Scientists have detected the most powerful cosmic ray seen in more than three decades. But the exact origin of this turbocharged particle from outer space remains a mystery, with some suggesting that it could have been generated by unknown physics. From a report: The puzzling cosmic ray had an estimated energy of 240 exa-electron volts (EeV; 10^18 volts), making it comparable to the most powerful cosmic ray ever detected, aptly named the Oh-My-God particle, which measured at around 320 EeV when it was discovered in 1991. The findings were published today in Science.

"It's amazing because you have to think of what could produce such high energy," says Clancy James, an astronomer at Curtin University in Perth, Australia. A cosmic ray, despite its name, is actually a high-energy subatomic particle -- often a proton -- that zips through space at close to the speed of light. In their ultra-high energy form, cosmic rays have energy levels that exceed one EeV, which is around one million times greater than those reached by the most powerful human-made particle accelerators. Cosmic rays with energies of more than 100 EeV are rarely spotted -- fewer than one of these particles arrive on each square kilometre of Earth each century.

Large earthquakes are always followed by aftershocks -- a series of smaller but still potentially damaging quakes produced as the ground readjusts. But how long does it take for the aftershocks to die out? A new study suggests some areas can experience aftershocks decades or even centuries after the original earthquake. From a report: In earthquake-prone areas it is hard to tell the difference between aftershocks and ordinary background seismicity. But recognising aftershocks is an important part of assessing a region's disaster risk. To understand how long aftershocks can persist, researchers turned to the stable continental interior of North America, where earthquakes are uncommon. Using statistical analysis they assessed the timing and clustering of quakes that followed three large magnitude 6.5 to 8 historical earthquakes: one near south-east Quebec in Canada in 1663; a trio of quakes around the Missouri-Kentucky border from 1811 to 1812; and an earthquake in Charleston in South Carolina in 1886. Their results, published in Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth, suggest that the Quebec quake in 1663 has likely shaken itself out, but to their surprise nearly a third of modern quakes in the Missouri-Kentucky area were most likely to be aftershocks from the 1811-12 event, and about 16% of recent quakes in the Charleston region are probably aftershocks from the 1886 quake.

Rahul Rao reports via Space.com: On Nov. 14, NASA picked up a laser signal fired from an instrument that launched with the Psyche spacecraft, which is currently more than 10 million miles (16 million kilometers) from Earth and heading toward a mysterious metal asteroid. (The spacecraft is at more than 40 times the average distance of Earth's moon, and still voyaging afar.) The moment marked the first successful test of NASA's Deep Space Optical Communications (DSOC) system, a next-generation comms link that sends information not by radio waves but instead by laser light. It's part of a series of tests NASA is doing to speed up communications in deep space, on different missions. "Achieving first light is a tremendous achievement. The ground systems successfully detected the deep space laser photons from DSOC," Abi Biswas, the system's project technologist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Southern California, said in an agency statement.

"And we were also able to send some data, meaning we were able to exchange 'bits of light' from and to deep space," Biswas added.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Phys.Org: The richest one percent of the global population are responsible for the same amount of carbon emissions as the world's poorest two-thirds, or five billion people, according to an analysis published Sunday by the nonprofit Oxfam International. [...] Among the key findings of this study are that the richest one percent globally -- 77 million people -- were responsible for 16 percent of global emissions related to their consumption. That is the same share as the bottom 66 percent of the global population by income, or 5.11 billion people. The income threshold for being among the global top one percent was adjusted by country using purchasing power parity -- for example in the United States the threshold would be $140,000, whereas the Kenyan equivalent would be about $40,000. Within country analyses also painted very stark pictures.

For example, in France, the richest one percent emit as much carbon in one year as the poorest 50 percent in 10 years. Excluding the carbon associated with his investments, Bernard Arnault, the billionaire founder of Louis Vuitton and richest man in France, has a footprint 1,270 times greater than that of the average Frenchman. The key message, according to Lawson, was that policy actions must be progressive. These measures could include, for example, a tax on flying more than ten times a year, or a tax on non-green investments that is much higher than the tax on green investments.

