Spinning spacecraft adds unwelcome twist to Starfish Space’s docking test mission

Alan Boyle
Wed, June 21, 2023 

In this clean-room photo, Starfish Space’s Otter Pup docking spacecraft is attached to the top of Launcher’s Orbiter SN3 space tug. (Launcher / Starfish Space Photo)

Starfish Space’s ambitious mission to test its on-orbit satellite docking system has taken an unfortunate turn — or, more precisely, an unfortunate spin.

The Tukwila, Wash.-based startup’s Otter Pup spacecraft was one of 72 payloads sent into low Earth orbit on June 12 by SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket for Transporter-8, a dedicated rideshare mission. Otter Pup and several other spacecraft were attached to Launcher’s Orbiter SN3, a space tug that’s designed to release piggyback payloads at different times.

Soon after Orbiter SN3 separated from the Falcon 9 upper stage, it experienced an anomaly that set it spinning at a rate on the order of one revolution per second, far outside the bounds of normal operating conditions.

By the time Launcher’s team made contact with Orbiter, fuel and power levels were critically low — and the team made an emergency decision to deploy Otter Pup immediately. In a joint statement issued today, Launcher and Starfish Space said that quick action “gave the Otter Pup mission a chance to continue.”

With assistance from Astro Digital and ground station partners, Starfish’s team contacted Otter Pup and determined that it was generating power — but was also spinning because of the circumstances of its emergency deployment.

Starfish co-founder Austin Link told GeekWire that the spacecraft, which is about the size of a dorm-room fridge, has drifted several kilometers away from its Orbiter mothership. “They’re still in the same orbital neighborhood,” he said.

Starfish’s mission plan called for Otter Pup to execute a series of maneuvers leading up to a rendezvous and docking with Orbiter. Such maneuvers would demonstrate that Starfish’s guidance and navigation system, electric propulsion system and electrostatic capture system all work in orbit as designed. But Link said the maneuvers can’t be done unless the spinning can be stabilized.

“We’re uncertain what the future for the vehicle is,” Link said. “It’ll be very challenging to de-tumble and arrest the momentum. There’s also a chance that things have been damaged by this rotation rate that would prevent us from being able to do the mission going forward.”

And as if that’s not challenging enough, Orbiter SN3 is no longer available as a docking target because of its own rotation rate. We’ve reached out to California-based Launcher, which was recently acquired by a space station startup known as Vast, and will update this report with anything we hear back.

“Otter Pup is still alive, but the mission is hanging on by a thread,” Link said.


In the months ahead, Starfish’s team will try to stabilize Otter Pup and determine the satellite’s health. Link said the primary method for reducing rotation relies on the spacecraft’s magnetic torque rods.

“These are effectively electromagnets that you can use to push off of Earth’s magnetic field to de-tumble the satellite,” he explained. “They’re designed for much lower rotation rates than what we’re experiencing now, but they may be able to make a difference.”

If Otter Pup is healthy, and if the rotation rate can be reduced, Starfish Space could look for other satellites in nearby orbits to serve as replacement docking partners. Or it could demonstrate its maneuverability without doing a docking.

“It’s going to be more of a challenge than what we wanted it to be for this Otter Pup,” Link said. “We’ll keep working to see if we have a chance to test out some of the key technologies for this Otter Pup, and we’ll also double down on other ways to test, both on orbit and terrestrially in the laboratory.”

If resurrecting the spinning Otter Pup is a lost cause, Link said “there are definitely scenarios where we would consider similar on-orbit demonstrations.” The important thing is to prove out the technologies so that Starfish’s team can move on to offering its customers a full-scale Otter docking craft to assist with satellite servicing or end-of-life disposal.

“It’s definitely not a mortal blow,” Link said. “The company’s fortunate to still be in a very strong position, with a great team and great technology and great customer interest. The on-orbit proof points for the technology are at the very least delayed, unfortunately, because of the position that Otter Pup was put in. But there are still a variety of paths forward for us to pursue. It’s still a really exciting future, and we’re really excited to chase after it.”

Starfish Space was founded in 2019 by Link and Trevor Bennett, both of whom previously worked as engineers at Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space venture. The startup has attracted a little more than $21 million in funding from investors including Munich Re Ventures, Toyota Ventures, PSL Ventures, NFX and MaC Venture Capital. It has also received a series of technology development grants from the U.S. Space Force and NASA.

More from GeekWire:

Starfish Space reveals ambitious plan to demonstrate satellite docking


SpaceX launch gives a big sendoff to Starfish Space’s satellite docking craft


Starfish Space raises $14M to advance development of satellite servicing vehicles


NASA awards millions to boost technology innovations created by small businesses

Launcher's Orbiter glitches in orbit, forcing emergency deployment of space startups' payloads


Image Credits: Launcher 

Aria Alamalhodaei
Wed, June 21, 2023 

Launcher's Orbiter spacecraft experienced an anomaly after reaching orbit that will likely result in the premature end of its customers' missions, including Starfish Space's Otter Pup demonstration mission.

Launcher and its customer Starfish Space released a joint statement Wednesday detailing what happened in the hours after the Orbiter spacecraft lifted off on SpaceX’s Transporter-8 mission earlier this month. While the spacecraft successfully separated from the launch vehicle, it experienced a software-related issue that induced a high rate of rotation. This issue, in addition to critically low fuel and battery levels, forced Launcher to make the “emergency decision” to deploy customer payloads earlier than anticipated.

As a result of the early deployment, Starfish’s Otter Pup demo satellite also started experiencing high rotation. While Starfish confirmed that its satellite is alive, the mission — in which Otter Pup was going to attempt to rendezvous and dock with Orbiter — will not be able to continue until the satellite is stabilized in orbit.

