chemicals.

recycle To find new uses for something - or parts of something - that might otherwise be discarded, or treated as waste.

risk The chance or mathematical likelihood that some bad thing might happen. For instance, exposure to radiation poses a risk of cancer. Or the hazard - or peril - itself. (For instance: Among cancer risks that the people faced were radiation and drinking water tainted with arsenic.)

strategy A thoughtful and clever plan for achieving some difficult or challenging goal.

synthetic An adjective that describes something that did not arise naturally, but was instead created by people. Many synthetic materials have been developed to stand in for natural materials, such as synthetic rubber, synthetic diamond or a synthetic hormone. Some may even have a chemical makeup and structure identical to the original.

taint To contaminate something with an unexpected, unnatural or illegal substance.

toxic Poisonous or able to harm or kill cells, tissues or whole organisms. The measure of risk posed by such a poison is its toxicity.

wastewater Any water that has been used for some purpose (such as cleaning) and no longer is clean or safe enough for use without some type of treatment. Examples include the water that goes down the kitchen sink or bathtub or water that has been used in manufacturing some product, such as a dyed fabric.

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Help for a world drowning in microplastics

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algae Single-celled organisms, once considered plants (they aren't). As aquatic organisms, they grow in water. Like green plants, they depend on sunlight to make their food. aquatic An adjective that refers to water. aquifer Rock that can contain or transmit groundwater. biodegrade (adj. biodegradable) To break down into simpler materials, based on the activity of microbes.

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A new image from the ESA's Mars Express spacecraft shows how beautiful, and desolate, Mars can appear. It also highlights some of the natural process that shape the planet's surface.

The image is of the northern polar region, and it features bright patches of ice, deep dark troughs, and evidence of storms and strong winds.

Of all the planets in the Solar System, Mars' seasons most closely resemble Earth's, although the Martian year is about twice as long as Earth's. The north pole goes through many changes throughout the seasons. The region is covered in layers of ice that experience subtle shifts in both their composition and extent.

Thick layers of water ice cover the region throughout the year. Then in winter, when the temperature drops to extremes of -143°C (-225°F), carbon dioxides freezes and precipitates out of the thin air, forming a layer of frozen carbon dioxide on top of the water ice.

That layer of frozen CO2 can be up to 2 meters (6.5 feet) thick.

At the same time, carbon dioxide clouds also form, and they can conceal the ground below from orbital view.

Luckily, the Mars Express Orbiter has an extremely powerful camera, called the High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC.)

The HRSC is a powerful, full-color camera that is imaging the entirety of the Martian surface. Overall, it captures images at about 10-meter resolution.

Within the HRSC there is another channel called the Super Resolution Camera (SRC) that can capture images at an even greater resolution of 2.3 meters/pixel of 2.35 km sq. The SRC is used on select areas of Mars.

"The strength of HRSC is to perform high resolution digital terrain models of the martian surface in order to provide topographic context for the geoscientific evaluation of surface processes in space and time," says Ralf Jaumann, HRSC Principal Investigator from the Institute of Planetary Research, DLR, Berlin, Germany.

The leading image is an HRSC image of the northern polar cap in the summer of 2006. The image shows the whites of the polar ices and the browns and reds of Martian dust.

The red and brown troughs look like they're cutting through the ice, and they're actually part of a larger spiral pattern of troughs that radiate outwards from the center of the north pole. From above, they look like kind of like a pattern of zebra stripes.

Scientists think that katabatic winds are largely responsible for creating this unusual pattern. Katabatic winds carry higher-density air to lower elevations. On Mars, they carry cold dense air from polar glaciers and frozen plateaus down to lower elevations like valleys and depressions.

At the same time, the planet is rotating, creating the coriolis effect. So rather than form straight troughs emanating from the pole, they create a spiral pattern that radiates out from the center of the north pole.

On Earth, the Coriolis force is evident in the formation of hurricanes and other weather phenomena.

In the image of Mars there are a few streaks of clouds on the left of the frame. They're likely caused by small, local storms that are kicking dust up into the atmosphere, contributing to the erosion of the scarps and slopes and changing the surface appearance and topography.