While the current report focused on carbon linked only to individual consumption, "the personal consumption of the super-rich is dwarfed by emissions resulting from their investments in companies," the report found. Nor are the wealthy invested in polluting industries at a similar ratio to any given investor -- billionaires are twice as likely to be invested in polluting industries than the average for the Standard & Poor 500, previous Oxfam research has shown.

An anonymous reader shares a report: In recent years, lots of American companies have gotten behind a potential climate solution called carbon capture and storage, and the Biden administration has backed it with billions of dollars in tax incentives and direct investments. The idea is to trap planet-heating carbon dioxide from the smokestacks of factories and power plants and transport it to sites where it is injected underground and stored. But the idea is controversial, in large part because the captured carbon dioxide would be shipped to storage sites via thousands of miles of new pipelines. Communities nationwide are pushing back against these pipeline projects and underground sites, arguing they don't want the pollution running through their land.

Now the U.S. Forest Service is proposing to change a rule to allow storing this carbon dioxide pollution under the country's national forests and grasslands. "Authorizing carbon capture and storage on NFS lands would support the Administration's goal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 50 percent below the 2005 levels by 2030," the proposed rule change says. But environmental groups and researchers have concerns. Carbon dioxide pollution will still need to be transported to the forests via industrial pipeline for storage, says June Sekera, a research fellow with Boston University. "To get the CO2 to the injection site in the midst of our national forest, they've got to build huge pipelines," Sekera says. "All this huge industrial infrastructure that's going to go right through." Sekera says building those CO2 pipelines may require clearing a lot of trees.

Misplaced concern about existential risk is impeding the opportunity to expand human potential, writes venture capitalist Vinod Khosla. From his op-ed: I was the first venture investor in OpenAI. The weekend drama illustrated my contention that the wrong boards can damage companies. Fancy titles like "Director of Strategy at Georgetown's Center for Security and Emerging Technology" can lead to a false sense of understanding of the complex process of entrepreneurial innovation. OpenAI's board members' religion of "effective altruism" and its misapplication could have set back the world's path to the tremendous benefits of artificial intelligence. Imagine free doctors for everyone and near free tutors for every child on the planet. That's what's at stake with the promise of AI.

The best companies are those whose visions are led and executed by their founding entrepreneurs, the people who put everything on the line to challenge the status quo -- founders like Sam Altman -- who face risk head on, and who are focused -- so totally -- on making the world a better place. Things can go wrong, and abuse happens, but the benefits of good founders far outweigh the risks of bad ones. [...] Large, world-changing vision is axiomatically risky. It can even be scary. But it is the sole lever by which the human condition has improved throughout history. And we could destroy that potential with academic talk of nonsensical existential risk in my view.

There is a lot of benefit on the upside, with a minuscule chance of existential risk. In that regard, it is more similar to what the steam engine and internal combustion engine did to human muscle power. Before the engines, we had passive devices -- levers and pulleys. We ate food for energy and expended it for function. Now we could feed these engines oil, steam and coal, reducing human exertion and increasing output to improve the human condition. AI is the intellectual analog of these engines. Its multiplicative power on expertise and knowledge means we can supersede the current confines of human brain capacity, bringing great upside for the human race.

I understand that AI is not without its risks. But humanity faces many small risks. They range from vanishingly small like sentient AI destroying the world or an asteroid hitting the earth, to medium risks like global biowarfare from our adversaries, to large and looming risks like a technologically superior China, cyberwars and persuasive AI manipulating users in a democracy, likely starting with the U.S.'s 2024 elections.

The world is on track for a "hellish" 3C of global heating, the UN has warned before the crucial Cop28 climate summit that begins next week in the United Arab Emirates. From a report: The report found that today's carbon-cutting policies are so inadequate that 3C of heating would be reached this century. Temperature records have already been obliterated in 2023 and intensifying heatwaves, floods and droughts have taken lives and hit livelihoods across the globe, in response to a temperature rise of 1.4C to date. Scientists say far worse is to come if temperatures continue to rise. The secretary general of the UN, Antonio Guterres, has said repeatedly the world is heading for a "hellish" future.

The UN Environment Programme (Unep) report said that implementing future policies already promised by countries would shave 0.1C off the 3C limit. Putting in place emissions cuts pledged by developing countries on condition of receiving financial and technical support would cut the temperature rise to 2.5C, still a catastrophic scenario. To get on track for the internationally agreed target of 1.5C, 22bn tonnes of CO2 must be cut from the currently projected total in 2030, the report said. That is 42% of global emissions and equivalent to the output of the world's five worst polluters: China, US, India, Russia and Japan.

