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Immense Trail of Debris From DART Collision With Asteroid Dimorphos Captured by SOAR Telescope
Astronomers using the SOAR telescope in Chile captured the vast plume of dust and debris blasted from the surface of the asteroid Dimorphos by NASA’s DART spacecraft when it collided on September 26, 2022. In this image, the more than 10,000-kilometer-long dust trail — the ejecta that has been pushed away by the Sun’s radiation pressure, not unlike the tail of a comet — can be seen stretching from the center to the right-hand edge of the field of view. Credit: CTIO/NOIRLab/SOAR/NSF/AURA/T. Kareta (Lowell Observatory), M. Knight (US Naval Academy), Image processing: T.A. Rector (University of Alaska Anchorage/NSF’s NOIRLab), M. Zamani & D. de Martin (NSF’s NOIRLab)
SOAR Telescope Catches Dimorphos’s Expanding Comet-like Tail After DART Impact
The SOAR Telescope in Chile imaged the more than 10,000 kilometers long trail of debris blasted from the surface of Dimorphos two days after the asteroid was impacted by
“It is amazing how clearly we were able to capture the structure and extent of the aftermath in the days following the impact.” — Teddy Kareta
Two days after DART’s collision, astronomers Teddy Kareta (Lowell Observatory) and Matthew Knight (US Naval Academy) captured the vast plume of dust and debris blasted from the asteroid’s surface with the 4.1-meter Southern Astrophysical Research (SOAR) Telescope,[1] at NSF’s NOIRLab’s Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile. In this new image, the dust trail — the ejecta that has been pushed away by the Sun’s radiation pressure, similar to the tail of a comet — can be seen stretching from the center to the right-hand edge of the field of view, which is about 3.1 arcminutes at SOAR using the Goodman High Throughput Spectrograph. At Didymos’s distance from Earth at the time of the observation, that would translate to at least 6,000 miles (10,000 kilometers) from the point of impact.
An artist’s representation of NASA’s DART spacecraft flying toward the twin asteroids, Didymos and Dimorphos. The larger asteroid, Didymos, was discovered by the University of Arizona’s Spacewatch in 1996. Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory
“It is amazing how clearly we were able to capture the structure and extent of the aftermath in the days following the impact,” said Kareta.
“Now begins the next phase of work for the DART team as they analyze their data and observations by our team and other observers around the world who shared in studying this exciting event,” said Knight. We plan to use SOAR to monitor the ejecta in the coming weeks and months. The combination of SOAR and AEON[2] is just what we need for efficient follow-up of evolving events like this one.”
These observations will allow researchers to gain knowledge about the nature of the surface of Dimorphos. They will be able to gauge how much material was ejected by the collision, how fast it was ejected, and the distribution of particle sizes in the expanding dust cloud. For example, the observations will reveal whether the impact caused the moonlet to throw off big chunks of material or mostly fine dust. Analyzing this data will help astronomers protect Earth and its inhabitants by better understanding the amount and nature of the ejecta resulting from an impact, and how that might alter an asteroid’s orbit.
SOAR’s observations demonstrate the capabilities of NSF-funded AURA facilities in planetary-defense planning and initiatives. In the future, Vera C. Rubin Observatory, funded by NSF and the US Department of Energy and currently under construction in Chile, will conduct a census of the Solar System to search for potentially hazardous objects.
Didymos was discovered in 1996 with the University of Arizona 0.9-meter Spacewatch Telescope located at Kitt Peak National Observatory, a Program of NSF’s NOIRLab.
Notes
- SOAR is designed to produce the best quality images of any observatory in its class. Located on Cerro Pachón, SOAR is a joint project of the Ministério da Ciência, Tecnologia e Inovações do Brasil (MCTI/LNA), NSF’s NOIRLab, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC), and Michigan State University (MSU).
- The Astronomical Event Observatory Network (AEON) is a facility ecosystem for accessible and efficient follow-up of astronomical transients and Time Domain science. At the heart of the network, NOIRLab, with its SOAR 4.1-meter and Gemini 8-meter telescopes (and soon the Víctor M. Blanco 4-meter Telescope at CTIO), has joined forces with Las Cumbres Observatory to build such a network for the era of Vera C. Rubin Observatory’s Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST). SOAR is the pathfinder facility for incorporating the 4-meter-class and 8-meter-class telescopes into AEON.
More information
NSF’s NOIRLab, the US center for ground-based optical-infrared astronomy, operates the international Gemini Observatory (a facility of NSF, NRC–Canada, ANID–Chile, MCTIC–Brazil, MINCyT–Argentina, and KASI–Republic of Korea), Kitt Peak National Observatory (KPNO), Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO), the Community Science and Data Center (CSDC), and Vera C. Rubin Observatory (operated in cooperation with the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory). It is managed by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA) under a cooperative agreement with NSF and is headquartered in Tucson, Arizona. The astronomical community is honored to have the opportunity to conduct astronomical research on Iolkam Du’ag (Kitt Peak) in Arizona, on Maunakea in Hawai‘i, and on Cerro Tololo and Cerro Pachón in Chile. We recognize and acknowledge the very significant cultural role and reverence that these sites have to the Tohono O’odham Nation, to the Native Hawaiian community, and to the local communities in Chile, respectively.
