An image taken by an Austrian comet hunter reveals a disconnection in a stunning green comet’s tail that may have been caused by turbulent space weather.
Seasoned astrophotographer Michael Jäger took this image of the Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF) on Tuesday (Jan. 17) after driving 500 miles (800 kilometers) from Austria to Bavaria in Germany to get a clear view of the night sky. Jäger shared the image on Twitter (opens in new tab), along with more photos video of the comet.
“The journey was not in vain,” Jäger told Space.com in an email. He added that when it comes to capturing images of comets, an astrophotographer can waste no time as these icy balls change rapidly when they reach the warmer regions in the inner solar system.
Related: Amazing photos of gorgeously green Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF) More: How to view and photograph comets
This particular image reveals what astronomers call a disconnection event, essentially a weakening in the comet’s signature tail, which makes it look as if the tail was breaking off.
According to SpaceWeather.com (opens in new tab), this disruption in the tail is likely caused by turbulent space weather, namely the stronger-than-usual solar wind that has been released during a recent coronal mass ejection (CME). CMEs are bursts of highly energetic particles from the sun’s upper atmosphere, the corona, that travel across the solar system, interfering with the atmospheres of planets and other bodies.
“A piece of Comet ZTF’s tail has been pinched off and is being carried away by the solar wind,” SpaceWeather.com wrote. “CMEs hitting comets can cause magnetic reconnection in comet tails, sometimes ripping them off entirely.”
Read more: Green comet a rare ‘messenger from the outer reaches of solar system’
A comet’s tail is made of vaporized material and dust released by the icy body as it heats up closer to the sun. While the comet itself is usually no more than a few miles wide, the tail can stretch for hundreds of thousands of miles across the inner solar system, providing the unusual celestial spectacle that gets astronomers and astrophotographers buzzing.
SpaceWeather.com (opens in new tab) added that multiple CMEs have swept past Comet ZTF this month as its visit to our region of the solar system coincides with a surge in the activity on the sun’s surface. Currently, there are eight numbered sunspots traversing the sun’s Earth-facing disk, according to the U.K. space weather forecaster Met Office (opens in new tab), so more CMEs can occur as the comet comes closer to us. Sunspots are darker, cooler regions visible on the surface of the sun that feature twisted and dense magnetic fields, which give rise to solar flares and CMEs.
A NASA image showing the path of comet C/2022 E3 ZTF across the January sky for the Northern Hemisphere. (Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)
C/2022 E3 (ZTF), which was discovered by the Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF) at the Palomar Observatory in California in March 2022, is making its first close approach to Earth in about 50,000 years. The comet will soon become visible to the naked eye, experts say, and will reach its closest distance to Earth on Feb.1, zooming past our planet at about one quarter the sun-Earth distance.
Jäger, who has photographed more than 1,100 comets since he took up astrophotography four decades ago, is certain to take more awe-inspiring images, which you can find on his Twitter account (opens in new tab). He admitted that weather in this part of the year is not ideal for this rare celestial encounter, however.
“The weather in Central Europe is very bad and I have to travel a lot to see the comet,” Jäger wrote.
If you want to get your own breathtaking photos of comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF), be sure to see our guides on the best telescopes and best binoculars that can help you get a closer look. And don’t miss our guides on the best cameras for astrophotography and best lenses for astrophotography to get the best comet photos you can.
Editor’s Note:If you get a good photo of comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF) and would like to share them with Space.com’s readers, send your photo(s), comments, and your name and location to spacephotos@space.com.
Follow Tereza Pultarova on Twitter @TerezaPultarova (opens in new tab). Follow uson Twitter @Spacedotcom (opens in new tab) and on Facebook (opens in new tab).
Sign up for CNN’s Wonder Theory science newsletter. Explore the universe with news on fascinating discoveries, scientific advancements and more.
CNN
—
Astronomers glimpsed a stellar nursery in a new light, thanks to the Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy in Chile.