Bill Gates argues that when it comes to climate change, "there are more reasons to be hopeful than many people realize — and it's not just that renewable energy sources like wind and solar are getting cheaper.

"And it's not just because many of the steps already taken to reduce carbon emissions are working: Carbon emissions from fossil fuels will probably peak in 2025." The main thing that makes me optimistic is all the innovation I'm seeing. As someone who has been funding climate solutions for years, I get to learn from ingenious scientists who are working on ideas that will help the world solve climate change. And their work makes me confident that innovation will help the world get on track to meet its climate goals.

Some people are skeptical when a technology person like me says innovation is the answer. And it's true that new tools aren't the only thing we need. But we won't solve the climate problem without them.

There are two reasons for this. First, we need to eliminate emissions from every sector of the economy. Although some behavior change will help, the world can't achieve its zero-emissions goals without inventing new ways of doing things. For example, the production of concrete and steel alone accounts for around 10 percent of the world's annual greenhouse gases, but right now, we don't have practical ways to make either one without releasing carbon dioxide.

The second reason is that, in a world with limited resources, innovations allow us to magnify the impact of our efforts... We couldn't solve the climate problem with existing technology even if we had unlimited resources — and, of course, we don't have unlimited resources. So we need to be as rigorous as possible about doing the most good with the funding that is available. In my view, that boils down to inventing and deploying new ways to cut emissions and to help people survive and thrive in a warming world.
Gates believes we're at "the beginning of a Clean Industrial Revolution" --pointing readers to Breakthrough Energy's recent State of the Transition Report for more details.

But Gates also provides some specific examples of optimism-fuleing breakthroughs"

• "To reduce emissions, we need to replace the synthetic fertilizers that release nitrous oxide, a greenhouse gas, when broken down by microbes in the soil; Pivot Bio has genetically modified microbes to provide plants with the nitrogen they need without the excess greenhouse gases that synthetic alternatives produce."

• "Cement and steel are two of the biggest sources of emissions in this category. Boston Metal is well on the way to making steel with electricity (which can be generated without emissions) instead of coal. CarbonCure and Ecocem have developed low-carbon processes for making cement, and Brimstone has a way to do it while actually removing carbon from the air."

• "Because of inefficient windows and gaps in what's known as the building envelope, as much as 40% of heated or cooled air leaks out of the typical building. If we can drive that number down, buildings will require less heating and cooling — which will substantially lower our emissions. Aeroseal has developed a polymer that can seal ducts and other crevices; more than a quarter of a million buildings in the U.S. and Canada are already using their product. Another company, Luxwall, has developed a window that's many times more efficient than the single-pane windows used in most buildings. And unlike double-paned windows, it's thin enough to replace single-paned glass without having to rebuild the frame."

CNN reports SpaceX made a second attempt to successfully launch Starship, the most powerful rocket ever constructed. The uncrewed rocket took off just after 7 a.m. CT (8 a.m. ET). The rocket took off as intended, making it roughly 8 minutes into flight before SpaceX confirmed it had to intentionally explode the Starship spacecraft as it flew over the ocean...

This mission comes after months of back-and-forth with federal regulators as SpaceX has awaited a launch license. The company is also grappling with pushback from environmentalists...

After separating from the Super Heavy rocket booster, the Starship spacecraft soared to an altitude of approximately 93 miles (150 kilometers) before SpaceX lost contact, according to a statement issued by the company. For context, the U.S. government considers 50 miles (80 kilometers) above Earth's surface the edge of outer space...

SpaceX is OK with rockets exploding in the early stages of development. That's because the company uses a completely different approach to rocket design than, say, NASA. The space agency focuses on building one rocket and strenuously designing and testing it on the ground before its first flight — taking years but all but guaranteeing success on the first launch. SpaceX, however, rapidly builds new prototypes and is willing to test them to their breaking point because there's usually a spare nearby. During a drive by the company's facilities on Friday — four Starship spacecraft and at least two Super Heavy boosters could be seen from public roadways.
CNN reminds readers that "so far in 2023 alone, the Falcon 9 has launched more than 70 spaceflights...