The overarching purpose of the HRSC on the Mars Express is to study Mars's surface processes over time, including winds and storms, and the seasonal changes at the poles.

The layers of ice at the poles are of particular interest to scientists. They likely hold clues to how the planet's climate has changed over millions of years. That's because as the ice melts and freezes, its mixed with dust that settles there, capturing a snapshot of conditions at a specific time.

The Mars Express spacecraft has been orbiting Mars since 2003. In that time, it's imaged the entire surface of Mars at 10 meters/pixel with the HRSC, and select areas at 2 meters/pixel with the SRC.

During its time it's expanded our understanding of how wet and humid ancient Mars was, it's probed the planet's subsurface processes and structure, and of course, given us some great views of the planet's huge volcanoes and craters.

The leading image of the ice and troughs at the northern polar cap was released to coincide with the Seventh International Conference on Mars Polar Science and Exploration in Argentina from 13 to 17 January 2020.
This article was originally published by Universe Today. Read the original article.

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Mars Orbiter Just Sent Back an Incredible Photo of The Red Planet's Icy North Pole

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A new image from the ESA's Mars Express spacecraft shows how beautiful, and desolate, Mars can appear. It also highlights some of the natural process that shape the planet's surface. The image is of the northern polar region, and it features bright patches of ice, deep dark troughs, and evidence of storms and strong winds.

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taal volcano eruption: residents discover horses and cows buried in ash in philippines - cnn

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Desolate images from Taal Volcano show horses and cows buried in ash

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Images from the erupting Taal Volcano in the Philippines show a desolate landscape of destroyed houses and snapped trees covered in a thick layer of heavy ash. Half-buried bodies of horses and cows that could not escape the island lay in black sludge or floating in the surrounding lake.

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Australia's bushfires are ravaging the country. Here's how it all happened.

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Bushfire season in Australia began in September 2019 following a prolonged drought. Photos and detailed maps show when and how the Australian bushfires started.

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Australia fires: A visual guide to the bushfire crisis

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How Australia has been battling bushfires during a devastating fire season.

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A 6.4-magnitude earthquake struck Puerto Rico before dawn on Tuesday, killing at least one person in the largest in a series of quakes and causing an island-wide power outage as well as heavy damage in some areas.

Authorities say there have been twenty aftershocks since the earthquake hit at 4:24 am.

Government offices and schools are closed, as well as some hospitals in the island's southwestern region, where there's been the most damage.

Residents, especially in the south of the island, have been terrified to go into their homes for fear that another quake will bring buildings down.

Governor Wanda Vázquez urged citizens to stay calm and asked public employees to stay home while authorities assess the damages. First responders, the governor said, will be working and are reporting to their usual areas. Authorities are urging residents to stay home unless they think their residences have structural damage.

"Citizen security is a priority, so vulnerable areas are being inspected and all necessary measures will be taken to ensure the safety of all Puerto Ricans," Vasquez said in a Tuesday morning statement.

In the southern city of Ponce, a man died after an inner wall that was under construction in his residence collapsed during the quake. The victim was identified as Nelson Martínez, 73. Ray González, his nephew, told Telemundo he was woken up by "the big noise" of the wall collapsing.

Albert Rodríguez, who is from the southwest town of Guánica, said the tsunami sirens went off before officials canceled the alert. He said there is widespread damage in his neighborhood.

"The road is cracked in the middle and it lifted up," he said.

Part of the widespread destruction in Rodríguez's town includes a public school located near the earthquake's epicenter.

The school Agripina Seda collapsed completely due to the widespread quakes. César González of the Puerto Rico Department of Education told Telemundo that this school is the one "the biggest damages" he's seen so far. Other schools in the area have reported smaller damages.

González added that the roughly 200 students that attend the school will most likely have to be relocated to other schools.

Tuesday's earthquake follows the 5.8-magnitude one that struck early Monday morning, collapsing five homes in Guánica and heavily damaging dozens of others.

Puerto Rico's residents have been feeling tremors since Dec. 28., and the last two earthquakes have set islanders on edge as they grapple with the uncertainty of what comes next.