The VISTA telescope, located at the European Southern Observatory’s Paranal Observatory in Antofagasta, Chile, observed the Sh2-54 Nebula in infrared light, which is invisible to the human eye.
While visible light, which is what we can see, is absorbed by interstellar dust, infrared light can pierce through thick dust clouds in space to reveal previously unseen details.
INTERACTIVE: The best space photos of 2022
Infrared imagery of nebulae is helping astronomers learn more about how stars form.The new image revealed a wealth of stars behind the orange glow of the nebula.
Compare the infrared image, which is filled with starlight, to the visible light image of the Sh2-54 nebula using the slider below.
Multiple nebulae, or clouds of gas and dust that fuel star formation, are located at the tail end of the Serpens constellation — so named because of its resemblance to a serpent. These star-birth hotspots include the Eagle, the Omega and the Sh2-54 nebulae.
Astronomers focused in on the Sh2-54 Nebula, located about6,000 light-years from Earth. The “Sh” in the cosmic object’s name is in reference to astronomer Stewart Sharpless, who was responsible for cataloging more than 300 nebulae in the 1950s.
The image was taken using the highly sensitive 67 million-pixel camera on the VISTA telescope as part of the VISTA Variables in the Via Láctea eXtended survey.
The project repeatedly observes large regions of the Milky Way in infrared light to unlock the mysteries of star evolution.
Nebulae and stellar nurseries have also been part of the focus of the James Webb Space Telescope, which began scientific observations of the universe in July 2022.
So far, Webb has revealed glimmering stars nestled in stellar nurseries like the Orion Nebula, the Carina Nebula and among the famed Pillars of Creation in the Eagle Nebula.
Enlarge / The tail clubs of ankylosaur species seem to have been used to bash each other rather than predators.
Henry Sharpe
New research indicates that the tail clubs on huge armored dinosaurs known as ankylosaurs may have evolved to whack each other rather than deter hungry predators. This is a complete shift from what was previously believed.
Prior to the paper published today in Biology Letters, most scientists looked upon the dinosaur’s tail club, a substantial bony protrusion comprised of two oval-shaped knobs, primarily as a defense against predation. The team behind the new paper argues that this is not necessarily the case. To make their case, they focus on years of ankylosaur research, analysis of the fossil record, and data from an exceptionally well-preserved specimen named Zuul crurivastator.
Zuul’s name, in fact, embraces that previous idea. While “Zuul” references the creature in the original Ghostbusters, the two Latin words that make up its species name are crus (shin or shank) and vastator (destroyer). Hence, the destroyer of shins: a direct reference to where the dinosaur’s club may have struck approaching tyrannosaurs or other theropods.
But that name was given when only its skull and tail had been excavated from the rock where the fossil was encased. After years of skilled work by the fossil preparators at the Royal Ontario Museum, Zuul’s entire back and flanks are exposed, offering important clues as to what its tail club might target.
Target identification
Lead author Dr. Victoria Arbour is currently the Curator of Paleontology at the Royal British Columbia Museum, but she’s a former NSERC postdoctoral fellow at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto. That’s been Zuul’s home since 2016, two years after its initial discovery in Montana. She’s spent years studying ankylosaurs, a type of dinosaur that appear in the fossil record from the Jurassic through the end of the Cretaceous. Some species of ankylosaurs have tail clubs, while others, known as nodosaurs, do not. That difference raises some questions about what these structures were used for.
“I think a natural follow-up question from, ‘Could they use their tail clubs as a weapon?’ is ‘Who are they using that weapon against?’” Arbour explained. “And so that’s where I really started thinking about this.
Back in 2009, she authored a paper that suggested ankylosaurs might use their tail clubs for intraspecific combat—fights with other ankylosaurs. That work focused on the potential impact of tail clubs when used as a weapon, especially as the clubs come in various shapes and sizes, and in some species, weren’t even present until the animal matured. Measuring available fossil tail clubs and estimating the force of the blows they could produce, she found that smaller clubs (approximately 200 millimeters or half a foot) were too small to be used as a defense against predators.
