'In This Dark Hour for the Iranian People,' Groups Demand Trump End Inhumane Sanctions Amid COVID-19 Outbreak

"Doing so would not just serve U.S. interests in helping contain the further spread of the virus, but would also be a powerful humanitarian gesture to the more than 80 million Iranians suffering under the pandemic."

by

Jessica Corbett, staff writer

Iranians wait to get prescription drugs at the state-run "13 Aban" pharmacy in Tehran on Feb. 19, 2020. Iranians had been suffering from scarce medicine supplies even before the new coronavirus COVID-19 broke out in the central city of Qom and spread, claiming several lives and fostering panic amid a shortage of face masks. (Photo: Atta Kenare/AFP via Getty Images)

More than two dozen U.S. organizations came together Friday to pressure the Trump administration to recognize the coronavirus pandemic as a "shared threat" and temporarily ease economic sanctions on Iran, one of the countries hardest hit by the disease with nearly 20,000 COVID-19 cases and over 1,400 deaths.

"With hospitals overrun and Iranian doctors struggling to procure necessary equipment, the U.S. must be part of the solution rather than part of the problem."
—Jamal Abdi, NIAC ActionThe National Iranian American Council (NIAC) Action and 25 other groups sent a letter to U.S. President Donald Trump, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, and Secretary of state Mike Pompeo which emphasized the importance of "global solutions" and explained that "easing sanctions is one simple step that can be taken to serve the interests of the Iranian people and public health across the globe."

The Trump administration has increasingly ramped up sanctions on Iran since the president ditched the Iran nuclear deal in May 2018. Pompeo announced the most recent wave of U.S. sanctions on the country Wednesday amid reports about how previous sanctions had already devastated Iran's economy and healthcare system, hampering the Iranian government's response to the deadly outbreak.

Wondering what to do to support the #Iranian people in the midst of the pandemic?

THIS! Demand that the US govt lift the draconian sanctions now! https://t.co/iy8hjAjFeU

— Azadeh Shahshahani (@ashahshahani) March 20, 2020

"To help stem the continued spread of the virus inside Iran and beyond, we urge you to issue a time-bound suspension of those U.S. sanctions that make it harder for ordinary Iranians to secure basic goods and services to weather the crisis," the groups' letter says. "Doing so would not just serve U.S. interests in helping contain the further spread of the virus, but would also be a powerful humanitarian gesture to the more than 80 million Iranians suffering under the pandemic."

The letter acknowledges that "some limited steps have already been taken, including licensing humanitarian trade with the Central Bank of Iran and encouraging foreign banks and governments to establish humanitarian channels with Iran," but calls for greater action. Specifically, the groups suggest suspending many of the sanctions "for a period of at least 120 days, including those sanctions affecting Iran's financial and oil sectors and its civilian industries."

Along with NIAC Action, the letter's signatories include CodePink, Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), Demand Progress Education Fund, Greenpeace USA, Institute for Policy Studies, Just Foreign Policy, MoveOn, Physicians for Social Responsibility, Ploughshares Fund, and Win Without War. Some organizations have been critical of U.S. sanctions on Iran more broadly and called for them to be permanently ended.

While most of the world is uniting to fight the #coronavirus, the US continues to act in its own self-interest by mercilessly tightening sanctions on countries like #Venezuela & #Iran.#COVID19 is a global challenge. We must unify in the name of humanity.https://t.co/X2ZFv90kS2

— CODEPINK (@codepink) March 20, 2020

In a statement accompanying the letter, NIAC Action executive director Jamal Abdi said that "the Trump administration's current unwillingness to significantly ease sanctions on Iran during this time of crisis is like rubbing salt into a gaping wound. With hospitals overrun and Iranian doctors struggling to procure necessary equipment, the U.S. must be part of the solution rather than part of the problem."

"As COVID-19 rips through country after country, Iran's experience has been particularly devastating," Abdi noted. "While advanced medical systems across Western Europe seem to be collapsing under the weight of patients infected with the virus, Iranians have had to contend with both their own government's negligence and crushing sanctions that slow the response and punish ordinary Iranians."

He added that "humanitarian assistance shouldn't come with strings attached, and we are all at risk from the pandemic regardless of nationality. We call on the administration to ease its sanctions policy so that all resources are available to fight the pandemic in this dark hour for the Iranian people."