Victor Huerfano, director of Puerto Rico's Seismic Network, told the AP that shallow quakes were occurring along three faults in Puerto Rico's southwest region: Lajas Valley, Montalva Point and the Guayanilla Canyon.

He said the quakes overall come as the North American plate and the Caribbean plate squeeze Puerto Rico.

One of the island's most iconic landmarks, the Guánica lighthouse, built by the Spanish in 1892, suffered damage after the earthquake. Although the lighthouse's tower survived, one of its front walls collapsed.

The shake also collapsed a coastal rock formation that had formed a sort of rounded window, Punta Ventana, that was a popular tourist draw in the southwest town of Guayanilla.

"Playa Ventana collapsed. Today our icon remains in our memory," Guayanilla's press officer, Glidden López, wrote on his Facebook page on Monday.

One of the largest and most damaging earthquakes to hit Puerto Rico occurred in October 1918, when a magnitude 7.3 quake struck near the island's northwest coast, unleashing a tsunami and killing 116 people.

The Associated Press contributed.

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6.4 quake strikes Puerto Rico, killing at least 1 amid heavy seismic activity

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A 6.4-magnitude earthquake struck Puerto Rico before dawn on Tuesday, killing at least one person in the largest in a series of quakes and causing an island-wide power outage as well as heavy damage in some areas. Authorities say there have been twenty aftershocks since the earthquake hit at 4:24 am.

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The Mars 2020 rover, which sets off for the Red Planet next year, will not only search for traces of ancient life, but pave the way for future human missions, NASA scientists said Friday as they unveiled the vehicle.

The rover has been constructed in a large, sterile room at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, near Los Angeles, where its driving equipment was given its first successful test last week.

Shown to invited journalists on Friday, it is scheduled to leave Earth in July 2020 from Florida's Cape Canaveral, becoming the fifth US rover to land on Mars seven months later in February.

"It's designed to seek the signs of life, so we're carrying a number of different instruments that will help us understand the geological and chemical context on the surface of Mars," deputy mission leader Matt Wallace told AFP.

Among the devices on board the rover are 23 cameras, two "ears" that will allow it to listen to Martian winds, and lasers used for chemical analysis.

Approximately the size of a car, the rover is equipped with six wheels like its predecessor Curiosity, allowing it to traverse rocky terrain.

Speed is not a priority for the vehicle, which only has to cover around 200 yards (180 metres) per Martian day - approximately the same as a day on Earth.

Fuelled by a miniature nuclear reactor, Mars 2020 has seven-foot-long (two metre) articulated arms and a drill to crack open rock samples in locations scientists identify as potentially suitable for life.

Ancient life

"What we're looking for is ancient microbial life - we're talking about billions of years ago on Mars, when the planet was much more Earth-like," said Wallace.

Back then, the Red Planet had warm surface water, a thicker atmosphere and a magnetic force around it, he explained.

"And so it was much more conducive to the types of simple single cell life that evolved here on Earth at that time," Wallace said.

Once collected, the samples will be hermetically sealed in tubes by the rover.

The tubes will then be discarded on the planet's surface, where they will lie until a future mission can transport them back to Earth.

"We are hoping to move fairly quickly. We'd like to see the next mission launched in 2026, which will get to Mars and pick up the samples, put them into a rocket and propel that sample into orbit around Mars," said Wallace.

"The sample would then rendezvous with an orbiter and the orbiter would bring the sample back to the Earth."

Samples should reach Earth "in the course of a decade or so," he added.

Human mission

To maximize its chance of unearthing traces of ancient life, Mars 2020 will land in a long dried-up delta called Jezero.

The site, selected after years of scientific debate, is a crater that was once a 500-yard-deep lake.

It was formerly connected to a network of rivers that flowed some 3.5 to 3.9 billion years ago.

The crater measures just under 30 miles (48 km) across, and experts hope it may have preserved ancient organic molecules.

The Mars 2020 mission also carries hopes for an even more ambitious target - a human mission to Mars.

"I think of it, really, as the first human precursor mission to Mars," said Wallace.