“Given the events experienced post-launch and the current state of the satellite, it is unlikely that Otter Pup will be able to continue with its mission,” Starfish said in a statement. “However, we will continue to try to save Otter Pup, and we are grateful for the continued support of our partners.”

Starfish co-founder Austin Link told TechCrunch that, as a first step, the company will attempt to reduce the spacecraft's spin rate using on-board torque rods — essentially electromagnets that push off Earth's magnetic field to affect attitude control and tumbling. From there, the company will need to run a series of check-outs to ensure that all the vehicle's components are still working properly.

"Are things still working on the spacecraft or are they just broken at this point, because we're really well outside of the bounds of what various pieces of hardware are designed or expected to see on orbit," he said.

He added that the Otter Pup is currently spinning at a rate of one full rotation per second, while spacecraft are generally designed to handle a spin rate of just one or two degrees per second.

"We're a couple orders of magnitude outside of the normal operation bounds," he said.

For its part, Launcher says it eventually lost contact with Orbiter due to “non-optimal solar array pointing,” but that it will continue to try to re-establish contact in case the spacecraft is able to charge its batteries again. Launcher said that it had already identified the likely root cause.

In addition to Starfish Space’s Otter Pup demo satellite, Orbiter was also carrying several other customer payloads, including cubesats from Innova Space and TRL11, a space startup developing video for in-space applications.

Although Launcher’s Orbiter mission was named SN3, it is actually only the second time the Orbiter Launcher has actually launched. The first mission, called SN1, took place at the beginning of January and also ended in failure due to an issue with the spacecraft’s power systems. Launcher is planning on sending up its third Orbiter mission in February 2024, followed by two more flights that year.

Launcher was acquired by Vast, a space station company founded by Jed McCaleb, in February of this year for an undisclosed amount.

TechCrunch has reached out to Launcher for additional comment and will update the story if they respond.

The story has been updated to include Starfish’s comments and to reflect that torque rods push off the Earth’s magnetic field.

Salty 'peanut' asteroid may reveal where Earth got its water

Robert Lea

SPACE
Thu, June 22, 2023


An infamous "space peanut" is fittingly salty: Tiny salt crystals have been found in a peanut-shaped asteroid, implying that the largest body of space rocks in the solar system may be richer in water than astronomers thought.

The sodium chloride crystals, which only could have formed in the presence of water, were discovered in the sample of asteroid Itokawa that was returned to Earth by Japan's Hayabusa mission back in 2010.

Scientists have long theorized that asteroids were one of the primary delivery methods of water, a vital ingredient for life, to our planet in its infancy. The team behind the discovery of the salt crystals said the find is interesting because Itokawa is an "S-type" asteroid , a type of space rock previously hypothesized to lack hydrated or water-bearing minerals. The finding suggests that a large group of asteroids orbiting the sun aren't as dry as scientists thought and that most, if not all, of Earth's water arrived via asteroid bombardment during the planet's violent early history.

Related: Water found in tiny dust particles from asteroid Itokawa

"The grains look exactly like what you would see if you took table salt at home and placed it under an electron microscope," Tom Zega, a professor of planetary sciences at the University of Arizona's Lunar and Planetary Laboratory and senior author of a new paper describing the discovery, said in a statement. "They're these nice, square crystals. It was funny, too, because we had many spirited group meeting conversations about them because it was just so unreal."

The team made the discovery by analyzing an Itokawa sample less than twice the width of a human hair collected by Hayabusa in 2005. From this tiny piece of space rock, the team extracted an even smaller sample about the size of a yeast cell.

It is the first time researchers have confirmed the presence of salt crystals that originated on the parent body of Itokawa and ruled out the possibility that they are the result of contamination, a problem that has plagued previous studies claiming to have found salt in meteorites of similar origins. By comparing before-and-after images of the sample, the team determined that the asteroid was unchanged during its time in storage, thereby ruling out the chance that it acquired the salt during this time.

"The terrestrial samples did not contain any sodium chloride, so that convinced us the salt in our sample is native to the asteroid Itokawa," said Shaofan Che, a postdoctoral fellow at the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory and lead author of the study. "We ruled out every possible source of contamination."

a black and white photo of a rocky asteroid

Water, water everywhere …

Samples from Itokawa are representative of a type of space rock called "ordinary chondrites," which come from S-type asteroids such as Itokawa. Ordinary chondrites make up almost 90% of meteorites discovered on Earth, but it is rare to find water-bearing minerals within them.

"It has long been thought that ordinary chondrites are an unlikely source of water on Earth," Zega said. "Our discovery of sodium chloride tells us this asteroid population could harbor much more water than we thought."

Most scientists agree that the solar nebula — the disk of gas and dust that surrounded the sun around 4.5 billion years ago, when the solar system planets were born — was too warm for Earth to contain water vapor that could condense from gas.

'In other words, the water here on Earth had to be delivered from the outer reaches of the solar nebula, where temperatures were much colder and allowed water to exist, most likely in the form of ice," Che said. "The most likely scenario is that comets or another type of asteroid known as C-type asteroids, which resided farther out in the solar nebula, migrated inward and delivered their watery cargo by impacting the young Earth."

The presence of water in this other family of asteroids via ordinary chondrites means that Earth might have gotten its water from much closer to the sun than previously thought.

"You need a large enough rock to survive entry and deliver that water," Zega said. "If it now turns out that the most common asteroids may be much 'wetter' than we thought, that will make the water delivery hypothesis by asteroids even more plausible."
Did Itokawa have a water parent?

Itokawa, which is about 2,000 feet long and 750 feet wide (610 by 229 meters), is thought to have broken off of a much larger parent body, and the team thinks frozen water and frozen hydrogen chloride may have accumulated in that object. The naturally occurring decay of radioactive elements in Itokawa's parent asteroid and frequent bombardment by meteors during the solar system's violent early era could have supplied enough heat to sustain hydrothermal processes involving liquid water, the researchers said.