This is a moral evil, potentially a crime against humanity: knowingly suffocating a country with a massive outbreak of a fatal virus from obtaining basic medical equipment: https://t.co/g8rRbmqdCn

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) March 20, 2020

The organizations behind the letter aren't alone in calling for a suspension of the sanctions. Russia and China—along with some U.S. lawmakers—have publicly pressured the Trump administration, and the Guardian reported Wednesday that "the U.K. is privately pressing the U.S. to ease sanctions on Iran to help it fight the growing coronavirus outbreak."

Trump's Deadly Sanctions Power Should Be Reined In

US presidents should not have the power to unilaterally wage economic warfare against civilian populations.

by

Alexander Main

Why is there so little tangible concern about the brutal "collateral damage" caused by Trump's economic sanctions? Photo: Justin Podur)

Much ink has been spilled over the potentially disastrous consequences of US President Donald Trump's impulsive and foolhardy foreign policy decisions. Trump's withdrawal from the Iran deal, his nuclear game of chicken with North Korea, the assassination of Iranian commander Qassem Soleimani and other reckless moves imperilling millions of lives have been roundly criticised by dozens of policymakers and editorial writers. 

But one particularly brutal set of White House measures that has already caused tens of thousands of casualties abroad has been ignored by most of Trump's critics. Since taking office, the president has unilaterally imposed a number of deadly, sweeping economic sanctions on Iran, North Korea and Venezuela. These sanctions have not, by any reasonable measure, advanced the president's stated foreign policy goals. They have, however, wreaked havoc and destruction in the lives of countless innocent human beings. 

In Venezuela, economic sanctions that Trump first imposed in 2017 and then vastly expanded in 2019, have resulted in increased disease and mortality and are estimated to have led to tens of thousands of excess deaths, according to a 2019 study by economists Mark Weisbrot and Jeffrey Sachs.

Trump's sanctions on Iran have severely limited the country's access to medicines and medical supplies, as Human Rights Watch has noted.

The media has generally failed to inform the public about the harmful impact of Trump's sanctions on innocent people.

His unilateral financial sanctions against North Korea have created critical obstacles for the work of international relief organisations, according to a recent study commissioned by Korea Peace Now. 

The media has generally failed to inform the public about the harmful impact of Trump's sanctions on innocent people. Hardly any of the many alarming reports on the economic and humanitarian situation in Venezuela, for instance, have mentioned the significant role of US sanctions in deepening the country's severe economic crisis and preventing recovery. As the coronavirus spreads through Southeast Asia and beyond, it will be interesting to see to what extent the media reports on how US sanctions are preventing North Korea and Iran from accessing vital medication and medical supplies needed to confront the epidemic.

Why is there so little tangible concern about the brutal "collateral damage" caused by Trump's economic sanctions? One likely explanation is that the US foreign policy establishment has traditionally supported sanctions, despite studies showing that they generally do not produce the desired political outcome.

As a Council on Foreign Relations backgrounder explains, "sanctions, while a form of intervention, are generally viewed as a lower-cost, lower-risk course of action between diplomacy and war. Policymakers may consider sanctions as a response to foreign crises in which the national interest is less than vital or where military action is not feasible."

The negative human consequences of sanctions are not immediately apparent and, when reports on sanctions-linked deaths emerge - as was the case in the early 1990s when economic sanctions were imposed on Haiti - they are often ignored. 

Fortunately, some US policymakers have begun bucking the cynical bipartisan consensus on sanctions and have been speaking out against their dire effects and lack of tangible results. In December 2018, fourteen members of Congress sent a letter to the administration seeking "answers regarding the humanitarian impact that recently imposed US sanctions are having on the Iranian people".

In March 2019, 16 members of the House signed a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo opposing Trump's economic sanctions against Venezuela and noting that they were having "lethal effects on innocent people" and were "contributing to the ongoing outbound migration of hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans". 

On February 12 of this year, Congresswoman Ilhan Omar decided to take decisive action to reign in the president's unilateral use of sanctions with a new bill entitled the Congressional Oversight over Sanctions Act (or COSA). Part of a bold new package of legislation aimed at promoting peace, human rights and respect for international law, COSA would amend the National Emergencies Act and the International Economic Emergency Powers Act, which - together - allow the president to order sanctions of all types without Congressional approval, simply by invoking a "national emergency", regardless of whether there is evidence of such a thing. 