Pakistan appeals for ‘immense’ international response to floods | Pakistan
Pakistan has appealed to the international community for an “immense humanitarian response” to unprecedented flooding that has left at least 1,265 people dead.
According to initial government estimates, the rain and flooding have caused $10bn (£8.7bn) in damage.
“The scale of devastation is massive and requires an immense humanitarian response for 33 million people. For this I appeal to my fellow Pakistanis, Pakistan expatriates and the international community to help Pakistan in this hour of need,” the federal planning minister, Ahsan Iqbal, said at a news conference.
Multiple officials and experts have blamed the unusual monsoon rains and flooding on climate change, including UN Secretary-General António Guterres, who called on the world to stop “sleepwalking” through the deadly crisis.
He will visit Pakistan on 9 September to tour flood-hit areas and meet officials.
The United Nations and Pakistan jointly issued an appeal for $160m in emergency funding to help the millions of people affected by the floods, which have damaged more than 1m homes.
Pakistan’s National Disaster Management Authority in its latest report on Saturday counted 57 more deaths from flood-affected areas, bringing the total death toll since monsoon rains began in mid-June to 1,265, including 441 children.
Prime minister Shehbaz Sharif’s earlier appeal for aid received a quick response from the international community, which sent planes loaded with relief goods. A French aircraft carrying relief goods landed in Islamabad on Saturday and was received by national health services minister Abdul Qadir Patel.
Patel said the relief goods sent by France included medicine and large pumps to reduce water levels. He said France had also sent a team of doctors and experts.
Pakistan has established a National Flood Response and Coordination Centre to distribute the aid. Iqbal is supervising the army-led centre.
The minister said rains this monsoon season have lashed most areas of Balochistan and Sindh provinces as well as parts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Punjab provinces. The Gilgit-Baltistan territory was also affected. The torrential rains and subsequent flash floods caused massive damage to infrastructure, roads, electricity and communications networks.
Iqbal said the government was working to get the country back to normal as soon as possible but that the Pakistani government could not do it alone.
Maj Gen Zafar Iqbal said in the news conference that over the last four days, 29 planes loaded with relief goods arrived in Pakistan from Turkey, the UAE, China, Qatar, Uzbekistan, Jordan, Turkmenistan and other countries.
Military spokesperson Maj Gen Iftikhar Babar said rescuers supported by the military were continuing rescue and relief operations. He said army aviation, air force and navy troops were using boats and helicopters to evacuate people from remote regions and to deliver aid.
Babar said the army had established 147 relief camps sheltering and feeding more than 50,000 displaced people while 250 medical camps have provided help to 83,000 people so far.
Health officials have expressed concern about the spread of water-borne diseases among homeless people living in relief camps and in tents alongside roads.
Lt Gen Akhtar Nawaz, head of the disaster management authority, said areas of the country that had expected to receive 15% to 20% additional rains this year actually received in excess of 400% more. Collectively, the country has seen 190% more rain this monsoon season.
The US military’s Central Command has said it will send an assessment team to Islamabad to see what support it can provide. The United States announced $30m worth of aid for the flood victims earlier this week.
Two members of the US Congress, Sheila Jackson and Tom Suzy, were expected to arrive in Pakistan on Sunday to visit the flood-affected areas and meet officials.
The UK’s Disasters Emergency Committee’s appeal to help those affected by the flooding has raised £13.5m after launching on Thursday.
Astronomers discover immense swarms of sunspots that could lead to solar flares
A pair of massive sunspot swarms, some large enough to devour the Earth whole, have appeared on the surface of the Sun, increasing the chance of an intense solar storm.
Sunspots are dark regions of the Sun where it is cooler than other parts of the surface. Solar flares originate close to these dark areas of the star.
Recently, space weather forecasters spotted two ‘active regions’ known as AR2993 and AR2994 – swarms made up of a number of sunspots – in the past few days.
Solar flares and coronal mass ejections come from these regions, and when they explode in the direction of Earth, they can result in geomagnetic storms that produce beautiful auroras, as well as pose a danger to power grids and satellites.
It isn’t yet clear whether these new dark spot swarms will result in solar flares that hit the Earth, but astronomers predict it is possible in the coming weeks.
A pair of massive sunspot swarms, some large enough to devour the Earth hole, have appeared on the surface of the Sun, increasing the chance of an intense solar storm
Sunspots are caused by magnetic disruptions in the photosphere of the Sun, exposing the cooler layers underneath – appearing as a black spot.
Solar flares can erupt in these regions, sending plasma and charged particles out into space – some of which head towards the Earth.
When they reach the planet, they run down the magnetic field, creating aurora such as the northern lights, but can also result in power outages and internet issues.
Earlier this month the Earth narrowly missed a plasma ejection, linked to a sunspot group that had appeared earlier on the star. If it had hit the planet, it could have resulted in risks to astronauts in space, as well as satellites and power grids.