"Elon Musk described Starship as the vehicle that underpins SpaceX's founding purpose: sending humans to Mars for the first time. NASA has its own plans for the rocket."

"At least 44,500 space objects now circle Earth," reports the New York Times magazine, "including 9,000 active satellites and 19,000 significant pieces of debris."

The article notes a threat assessment from U.S. Space Force Chief Master Sergeant Ron Lerch: What's most concerning isn't the swarm of satellites but the types. "We know that there are kinetic kill vehicles," Lerch said — for example, a Russian "nesting doll" satellite, in which a big satellite releases a tiny one and the tiny one releases a mechanism that can strike and damage another satellite. There are machines with the ability to cast nets and extend grappling hooks, too. China, whose presence in space now far outpaces Russia's, is launching unmanned "space planes" into orbit, testing potentially unbreakable quantum communication links and adding A.I. capabilities to satellites.

An intelligence report, Lerch said, predicted the advent, within the next decade, of satellites with radio-frequency jammers, chemical sprayers and lasers that blind and disable the competition. All this would be in addition to the cyberwarfare tools, electromagnetic instruments and "ASAT" antisatellite missiles that already exist on the ground. In Lerch's assessment, space looked less like a grand "new ocean" for exploration — phrasing meant to induce wonder that has lingered from the Kennedy administration — and more like a robotic battlefield, where the conflicts raging on Earth would soon extend ever upward.
One interesting detail from the article. "[I]f a requirement to 'blind and deafen' an enemy's satellites were to arise from U.S. Space Command, the Space Force could help fulfill the order. The means would most likely not be "kinetic" — some form of physical or explosive contact — but electronic, a weapon of code-related stealth, or perhaps a kind of debilitating high-energy burst."

And Space Force's highest-ranking officer, General Chance Saltzman, describes the kind of new military calculations made, for example, when Ukraine moved its communications to Starlink satellites: "The Russians are trying to interrupt it," he said, "and they're not having very good success." And the takeaway is that proliferated systems of many small machines in low orbit can be more technologically resilient to hacking and disruption than a few big machines in higher orbits... [W]hile small satellites in a large configuration could potentially be a more expensive investment than two or three megasatellites, the shift could be worthwhile. If an adversary believes that it cannot achieve a military objective, Saltzman remarked, it will hesitate to cross "a threshold of violence." No conflicts. No debris. No crisis.

The newly updated U.S. Department of Agriculture's "plant hardiness zone map" has gardeners across the nation researching what new plants they can grow in their warming regions, as the 2023 map is about 2.5 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than the 2012 map. NPR reports: This week the map got its first update in more than a decade, and the outlook for many gardens looks warmer. The 2023 map is about 2.5 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than the 2012 map across the contiguous U.S., says Chris Daly, director of the PRISM Climate Group at Oregon State University that jointly developed the map with the USDA. Daly says the new map means about half the country has shifted into a new half zone and half hasn't. In some locations, people may find they can grow new types of flowers, fruits, vegetables and plants.

Daly says he is hesitant to explicitly attribute the specific changes from the 2012 map to the 2023 map to climate change because of the volatility of the key statistic they used to create this map. They were mapping "the coldest night of the year, each year, over the past 30 years", Daly says, and it's a highly variable figure. In an email, a press officer for the USDA says, "Changes to plant hardiness zones are not necessarily reflective of global climate change because of the highly variable nature of the extreme minimum temperature of the year." But Daly says, in the big picture, climate change is playing a role in changing what grows where in the US: "Over the long run, we will expect to see a slow shifting northward of zones as climate change takes hold."

After months of wrangling, the European Commission says it has decided to renew the license for the weedkiller compound glyphosate, approving its use in European Union countries for ten more years. From a report: Following the decision yesterday, the Commission released a statement saying that, on the basis of comprehensive safety assessments carried out by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) and the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA), it would renew the licence, "subject to certain new conditions and restrictions." These include a ban on the use of the chemical to dry crops before harvest, and "the need for certain measures to protect non-target organisms." Governments can still restrict the use of glyphosate in their own countries if they consider the risks too high, particularly in regard to the need to protect biodiversity, the statement added.