"Once these ingredients come together to form asteroids, there is a potential for liquid water to form," Zega said. "And once you have liquids form, you can think of them as occupying cavities in the asteroid and potentially do water chemistry."

This bombardment would eventually break this larger body into smaller fragments, thus creating Itokawa, the team said.

Related stories:

—Earth's earliest water may have come from solar wind and space rocks

—Where did Earth get its water? It was sucked up from space, new theory says

—No asteroid impacts needed: Newborn Earth made its own water, study suggests

The scientists found a sodium-rich silicate mineral called plagioclase in the sample, suggesting that the salt crystal within Itokawa has been present since the early days of the solar system, when it was part of a larger body.

"When we see such alteration veins in terrestrial samples, we know they formed by aqueous alteration, which means it must involve water," Che said. "The fact that we see that texture associated with sodium and chlorine is another strong piece of evidence that this happened on the asteroid as water was coursing through this sodium-bearing silicate."

The research is described in a paper published June 12 in the journal Nature Astronomy.

Ancient galaxy reveals a surprising way to annihilate a star


International Gemini Observatory/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/M. Garlick/M. Zamani

CNN
Thu, June 22, 2023

During their quest to find the source of one of the brightest and most powerful explosions in the universe, astronomers discovered a new chaotic way that stars can die.

The bright flash of gamma-ray light was first detected by NASA’s Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory on October 19, 2019. The explosion lasted just over a minute — considered long, like any gamma-ray burst, or GRB, that lasts more than two seconds.

Most GRBs have been traced back to the collapse of stars with at least 10 times the mass of our sun or to the mergers between neutron stars — the dense remnants left behind when large stars explode.

But the October 2019 burst, named GRB 191019A, came from a different source, revealing a type of stellar death that had been theorized but never observed.


Astronomers believe the burst occurred when stars, or possibly the remnants of stars, collided within the densely crowded environment near the supermassive black hole at the center of an ancient galaxy. A study detailing the findings published Thursday in the journal Nature Astronomy.

“For every hundred events that fit into the traditional classification scheme of gamma-ray bursts, there is at least one oddball that throws us for a loop,” said study coauthor Wen-fai Fong, assistant professor of physics and astronomy at Northwestern University’s Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences, in a statement. “However, it is these oddballs that tell us the most about the spectacular diversity of explosions that the universe is capable of.”
How stars die

Over time, astronomers have observed what they categorize as the three main ways that stars can die, depending on their mass. Lower mass stars like our sun shed their outer layers as they age, eventually becoming dead white dwarf stars.

Massive stars burn through the fuel-like elements at their core and shatter in explosions called supernovas. These violent, destructive bursts can leave behind dense remnants like neutron stars or result in the creation of black holes.

A third form of star death results when neutron stars or black holes begin to orbit one another in a binary system and spiral closer to one another until they collide and explode. But astronomers may need to add a fourth scenario to the list.

“Our results show that stars can meet their demise in some of the densest regions of the universe, where they can be driven to collide,” said lead study author Andrew Levan, an astrophysics professor at Radboud University in Nijmegen, Netherlands, in a statement. “This is exciting for understanding how stars die and for answering other questions, such as what unexpected sources might create gravitational waves that we could detect on Earth.”

Gravitational waves, or ripples in space-time first predicted by Albert Einstein and initially detected in 2016, can occur when neutron stars or black holes collide.
Why ancient galaxies could hide star deaths

During their search for the origin of the gamma-ray burst, astronomers used the Gemini South telescope located in Chile to observe the afterglow of the cosmic explosion. Their observations pointed to a location less than 100 light-years from the core of an ancient galaxy.

But the telltale signs of a supernova were missing.

“The lack of a supernova accompanying the long GRB 191019A tells us that this burst is not a typical massive star collapse,” said study coauthor Jillian Rastinejad, a doctoral student of astronomy at Northwestern, in a statement. “The location of GRB 191019A, embedded in the nucleus of the host galaxy, teases a predicted but not yet evidenced theory for how gravitational-wave emitting sources might form.”

Ancient galaxies, which can be billions of years old, aren’t hubs of active star formation. But at their core, these older galaxies are filled with stars and remnants like white dwarfs, black holes and neutron stars. Compared with younger, more typical galaxies, ancient galaxies can have up to a million or more stars densely packed into their cores.

Astronomers thought it likely that stellar collisions could occur in these dense regions, especially so near to the strong gravitational pull of a supermassive black hole at the galactic center. The researchers liken it to a demolition derby, where the black hole’s gravitational influence can send stars zooming in different directions, eventually colliding in cataclysmic explosions.

But they had no evidence for any long gamma-ray bursts originating from ancient galaxies — until now.

If the chaotic environments at the center of ancient galaxies can result in stellar collisions that release bright, powerful gamma rays, why haven’t astronomers seen them before?

The researchers believe that the centers of such old galaxies are cloaked in vast amounts of gas and dust, which could obscure the gamma-ray burst. That would mean the 2019 event was an exception.

“While this event is the first of its kind to be discovered, it’s possible there are more out there that are hidden by the large amounts of dust close to their galaxies,” said Fong, who is also a member of the Center for Interdisciplinary Exploration and Research in Astrophysics at Northwestern. “Indeed, if this long-duration event came from merging compact objects, it contributes to the growing population of GRBs that defies our traditional classifications.”

Powerful cosmic explosion points to novel 'demolition derby' death for faraway stars

Mike Wall

SPACE
Thu, June 22, 2023 

artist's illustration showing a bright purple streak emanating from one arm of an orangish spiral galaxy

A faraway cosmic explosion is evidence of a never-before-seen type of stellar death, a new study suggests.