Equipment on board "will allow us to make oxygen" that could one day be used both for humans to breathe, and to fuel the departure from Mars "for the return trip."

The ambitions come as a new space race hots up, with Beijing increasingly vying to threaten US dominance.

China on Friday launched one of the world's most powerful rockets in a major step forward for its own planned mission to Mars next year.

NASA's Mars 2020 will remain active for at least one Martian year, which is around two years on Earth.

But Martian rovers have frequently exceeded their intended lifespans - its predecessor Curiosity landed on Mars in 2012 and is still trundling around the planet's Mount Sharp region.

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NASA Just Unveiled Its 2020 Mars Rover, And We're Beyond Excited

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The Mars 2020 rover, which sets off for the Red Planet next year, will not only search for traces of ancient life, but pave the way for future human missions, NASA scientists said Friday as they unveiled the vehicle.

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Betelgeuse, normally one of the brightest stars in the sky, has started to behave strangely.

Astronomers think the unusual dimming could be a sign that it is about to explode into a spectacular supernova - though nobody quite knows for sure what will happen to the famous star.

The dimming has been noted in recent weeks and have been a gradual process. Each time astronomers observed the star through December it seemed to be less bright, to the point that it has become dimmer than ever before.

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Now astronomers think that the behaviour could indicate that something might be about to happen to the star.

Betelgeuse is already approaching its death: it is relatively young, but red giants like Betelgeuse burn bright and then die away in a spectacular supernova.

If that happens, it will be visible in detail from Earth. Betelgeuse is only 700 light years away, and so its explosion into a supernova would be clearly visible from Earth, giving astronomers a chance to watch one of the universe's most intense and spectacular events from relatively nearby.

But while the dimming is clear - it has dropped by a factor of two, enough to be seen with the naked the eye - there is nothing to say for sure that it could be a sign that it is about to go supernova. And even if it does, there is no indication that will happen any time soon.

There are also a variety of other explanations for the dimming. The star is already seen as semi-variable, pulsating as a variety of vast processes happen around it, and the latest changes could be a more dramatic version of the same natural changes.

Betelgeuse is famous in part because it is so bright. It is the biggest of any star we can see apart from our own sun, and is traditionally one of the 10 brightest stars in the sky.

But its recent unusual behaviour have led it to drop out of that chart. It has become so dim that it has lost its place even in the top 20, astronomers say.

The change has meant that the night sky could look unusual even to a casual observer, using the naked eye. Betelgeuse makes up an important part of Orion - sitting on its shoulder - and that has changed as the star has become less easy to see from Earth.

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A star is behaving strangely and could be about to explode into a supernova

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Betelgeuse, normally one of the brightest stars in the sky, has started to behave strangely. Astronomers think the unusual dimming could be a sign that it is about to explode into a spectacular supernova - though nobody quite knows for sure what will happen to the famous star.

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The most ice ever just melted in ONE DAY

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The most ice ever just melted in ONE DAY

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The record in recent decades for the highest level of ice to melt in Antarctica in one day was reached on Christmas Eve, data suggests.

Around 15 percent of the continent's surface melted on Monday, according to the Global Forecast System (GFS) by the National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP). The data comes from the Modèle Atmosphérique Régional (MAR), a model used for meteorological and climatic research.

Xavier Fettweis, a climatologist at the University of Liège in Belgium, who tweeted the data on Friday, said this is the highest melt extent in Antarctica in the modern era, since 1979. He added the production of melt water is a record 230 percent higher than average since November this year. That's despite the melting season not yet being over.

MAR forced by GFS suggests that the highest melt extent over Antarctica in the modern area (>1979) has been reached on 24-Dec-2019 with ~15%. From Nov 2019 until today, the production of melt water is also a record with 230% higher than average but the melting season is not ended pic.twitter.com/MT0QKCJ47e
- Xavier Fettweis (@xavierfettweis) December 27, 2019

For the first time, Fettweis said, the melting seemed to explain a negative anomaly in data on Antarctica's surface mass balance (SMB). This is the net balance between what causes a glacier's surface to grow or deplete, for instance because it evaporates or melts away.