Glyphosate is the active ingredient in Roundup, the world's most widely used herbicide. Over the years, a debate has developed about whether the chemical is safe to use on food crops, as well as its possible environmental impacts. Some studies point to a link between glyphosate and certain cancers; others suggest that the way in which it is used should not harm consumers. Glyphosate has been investigated extensively by food- and chemicals-safety agencies, but disagreements among researchers remain. The license allowing glyphosate's use in the EU was last renewed for five years in 2017. Ahead of the authorization's expiry in last December, the European Union temporarily extended it for another year to allow the EFSA to assess some 2,400 studies about the compound and to make a recommendation to governments.

Richard Speed reports via The Register: Scientists have revealed how data from a NASA telescope was secured thanks to creative thinking and a batch of Raspberry Pi computers. The telescope was the Super Pressure Balloon Imaging Telescope (SuperBIT), launched on April 16, 2023, from Wanaka Airport in New Zealand. The telescope was raised to approximately 33km in altitude by NASA's 532,000-cubic-meter (18.8-million-cubic-foot) balloon and, above circa 99.5 percent of the Earth's atmosphere, it spent over a month circumnavigating the globe and acquiring observations of astronomical objects. The plan had been for the payload to transmit its data to the ground using SpaceX's Starlink constellation and the US Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System (TDRSS). However, the Starlink connection went down soon after launch, on May 1, and the TDRSS connection became unstable on May 24. The boffins decided to attempt a landing on May 25 due to poor communications and concerns the balloon might be pulled away from further land crossings by weather.

The telescope itself was destroyed during the landing; it was dragged along the ground for 3km by a parachute that failed to detach, leaving a trail of debris in its wake. Miraculously, though, SuperBIT's solid-state drive was recovered intact. However, other than as a reference, its data was not needed thanks to the inclusion of Raspberry Pi-powered hardware in the form of four Data Recovery System (DRS) capsules. Each capsule included a Raspberry Pi 3B and 5TB of solid-state storage. A parachute, a Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) receiver, and an Iridium short-burst data transceiver were also included so the hardware could report its location to the recovery team. The capsules were connected to the main payload via Ethernet, and 24V DC was also available.

The plan had been to release the first DRS capsule on day 40, and then another every 20 days after that, whenever SuperBIT passed over land. However, when it became clear that SuperBIT would have to come down on May 25, it was decided to drop two DRS capsules over Argentina's Santa Cruz Province. Both of the DRS capsules released were recovered from their reported locations -- a curious cougar apparently nosed around one of them without causing damage -- and the data was fully intact. Of the unreleased DRS capsules, one failed for unknown reasons at launch -- the team speculated that perhaps a cable came loose -- but the other also contained an intact data set.

Nasa's James Webb space telescope has revealed a planet where specks of sand fall as rain, in groundbreaking observations. From a report: The planet, Wasp-107b, lies 200 light years away in the Virgo constellation and had already caught the attention of astronomers because it is very large but very light, earning it the nickname the "candy floss" planet. The latest observations give an unprecedented glimpse of a strange and exotic world beyond our solar system that features silicate sand clouds and rain, scorching temperatures, raging winds and the distinct burnt-matches scent of sulphur dioxide. "Our knowledge of other planets is based on what we know from Earth," said Prof Leen Decin, of the Catholic Institute (KU) Leuven and first author of the research. "That's a very restricted knowledge."

The planet was discovered in 2017 after astronomers spotted a telltale periodic flickering of light from its host star each time the planet passed in front of it. "It's like a fly in front of a street lamp," said Decin. "You see a slight dimming of the light." James Webb takes these observations to the next level by measuring starlight that is filtered through the planet's atmosphere. Because different elements absorb different wavelengths of light, the spectrum of starlight indicates which gases are present. Wasp-107b is similar in mass to Neptune but almost the size of Jupiter, and its vast, diffuse nature allows the James Webb telescope to peer deep into its atmosphere.

The EU has struck a deal that will force the fossil fuel industry to rein in dangerous methane pollution. From a report: Under the proposed law, which is the first of its kind, coal, oil and gas companies would be required to report their methane emissions and take steps to avoid them. The measures include finding and fixing leaks, and limiting wasteful practices such as venting and flaring gas by 2027. Jutta Paulus, a German MEP with the Green grouping who worked on the proposal, said: "Finally, the EU tackles the second most important greenhouse gas with ambitious measures. Less methane emissions mean more climate protection and more energy sovereignty."