Zuul crurivastator, the shin-basher.
Royal Ontario Museum
She recommended further research, noting that if ankylosaurs were using them for intraspecific combat, one might expect to see injuries along adult flanks, as an ankylosaur tail can only swing so far.
It’s one thing to have an idea about an extinct animal, but it’s another to have evidence. Ankylosaur fossils are rare in general; dinosaurs with preservation of the tissues that would have been damaged in these fights are much rarer. So it’s astounding that Arbour could test her ideas thanks to an animal with its entire back—most of its skin and all—intact.
“I put out this idea that we would expect to see damage on the flanks, just based on how they might line up against each other,” Arbour told Ars. “And then a decade and a bit later, we get this amazing skeleton of Zuul with damage right where we thought we might see it. And that was pretty exciting!”
Damage assessment
Zuul’s back and flanks are covered in various spikes and bony structures called osteoderms. Just as Arbour predicted, there is evidence of broken and injured osteoderms on both sides of the flanks, some of which appear to have healed.
“We also did some sort of basic statistics to show that the injuries are not randomly distributed on the body,” she continued. “They really are just restricted to the sides in the areas around the hips. That can’t be explained just by random chance. It seems more likely that it’s [the result of] repeated behavior.”
A damaged but partly healed spike on the side of Zuul.
Royal Ontario Museum
There are only a handful of well-preserved ankylosaurs, including at least one of a nodosaur named Borealopelta at the Royal Tyrrell Museum. The authors note that there aren’t any comparable injuries on known nodosaurs, a germane point. As mentioned previously, nodosaurs don’t have tail clubs and thus wouldn’t have been able to use them against each other.
Equally important, the damage isn’t accompanied by evidence of predation. No bite marks, puncture wounds, or tooth scratches are found anywhere on Zuul’s body.
Sign up for CNN’s Wonder Theory science newsletter. Explore the universe with news on fascinating discoveries, scientific advancements and more.
CNN
—
The Hubble Space Telescope captured a new snapshot of the asteroid that NASA recently slammed with a spacecraft in an attempt to knock it off course, and the image reveals the clearest look yet at some unexpected results from the mission — a twin tail of dust trailing behind the asteroid system.
The image, released Thursday, is one of 18 observations that the Hubble telescope has made of the Didymos-Dimorphos asteroid system since NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test, or DART,mission crashed a probe into Dimorphos in September.
“Repeated observations from Hubble over the last several weeks have allowed scientists to present a more complete picture of how the system’s debris cloud has evolved over time,” according to a statement from NASA and the European Space Agency, which jointly operate Hubble.
“The observations show that the ejected material, or ‘ejecta,’ has expanded and faded in brightness as time went on after impact, largely as expected,” the statement reads. “The twin tail is an unexpected development, although similar behavior is commonly seen in comets and active asteroids. The Hubble observations provide the best-quality image of the double-tail to date.”
Scientists are working to understand the significance of the split tail. NASA noted that it’s the northernmost tail that was newly created, and scientists will use data from Hubble in the coming months to examine more closely how it may have formed.
Dimorphos, the target of NASA’s DART mission, is a smaller asteroid that orbits around the larger Didymos. Astronomers anticipated that the mission could be deemed a success if the impact from the DART spacecraft could shorten Dimorphos’ orbit by 10 seconds. But NASA revealed this month that it was able to cut its trajectory down by 32 minutes — from an orbit of 11 hours and 55 minutes to 11 hours and 23 minutes.
The DART mission was the world’s first conducted on behalf of planetary defense,with the goal of testing technology that could one day be used to deflect an asteroid headed for Earth. The mission was also the first time humanity intentionally changed the motion of an object in space.
Correction: An earlier version of this report misstated the amount of time NASA’s DART mission cut Dimorphos’ orbit around Didymos.
Sign up for CNN’s Wonder Theory science newsletter. Explore the universe with news on fascinating discoveries, scientific advancements and more.