The recent increase in activity from the Sun is the result of it coming towards the most active phase in its 11-year solar cycle – hitting peak activity in 2024.
‘I’m sure we shall see larger active regions over the next few years,’ according to solar physicist Dean Pesnell from NASA, speaking to Live Science.
‘Active regions 2993 and 2994 are middling in size and don’t represent the best that Solar Cycle 25 can produce.’
Sunspots are dark regions of the Sun where it is cooler than other parts of the surface. Solar flares originate close to these dark areas of the star
Jan Janssens from the Solar-Terrestrial Centre of Excellence in Brussels, told Live Science multiple solar flares and coronal mass ejections are ‘typical at this stage of the solar cycle,’ with some heading towards, but missing the Earth.
‘As the solar cycle is heading for its maximum, more and more complex sunspot regions become visible, which can then produce solar flares.’
Studies have shown that the level of solar activity currently happening, is about the same as it was 11 years ago, during the same point in the last cycle.
Pesnell told Live Science there appears to be a third swarm, hidden from view, that is rotating behind AR2993 and AR2994, that produced a class X1.1 flare on Sunday.
Solar flares have letter classes, with A-class the weakest, then B, C, and M-class, with X-class the strongest of the categories. They are then given a size – small numbers represent smaller flares within the class.
An X1 flare is ten times less powerful than the most intense solar flare possible, and the most powerful on record, from 2003, overwhelmed sensors as an X28.
The Space Weather Prediction Center of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) found that Sunday’s flare caused a blackout at certain radio frequencies below 30 MHz in Southeast Asia and Australia.
Despite the flare causing a radio blackout, the plasma from the flare won’t hit Earth.
‘Flares and coronal mass ejections will become more frequent over the next few years, raising the hazard level of solar activity,’ Pesnell told Live Science.
There hasn’t been an extreme CME or Solar Flare in the modern world – the last was the Carrington Event in 1859 – creating a geomagnetic storm with aurora appearing globally, as well as fires at telegraph stations.
SOLAR STORMS PRESENT A CLEAR DANGER TO ASTRONAUTS AND CAN DAMAGE SATELLITES
Solar storms, or solar activity, can be divided into four main components that can have impacts on Earth:
- Solar flares: A large explosion in the sun’s atmosphere. These flares are made of photons that travel out directly from the flare site. Solar flares impact Earth only when they occur on the side of the sun facing Earth.
- Coronal Mass Ejections (CME’s): Large clouds of plasma and magnetic field that erupt from the sun. These clouds can erupt in any direction, and then continue on in that direction, plowing through solar wind. These clouds only cause impacts to Earth when they’re aimed at Earth.
- High-speed solar wind streams: These come from coronal holes on the sun, which form anywhere on the sun and usually only when they are closer to the solar equator do the winds impact Earth.
- Solar energetic particles: High-energy charged particles thought to be released primarily by shocks formed at the front of coronal mass ejections and solar flares. When a CME cloud plows through solar wind, solar energetic particles can be produced and because they are charged, they follow the magnetic field lines between the Sun and Earth. Only charged particles that follow magnetic field lines that intersect Earth will have an impact.
While these may seem dangerous, astronauts are not in immediate danger of these phenomena because of the relatively low orbit of manned missions.
However, they do have to be concerned about cumulative exposure during space walks.
This photo shows the sun’s coronal holes in an x-ray image. The outer solar atmosphere, the corona, is structured by strong magnetic fields, which when closed can cause the atmosphere to suddenly and violently release bubbles or tongues of gas and magnetic fields called coronal mass ejections
The damage caused by solar storms
Solar flares can damage satellites and have an enormous financial cost.
The charged particles can also threaten airlines by disturbing Earth’s magnetic field.
Very large flares can even create currents within electricity grids and knock out energy supplies.
When Coronal Mass Ejections strike Earth they cause geomagnetic storms and enhanced aurora.
They can disrupt radio waves, GPS coordinates and overload electrical systems.
A large influx of energy could flow into high voltage power grids and permanently damage transformers.
This could shut off businesses and homes around the world.
Source: NASA – Solar Storm and Space Weather
Supermassive Black Hole Caught Hiding in an Immense Ring of Cosmic Dust
This illustration shows what the core of Messier 77 might look like. As other active galactic nuclei, the central region of Messier 77 is powered by a black hole that is surrounded by a thin accretion disc, which itself is surrounded by a thick ring or torus of gas and dust. In the case of Messier 77, this thick ring completely obscures our view of the supermassive black hole.
This active galactic nucleus is also believed to have jets, as well as dusty winds, that flow out of the region around the black hole perpendicularly to the accretion disc around it. Credit: ESO/M. Kornmesser and L. Calçada
The European Southern Observatory’s 
The left panel of this image shows a dazzling view of the active galaxy Messier 77 captured with the FOcal Reducer and low dispersion Spectrograph 2 (FORS2) instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope. The right panel shows a blow-up view of the very inner region of this galaxy, its active galactic nucleus, as seen with the MATISSE instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope Interferometer. Credit: ESO/Jaffe, Gámez-Rosas et al.