"It should be noted that this process is currently missing in most of SMB estimations over Antarctica as melt has been negligible until now. But the climate is changing..." Fettweis said.

Fettweis told Newsweek Antarctica has been "significantly warmer than average" this melting season. But he stressed the data is from a model, and not an in situ observation. The melting could be driven by a number of factors, and experts will need to wait two to three melting seasons to confirm what is going on.

"We have observed a crash of the Antarctica polar vortex just before this melting season," explained Fettweis, referring to low pressure near the pole. "A weaker polar vortex allows warm air masses to reach easier the ice sheet (which is usually protected by its polar vortex as it was the case the previous summer). The fact that the sea ice extent is very low also enhances the possibility of warm air masses to reach the ice sheet."

Asked whether climate change is to blame, he said: "As for most of the anomalies observed on these last months over the Earth (e.g. in Australia), the signal coming from global warming can not be ignored here."

Fettweis said Antarctica had been "protected" by global warming, due in part to a stronger polar vortex over this last decade than usual. But he said this no longer seems to be the case, and climate anomalies observed at the continent can no longer be used by climate skeptics to deny global warming is occurring.

Eric Holthaus, a meteorologist and fellow at the University of Minnesota's Institute on the Environment, shared the data on Twitter.

New data indicates that on Christmas Eve, unusually warm weather melted the most ice across the continent of Antarctica in a single day out of any day in recorded history.

15% of the continent's surface melted, temporarily.

We are in a climate emergency. https://t.co/BooH7saMkU
- Eric Holthaus (@EricHolthaus) December 27, 2019

He wrote: "New data indicates that on Christmas Eve, unusually warm weather melted the most ice across the continent of Antarctica in a single day out of any day in recorded history. 15% of the continent's surface melted, temporarily.

"We are in a climate emergency," said Holthaus.

The figures come as climate change has gained renewed public attention, and is widely considered one of the most pressing issues of our time.

Last month, scientists urged world leaders to take urgent action to tackle climate change, as "abrupt" and "irreversible" climate tipping points that threaten human civilization may have already started.

Tipping points are thresholds that, once passed, can trigger rapid changes to climate systems. These were first described by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) two decades ago. At that time it was thought they would likely happen if global warming exceeded pre-industrial levels by 5 C. But since then, new research has indicated the events could happen even with 1 C to 2 C of warming, the scientists said.

In an article published in the journal , scientists highlighted if the likely interconnected tipping points are met, a domino-effect of "long-term irreversible changes" to the planet could be triggered.

"Evidence that tipping points are underway has mounted in the past decade," the experts wrote.

Antarctica was among the regions included in the study. Evidence suggests the Amundsen Sea embayment of West Antarctica may have already hit a tipping point, as the point where the ice, ocean and bedroom meet is "retreating irreversibly," experts wrote.

If this area collapses, the remaining West Antarctic ice sheets could be destabilized, "leading to about 3 meters [9.8 feet] of sea-level rise on a timescale of centuries to millennia," according to a prediction cited by the authors. The Wilkes Basin on the East Antarctic could face a similar fate, and the Greenland ice sheet could be "doomed" at 1.5 C of warming as soon as 2030.
This article has been updated with comment from Xavier Fettweis.

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Record hit for most ice to melt in Antarctica in one day, data suggests: "We are in a climate emergency"

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The record in recent decades for the highest level of ice to melt in Antarctica in one day was reached on Christmas Eve, data suggests. Around 15 percent of the continent's surface melted on Monday, according to the Global Forecast System (GFS) by the National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP).

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This amazing photo of an Amazon snake cat with the face of a feline* and neon yellow-and-dark blue scale-like fur has been shared millions of times online.

It has been popping up in feeds for months now after a post from Russian Facebook user Alex Vasilev stated the Sperens Catus is the "rarest species of feline on Earth".

"These animals live in hard-to-reach regions of the Amazon rainforest, and therefore they are relatively poorly studied," Mr Vasilev wrote.

"The first images capturing the snake cat appeared only in 2020. Weighs up to 4 stone (25kg). The animal is virtually untamed*, although some Amazonian tribes use snake cats to protect their homes from rodents*," the online post said.