Omar's bill establishes strict legislative control over the executive branch's use of sanctions by requiring Congressional approval within 60 days of the announcement of emergency sanctions powers - as well as requiring additional approval for the renewal of these powers every six months thereafter.

The legislation will also force a reckoning over the actual impact of sanctions by mandating studies on the impact of unilateral sanctions before and after their implementation. The US government would be required to report on whether sanctions advance stated goals and benchmarks. Importantly, the legislation would also require that the State Department report on whether or not presidential sanctions comply with the US's international treaty obligations; many international law experts would argue that they do not. 

COSA has already garnered strong support from a broad coalition of civil society groups. A letter urging members of Congress to co-sponsor the legislation and signed by over 40 groups that include faith-based organisations like American Friends Service Committee and United Church of Christ, Justice and Witness Ministries, peace groups like Veterans for Peace and Win Without War and think-tanks like the Center for Economic and Policy Research and the Center for International Policy. As the letter notes: "The power to impose sanctions (…) should not be in the hands of a single individual. Too many lives are at stake and there is too much potential for abuse or overuse."

As awareness grows around the injury and suffering resulting from sanctions imposed by Trump and his predecessors, we can hope that citizens and policymakers who support human rights, the constitution and international law will back COSA and any other effort to limit the president's power to unilaterally wage economic warfare against civilian populations. 

Alexander Main is Director of International Policy at the Center for Economic and Policy Research.

'Not Done Yet': Bernie Sanders Campaign Mobilizes Donors for Coronavirus Relief and Raises $2 Million

"The Bernie Sanders campaign puts its fundraising prowess to another purpose."

by

Eoin Higgins, staff writer

Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) takes the stage during a primary night event on February 11, 2020 in Manchester, New Hampshire. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

Sen. Bernie Sanders' for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination campaign's prodigious fundraising operation raised $2 million for charities helping those most affected by the coronavirus outbreak crisis in the last 48 hours in a move that supporters said exemplified the message of solidarity the Vermont lawmaker has run on.

"Bernie Sanders supporters have contributed more than $2 million in 2 days to charities helping people whose lives have been impacted by the coronavirus," tweeted political strategist Tim Tagaris. "Not done yet."

Bernie Sanders’ campaign says it raised $2 million in two days for Meals on Wheels, Restaurant Workers’ Community Foundation’s relied fund and other charities amid the coronavirus pandemic.

— Holly Otterbein (@hollyotterbein) March 21, 2020

The campaign mobilized staff and volunteers to text and call to raise money for five charities: Meals on Wheels, No Kid Hungry, Restaurant Workers’ Community Foundation COVID-19 Emergency Relief Fund, One Fair Wage Emergency Fund, and the National Domestic Workers Alliance. 

Robin Curran, the campaign's digital fundraising director, said in a statement that the money raised showed the importance of Sanders' "Not me, us" slogan.

"What we've seen in the last two days is the definition of 'fighting for someone you don't know,'" said Curran. "The people supporting this campaign have made more than 50,000 donations to help those most impacted by coronavirus because they understand that now more than ever it is important that we are in this together."

According to the campaign, there will be more efforts to raise money for the least fortunate affected by the crisis in the coming days.

The @BernieSanders' campaign puts its fundraising prowess to another purpose: It raised $2 million in 48 hours for five charities involved in coping with the coronavirus outbreak, the campaign announced Saturday.

— Janet Hook (@hookjan) March 21, 2020

Sanders has taken a leadership role on handling the crisis both in Washington and nationally. The senator has led online forums on the crisis and addressed the nation via virtual "fireside chats."

As Common Dreams reported Friday, Sanders' remaining rival for the Democratic nomination, former Vice President Joe Biden, has not been seen in days. 

On Friday night, during a roundtable on the outbreak, Sanders said that the crisis can only be solved by innovative thinking and extreme measures.

"In this extraordinary moment in American and world history, we have got to think outside the box in a way that we have never done," said Sanders. "This is an unprecedented moment and we have got to think in an unprecedented way."