Active galactic nuclei (AGNs) are extremely energetic sources powered by supermassive black holes and found at the center of some galaxies. These black holes feed on large volumes of cosmic dust and gas. Before it is eaten up, this material spirals towards the black hole, and huge amounts of energy are released in the process, often outshining all the stars in the galaxy.
Astronomers have been curious about AGNs ever since they first spotted these bright objects in the 1950s. Now, thanks to ESO’s VLTI, a team of researchers, led by Violeta Gámez Rosas from Leiden University in the Netherlands, have taken a key step towards understanding how they work and what they look like up close. The results are published today (February 16, 2022)y in Nature.
Active galactic nuclei (AGNs) are extremely energetic sources powered by supermassive black holes. This short video provides insights into these peculiar objects by showcasing a new discovery on the AGN at the center of the Messier 77 galaxy. Credit: ESO
By making extraordinarily detailed observations of the center of the galaxy Messier 77, also known as NGC 1068, Gámez Rosas and her team detected a thick ring of cosmic dust and gas hiding a supermassive black hole. This discovery provides vital evidence to support a 30-year-old theory known as the Unified Model of AGNs.
Astronomers know there are different types of AGN. For example, some release bursts of radio waves while others don’t; certain AGNs shine brightly in visible light, while others, like Messier 77, are more subdued. The Unified Model states that despite their differences, all AGNs have the same basic structure: a supermassive black hole surrounded by a thick ring of dust.
This image, captured with the MATISSE instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope Interferometer, shows the very inner region of the active galaxy Messier 77. Active galactic nuclei are extremely energetic sources powered by supermassive black holes. By making extraordinarily detailed observations of the active center of this galaxy, a team of astronomers detected a thick ring of cosmic dust and gas hiding a supermassive black hole. The black dot shows the most probable position of the black hole, while the two ellipses show the extent, seen in projection, of the thick inner dust ring (dashed) and extended dust disc. Credit: ESO/Jaffe, Gámez-Rosas et al.
According to this model, any difference in appearance between AGNs results from the orientation at which we view the black hole and its thick ring from Earth. The type of AGN we see depends on how much the ring obscures the black hole from our viewpoint, completely hiding it in some cases.
Astronomers had found some evidence to support the Unified Model before, including spotting warm dust at the center of Messier 77. However, doubts remained about whether this dust could completely hide a black hole and hence explain why this AGN shines less brightly in visible light than others.
ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) has captured a magnificent face-on view of the barred spiral galaxy Messier 77. The image does justice to the galaxy’s beauty, showcasing its glittering arms criss-crossed with dust lanes — but it fails to betray Messier 77’s turbulent nature. Credit: ESO
“The real nature of the dust clouds and their role in both feeding the black hole and determining how it looks when viewed from Earth have been central questions in AGN studies over the last three decades,” explains Gámez Rosas. “Whilst no single result will settle all the questions we have, we have taken a major step in understanding how AGNs work.”
The observations were made possible thanks to the Multi AperTure mid-Infrared SpectroScopic Experiment (MATISSE) mounted on ESO’s VLTI, located in Chile’s Atacama Desert. MATISSE combined infrared light collected by all four 8.2-meter telescopes of ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) using a technique called interferometry. The team used MATISSE to scan the center of Messier 77, located 47 million light-years away in the constellation Cetus.
This animation shows what the core of Messier 77 might look like. As other active galactic nuclei, the central region of Messier 77 is powered by a black hole that is surrounded by a thin accretion disc, which itself is surrounded by a thick ring or torus of gas and dust. In the case of Messier 77, this thick ring completely obscures our view of the supermassive black hole. This active galactic nucleus is also believed to have jets, as well as dusty winds, that flow out of the region around the black hole perpendicularly to the accretion disc around it. Credit: ESO/M. Kornmesser and L. Calçada
“MATISSE can see a broad range of infrared wavelengths, which lets us see through the dust and accurately measure temperatures. Because the VLTI is in fact a very large interferometer, we have the resolution to see what’s going on even in galaxies as far away as Messier 77. The images we obtained detail the changes in temperature and absorption of the dust clouds around the black hole,” says co-author Walter Jaffe, a professor at Leiden University.
This chart shows the location of the active galaxy Messier 77 in the constellation of Cetus (The Sea Monster). It shows most stars visible to the unaided eye on a dark and clear night. Credit: ESO, IAU and Sky & Telescope
Combining the changes in dust temperature (from around room temperature to about 1200 °C) caused by the intense radiation from the black hole with the absorption maps, the team built up a detailed picture of the dust and pinpointed where the black hole must lie. The dust — in a thick inner ring and a more extended disc — with the black hole positioned at its center supports the Unified Model. The team also used data from the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array, co-owned by ESO, and the National Radio Astronomy Observatory’s Very Long Baseline Array to construct their picture.
This animated infographic provides a simplified representation of the Unified Model of active galactic nuclei or AGNs, energetic sources powered by supermassive black holes that exist at the center of some galaxies.