The image, released Thursday, is one of 18 observations that the Hubble telescope has made of the Didymos-Dimorphos asteroid system since NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test, or DART,mission crashed a probe into Dimorphos in September.
“Repeated observations from Hubble over the last several weeks have allowed scientists to present a more complete picture of how the system’s debris cloud has evolved over time,” according to a statement from NASA and the European Space Agency, which jointly operate Hubble.
“The observations show that the ejected material, or ‘ejecta,’ has expanded and faded in brightness as time went on after impact, largely as expected,” the statement reads. “The twin tail is an unexpected development, although similar behavior is commonly seen in comets and active asteroids. The Hubble observations provide the best-quality image of the double-tail to date.”
Scientists are working to understand the significance of the split tail. NASA noted that it’s the northernmost tail that was newly created, and scientists will use data from Hubble in the coming months to examine more closely how it may have formed.
Dimorphos, the target of NASA’s DART mission, is a smaller asteroid that orbits around the larger Didymos. Astronomers anticipated that the mission could be deemed a success if the impact from the DART spacecraft could shorten Dimorphos’ orbit by 10 seconds. But NASA revealed this month that it was able to cut its trajectory down by 32 seconds — from an orbit of 11 hours and 55 minutes to 11 hours and 23 minutes.
The DART mission was the world’s first conducted on behalf of planetary defense,with the goal of testing technology that could one day be used to deflect an asteroid headed for Earth. The mission was also the first time humanity intentionally changed the motion of an object in space.
CNN’s Ashley Strickland contributed to this report.
An ethereal image of Comet Leonard traveling against the solar wind has taken the top prize in the Royal Observatory Greenwich’s Astronomy Photographer of the Year contest.
Austrian photographer Gerald Rhemann caught the view of the comet and its sweeping tail on Christmas Day, 2021 from Namibia. Rhemann’s image reveals a ghostly veil of gas from the comet being caught and swept away by solar wind.
“This award is one of the highlights of my astrophotography work,” Rhemannr said in a statement. “All the effort that went into making this image a success was worth it.”
Comet Leonard was discovered in January 2021, and made its closest approach to Earth in December of that year. Its tail took on a twisted, streamer-like appearance during that approach as the charged particles from the sun – known as solar wind – interacted with charged particles in the comet’s wake. Rhemann’s photograph is a once-in-a-lifetime image: According to astronomers, Comet Leonard’s trajectory will now take it far into interstellar space, never to return to the central solar system.
The aurora glows green over an ice-studded lake in the winning photograph in the Aurorae category. (Image credit: Filip Hrebenda, Royal Museums Greenwich Astronomy Photographer of the Year 14 competition)
The winning image was one of a number of remarkable and unusual photos entered in the contest. “There are some things you won’t have seen before, and even some things that won’t be seen again,” Ed Bloomer, an astronomer at the Royal Observatory Greenwich, said in the statement.
The International Space Station is silhouetted in black against the moon’s Sea of Tranquility in the winning photograph in the People and Space category. (Image credit: Andrew McCarthy, Royal Museums Greenwich Astronomy Photographer of the Year competition)
Other category winners include “Andromeda Galaxy: The Neighbor,” a glittering photograph of the closest large spiral galaxy to our own Milky Way galaxy, captured by 14-year-olds Yang Hanwen and Zhou Zezhen of China. Their image won the Young Photographer category. Slovakian photographer Filip Hrebenda took the top prize in the Aurorae category with a photograph of a brilliant green aurora rising over an ice-studded Icelandic lake. Martin Lewis, from the U.K. won the Moon category with a stark image of shadows sprawling across a large crater known as Plato on the moon’s surface.
The International Space Station (ISS) looks like a toy in American photographer Andrew McCarthy’s winning People and Space entry. McCarthy captured the ISS silhouetted against the Sea of Tranquility — a dark, basaltic plane on the face of the moon, and the site of the first crewed lunar landing. Meanwhile, sunspots speckle the solar surface in “A Year in the Sun,” which shows how these cool zones on the sun’s surface drift over the course of a year. Indian photographer Soumyadeep Mukherjee took top prize in the Sun category for that image.