A gamma-ray burst (GRB) detected in a distant galaxy nearly four years ago was likely generated by a demolition-derby-style collision between two stars or stellar remnants, according to the study.

"These new results show that stars can meet their demise in some of the densest regions of the universe, where they can be driven to collide," study lead author Andrew Levan, an astronomer with Radboud University in the Netherlands, said in a statement. "This is exciting for understanding how stars die and for answering other questions, such as what unexpected sources might create gravitational waves that we could detect on Earth."

Related: What is a gamma-ray burst?

Gamma-ray bursts are the most powerful explosions in the universe, emitting in just a few seconds more energy than our sun will produce during its entire life.

There are two types of GRBs: short ones, which last for two seconds or less, and the long variety, which can go on for multiple minutes. Astronomers think short GRBs generally result from mergers between neutron stars, whereas long ones are usually spawned when stars at least 10 times more massive than the sun go boom in supernova explosions.

The newly analyzed burst, known as GRB 191019A, is a long one; it lasted a little more than a minute. It was first spotted by NASA's Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory in October 2019, in a galaxy that lies about 3.4 billion light-years from Earth.

Levan and his team studied GRB 191019A with the Gemini South telescope in Chile. These observations allowed the researchers to determine that the explosion occurred less than 100 light-years from the galaxy's center. And they saw no signs of a supernova in that area.

"Our follow-up observation told us that, rather than being a massive star collapsing, the burst was most likely caused by the merger of two compact objects," Levan said. "By pinpointing its location to the center of a previously identified ancient galaxy, we had the first tantalizing evidence of a new pathway for stars to meet their demise."

That new pathway is a random collision between two stars, or stellar remnants such as black holes or neutron stars (the superdense leftover cores of dead stars).

These objects are known to collide; for example, the LIGO project has detected gravitational waves generated by the spiraling together of black holes and neutron stars.

But these previously observed encounters are mergers between objects that once made up a binary pair. The hypothesized event behind GRB 191019A is something more random and chaotic — and there would be plenty of opportunity for such chaos near a galaxy's heart, according to the study team.

RELATED STORIES

— Brightest gamma-ray burst ever seen could help reveal how black holes are born

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In such environments, a million or more stars could be zooming through an area just a few light-years wide, according to officials with the U.S. National Science Foundation's NOIRLab, which operates the International Gemini Observatory, of which the Gemini South scope is a part.

"Such extreme population density may be great enough that occasional stellar collisions can occur, especially under the titanic gravitational influence of a supermassive black hole, which would perturb the motions of stars and send them careening in random directions," NOIRLab officials wrote in the same statement.

"Eventually, these wayward stars would intersect and merge, triggering a titanic explosion that could be observed from vast cosmic distances," they added.

The research team wants to find and characterize more events like GRB 191019A — ideally pairing visible-light data with a corresponding gravitational-wave detection. Such "multimessenger" observations would reveal a great deal about these enigmatic explosions, team members said.

The new study was published online today (June 22) in the journal Nature Astronomy.

Oregon county sues fossil fuel companies, alleging they caused deadly 2021 heat wave in Northwest


Evan Bush
Thu, June 22, 2023 

An Oregon county filed a lawsuit Thursday that blames fossil fuel companies and industry boosters for the deadly 2021 heat wave that killed hundreds of people in the Pacific Northwest.

The lawsuit from Multnomah County, which contains Portland and its suburbs, says the heat dome was not a natural event but "a direct and foreseeable consequence" of oil companies' actions to sell as many fossil fuel products as possible for decades and to "lie" about the harms of those products.

Sixty-nine people died because of the heat dome event, which sent temperatures soaring across the Pacific Northwest for several weeks, according to the suit filed in a circuit court. During the most intense three-day period of heat, temperatures in Multnomah County hit highs of 108, 112, and 116 degrees.

The lawsuit lists 17 defendants, including Exxon Mobil, Shell, Chevron and the Western States Petroleum Association.


This lawsuit is the 36th time a municipality has sued fossil fuel companies for alleged harms resulting from climate change, according to the Center for Climate Integrity, an advocacy group that supports such lawsuits. This claim is the first tied to the 2021 heat dome and one of the first to sue over a specific event worsened by climate change.

The June 2021 heat wave was “virtually impossible" if not for the impacts of climate change, according to climate experts. A peer-reviewed study found the event was at least 150 times less likely if global temperatures had not warmed so much because of human activity.

The heat wave had dramatic impacts across the Pacific Northwest, where many communities lack air conditioning because of the typically mild climate. Searing temperatures crumbled streets, caused baby birds to jump to their deaths and killed millions of sea creatures along the coastline. Emergency departments were overwhelmed with patients suffering heat-related ailments.

In addition to the fatalities in Oregon, hundreds of people died in Washington state and British Columbia, according to a study led by a University of Washington professor and Canadian officials, respectively.

Multnomah County is seeking $50 million in damages, $1.5 billion in future damages and a $50 billion abatement fund — to "weatherize" the county and plan for future harms as a result of global warming that results from fossil fuel use.

The lawsuit says the record heat wave required emergency care for hundreds of people, provoked an uptick in crime and required the county to spend "taxpayer money to provide people with shelter, cooling centers, fans, food, portable air conditioners, clothes, and water."

Since the event, the county has spent more money to warehouse supplies, increase shelter space and staff up for future heat waves, among other expenses.

"Still, the County lacks the resources to adequately prepare for comparable or more severe heat extremes," the lawsuit says.

A spokesperson for defendant Exxon Mobil said suits like the county’s “continue to waste time, resources and do nothing to address climate change.”