EPA Proposes Broad Science Restrictions in Midst of Coronavirus Pandemic


At a time when seeking out and utilizing cutting-edge research is a life or death situation, the EPA is moving in the opposite direction. 

by Michael Halpern

What EPA is saying here is that it wants political control over what research is used in any of the agency’s work. Don’t let them get away with this without a fight. (Photo: EPA)

The Environmental Protection Agency moved today to restrict the types of research that can be used in public health protection decisions and scientific assessments. In the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, the agency is recklessly giving the public just 30 days to comment on this sweeping proposal. UCS developed a guide to assist you in making a public comment, and if you are able to do so, you should.

The “supplemental” proposal, which builds on a previous effort, would remove from consideration or downweight thousands of scientific papers by public health scientists when the raw data behind these studies cannot be made public. So while these experts are the front lines of the fight against COVID-19, treating patients, researching vaccines, and educating the public about staying safe, the EPA is trying to push this proposal through with as little criticism as they can get away with.

The American Public Health Association, the American Lung Association, and scores of other scientific organizations all strongly opposed the original proposal and urged EPA to withdraw it. Now, they will have to pull staff away from protecting our country to write extensive comments to stop the EPA from sabotaging itself. It’s a terrible diversion, but it’s one they must take.

In a letter sent this morning, we asked EPA to extend the comment deadline and hold virtual public hearings. The “supplemental” proposal is significantly broader than the original. According to EPA, it would apply not only to studies behind EPA decisions about vehicle emissions, clean air standards, and clean water protections, but also EPA’s own “state-of-science reports, technology assessments, weight-of-evidence analyses, meta-analyses, risk assessments, toxicological profiles of substances, integrated assessment models, hazard determinations, exposure assessments, or health, ecological, or safety assessments.”

The EPA has not articulated a problem it wants to solve. It faces no deadlines. But agency leaders see an opening. They feel compelled to carry out an idea hatched by tobacco industry lobbyists decades ago. The proposal was developed wholly by political staff. The EPA’s Science Advisory Board initially called it a “license to politicize” science and said that it would compromise the agency’s decision-making process.

Because this is written as a supplemental to the original rule, EPA will only take comments that address the changes made in the supplemental. Therefore, you should articulate how your comments respond to the document that was released today.

At a time when seeking out and utilizing cutting-edge research is a life or death situation, the EPA is moving in the opposite direction. What EPA is saying here is that it wants political control over what research is used in any of the agency’s work. Don’t let them get away with this without a fight. Commit to writing a public comment and we will provide you with the resources you need to be most effective. Note: the comment guide has been updated with a link to the public comment page on regulations.gov, which is now open.

 

Michael Halpern is the program manager of the Center for Science and Democracy at the Union of Concerned Scientists.

IT'S NO LONGER ABOUT ELECT ABILITY
Biden, Sanders both top Trump in general election: poll

The poll found that 48 percent of registered voters would cast their vote for Biden between Sanders and Trump, 48 percent of survey respondents also said they would choose the Vermont senator over the president. 

IT'S ABOUT MEDICARE FOR ALL

Both Democratic presidential candidates, former Vice President Joe Biden (D) and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), beat out President Trump in a new national poll.

The poll, released by The Economist and YouGov, found that 48 percent of registered voters would cast their vote for Biden "if an election for president were going to be held now" between Biden and Trump. 

Forty-one percent of voters chose Trump, and 4 percent responded that they would vote for "other."

Five percent of voters polled said they are not sure, and 2 percent said they would not vote.

In a race between Sanders and Trump, 48 percent of survey respondents also said they would choose the Vermont senator over the president. Forty-one percent said they would vote for Trump, while three percent said they would vote for "other" if given the option.

Six percent said they are not sure who they would vote for between Sanders and Trump, and 2 percent said they would not vote.

However, when asked "Who do you think will win the 2020 presidential election?" 49 percent of survey respondents said the eventual Democratic nominee, while 51 percent predicted that Trump will win another term in office.

Biden currently leads Sanders in the Democratic primary, 1,186 delegates to Sanders's 885. The former vice president made a direct appeal to Sanders's younger supporters earlier this week after sweeping victories in the Florida and Illinois primaries.

"Sen. Sanders and I may disagree on tactics, but we share a common vision for the need to provide affordable health care for all Americans, reduce income inequity that has risen so drastically, to tackling the existential threat of our time: climate change," Biden said in remarks via a livestream from his home state of Delaware.