Astronomers have observed different types of AGN. Some, called blazars, are exceedingly bright and can undergo changes in their brightness on timescales of only hours or days while another type, called quasars, are also very bright but tend to be less variable than blazars. Seyfert galaxies, which come in two flavors (1 and 2), are another type of AGN, which are surrounded by host galaxies that are clearly detectable. Seyfert 1 and Seyfert 2 galaxies both have bright cores, but Seyfert 2 tend to be more subdued.
The Unified Model of AGNs states that despite their differences, all AGNs have the same basic structure: a supermassive black hole surrounded by a thick ring or torus of dust. According to this model, any difference in appearance between AGNs results from the orientation at which we view the black hole and its thick ring from Earth. The type of AGN we see depends on how much the ring obscures the black hole from our view point, completely hiding it in some cases.
Credit: ESO/L. Calçada and M. Kornmesser
“Our results should lead to a better understanding of the inner workings of AGNs,” concludes Gámez Rosas. “They could also help us better understand the history of the 
This image from the Digitized Sky Survey shows spiral galaxy Messier 77 and its surroundings. Messier 77 appears at the center and the edge-on galaxy NGC 1055 to its upper-right. Credit: NASA/ESA, Digitized Sky Survey 2
ESO’s Extremely Large Telescope (ELT), set to begin observing later this decade, will also aid the search, providing results that will complement the team’s findings and allow them to explore the interaction between AGNs and galaxies.
Reference: “Thermal imaging of dust hiding the black hole in the Active Galaxy NGC 1068” 16 February 2022, Nature.
DOI: 10.1038/s41586-021-04311-7
The team is composed of Violeta Gámez Rosas (Leiden Observatory, Leiden University, Netherlands [Leiden]), Jacob W. Isbell (Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, Heidelberg, Germany [MPIA]), Walter Jaffe (Leiden), Romain G. Petrov (Université Côte d’Azur, Observatoire de la Côte d’Azur, CNRS, Laboratoire Lagrange, France [OCA]), James H. Leftley (OCA), Karl-Heinz Hofmann (Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy, Bonn, Germany [MPIfR]), Florentin Millour (OCA), Leonard Burtscher (Leiden), Klaus Meisenheimer (MPIA), Anthony Meilland (OCA), Laurens B. F. M. Waters (Department of Astrophysics/IMAPP, Radboud University, the Netherlands; SRON, Netherlands Institute for Space Research, the Netherlands), Bruno Lopez (OCA), Stéphane Lagarde (OCA), Gerd Weigelt (MPIfR), Philippe Berio (OCA), Fatme Allouche (OCA), Sylvie Robbe-Dubois (OCA), Pierre Cruzalèbes (OCA), Felix Bettonvil (ASTRON, Dwingeloo, the Netherlands [ASTRON]), Thomas Henning (MPIA), Jean-Charles Augereau (Univ. Grenoble Alpes, CNRS, Institute for Planetary sciences and Astrophysics, France [IPAG]), Pierre Antonelli (OCA), Udo Beckmann (MPIfR), Roy van Boekel (MPIA), Philippe Bendjoya (OCA), William C. Danchi (
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James Franco accused of causing ‘immense pain and suffering’ by former students | Film
The actor and director James Franco has been accused of being “completely insensitive” and of causing “immense pain and suffering” after an interview made public on Wednesday in which he admitted to sleeping with students at his acting school and claimed that he suffered from sex addiction.
A statement from lawyers representing two women who brought a civil suit against Franco in 2019 said that Franco, who made comments on SiriusXM’s Jess Cagle Podcast, was “completely insensitive to, and still apparently does not care about, the immense pain and suffering he put his victims through”.
The statement added: “[Franco] continues to downplay the survivors’ experiences and ignore their pain, despite acknowledging he had no business starting such a school in the first place … It was, and is, despicable conduct.”
In June 2021, Franco settled a class action suit for $2.2m (£1.64m) after the two women, Sarah Tither-Kaplan and Toni Gaal, filed a complaint against the actor, accusing him of fraud, after Tither-Kaplan and several other women aired claims of sexual exploitation in a 2018 Los Angeles Times article. Both women received substantial sums in the settlement, alongside other students of Franco’s Studio 4 film school, which was set up in 2014 and closed in 2017.
In his Jess Cagle Podcast interview, Franco said he “did sleep with students, and that was wrong” and denied that he had started the school to lure women for sexual purposes.
Ivory Coast declares Ebola outbreak after 1st case in 25 years reported in de-facto capital Abidjan, prompting ‘immense concern’ — RT World News
The West African nation of Côte d’Ivoire has declared an outbreak of Ebola virus after detecting the country’s first case in more than two decades, with the World Health Organization sounding the alarm about its potential spread.
A patient who had recently travelled from Guinea tested positive for Ebola, Côte d’Ivoire’s ministry of health confirmed on Saturday, the WHO reported. The patient was hospitalized with fever after arriving in Abidjan, the country’s de-facto capital and its biggest city, earlier this week.
“It is of immense concern that this outbreak has been declared in Abidjan, a metropolis of more than 4 million people,” Dr Matshidiso Moeti, WHO’s Regional Director for Africa said in a statement.