The image went viral* across Facebook, Reddit, Instagram, Twitter and TikTok. But is it real?

The colour and patterns in the photo bear a strong resemblance to the poisonous snake commonly referred to as the "gold-ringed cat snake" or mangrove snake.

According to the respected Smithsonian National Zoo & Conservation Biology Institute in the US, the gold-ringed cat snake is found in the same countries where the Amazon snake cat was rumoured to be from - Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Guyana, French Guiana, and Suriname.

However, commentators online had serious doubts about the snake cat and its photo.

"Obvious fake. No known gene can produce natural hair or fur of those (navy and bright yellow) colours," one commenter said.

"Really rough attempt at a fake Latin name," a second person chimed in.

And it turns out the commentators were right. Mr Vasilev has since admitted the image was generated with artificial intelligence*.

IMAGES THAT MADE US LOOK TWICE
Queensland University of Technology says more than 3.2 billion images and 720,000 hours of video are shared online each day. Many of these are not authentic*.

Take this picture of Pope Francis in a puffer jacket that was released earlier this year.

The image - created through AI program Midjourney - had many viewers fooled into believing the head of the Catholic Church had dramatically updated his style.

And the below Fried Rice Wave meme went viral and inspired people around the world to try it before they realised it's a sculpture in a Tokyo shop and the image is AI generated.

As AI improves, we can expect to see more and more fake images surface. And they don't disappear - they remain online and are continuously spread by people thinking they're real.

So, how can you train yourself to know what's genuine or a trick?

HOW TO SPOT A FAKE IMAGE
Become a digital detective with these steps:

Check the source: Look for where the photo came from. If it's from a well-known and respected organisation or a known photographer, it's more likely to be authentic.

Look for inconsistencies: Zoom in and check for elements that look fake, such as mismatched shadows, unnatural lighting, blurred backgrounds or faces, or features such as hands on people that don't look real or even extra limbs that don't make sense.

Check the metadata: Most digital photos contain metadata that includes information such as the date, time, and location of the photo. Check this to see if it matches the setting and story behind the photo.

Use Reverse Image Search: Use Google Images, Bing, or Yahoo! to see if the photo has been used elsewhere on the internet. If it has been used in multiple settings, it may be fake.

Ask an expert: Check with a professional photographer or journalist or someone who is good with computers if you are still unsure about an image's authenticity.

POLL GLOSSARY

feline: relating to cats

untamed: wild and not trained

rodents: includes rats and mice

viral: spreading quickly on the internet

artificial intelligence: the ability of a computer or a robot controlled by a computer to do tasks that are usually done by humans

authentic: real or genuine

EXTRA READING
Kids urged to get real on fake news LISTEN TO THIS STORY
Humans versus AI in photo competition
Zoo denies standing bear is a human in disguise
1. What reasons did Alex Vasilev give for why the snake cat had rarely been seen?
2. Which animal does the snake cat bear a striking resemblance to?
3. How many images and hours of video are shared online each day?
4. Name the famous person in an AI generated puffer jacket.
5. List three ways you can check if an image is fake.

CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES
1. Create a fake animal
Create a design or image of a new animal. Use features of an existing animal or animals, then make changes that look real. Give your new animal a name, write a description of its habits, habitat and any other information that would make it as 'realistic' as possible.

Time: allow at least 30 minutes for this activity
Curriculum Links: English, Visual Communication Design, Science

2. Extension
Why is it important to know the difference between a fake image and a real one? Write down as many reasons as you can think of.

Time: allow 15 minutes to complete this activity
Curriculum Links: English, Information Technologies, Personal and Social Capability

VCOP ACTIVITY
1. To sum it up
After reading the article, use your comprehension skills to summarise in a maximum of three sentences what the article is about.

Think about:

What is the main topic or idea?

What is an important or interesting fact?
Who was involved (people or places)?

Use your VCOP skills to re-read your summary to make sure it is clear, specific, and well punctuated.

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This Amazon snake cat photo has the internet abuzz on whether it's real or fake. Here's how to know