Methane has more than 80 times the global heating power of carbon dioxide over a 20-year timespan but does not last as long in the atmosphere. Cutting methane emissions is seen as a cheap and easy way to stop extreme weather growing more violent in the short-term. The new EU rules, which were agreed on Wednesday by the European parliament and European Council, mean fossil fuel companies must try to repair leaks no more than five days after finding them, and fully fix them within a month. By the end of next year, operators will have to survey their existing sites and submit action plans to find and fix methane leaks.

Airbus has launched an innovative "detumbler" device designed to mitigate the risks posed by tumbling satellites in space. Space Daily reports: The Detumbler, a brainchild of Airbus and supported by the French Space Agency CNES under their Tech4SpaceCare initiative, was unveiled on Saturday, November 11. This magnetic damping device, weighing approximately 100 grams, is engineered to be attached to satellites nearing the end of their operational lives. Its purpose is to prevent these satellites from tumbling, a common issue in orbital flight dynamics, especially in LEO. The device features a central rotor wheel and magnets that interact with the Earth's magnetic field, effectively damping unwanted motion.

Airbus' development of the Detumbler commenced in 2021. Its operational principle is simple yet innovative. When a satellite functions normally, the rotor behaves akin to a compass, aligning with the Earth's magnetic field. However, if the satellite begins to tumble, the movement of the rotor induces eddy currents, creating a friction torque that dampens this motion. The design of the Detumbler involves a stator housing, complete with a bottom plate and top cover, along with the rotor comprising the central axle, rotor wheel, and magnets.

Tumbling satellites, particularly those in LEO, pose a significant challenge for future active debris removal missions. Dead satellites naturally tend to tumble due to orbital flight dynamics. The introduction of the Airbus Detumbler could revolutionize this scenario, making satellites easier to capture during debris-clearing missions and enhancing the overall safety and sustainability of space operations. Airbus is expected to perform an in-orbit demonstration of the Detumbler in early 2024.

A tool bag that astronauts accidentally let float away during a routine spacewalk at the International Space Station is now orbiting Earth and can be seen with a pair of binoculars. NBC News reports: The bag drifted away from the space station this month when NASA astronauts Jasmin Moghbeli and Loral O'Hara were performing maintenance on the exterior of the orbiting outpost. "During the activity, one tool bag was inadvertently lost," NASA officials wrote Nov. 1 in a blog post detailing the outcome of the spacewalk. "Flight controllers spotted the tool bag using external station cameras. The tools were not needed for the remainder of the spacewalk."

The bag is now circling the planet in low-Earth orbit, but NASA said there's little danger of the tools hitting the International Space Station. "Mission Control analyzed the bag's trajectory and determined that risk of recontacting the station is low and that the onboard crew and space station are safe with no action required," the agency said in the blog post. For now then, the lost tool bag has become a new artificial "star" in the night sky. The tool bag is orbiting about a minute ahead of the space station and may be bright enough to see with a pair of binoculars. "Skywatchers who want to try to spot the tool bag in orbit should head out on a clear night and first determine when the International Space Station is passing overhead," reports NBC News. "The tool bag will likely remain visible in the night sky for a few months, before its orbit slowly degrades and it eventually falls toward Earth."

You can track the ISS via NASA's Spot the Station website.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the New York Times: On Oct. 9, 2022, telescopes in space picked up a jet of high energy photons careening through the cosmos toward Earth, evidence of a supernova exploding 1.9 billion light-years away. Such events are known as gamma ray bursts, and astronomers who have continued studying this one said it was the "brightest of all time." Now, a team of scientists have discovered that this burst caused a measurable change in the number of ionized particles found in Earth's upper atmosphere, including ozone molecules, which readily absorb harmful solar radiation.