"Sen. Sanders and his supporters have brought a remarkable passion and tenacity to all of these issues. Together, they have shifted the fundamental conversation in this country," he continued. "So let me say, especially to the young voters who have been inspired by Sen. Sanders: I hear you. I know what's at stake. I know what we have to do."

The polls between individual candidates were conducted among 1,129 registered voters and have a margin of error of 3.5 percentage points. The poll question asking "Who do you think will win the 2020 presidential election?" was posed to 1,500 U.S. adults. It has a margin of error of 3.2 percentage points. All polling was conducted from March 15 to March 17

What's that in the sky? It's a SpaceX rocket, but it sure doesn't look like it

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — Planetary nebula? Supernova remnant? No, this incredible image is actually a photo of a rocket launch. The rocket's exhaust combined with atmospheric effects emulates an image of a deep-space object.

A photographer captured the shot during the launch of SpaceX's 20th cargo resupply mission on March 6 as the Falcon 9 blasted off toward the International Space Station. Before the first-stage booster touched down at the company's landing zone, a short distance away, it created quite the spectacle.

"It's always amazing to see this phenomenon happen in real time," Erik Kuna, a spaceflight photographer for Supercluster, told Space.com. "But there's nothing like seeing the images captured afterwards in your camera's viewfinder. I'm always amazed at the detail and clarity."

Video: SpaceX rocket stage separation captured in amazing ground view

Related: In photos: SpaceX launches third batch of 60 Starlink satellites to orbit

Standing in a grassy field at NASA's Kennedy Space Center that night, I, too, watched as the Falcon soared into the night sky. Appearing as a bright orange fireball, the rocket turned night into day, while the roar of the engines washed over me.

It was cold and windy at the press site, but it was also a clear night. This meant that you could see the rocket as it went through the various stages of flight: liftoff, main-engine cut-off (MECO), stage separation, second-stage ignition and a series of three landing burns.

As the rocket executed these steps, a glowing cloud appeared in the sky, resembling a planetary nebula. The cloud pulsed and rippled as the rocket's engines burned through their fuel. In the cloud, you could see two bright dots that separated as the rocket's two stages moved farther away from each other.

The phenomenon is featured in a short video that SpaceX posted to Twitter following the launch. The company explained that the effect is produced following stage separation, when the two stages are each doing their own thing: the second stage is firing up and propelling the payload into orbit while the first stage is firing its engines to head back to Earth.


Erik Kuna captured an incredible view of SpaceX's CRS-20 cargo launch to the International Space Station. In this image the launch resembles a planetary nebula. (Image credit: Erik Kuna/Supercluster)

The result? A trippy-looking rocket "nebula." But this isn't a phenomenon unique to the launch earlier this month. Erik Kuna, has been enthralled by the nebula since he first captured a nebula shot during the CRS-17 launch last year.

According to Kuna, most launches can cause stunning light shows, it's just not always as pronounced. "It happens every launch, just some are more prominent than others," he told Space.com. "The best are SpaceX launches where the booster returns to land, but any launch will have some level of the phenomenon."

For instance, during twilight launches just before sunrise or sunset, the sun can illuminate the rocket's plume and make it look like a giant jellyfish in the sky. These launches are often confused for UFOs because of the weird squiggly clouds produced. (Spoiler alert: It's definitely not aliens.)

ULA's Atlas V rocket, carrying the AEHF-5 military communications satellite, launched at dawn on Aug. 8, 2019. The rocket's exhaust is illuminated by the sun, producing a jellyfish-shaped plume. (Image credit: ULA)

Nebula images require slightly different circumstances, however. First, you need a nighttime rocket launch and a booster landing, preferably touching down on land.

That's where the Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy come into play. SpaceX designed its Falcon family of rockets to be reusable, so after liftoff, the rocket's first stage conducts an aerial somersault, reorienting itself midair to return to Earth. Then, it gently touches down, either on land or on the deck of a floating platform at sea.

Return to land landings are best for nebula shots because their flight trajectories make the interactions between the first and second stage separation and the boostback burn more visible against the dark sky. "This creates a magical symphony of light and gases that mix into a canvas of colors and shapes, producing one epic photo," Kuna told Space.com

"During previous night launches, I noticed that we would see this atmospheric glow almost like auroras around the rocket exhaust," he said. "The rockets were producing these fascinating patterns that looked a lot like deep-space images."