Also on rt.com
Guinea reports 1st case of ‘Ebola cousin’ the Marburg virus in West Africa, as 1 person dies of the highly infectious disease
The case became the country’s first since 1994, when an ethnologist got infected with the virus after performing a necropsy on a sick chimpanzee. Côte d’Ivoire was spared during the 2014-2016 West African Ebola epidemic that originated in Guinea and claimed at least 11,325 lives, with cases reported in the US and UK.
Since then an array of Ebola outbreaks have been reported, in particular, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, which experienced its fourth outbreak in fewer than three years earlier in May. Guinea, however, reported its first outbreak of the disease since the epidemic only in February this year, sparking renewed fears about a potential repeat of the 2014-2016 scenario. In March the WHO estimated the risk that the Ebola outbreak would spill over to the neighbouring countries, including Côte d’Ivoire, as “very high.”
An #Ebola case has been confirmed today in Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire🇨🇮. Initial investigations found that the patient had travelled to #CotedIvoire from Guinea by land & arrived in Abidjan on 12 August. This is the country’s first case of Ebola since 1994. https://t.co/RnkHct1Wqn
— WHO African Region (@WHOAFRO) August 14, 2021
It’s not clear if the newly detected case can be traced back to the Guinea outbreak, which was declared officially over in June, with the WHO noting on Saturday that “there is no indication that the current case in Cote d’Ivoire is linked to the earlier outbreak in Guinea.”
As part of its effort to curb the spread of the virus, the WHO said it would transfer some 5,000 Ebola vaccine doses, initially earmarked to Guinea, to Côte d’Ivoire. The jabs will be administered to health workers, first responders and known contacts of the Ebola-positive patients.
Noting that it would also send a team of experts to assist with contact tracing, treatment and community outreach, the WHO argued that a travel ban should not be imposed on the country, while urging Cote d’Ivoire against shutting down its own borders.
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Hubble Captures Immense Galaxy That Stretches 200,000 Light-Years Across
Galaxy NGC 2336 — a barred spiral galaxy that stretches an immense 200,000 light-years across — is captured here by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, V. Antoniou, Acknowledgement: Judy Schmidt
NGC 2336 is the quintessential galaxy — big, beautiful and blue — and it is captured here by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. The barred spiral galaxy stretches an immense 200,000 light-years across and is located approximately 100 million light years away in the northern constellation of Camelopardalis (The Giraffe).
Its spiral arms are glittered with young stars, visible in their bright blue light. In contrast, the redder central part of the galaxy is dominated by older stars.
NGC 2336 was discovered in 1876 by German astronomer Wilhelm Tempel, using a 28-centimeter telescope. This Hubble image is so much better than the view Tempel would have had — Hubble’s main mirror is 2.4 meters across, nearly ten times the size of the telescope Tempel used. In 1987, NGC 2336 experienced a Type-Ia supernova, the only observed supernova in the galaxy since its discovery 111 years earlier.
Scientists Discover an Immense, Unknown Hydrocarbon Cycle Hiding in The Oceans
In the awful wake of an oil spill, it’s typically the smallest of organisms who do most of the cleaning up. Surprisingly, scientists know very little about the tools these tiny clean-up crews have at their disposal.
But now, thanks to a new study, researchers have uncovered a whole new cycle of natural hydrocarbon emissions and recycling facilitated by a diverse range of tiny organisms – which could help us better understand how some microbes have the power to clean up the mess an oil spill leaves in the ocean.
“Just two types of marine cyanobacteria are adding up to 500 times more hydrocarbons to the ocean per year than the sum of all other types of petroleum inputs to the ocean, including natural oil seeps, oil spills, fuel dumping and run-off from land,” said Earth scientist Connor Love from the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB).
But unlike more familiar human contributions of hydrocarbons into our ocean, this isn’t a one-way, local dump.
These hydrocarbons, primarily in the form of pentadecane (nC15), are spread across 40 percent of Earth’s surface, and other microbes feast on them. They’re constantly being cycled in such a way that Love and colleagues estimate only around 2 million metric tonnes are present in the water at any one time.
“Every two days you produce and consume all the pentadecane in the ocean,” Love explained.
(Luke Thompson, Chisholm Lab/Nikki Watson, MIT)
Above: A species of the globally distributed marine cyanobacteria, Prochlorococcus.
Today, humanity’s hydrocarbon footprints can be found in most aspects of our surroundings. We emit these molecules composed of only carbon and hydrogen atoms in many ways – the bulk through extraction and use of fossil fuels, but also from plastics, cooking, candles, painting, and the list goes on.
So it probably shouldn’t be a huge surprise that traces of our own emissions drowned out our ability to see the immense hydrocarbon cycle that naturally occurs in our oceans.
It took Love and colleagues some effort to clearly identify this global cycle for the first time.
Far from most human sources of hydrocarbons, in the nutrient-poor North Atlantic subtropical waters, the team had to position the ship they sampled from to face the wind, so the diesel fuel that also contains pentadecane did not contaminate the seven study sites. No one was permitted to cook, smoke or paint on deck during collections.