“This action has no impact on our intention to invest billions of dollars to leading the way in a thoughtful energy transition that takes the world to net zero carbon emissions,” the spokesperson said in the statement.

The Western States Petroleum Association, one of the primary oil industry trade associations in Oregon, which counts some of the lawsuit's defendants as members, did not immediately respond to a call or email for comment. Shell also did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Theodore J. Boutrous Jr. of Gibson, Dunn and Crutcher, counsel for Chevron Corporation said, in part, that lawsuits like these are “counterproductive distractions from advancing international policy solutions.”

Multnomah County's board of commissioners authorized the lawsuit in a weekly meeting. The county has secured outside lawyers for the case and won't pay legal fees unless it receives a judgment in its favor, according to meeting documents.

This article was originally published on NBCNews.com

US climate change lawsuit seeks $50 billion, citing 2021 heat wave



Thu, June 22, 2023 at 2:19 PM MDT·3 min read

(Reuters) -An Oregon county on Thursday sued Exxon, Chevron, other major oil and coal companies, and industry groups, seeking over $50 billion to counter the harms caused by extreme weather fueled by climate change.

Multnomah County said in the lawsuit filed in state court in Portland that fossil fuel companies and trade groups like the American Petroleum Institute intentionally deceived the public about the dangers of burning their products for decades. It said the companies and trade groups must now help pay for past and future harms from the extreme weather that has resulted, including a 2021 heat wave in the Pacific Northwest that killed dozens.

Rather than acknowledge the dangers of climate change, the lawsuit said the fossil fuel industry worked to undermine the scientific consensus around the problem "with pseudo-science, fabricated doubt, and a well-funded, sustained public relations campaign to promote their spin."

The lawsuit also targets the consulting firm McKinsey, which it said advises major oil companies, including on strategies to downplay or deny the link between greenhouse gas emissions and extreme weather.

Theodore Boutrous, an attorney for Chevron, said in a statement that lawsuits such as the one filed on Thursday are "counterproductive" and distract from advancing effective international policy solutions. He said the county's claims are "baseless" and barred by the U.S. Constitution.

A spokesperson for the American Petroleum Institute called the lawsuit and others like it "meritless" and said the litigation wastes taxpayer resources.

McKinsey did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The legal action follows dozens of lawsuits filed in recent years against the fossil fuel industry by states and municipalities across the U.S. broadly alleging harms from climate impacts including extreme weather.

The American Petroleum Institute and oil companies have said in response to those lawsuits that policies to address climate change should come from the federal executive branch and Congress, not via a patchwork of decisions in court cases across the United States.

The county said Thursday it had already begun experiencing climate-related harms, including from the 2021 “heat dome” that caused temperatures in the county, which includes Portland, to soar to 116 Fahrenheit (46.6 Celsius).

Since the area normally has mild weather, the lawsuit said residents were not equipped with things like air conditioners to handle the elevated temperatures. The county said 69 people in the county died from overheating and the heat wave caused a "crushing economic burden."

The heat wave, and other extreme weather events like wildfires, are a "direct and foreseeable consequence" of the industry's decision to sell fossil fuels for decades despite knowing their harms, according to the lawsuit.

The county is seeking $50 million to repay it for its past efforts to protect public health, safety and property from heat waves and wildfires, at least $1.5 billion for future damages and at least $50 billion for an abatement fund to help study and implement mitigation measures to reduce climate-related harms.

(Reporting by Clark Mindock in New YorkEditing by Alexia Garamfalvi, Matthew Lewis and Diane Craft)

UK

Endangered Komodo dragons hatch at Chester Zoo



BBC
Thu, June 22, 2023 

Two endangered Komodo dragons have been born at a zoo, joining a "vitally important" international conservation breeding programme.

The hatchlings are the world's largest lizard species and will grow to more than 3m (9.8ft) long.

It was the first time Chester Zoo successfully bred hatchlings from a pair of mating dragons.

The reptiles are found on a handful of small islands in Indonesia, where experts say just 3,000 remain.

The hatchlings arrived to mum Mezcal and dad Satali weighing about 74g and measuring 40cm.

Matt Cook, lead keeper of reptiles, said the "fascinating creatures" have survived for tens of thousands of years, but added "populations in the wild have been pushed to the edge of existence in the last 50 years" due to increased human activity, habitat loss and a rapidly changing climate.


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He added: "We have been eagerly awaiting this moment after we successfully introduced female dragon Mezcal with male Satali and they seemed to hit it off straight away.

"A month later we found a clutch of eggs that had been laid and we carefully placed them in a special incubator where they have been monitored closely for several months."

He said the two youngsters were "thriving and will join a vitally important conservation breeding programme".

The Komodo dragon is the largest of the world's 7,555 lizard species, with ancestors that date back more than 100 million years, the zoo said.

Why not follow BBC North West on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram? You can also send story ideas to northwest.newsonline@bbc.co.uk

UK

Water voles released at new wetland site near Bristol



BBC
Wed, June 21, 2023 

Water voles have been released into a newly created wetland near Bristol in a bid to boost biodiversity.

The site at Hallen, south Gloucestershire, is part of a major project to strengthen flood defences along the Severn Estuary.

Eighty hectares of wetland have been incorporated into the Avonmouth Severnside Enterprise Area (ASEA).

Water voles are among the most endangered species in the UK but are a vital part of river ecosystems.

Their burrowing and feeding create conditions needed for a host of other animals and plants to thrive, say experts.

They have now disappeared from around 90% of places where they were once prevalent, according to the Wildlife Trusts, because of habitat loss and pollution.


The creatures are also heavily preyed upon by American mink, an invasive species originally brought to the UK for fur farming.

Before the 12 water voles moved into their new home in April, conservationists checked the area was free of the predators.