The interactions between a rocket's first and second stages can produce a dazzling image reminiscent of a nebula in deep space, as seen in this image of a SpaceX cargo launch to the space station. (Image credit: Erik Kuna/Supercluster)

Kuna set out to capture the incredible phenomenon with photography, researching what kind of gear and settings he would need to use. Thanks to the ultrasensitive sensors in his camera and special light-gathering lenses, he was able to capture the stunning spectacle.

"The technique is kind of simple once you know your subject and understand what is happening," he said. For photographers who want to give it a try, he recommends a high ISO, a wide aperture and a slow shutter speed with a telephoto lens.

Kuna says there's a bit more to it than traditional launch shots, but that success really comes down to mastering basic concepts. Kuna was the first to capture the spectacle, but has seen a rise in the nebula's popularity ever since.


"I think it's been elusive for many because as photographers we are weary of things like noise [variations in brightness or color] or lack of sharpness in an image," he says.


But experimentation pays off. When he looked at his camera, he knew he had something special — the holy grail of launch shots: a rocket nebula.


"I had a picture (in my head) of what I thought a nebula looks like," Kuna said. "I started experimenting and finally captured it during that launch." He said his co-worker noticed the similarity to the cosmic cloud. "He leaned over my shoulder and said 'that looks like a freaking nebula,'" Kuna said. "I knew I got the shot." And the term "rocket nebula" was born.


So what do we see when looking at a rocket nebula photo? According to Kuna, in the CRS-17 photo, the first stage engine appears as a pinpoint of orange glow while the second-stage vacuum engine radiates out as a bluish purple web of light on the bottom.

"These two interact to form the image you see, both areas smashing into each other, wave after wave, creating a beautiful display in the dark sky," he said.

Each nighttime land landing, Kuna tries to photograph the nebula. So far, he's captured three: CRS-17, STP-2 (a Falcon Heavy mission) and now CRS-20. (The CRS-17 booster touched down at sea, not on land, but it was close enough to the launch site to produce the same effects.)

In this view of a SpaceX Falcon Heavy launch, the two stages are more pronounced, with the rocket's second stage producing the incredible purple spirals at the bottom of the image. (Image credit: Erik Kuna/Supercluster)

John Kraus, a local rocket photographer, had a different take on the CRS-20 nebula that was featured in NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD) on March 12. In it, he focuses more on the boostback burn, the first of three burns that the rocket conducts in order to land itself.

In his image, we see the Falcon 9's first-stage boostback burn arc up toward the top of the frame as the second stage continues on its journey to low Earth orbit, its own fiery trail visible below the boostback burn. In the background are expanding exhaust plumes from the rocket's two stages.


A closeup, long exposure look at Falcon 9’s boostback burn and second stage burn, and the resulting plume interaction between the two stages. Incredible. pic.twitter.com/ki1lnJL979March 7, 2020


This image is a hybrid between your typical "streak" photograph, a sort of time-lapse image, and a rocket nebula. Streak shots have historically been rocket photography gold if you frame your shot just right. That's because in one shot, a photographer can capture the entire launch, including the landing.


"I think [streaks] are an exciting way to sum up an entire launch — or in my case, a unique portion of it — in a single photograph," Kraus told Space.com.


Kraus and Kuna both say that planning a shot like this is very different from planning a streak.


"Nebulas and streaks are two different worlds," Kuna said. "One is about capturing a small amount of light through the biggest opening possible on your camera and focusing on a specific moment of the launch, while a streak aims to capture a large amount of light in a very small opening, usually through a wider lens during a long period of time to convey the rocket's motion."

"To think we would never see this sight if SpaceX didn't land its boosters; it's truly majestic and awe-inspiring," he said. "I can't wait for the Starship boostback!"

Whether you're trying a streak for the first time or a nebula or anything else, Kraus said to remember to try new things, you never know what you may capture.

Hunting for dark matter — inside the Earth


By Paul Sutter - Astrophysicist

The answer to the dark-matter mystery may be under our feet.


The Cryogenic Dark Matter Search is one of the most sensitive efforts to track down dark matter particles. But the best dark-matter detector may be Earth itself, a new study suggests.(Image: © SuperCDMS/Slac National Accelerator Laboratory)


Dark matter is a hypothetical component to our universe, used to explain many strange behaviors of stars and galaxies.