“I don’t know if you’ve ever been on a ship for an extended period of time, but you paint every day,” explained Earth scientist David Valentine from UCSB. “It’s like the Golden Gate Bridge: You start at one end and by the time you get to the other end it’s time to start over.”
Back on land, the researchers were able to confirm the pentadecane in their seawater samples were of biological origin, by using a gas chromatograph.
Analysing their data, they found concentrations of pentadecane increased with greater abundance of cyanobacteria cells, and the hydrocarbon’s geographic and vertical distribution were consistent with these microbe’s ecology.
Cyanobacteria Prochlorococcus and Synechococcus are responsible for around a quarter of the global ocean’s conversion of sunlight energy into organic matter (primary production) and previous laboratory cultivation revealed they produce pentadecane in the process.
Valentine explains the cyanobacteria likely use pentadecane as a stronger component for highly curved cellular membranes, like those found in chloroplasts (the organelle that photosynthesise).
The cycle of pentadecane in the ocean also follows the diel cycling of these cyanobacteria – their vertical migration in the water in response to changes of light intensity throughout a day.
Together, these findings suggest the cyanobacteria are indeed the source of the biological pentadecane, which is then consumed by other microorganisms that produce the carbon dioxide the cyanobacteria then use to continue the cycle.
Love’s team identified dozens of bacteria and surface-dwelling archaea that bloomed in response to the addition of pentadecane in their samples.
So they then tested to see if the hydrocarbon-consuming microbes could also break down petroleum. The researchers added a petroleum hydrocarbon to samples increasingly closer to areas with active oil seepage, in the Gulf of Mexico.
Unfortunately, only the sea samples from areas already exposed to non-biological hydrocarbons contained microbes that bloomed in response to consuming these molecules.
DNA tests showed genes thought to encode proteins that can degrade these hydrocarbons differed between the microbes, with a contrast evident between those that ate biological hydrocarbons and those that devoured the petroleum-sourced ones.
“We demonstrated that there is a massive and rapid hydrocarbon cycle that occurs in the ocean, and that it is distinct from the ocean’s capacity to respond to petroleum input,” said Valentine.
The researchers have begun sequencing the genomes of the microbes in their sample to further understand the ecology and physiology of the creatures involved in Earth’s natural hydrocarbon cycle.
“I think [these findings reveal] just how much we don’t know about the ecology of a lot of hydrocarbon-consuming organisms,” said Love.
This research was published in Nature Microbiology.
Researchers discover an immense hydrocarbon cycle in the world’s ocean
Hydrocarbons and petroleum are almost synonymous in environmental science. After all, oil reserves account for nearly all the hydrocarbons we encounter. But the few hydrocarbons that trace their origin to biological sources may play a larger ecological role than scientists originally suspected.
A team of researchers at UC Santa Barbara and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution investigated this previously neglected area of oceanography for signs of an overlooked global cycle. They also tested how its existence might impact the ocean’s response to oil spills.
“We demonstrated that there is a massive and rapid hydrocarbon cycle that occurs in the ocean, and that it is distinct from the ocean’s capacity to respond to petroleum input,” said Professor David Valentine, who holds the Norris Presidential Chair in the Department of Earth Science at UCSB. The research, led by his graduate students Eleanor Arrington and Connor Love, appears in Nature Microbiology.
In 2015, an international team led by scientists at the University of Cambridge published a study demonstrating that the hydrocarbon pentadecane was produced by marine cyanobacteria in laboratory cultures. The researchers extrapolated that this compound might be important in the ocean. The molecule appears to relieve stress in curved membranes, so it’s found in things like chloroplasts, wherein tightly packed membranes require extreme curvature, Valentine explained. Certain cyanobacteria still synthesize the compound, while other ocean microbes readily consume it for energy.
Valentine authored a two-page commentary on the paper, along with Chris Reddy from Woods Hole, and decided to pursue the topic further with Arrington and Love. They visited the Gulf of Mexico in 2015, then the west Atlantic in 2017, to collect samples and run experiments.
The team sampled seawater from a nutrient-poor region of the Atlantic known as the Sargasso Sea, named for the floating sargassum seaweed swept in from the Gulf of Mexico. This is beautiful, clear, blue water with Bermuda smack in the middle, Valentine said.
Obtaining the samples was apparently a rather tricky endeavor. Because pentadecane is a common hydrocarbon in diesel fuel, the team had to take extra precautions to avoid contamination from the ship itself. They had the captain turn the ship into the wind so the exhaust wouldn’t taint the samples and they analyzed the chemical signature of the diesel to ensure it wasn’t the source of any pentadecane they found.
What’s more, no one could smoke, cook or paint on deck while the researchers were collecting seawater. “That was a big deal,” Valentine said, “I don’t know if you’ve ever been on a ship for an extended period of time, but you paint every day. It’s like the Golden Gate Bridge: You start at one end and by the time you get to the other end it’s time to start over.”
The precautions worked, and the team recovered pristine seawater samples. “Standing in front of the gas chromatograph in Woods Hole after the 2017 expedition, it was clear the samples were clean with no sign of diesel,” said co-lead author Love. “Pentadecane was unmistakable and was already showing clear oceanographic patterns even in the first couple of samples that [we] ran.”