The team also checked ditches for resident water voles to avoid any competition with the newcomers.

All new arrivals were put in pens with straw and food on the first day to give them time to get used to their surroundings.

On the second day the pen was opened, with its entrance heaped with reeds to enable the voles to go in and out.

Follow-up surveys to monitor their progress will be carried out in coming months.
'Boost to nature'

The ASEA project is being built in partnership between South Gloucestershire Council, Bristol City Council and the Environment Agency.

As well as the new wetlands, concrete walls and flood gates are being constructed to protect 2,500 homes against rising sea levels.

Councillor Kye Dudd, city council cabinet member for climate, ecology, waste and energy, said: "I'm pleased we can play a part in helping [the water vole] population grow.

"We're committed to enhancing our natural environment and providing a huge boost to nature and wildlife projects such as this."

Councillor Louise Harris, South Gloucestershire's cabinet member for climate and nature emergency, said: "We want to protect and boost nature through our climate and nature emergency work and, as part of this ecology mitigation and flood defence project, we are ensuring that a thriving environment will be established for people and wildlife."

Follow BBC West on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Send your story ideas to: bristol@bbc.co.uk

Building collapses, gas blasts, mine cave-ins and more. Deadly accidents are commonplace in China

 In this photo released by Xinhua News Agency, firefighters work at the site of an explosion at a restaurant in Yinchuan, northwest China's Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, Wednesday, June 21, 2023. A massive cooking gas explosion at a barbecue restaurant in northwestern China killed dozens and injured some, Chinese authorities said Thursday.

(Wang Peng/Xinhua via AP)

Thu, June 22, 2023 

BEIJING (AP) — At least 31 people were killed and seven injured when cooking gas exploded at a restaurant in Yinchuan in northwestern China. It was the latest in China's long history of deadly industrial accidents, which occur regularly despite government pledges to clamp down on lax standards, poor oversight and corruption frequently blamed for the collapse of buildings, mine cave-ins, explosions and other disasters. Here is a look at some of the worst in recent years.

2023:

-- Open-pit mine collapses in February in China's northern Inner Mongolia region, burying dozens under rubble and killing 53. The company running the mine was fined the previous year for multiple safety violations.

-- A massive explosion at a chemical plant in northeastern China killed at least 13 people in January. Some 35 other people were injured in the blast in the outskirts of the city of Panjin east of the capital, Beijing.


2022:

— A fire caused by welding sparks that ignited cotton cloth stored at a trading company in the central province of Henan in November killed 38 people. In the same province, 54 people were killed when a building collapsed on the outskirts of the capital in April.

— A restaurant fire in the northeastern city of Changchun blamed on a gas leak killed 17 people in September.

— In July, a partial building collapse in Tianjin triggered a gas explosion that left four people dead and 13 injured. The same northern port city was the site of one of China's worst industrial accidents in recent years, when 173 people, most of them firefighters and police officers, died in an explosion at a chemical warehouse in 2015. Local officials were accused of taking bribes to ignore safety violations.

2021:

— Four people were killed when a six-story workers' dormitory partially collapsed in November in the southern province of Jiangxi.

— At least three people were killed and 30 injured in an October gas explosion at a hotel in Shenyang in northern China.

— Fourteen workers constructing a tunnel for a new expressway in southern China were killed in July when it collapsed on them.

— A toxic chemical leaked in June at a plant in the southwestern city of Guiyang, killing eight and injuring three.

— In the central province of Hubei, a severely corroded gas line ruptured and exploded in June, killing 26 and injuring 138 others at a bazaar.

— Nine workers tasked with destroying expired mining explosives in Hebei province were killed in April when the materials exploded.

— Ten workers were killed in a gold mine in eastern China in January when explosives blew up in an accident blamed on improper storage and use of the materials.

2020:

— Twenty-nine people celebrating a villager's 80th birthday in northern China were killed in August when the two-story restaurant they were in collapsed.

— A bus plunged into a sinkhole on a city street in northwestern China in January, killing at least nine and injuring 17.

2019:

— Nine people were killed when a wastewater tank in a dyeing and printing mill collapsed in eastern China in December.

— A highway tunnel under construction in southwestern China collapsed in November, killing 12 workers.

— An explosion at a chemical plant in southern China in October killed at least four people and injured six.

— Nine people were killed in October in a restaurant gas explosion in the eastern province of Jiangsu, the same province where a massive chemical blast in March left nearly 80 people dead.

— A truck carrying nearly three times the allowed weight for a bridge caused the span to collapse in eastern Jiangsu province in October, killing three people in cars below.

— A fire of unknown origin at a factory in eastern China killed 19 people in September.

— An explosion at a gas plant in central China in July killed 15 and injured 15 others.

— Five workers were killed in June when a subway tunnel under construction collapsed in the northeastern city of Qingdao.

— Ten people died in downtown Shanghai in May when a building they were renovating collapsed. A 2010 fire in an apartment building being renovated, blamed on sparks from a welder's torch, killed 58 people in the same city.

— Eleven workers were killed in April when an elevator cable snapped at a construction site in northern China.

— In March, 78 people were killed in a blast at a chemical plant in the eastern city of Yancheng that had numerous safety violations.

Mosquito-borne diseases becoming increasing risk in Europe

Smitha Mundasad - BBC Health reporter
Thu, June 22, 2023 

Using insect repellent and covering up can help protect against mosquito bites

Mosquitoes that carry viruses like dengue and chikungunya have moved into new parts of Europe, increasing the risk of illness, top experts warn.

European scientists say more frequent heatwaves and flooding, and longer, warmer summers, have created more favourable conditions for the bugs.

They are calling for better measures to control and protect against mosquitoes.

Without these, more illness and deaths from mosquito-borne diseases are likely, they say.