Despite the almost overwhelming evidence that dark matter does indeed exist, we still don't know what it's made of. Detectors scattered around the world have been operating for decades, trying to catch the faint trace of a passing dark matter particle, but to no avail. A new paper offers an alternative approach: dig deep.

Related: The 11 biggest unanswered questions about dark matter

We know that dark matter exists through a variety of astronomical observations. Stars are orbiting the centers of their galaxies too fast. Galaxies are whizzing around inside clusters too quickly. Massive structures in the universe are appearing too early.

As far as we can tell, there is much more to the cosmos than meets the eye — there is some form of matter that is entirely invisible to us. Whatever the dark matter is, it's a new kind of particle that doesn't interact with light, which means it doesn't emit, absorb, reflect or refract electromagnetic radiation. Which means we can't see it. Which makes it dark.

So far, the only way we know dark matter exists is through gravity. Despite its invisibility superpower, dark matter still has mass, which means it can tug and shape on the biggest objects in the universe, revealing its presence through the motion of the more luminous stars and galaxies.

On the other end of the scale, particle physicists have been concocting new particles as consequences for new theories of physics, and some of them fit the bill for what the dark matter could be. The most promising candidate is a particle known as a WIMP: a weakly interacting massive particle.

The "weakly interacting" part doesn't just mean the particle is feeble: it means that the dark matter does occasionally interact with normal matter through the weak nuclear force. But as the name suggests, the weak nuclear force isn't the strongest, and it has very short range, making these interactions incredibly rare.

Buried clues

But "rare" doesn't mean "never." It's thought that billions — even trillions — of dark matter particles are swimming through you right now. But since the dark matter hardly notices normal matter, and vice versa, you simply don't feel it. You have to go out to big scales before you start to see its gravitational effects.

Still, rarely (exactly how rarely is not known yet), a dark matter particle goes rogue and interacts with a particle of normal matter through the weak nuclear force. This involves a transfer of energy (i.e., the dark matter particle kicks the normal particle), sending the normal matter flying, something that we can, in principle at least, detect.

But since it's so rare and so weak, our detection attempts haven't proven fruitful. We need big detectors that take up a lot of volume (since the interactions are so rare, it's either build a giant detector or wait for hundreds of years to get lucky). What's more, we have to bury these detectors deep underground, the deepest going 1.2 miles (2 kilometers) below the surface. This is because there's a lot of subatomic nuisance going on: other high-energy particles, like neutrinos and cosmic rays, cause similar kicks, and we need to use lots of rock to absorb them before they hit the detector, ensuring that if we do see a signal, it's more likely to be caused by dark matter.

And so far, after decades of building ever-larger detectors and watching carefully, we haven't found squat.

Read more: "Searching for Dark Matter with Paleo-Detectors"

Fossil evidence

There's a limit to how big we can make a dark matter detector, based solely on engineering and cost constraints. But thankfully, according to a new paper recently appearing on the online preprint site arXiv, there's a gigantic dark matter detector that's been collecting data for millions of years.

And it's right under our feet.

The crust of the Earth itself serves as a massive dark matter detector. When stray dark matter particles interact with normal matter inside a rock, a proton or neutron can get knocked loose, changing the chemical composition of the rock in the vicinity of the impact site. This can potentially even send the particle flying, leaving behind a microscopic scar.

Even better, deep digs have access to portions of the Earth's crust over twice as deep as our current dark matter detectors, promising results even freer of confusion from cosmic rays and other nuisance particles. And since rocks stay as rocks for millions, and even hundreds of millions, of years, they've been recording dark matter interactions for all that time, far longer than we can ever hope to access in the lifetimes of our experiments.

So it's pretty simple: dig up a bunch of rock (preferably something pure, so it's easy to analyze) and look it over with a fine-tooth microscopic comb, looking for any signs of subatomic violence.

There is one catch, however. Earth rocks naturally contain some radioactive elements, and radioactive decays will give rise to similar features. To solve this, the researchers suggest digging into oceanic crust, which is much more pure than the stuff that builds continents. With this in hand, the researchers predict that we could have a super-detector within easy reach: even a mere kilogram of rock would beat the sensitivity of the world's current best detectors.