Zihui Hu of China won the Skyscapes category with a shot contrasting snowy peaks with stars streaking across the night sky. Utkarsh Mishra of India, Michael Petrasko of the U.S. and Muir Evenden of the U.S. captured a shot of an unearthly orange galactic disc in their winning photograph in the Galaxies category. Finally, space seems to be looking back at the viewer in Weitang Liang’s “The Eye of God” — a fiery image of the Helix Nebula that topped the Stars and Nebulae category.
A full gallery of the winners and runners-up can be seen at the Royal Museums Greenwich’s contest website. The photographs will also be displayed at the National Maritime Museum in London starting Sept. 17.
What’s in a head? According to new research, a little bit of our ancestors’ tails.
In the early days of complex, multicellular life on Earth, animals started out without any spines or brains. They only had a network of neurons spread throughout their body. Over the course of millions of years, however, that system somehow became concentrated on one end. But how?
Tunicates, or ‘sea squirts’, are the closest living relatives of vertebrates, and they don’t have a true head.
Their central nervous system is instead made up of clumps of neurons in the anterior and posterior parts of their body, with a dorsal strand connecting them both. As adults, these animals look like stagnant sponge-like blobs, with no clear head or tail. But as tadpole-like larvae, their cerebrum is easier to make out.
“Tunicates are like an evolutionary prototype for vertebrates,” explains zoologist Ute Rothbächer from the University of Innsbruck in Austria. “Our common ancestor was probably very similar to a tunicate larva.”
PIC Tunicate tadpole showing bipolar tail neurons (green). (The University of Innsbruck)
Not all evolutionary scientists agree with this: It’s a contentious area of research. But Rothbächer and his colleagues have recently found evidence to support their ideas.
Their research has found Hmx genes, which encode for a pair of neurons in a tunicate tadpole’s tail, are related to the genes that encode for clumps of neurons in a lamprey’s head.
Lampreys are considered ‘living fossils’ because they have been around for so long with little change to their species. These marine animals are some of the first vertebrates, and they look sort-of like eels.
The evolutionary jump from tunicate life to lamprey life was a big one, but the Hmx gene seems to have made it across the divide. Its effect is just slightly different among vertebrates.
When splicing the Hmx genes of a lamprey into a tunicate species called Ciona intestinalis, researchers found the gene helped drive the expression of bipolar tail neurons.
In lampreys, however, the same genes helped drive the expression of sensory neurons in the cranium.
Despite impacting nerves in different parts of the body, the similar function of Hmx genes in lampreys and tunicates suggests they have a common evolutionary origin and might have played a role in the centralization of the nervous system.
“Hmx has been shown to be a central gene that has been conserved across evolution,” says zoologist Alessandro Pennati, also from the University of Innsbruck.
“It has retained its original function and structure and was probably found in this form in the common ancestor of vertebrates and tunicates.”
The findings suggest vertebrate brains might have once been recycled from the apparatus of their ancestors millions of years ago. And now, here we are.
Tesla has kicked off deliveries of the Model S refresh with matrix headlights and updated tail lights. Images of customers taking delivery of the vehicle at the Fremont Factory have been posted online.
As could be seen in photos shared by new Model S owners on the private Model S Plaid & Long Range Facebook group, the updated flagship sedan features several subtle changes from the vehicles’ previous iterations. Most noticeable is the new Model S’ matrix headlights and revamped tail lights.
Since sightings of the updated Model S started getting reported a few months ago, Tesla enthusiasts immediately took notice of the car’s new charge port. A close look at the new charge port has been shared by new Model S owner Jacob Balthazar on Facebook, and based on the image, the updated part definitely has some interesting quirks.
The size of the new Model S charge port door has increased significantly. The classic LED ring found in older Model S chargers has also been retired. While the charge port area looks too big for Tesla’s sleek proprietary charger, it does have enough space for a CCS adapter.