The report, by the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), tracks the spread of different species of mosquitoes that can carry and transmit a number different of viruses to humans.


These include dengue and Zika - which can cause a range of symptoms such as fevers and muscle aches, and in the worst cases make people extremely ill.

Zika may be one mutation away from a new outbreak


Dengue fever crisis forces Peru minister to resign

The ECDC report suggests this year, the Aedes albopictus mosquito (known to carry dengue and chikungunya) "established" itself in 13 countries in Europe - meaning it has developed a self-sustaining population that is reproducing - compared with eight European countries a decade ago.

Meanwhile, last year, Aedes aegypti, which can spread diseases such as yellow fever, Zika and West Nile virus, became established in Cyprus, and scientists warn it may continue to spread to other countries.
'Invasive species'

According to the report, in 2022:

there were 1,133 human cases of West Nile virus and 92 deaths, with the majority of cases acquired in Europe - the highest since the peak of about 1,548 cases in 2018


cases were reported in Italy, Greece, Romania, Germany, Hungry, Croatia, Austria, France, Spain, Slovakia and Bulgaria


71 cases of locally acquired dengue were recorded in mainland Europe - equivalent to the total number reported between 2010 and 2021


cases of dengue were seen in France and Spain

Andrea Ammon, ECDC director, said: "In recent years we have seen a geographical spread of invasive mosquito species to previously unaffected areas in the EU/EEA.

"If this continues, we can expect to see more cases and possibly deaths from diseases such as dengue, chikungunya and West Nile fever.

"Efforts need to focus on ways to control mosquito populations, enhancing surveillance and enforcing personal protective measures."

Zika is spread by the Aedes aegypti mosquito which is most active during the day

Experts recommend eliminating standing water sources where mosquitoes breed and using eco-friendly larvicides, alongside increasing awareness of the personal measures people can take to protect themselves.

These include:

using insecticide-treated bed nets


sleeping in air-conditioned rooms


using window screens


wearing clothes that cover most of the body


using mosquito repellent

The ECDC says it is "essential" that healthcare workers and the public have a greater awareness of the different diseases transmitted by mosquitoes.

Dengue (spread by mosquitoes that bite during the day) can cause a fever, severe headache, pain behind the eyes, muscle and joint pain, and a blotchy rash.

The number of cases has grown around the world in recent decades. It is endemic in more than 100 countries in Africa, the Americas, South and South East Asia, and the Western Pacific region.

Most cases of West Nile virus do not cause symptoms, but when people fall ill the virus can cause headaches, severe tiredness, muscle aches, vomiting, rashes and eye pain.

Older people and people with weakened immune systems are at higher risk of a form of the illness that affects the brain and can be fatal.

The most common symptoms of chikungunya virus are fever and joint pain, alongside headaches, muscle pain and rashes.

Scientists warn rapid melting of Himalayan glaciers will impact us all



Arshad R. Zargar
Thu, June 22, 2023 

New Delhi — Glaciers in the Hindu Kush region of the Himalaya mountains are melting at the fastest rate ever and could shed as much as 80% of their ice by the end of this century if global warming continues unchecked, a group of international scientists warned in an alarming new report.

The study says the melting of the glaciers will directly impact billions of people in Asia — causing floods, landslides, avalanches and food shortages as farmland is inundated. Indirectly, the melting of such a vast reserve of fresh water could impact countries as far away as the United States, even the whole of humanity, according to the report by the Nepal-based International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD).

The academic paper warns the ice and snow reserves in the Hindu Kush Himalayas (HKH) region are melting at an "unprecedented" rate and that the environmental changes to the sensitive region are "largely irreversible."

Glaciers are seen in the Pamir Mountains, a range in Central Asia formed by the junction of the Himalayas, Tian Shan, Karakoram, Kunlun and Hindu Kush mountain ranges, as seen in a file photo taken from the Karakoram Highway, in Xinjiang, China. / Credit: The Pamir Mountains are a mountain range in Central Asia formed by the junction of the Himalayas, Tian Shan, Karakoram, Kunlun and Hindu Kush mountain ranges. They are among the world's highest mountains and since Victorian times they have been known as 

The HKH region spans roughly 2,175 miles, from Afghanistan to Myanmar, and is home to the highest mountains in the world, including Mount Everest. It contains the largest volume of ice on Earth outside the two polar regions and is the source of water for 12 rivers that flow through 16 Asian nations.

Those rivers provide fresh water to some 240 million people living in the HKH region, and about 1.65 billion people further downstream, the report says.

For all of those people, the melting of the glaciers would be a disaster. The report says they will face extreme weather events and crop loss that will force mass-migration.

Deadly floods and avalanches in the Himalayan region have already increased over the past decade or so, and scientists have linked the greater frequency and intensity of the disasters to climate change and global warming.

The ICIMOD report lays out three potential scenarios for the glaciers of the HKH: If there is a 1.5-2 degree Celsius increase in the Earth's average temperature above pre-industrial levels, the glaciers will lose 30% to 50% of their ice volume by 2100. If the global temperature rises by 3 degrees Celsius, the glaciers could lose 75% of their ice and, with a 4-degree rise, the researchers say there will be a loss of up to 80% of the ice in the HKH.

"These projections are of very high confidence as we say in the scientific language," Dr. Philippus Wester, the ICIMOD's Chief Scientist on Water Resources Management and the lead editor of the report, told CBS News. "In layman's language, it means we have no doubt whatsoever that at 2 degrees Celsius global warming, we will lose 50% of the glacial ice mass in the region."

The report notes that the Himalayan glaciers lost ice at a rate 65% faster between 2010 and 2019 than over the previous decade (2001-2010).

"This is a lot, this is alarming," Wester told CBS News."On human time scales, we have never seen glacial melt this rapid, this fast… this is unprecedented."