"The ozone was partially depleted -- was destroyed temporarily," said Pietro Ubertini, an astronomer at the National Institute of Astrophysics in Rome who was involved in discovering the atmospheric event. The effect was detectable for just a few minutes before the ozone repaired itself, so it was "nothing serious," Dr. Ubertini said. But had the supernova occurred closer to us, he said, "it would be a catastrophe." The discovery, reported Tuesday in a paper published in the journal Nature Communications, demonstrates how even explosions that occur far from our solar system can influence the atmosphere, which can be used as a giant detector for extreme cosmic phenomena.

To study the effects of last year's gamma ray burst on Earth, Dr. Ubertini and his colleagues looked for signals at the top of the ionosphere using data from the China Seismo-Electromagnetic Satellite, an orbiter designed to study changes in the atmosphere during earthquakes. They identified a sharp jump in the electric field at the top of the ionosphere, which they correlated to the gamma ray burst signal measured by the European Space Agency's International Gamma-Ray Astrophysics Laboratory, a mission that launched in 2002 to observe radiation from faraway celestial objects. The researchers found that the electric field rose by a factor of 60 as gamma rays ionized (essentially knocking away electrons from) ozone and nitrogen molecules high in the atmosphere. Once ionized, the molecule is unable to absorb any ultraviolet radiation, temporarily exposing Earth to more of the sun's damaging rays.

India's capital, New Delhi, is preparing a new weapon in the fight against deadly air pollution: cloud seeding. From a report: The experiment, which could take place as early as next week, would introduce chemicals like silver iodide into a cloudy sky to create rain and, it's hoped, wash away the fine particulate matter hovering over one of the world's largest cities. The need is desperate. Delhi has already tried traffic restriction measures, multimillion-dollar air filtration towers, and the use of fleets of water-spraying trucks to dissolve the particulate matter in the air -- but to no avail.

The use of cloud seeding, if it goes ahead, would be controversial. "It's not at all a good use of resources because it's not a solution, it's like a temporary relief," says Avikal Somvanshi, a researcher at the Center for Science and Environment in New Delhi. Environmentalists and scientists worry that most of the government's response is focused on mitigating the pollution rather than trying to cut off its source. "There is just no political intent to solve this, that is one of the biggest problems," says Bhavreen Kandhari, an activist and cofounder of Warrior Moms, a network of mothers demanding clean air.

[...] Now, Delhi officials are seeking permission from federal agencies in India to try cloud seeding. The technique involves flying an aircraft to spray clouds with salts like silver or potassium iodide or solid carbon dioxide, also known as dry ice, to induce precipitation. The chemical molecules attach to moisture already in the clouds to form bigger droplets that then fall as rain. China has used artificial rain to tackle air pollution in the past -- but for cloud seeding to work properly, you need significant cloud cover with reasonable moisture content, which Delhi generally lacks during the winter. If weather conditions are favorable, scientists leading the project at the Indian Institute of Technology in Kanpur plan to carry out cloud seeding around November 20.

In research published in Science today, Google DeepMind's model, GraphCast, was able to predict weather conditions up to 10 days in advance, more accurately and much faster than the current gold standard. From a report: GraphCast outperformed the model from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) in more than 90% of over 1,300 test areas. And on predictions for Earth's troposphere -- the lowest part of the atmosphere, where most weather happens -- GraphCast outperformed the ECMWF's model on more than 99% of weather variables, such as rain and air temperature. Crucially, GraphCast can also offer meteorologists accurate warnings, much earlier than standard models, of conditions such as extreme temperatures and the paths of cyclones. In September, GraphCast accurately predicted that Hurricane Lee would make landfall in Nova Scotia nine days in advance, says Remi Lam, a staff research scientist at Google DeepMind. Traditional weather forecasting models pinpointed the hurricane to Nova Scotia only six days in advance.

[...] Traditionally, meteorologists use massive computer simulations to make weather predictions. They are very energy intensive and time consuming to run, because the simulations take into account many physics-based equations and different weather variables such as temperature, precipitation, pressure, wind, humidity, and cloudiness, one by one. GraphCast uses machine learning to do these calculations in under a minute. Instead of using the physics-based equations, it bases its predictions on four decades of historical weather data. GraphCast uses graph neural networks, which map Earth's surface into more than a million grid points. At each grid point, the model predicts the temperature, wind speed and direction, and mean sea-level pressure, as well as other conditions like humidity. The neural network is then able to find patterns and draw conclusions about what will happen next for each of these data points.