The Model S’ updated charge door. (Credit: Jacob Baltazar)
The graphic badge featured in the first Model S Plaid deliveries last year at the Fremont Factory has been reinstated. The graphic “Plaid” badge should provide the flagship sedan with an extra flourish, a subtle sign that it is a family car that can likely smoke every supercar on the stoplight.
The Teslarati team would appreciate hearing from you. If you have any tips, reach out to me at [email protected] or via Twitter @Writer_01001101.
First Tesla Model S Plaid refresh with new headlights and tail lights delivered
When choosing between life and limb, many animals willingly sacrifice the limb. The ability to drop appendages is known as autotomy, or self-amputation. When backed into a corner, spiders let go of legs, crabs drop claws and some small rodents shed clumps of skin. Some sea slugs will even decapitate themselves to rid themselves of their parasite-infested bodies.
But lizards may be the best-known users of autotomy. To evade predators, many lizards ditch their still-wiggling tails. This behavior confounds the predator, buying the rest of the lizard time to scurry away. While there are drawbacks to losing a tail — they come in handy for maneuvering, impressing mates and storing fat — it beats being eaten. Many lizards are even capable of regenerating lost tails.
Scientists have studied this anti-predator behavior meticulously, but the structures that make it work remain puzzling. If a lizard can shed its tail in an instant, what keeps it attached in non-life-threatening situations?
Yong-Ak Song, a biomechanical engineer at New York University Abu Dhabi, calls this the “paradox of the tail”: It must be simultaneously adherent and detachable. “It has to detach its tail quickly in order to survive,” Dr. Song said of the lizard. “But at the same time, it cannot lose its tail too easily.”
Recently, Dr. Song and his colleagues sought to solve the paradox by examining several freshly amputated tails. They did not want for test subjects — according to Dr. Song, the N.Y.U. Abu Dhabi campus is crawling with geckos. Using tiny loops attached to fishing rods, they rounded up several lizards from three species: two types of geckos and a desert lizard known as Schmidt’s fringe-toed lizard.
Back at the lab, they pulled the lizards’ tails with their fingers, coaxing them into acts of autotomy. They filmed the resulting process at 3,000 frames per second using a high-speed camera. (The lizards were soon returned to where they were first found.) Then the scientists stuck the squirming tails under an electron microscope.
At a microscopic scale, they could see that each fracture where the tail had detached from the body was brimming with mushroom-shaped pillars. Zooming in even more, they saw that each mushroom cap was dotted with tiny pores. The team was surprised to find that instead of parts of the tail interlocking along the fracture planes, the dense pockets of micropillars on each segment appeared to touch only lightly. This made the lizard tail seem like a brittle constellation of loosely connected segments.
However, computer modeling of the tail fracture planes revealed that the mushroomlike microstructures were adept at releasing built-up energy. One reason is that they are filled with minuscule gaps, like tiny pores and spaces between each mushroom cap. These voids absorb the energy from a tug, keeping the tail intact.
While these microstructures can withstand pulling, the team found that they were susceptible to splintering from a slight twist. They determined that the tails were 17 times more likely to fracture from bending than from being pulled. In the slow-motion videos the researchers took, the lizards twisted their tails to cleanly cleave them in two along the fleshy fracture plane.
Their findings, published Thursday in the journal Science, illustrate how these tails hit the perfect balance between firm and fragile. “It’s a beautiful example of the Goldilocks principle applied to a model in nature,” Dr. Song said.
According to Animangsu Ghatak, a chemical engineer at the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, the biomechanics of these lizard’s tails are reminiscent of the sticky microstructures found on the tacky toes of geckos and tree frogs. “It has to be just the right balance between adhesion and detachment, because that allows these animals to scale steep surfaces,” said Dr. Ghatak, who was not involved in the study. He added that the animals’ feet were covered in billions of tiny bristles which themselves were composed of mushroom-shaped caps.
The researchers believe that understanding the process that lets lizards dump their tails could have uses for attaching prosthetics, skin grafts or bandages, and may even help robots shed broken parts.