Other research shows Mount Everest's glaciers have lost the equivalent of 2,000 years' worth of ice over just the past three decades. In a 2019 report, the ICIMOD said the Himalayan glaciers of the region would lose at least one third of their ice if the average global temperature was limited to 1.5 degrees Celsius. But with new technology and more data becoming available over the last five years, the scientists found circumstances worse than they expected, Wester said.

Global impact of the melting Himalayan glaciers

The impacts of the rapid glacial melt in the Himalayas will be felt around the world, Izabella Koziell, deputy director general of the ICIMOD, CBS News this week [video available at the top of this article].

"Even if this feels remote to us sitting far away, it is going to affect us — whether that is through mass people movement or sea-level rise. When the glaciers in the Himalayas melt, the ice sheets in Greenland, Arctic and Antarctic are also melting. This means there will be sea level rise, there will be quite dramatic changes in ocean circulation as a result of increase in fresh water into oceans, and this will have huge impacts on us," Koziell said.

"The people who are losing their livelihoods, of which there are 2 billion people — that's a quarter of the world's population — where will they go? They will have to go and find safer places and we will have to offer those safer places for them to live," Koziell said.

Earlier this month, scientists warned at the Bonn Climate Change Conference of the worrying speed and scale of ice-melt worldwide. Another study, published last year, said the Arctic could start to see periods during the summer without any ice remaining at all by 2030, even if emissions are cut drastically.

"Clarion call" for urgent climate action

Scientists are calling for urgent action to slow global warming to preserve as much of the ice mass in the Himalayas as possible.

"To prevent additional ice loss, greenhouse gas emissions must be reduced through the use of clean and renewable energy sources… cooperation among Himalayan nations and international organizations is required," Professor Anjal Prakash, an author on the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), told CBS News.

"We need to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions as quickly as we can. The less melt we have, the better it is because it takes such a long time to recover from that loss," the ICIMOD's lead editor Wester told CBS News.

The U.N.'s IPCC says limiting warming to around 1.5 degrees Celsius requires global greenhouse gas emissions to peak before 2025, and be reduced by 43% by 2030. The world is not currently on course to keep those targets within reach.

"This is a clarion call," Wester told CBS News. "The world is not doing enough because we are still seeing an increase in the emissions year-on-year. We are not even at the point of a turnaround in terms of emissions."

"The change we are causing now will not stop even if we keep emissions at current levels," Koziell told CBS News, but she added that "all hope is not lost."

"If we commit to decarbonisation now, we still have an open window. We seriously need to keep that window open," Koziell said. "We need to seriously commit to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and whatever investments we make now, will be a benefit for the future."

Himalayan glaciers could lose 80% of their volume if global warming isn't controlled, study finds


 A new report Tuesday, June 20, 2023, from a Nepal-based research organization finds that water security for nearly 2 billion people living downstream of rivers that originate in the Himalayan ranges will likely be threatened by the end of this century due to rapid glacier melt if global warming is not controlled. 

(AP Photo/Niranjan Shrestha, File)


SIBI ARASU
Mon, June 19, 2023 

BENGALURU, India (AP) — Glaciers are melting at unprecedented rates across the Hindu Kush Himalayan mountain ranges and could lose up to 80% of their volume this century if greenhouse gas emissions aren't sharply reduced, according to a report.

The report Tuesday from Kathmandu-based International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development warned that flash floods and avalanches would grow more likely in coming years, and that the availability of fresh water could be curtailed for nearly 2 billion people who live downstream of 12 rivers that originate in the mountains.

Ice and snow in the Hindu Kush Himalayan ranges are an important source of water for those rivers, which flow through 16 countries in Asia and provide fresh water to 240 million people in the mountains and another 1.65 billion downstream.

“The people living in these mountains who have contributed next to nothing to global warming are at high risk due to climate change,” said Amina Maharjan, a migration specialist and one of the report’s authors. “Current adaptation efforts are wholly insufficient, and we are extremely concerned that without greater support, these communities will be unable to cope.”

Various earlier reports have found that the cryosphere — regions on Earth covered by snow and ice — are among the worst affected by climate change. Recent research found that Mount Everest's glaciers, for example, have lost 2,000 years of ice in just the past 30 years.

“We map out for the first time the linkages between cryosphere change with water, ecosystems and society in this mountain region,” Maharjan said.

Among the key findings from Tuesday's report are that the Himalayan glaciers disappeared 65% faster since 2010 than in the previous decade, and that reducing snow cover due to global warming will result in reduced fresh water for people living downstream. The study found that 200 glacier lakes across these mountains are deemed dangerous, and the region could see a significant spike in glacial lake outburst floods by the end of the century.

The study found that communities in the mountain regions are being affected by climate change far more than many other parts of the world. It says changes to the glaciers, snow and permafrost of the Hindu Kush Himalayan region driven by global warming are “unprecedented and largely irreversible.”

Effects of climate change are already felt by Himalayan communities, sometimes acutely. Earlier this year the Indian mountain town of Joshimath began sinking and residents had to be relocated within days.

“Once ice melts in these regions, it's very difficult to put it back to its frozen form,” said Pam Pearson, director of the International Cryosphere Climate Initiative, who was not involved with the report.

She added, “It’s like a big ship in the ocean. Once the ice starts going, it’s very hard to stop. So, with glaciers, especially the big glaciers in the Himalayas, once they start losing mass, that’s going to continue for a really long time before it can stabilize.”

Pearson said it is extremely important for Earth's snow, permafrost and ice to limit warming to the 1.5 degrees Celsius agreed to at the 2015 Paris climate conference.

“I get the sense that most policymakers don't take the goal seriously but, in the cryosphere, irreversible changes are already happening," she said.

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