We just have to dig in.
It's official: Vera Rubin Observatory named to honor dark matter scientist
Did this newfound particle form the universe's dark matter?
Dark matter hasn't killed anybody yet — and that tells us something

Paul M. Sutter is an astrophysicist at SUNY Stony Brook and the Flatiron Institute, host of Ask a Spaceman and Space Radio, and author of "Your Place in the Universe." Sutter contributed this article to Space.com's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights.

Dark Matter and Dark Energy: The Mystery Explained (Infographic)

By Karl Tate April 03, 2013

Astronomers know more about what dark matter is not than what it actually is.

(Image: © Karl Tate, SPACE.com Infographics Artist)

Most of the universe is made up of dark energy, a mysterious force that drives the accelerating expansion of the universe. The next largest ingredient is dark matter, which only interacts with the rest of the universe through its gravity. Normal matter, including all the visible stars, planets and galaxies, makes up less than 5 percent of the total mass of the universe.

Astronomers cannot see dark matter directly, but can study its effects. They can see light bent from the gravity of invisible objects (called gravitational lensing). They can also measure that stars are orbiting around in their galaxies faster than they should be.

This can all be accounted for if there were a large amount of invisible matter tied up in each galaxy, contributing to its overall mass and rotation rate.

Astronomers know more about what dark matter is not than what it is.

Dark matter is dark: It emits no light and cannot be seen directly, so it cannot be stars or planets.

Dark matter is not clouds of normal matter: Normal matter particles are called baryons. If dark matter were composed of baryons it would be detectable through reflected light. [Gallery: Dark Matter Throughout the Universe]

Dark matter is not antimatter: Antimatter annihilates matter on contact, producing gamma rays. Astronomers do not detect them.

Dark matter is not black holes: Black holes are gravity lenses that bend light. Astronomers do not see enough lensing events to account for the amount of dark matter that must exist.

Structure in the universe formed on the smallest scales first. It is believed that dark matter condensed first to form a “scaffolding,” with normal matter in the form of galaxies and clusters following the dark matter concentrations.

Scientists are using a variety of techniques across the disciplines of astronomy and physics to hunt for dark matter:

• Particle colliders such as the Large Hadron Collider.
• Cosmology instruments such as WMAP and Planck.
• Direct detection experiments including CDMS, XENON, Zeplin, WARP, ArDM and others.
• Indirect detection experiments including: Gamma ray detectors (Fermi from space and Cherenkov Telescopes from the ground); neutrino telescopes (IceCube, Antares); antimatter detectors (Pamela, AMS-02) and X-ray and radio facilities.

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A jarring new chart shows America needs to immediately brace itself for historic unemployment
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US initial jobless claims could spike to a record 2.25 million this week as coronavirus-driven layoffs hit the labor market, according to Goldman Sachs.

"Many US states have reported unprecedented surges in jobless claims this week," the economist David Choi and his team said in a research note.

New claims for unemployment benefits increased last week by 70,000, to 281,000.
Goldman's forecast would mark an eightfold increase and more than triple the record set in 1982.

Goldman Sachs predicted that a record 2.25 million Americans could enter claims for unemployment benefits this week as coronavirus-driven layoffs hit the labor market. The outbreak has forced cities to shut down and prompted people to stay at home to combat the virus' spread.

"State-level anecdotes point to an unprecedented surge in layoffs this week," David Choi, one of the bank's economists, said in a research note. "Consumer spending on sports and entertainment, hotels, restaurants, and public transportation in particular have already dropped dramatically."

Unemployment filings last week jumped by 70,000, to 281,000, according to Labor Department data published on Thursday. Goldman's forecast of 2.25 million suggests it will increase eightfold this week, blowing past the record of nearly 700,000 set in 1982.


Fears about the coronavirus outbreak have decimated demand across industries such as airlines and hotels, and governments have scrambled to slow the spread by closing bars and restaurants and canceling events, leading to mass layoffs.

Choi and his team based their prediction on a surge in unemployment claims across 30 states this week. The New York State Department of Labor fielded 159,000 calls before noon on Thursday, nearly 16 times its typical daily volume. California, which typically receives 2,000 applications a day, was inundated by 80,000 on Tuesday, Gov. Gavin Newsom told The Sacramento Bee.

The Goldman economists cautioned that claims might tail off in the second half of this week or that they may have sampled states experiencing a sharper increase in claims. However, they added that "even the most conservative assumptions suggest that initial jobless claims are likely to total over 1 million."