Due to their vast numbers in the world’s ocean, Love continued, “just two types of marine cyanobacteria are adding up to 500 times more hydrocarbons to the ocean per year than the sum of all other types of petroleum inputs to the ocean, including natural oil seeps, oil spills, fuel dumping and run-off from land.” These microbes collectively produce 300-600 million metric tons of pentadecane per year, an amount that dwarfs the 1.3 million metric tons of hydrocarbons released from all other sources.
While these quantities are impressive, they’re a bit misleading. The authors point out that the pentadecane cycle spans 40% or more of the Earth’s surface, and more than one trillion quadrillion pentadecane-laden cyanobacterial cells are suspended in the sunlit region of the world’s ocean. However, the life cycle of those cells is typically less than two days. As a result, the researchers estimate that the ocean contains only around 2 million metric tons of pentadecane at any given time.
It’s a fast spinning wheel, Valentine explained, so the actual amount present at any point in time is not particularly large. “Every two days you produce and consume all the pentadecane in the ocean,” he said.
In the future, the researchers hope to link microbes’ genomics to their physiology and ecology. The team already has genome sequences for dozens of organisms that multiplied to consume the pentadecane in their samples. “The amount of information that’s there is incredible,” said Valentine, “and I think reveals just how much we don’t know about the ecology of a lot of hydrocarbon-consuming organisms.”
Having confirmed the existence and magnitude of this biohydrocarbon cycle, the team sought to tackle the question of whether its presence might prime the ocean to break down spilled petroleum. The key question, Arrington explained, is whether these abundant pentadecane-consuming microorganisms serve as an asset during oil spill cleanups. To investigate this, they added pentane—a petroleum hydrocarbon similar to pentadecane—to seawater sampled at various distances from natural oil seeps in the Gulf of Mexico.
They measured the overall respiration in each sample to see how long it took pentane-eating microbes to multiply. The researchers hypothesized that, if the pentadecane cycle truly primed microbes to consume other hydrocarbons as well, then all the samples should develop blooms at similar rates.
But this was not the case. Samples from near the oil seeps quickly developed blooms. “Within about a week of adding pentane, we saw an abundant population develop,” Valentine said. “And that gets slower and slower the further away you get, until, when you’re out in the North Atlantic, you can wait months and never see a bloom.” In fact, Arrington had to stay behind after the expedition at the facility in Woods Hole, Massachusetts to continue the experiment on the samples from the Atlantic because those blooms took so long to appear.
Interestingly, the team also found evidence that microbes belonging to another domain of life, Archaea, may also play a role in the pentadecane cycle. “We learned that a group of mysterious, globally abundant microbes—which have yet to be domesticated in the laboratory—may be fueled by pentadecane in the surface ocean,” said co-lead author Arrington.
The results beg the question why the presence of an enormous pentadecane cycle appeared to have no effect on the breakdown of the petrochemical pentane. “Oil is different from pentadecane,” Valentine said, “and you need to understand what the differences are, and what compounds actually make up oil, to understand how the ocean’s microbes are going to respond to it.”
Ultimately, the genes commonly used by microbes to consume the pentane are different than those used for pentadecane. “A microbe living in the clear waters offshore Bermuda is much less likely to encounter the petrochemical pentane compared to pentadecane produced by cyanobacteria, and therefore is less likely to carry the genes for pentane consumption,” said Arrington.
Loads of different microbial species can consume pentadecane, but this doesn’t imply that they can also consume other hydrocarbons, Valentine continued, especially given the diversity of hydrocarbon structures that exist in petroleum. There are less than a dozen common hydrocarbons that marine organisms produce, including pentadecane and methane. Meanwhile, petroleum comprises tens of thousands of different hydrocarbons. What’s more, we are now seeing that organisms able to break down complex petroleum products tend to live in greater abundance near natural oil seeps.
Valentine calls this phenomenon “biogeographic priming”—when the ocean’s microbial population is conditioned to a particular energy source in a specific geographic area. “And what we see with this work is a distinction between pentadecane and petroleum,” he said, “that is important for understanding how different ocean regions will respond to oil spills.”
Nutrient-poor gyres like the Sargasso Sea account for an impressive 40% of the Earth’s surface. But, ignoring the land, that still leaves 30% of the planet to explore for other biohydrocarbon cycles. Valentine thinks the processes in regions of higher productivity will be more complex, and perhaps will provide more priming for oil consumption. He also pointed out that nature’s blueprint for biological hydrocarbon production holds promise for efforts to develop the next generation of green energy.
Window to another world: Life is bubbling up to seafloor with petroleum from deep below
More information:
Connor R. Love et al. Microbial production and consumption of hydrocarbons in the global ocean, Nature Microbiology (2021). DOI: 10.1038/s41564-020-00859-8
Connor R. Love et al. Microbial production and consumption of hydrocarbons in the global ocean, Nature Microbiology (2021). DOI: 10.1038/s41564-020-00859-8
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Researchers discover an immense hydrocarbon cycle in the world’s ocean (2021, February 2)
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