However, Dr. Song is most excited to finally understand how the creatures on campus escape predators.
“This project was completely curiosity-driven,” he said. “We just simply wanted to know how the lizards around us cut their tails off so quickly.”
The omicron wave has crested, but health experts fear infections aren’t falling as fast as they had hoped.
The omicron variant fed Florida’s highest COVID-19 growth rate since the pandemic started nearly two years ago. In the last weeks of December, the state infection rate doubled every 4-5 days. When it peaked in mid-January, omicron was infecting an average of more than 65,000 Floridians a day.
Health experts then predicted that the highly contagious variant would rapidly burn through the state’s population and depart as quickly as it had arrived. But the omicron wave has stuck around longer than predicted, exhibiting what experts call a “fat tail” — meaning infections aren’t going down as fast as they went up.
This matters because as long as infection numbers remain at such heights, COVID-19 will continue to sickenmore people and strain healthcare resources for longer than expected. As of last week, COVID-19 was infecting an average of nearly 18,000 Floridians and sending more than 1,000 to the hospital each day, according to federal health data.
Related: Florida omicron deaths still rising, 2 more ‘stealth’ cases found in Miami
The secret to omicron’s success is an abundance of mutations that made the variant about 2.7 to 3.7 times more infectious than the delta variant in vaccinated households.
The mutations allowed it to evade many of the immune defenses that individuals had accumulated through vaccination or exposure, and made two of the most popular monoclonal antibody treatments ineffective. It also means that an omicron infection might not provide immunity from future variants.
Experts say the omicron variant appears to cause less severe symptoms than did previous strains, while still threatening the vulnerable and unvaccinated. But omicron has posed a different kind of problem through its sheer volume of cases: a record 1.9 million infections in just two months.
Related: USF, Tampa General studies ivermectin, other drugs to treat COVID
The silver lining that experts hoped for was that the variant would recede at the same pace that it arrived. Omicron isn’t doing that.
“Theoretically, epidemic waves are pretty symmetrical,” said University of Florida epidemiologist Thomas Hladish. That means cases generally go up and then down at the same rate.
To illustrate this idea, think of taking the daily case rate three weeks after cases reached a peak. If the wave is symmetrical, the case rate three weeks after the peak should equal those three weeks before cases peaked.
The delta wave that rocked the Sunshine State last summer fits this pattern. The wave peaked at 21,984 cases on Aug. 13, and after plateauing for more than a week, soon receded at roughly the same rate that it grew. Three weeks after the spike, delta was generating 16,500 cases a day — just 22 percent higher than expected based on the variant’s growth rate.
Keep up with Tampa Bay’s top headlines
Subscribe to our free DayStarter newsletter
We’ll deliver the latest news and information you need to know every weekday morning.
You’re all signed up!
Want more of our free, weekly newsletters in your inbox? Let’s get started.
Explore all your options
Had the omicron variant followed this pattern, case rates would have plummeted dramatically once the wave hit its apex. When the omicron wave peaked 32 days ago on Jan. 8 at 65,306 cases, it was generating the highest average daily case rate at any point in the pandemic.
If this wave was symmetrical, as previous waves have been, then by now cases should have fallen to fewer than 5,000 cases a day. Instead, Florida’s daily average was nearly 18,000 cases on Sunday, according to CDC data — nearly 270 percent higher than expected had the wave been perfectly symmetrical.
Similar patterns have emerged in the U.K. and, to a lesser extent, in South Africa, where the omicron variant first was detected. In both countries, elevated case counts linger more than a month after infection rates hit their peak, according to data collected by The New York Times.
Related: A disabled activist talks about feeling ‘disposable’ amid COVID
Hladish offered some theories as to why omicron has lingered longer than experts predicted. One is that the new BA.2 subvariant — dubbed “stealth” omicron — could be spreading far more widely than believed.
The new subvariant is about 34 percent more infectious than the original omicron strain, according to a recent Danish study. The virus can reach more people even faster than the original omicron, so the subvariant could already be replacing the variant as it fades.
Florida so far has recorded five cases of the BA.2 omicron variant, all from patient samples taken in mid-January. Given how quickly the new subvariant has spread elsewhere, Hladish said, it already could account for a substantial number of cases in Florida at this point.
Another possible explanation is that Floridians dropped their guard against omicron too soon. Scientists say omicron can produce milder symptoms than delta, and residents who heard that message may have stopped masking and social distancing sooner than they should have — or have stopped practicing pandemic precautions altogether.
”People will become concerned when the numbers are bad and take additional precautions,” Hladish said. “And then the peak has passed and things are improving, and they may actually cause the wave to draw out.”
Related: COVID shots for infants, toddlers: What parents should know
They may also be following the cues of Gov. Ron DeSantis and Florida lawmakers, who do not support mask or vaccine mandates and have stymied local government officials, school districts and private employers from imposing their own pandemic rules.
Hladish said the virus may have finished going through the population of people who weren’t taking any precautions, who never stopped going to bars and restaurants and eating and drinking indoors. Now omicron could be making its way through whoever is left, those who wear masks, socially isolate and try to stay safe.
University of South Florida epidemiologist Jason Salemi is concerned about omicron’s “fat tail” and slow decline. But he said it’s too soon to tell which, if any, of Hladish’s theories will bear out.
Related: A different COVID-19 vaccine debate: Do we need new ones?
He raised another possible factor: Florida’s recent chilly weather forced residents indoors after omicron’s peak, and that could have made it easier for people to continue to infect each other.
But both Hladish and Salemi agree that omicron’s fat tail means Floridians will have to wait longer than expected for infections to return to safer levels. Last week the state’s positivity rate was 18 percent.
There are no blanket recommendations, Salemi said. But health professionals and the CDC stress that precautions like wearing masks and getting vaccinated and boosted remain essential to preventing infection and curbing viral spread, especially now that the ever more contagious BA.2 subvariant is out there.
“It’s a bad idea to let (precautions) go back to normal,” said Hladish, “it’s not the first time we’ve had to learn this lesson.”
Related: US death toll from COVID-19 hits 900,000, sped by omicron
• • •
How to get tested
Tampa Bay: The Times can help you find the free, public COVID-19 testing sites in Citrus, Hernando, Hillsborough, Manatee, Pasco, Pinellas, Polk and Sarasota counties.
Florida: The Department of Health has a website that lists testing sites in the state. Some information may be out of date.
The U.S.: The Department of Health and Human Services has a website that can help you find a testing site.
• • •
How to get vaccinated
The COVID-19 vaccine for ages 5 and up and booster shots for eligible recipients are being administered at doctors’ offices, clinics, pharmacies, grocery stores and public vaccination sites. Many allow appointments to be booked online. Here’s how to find a site near you:
Find a site: Visit vaccines.gov to find vaccination sites in your ZIP code.
More help: Call the National COVID-19 Vaccination Assistance Hotline.
Phone: 800-232-0233. Help is available in English, Spanish and other languages.
TTY: 888-720-7489
Disability Information and Access Line: Call 888-677-1199 or email DIAL@n4a.org.
• • •
OMICRON VARIANT: Omicron changed what we know about COVID. Here’s the latest on how the infectious COVID-19 variant affects masks, vaccines, boosters and quarantining.
KIDS AND VACCINES: Got questions about vaccinating your kid? Here are some answers.
BOOSTER SHOTS: Confused about which COVID booster to get? This guide will help.
BOOSTER QUESTIONS: Are there side effects? Why do I need it? Here’s the answers to your questions.
PROTECTING SENIORS: Here’s how seniors can stay safe from the virus.
GET THE DAYSTARTER MORNING UPDATE:Sign up to receive the most up-to-date information.
We’re working hard to bring you the latest news on the coronavirus in Florida. This effort takes a lot of resources to gather and update. If you haven’t already subscribed, please consider buying a print or digital subscription.
