It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Fire services responded quickly to reports of smoke billowing from a bulker that was loading in the Paradip, India, port over the weekend. They were able to successfully douse the fire without injuries to the crew, but it again raised questions about the handling of the dangerous cargo.
The Greek-owned bulker Eco Colonel, registered in Liberia, had arrived at Paradip on November 27. Over the weekend, the vessel was loading a cargo of nearly 30,000 metric tons of coal for shipment in India. According to the local media reports, smoke was observed coming from one of the vessel’s holds as the coal was being loaded by conveyor belt.
As the smoke grew thicker and more intense, the decision was made to move the vessel, which is 82,000 dwt and 229 meters (751 feet), to another berth within the port to gain better access to the hold. Fire crews began offloading and watering the coal. Port operations were also suspended.
The Paradip Fire Department at the port said that after about two hours, it believed the fire had been contained. They said it was safe to reopen the port. There was minor damage reported to both the vessel and the coal loading conveyor belt.
The Eco Colonel, which was built in 2012, remains at the port as the investigation is ongoing. The authorities are thankful that a port worker quickly alerted the teams to the potential danger and that it could be controlled quickly. They have yet to confirm what caused the fire.
Media reports cite the high flammability of the coal and the danger of spontaneous combustion. Port officials are reportedly looking at the watering of the coal and whether there had been insufficient amounts of water sprayed before the loading. A lack of ventilation in the hold or in the stockpile could also have contributed to the fire.
The dangers of handling and shipping coal were demonstrated in August at the Port of Baltimore when an explosion tore a 30-ton hatch cover off a bulker. The vessel W Sapphire had completed loading and just departed the terminal when a massive explosion shook the ship, followed by a small fire. The force of the explosion hurled a portion of the number two hatch cover into the air and over the side of the ship. Luckily, no one was injured, and the local fire departments and Coast Guard were quickly able to stabilize the situation.
X-Press Pearl Compensation Dispute with Sri Lanka Intensifies
X-Press Pearl burned for days before it sunk causing an environmental disaster while the authorities attempted to tow the hulk into deep water (Sri Lanka Ports Authority)
The London P&I Club, acting as assurer to the owners of the MV X-Press Pearl, is intensifying its approaches to the authorities in Sri Lanka over the compensation awarded to cover damage caused by the shipwreck of the vessel off Colombo.
The X-Press Pearl, a newly built containership with a capacity of 2,750 TEU, was owned by Singapore's X-Press Feeders. It was on a voyage eastward bound in May 2021 when at least one container began leaking onto the deck shortly after leaving Jebel Ali. The cargo is believed to have included 25 tons of Iranian-manufactured nitric acid, among multiple classes of other dangerous cargo. The master sought and was denied refuge first in Port Hamad, Qatar, and at its next scheduled port of call in Hazira, India, before sailing on to anchor off Colombo, Sri Lanka, its next scheduled port of call. Off Colombo, a fire broke in Number 2 Hold of the ship, but given the mix of dangerous cargo on board, it has still not been established exactly what the cause of the fire or where the seat of the fire was located.
Reports assert that there were some delays in initially providing the ship with firefighting services and later in permitting the ship to be moved to deeper waters, by which time it was already sinking. The situation was unrecoverable by the time specialist firefighting and anti-pollution vessels and aircraft arrived on the scene, both from Sri Lanka and India. Acids, caustic soda, epoxy resin, plastic pellets, and bunker oil on board were either released or sank in containers when the ship went down, potentially creating a very large plastics spill. Officials indicate that 1,075 tons of debris have been collected from Sri Lankan beaches, along with dead turtles, whales, large numbers of fish, and at least six dolphins. But it is unclear whether what was recovered from the beaches was linked either directly or indirectly to the X-Press Pearl. As a precautionary measure, the Sri Lankan authorities halted local fishing due to fears of acid contamination and also to allow salvage operations to continue safely.
In July 2025, Sri Lanka's Supreme Court ruled in favor of local fishermen in a human rights claim. The finding criticized both X-Press Feeders for not sharing information and the government for not responding effectively enough. Without hearing expert evidence on the quantum, the court set the value of the loss at an arbitrary figure $1 billion, to be paid by the owner as the polluter, with further sums to be calculated by a committee.
X-Press Feeders have financed the clean-up efforts made so far, covering fisheries and beach clean-up, as well as salvage, wreck and debris removal. But, along with the London P&I Club, they have declined to make further payments, asserting that jurisdiction for environmental damage in this case lies in Singapore. Further, they contend that the cost calculations in other areas are largely based on theoretical estimates of damage using unapproved methodologies, which diverge from recorded evidence on the ground. They have referenced impartial technical advice issued by the International Tanker Owners Pollution Federation (ITOPF), which recommends internationally-accepted methodologies for assessing Oil Spill Damage, Nitrogen Added to Ocean, Human Health Air Pollution Impacts, Turtle Damage, Impacts on Whales, Microplastic Related Damages - Fisheries, Microplastic and Chemical Related Damages - Fish Consumers and Beach Users, Fisher Livelihoods, Incurred Costs and Future Monitoring.
The London P&I Club is now seeking the UK government's support to help with opening a dialogue with the Sri Lankan government, which is standing by its judiciary's finding, and is not responding to approaches. Neither the British nor the Sri Lankan government appears to be communicating with the other over the matter.
James Bean, CEO of the London P&I Club told The Maritime Executive that the London P&I Club's position is that a negotiated settlement is in the best interests of the Sri Lankan government and the international maritime community. They report that they are working with X-Press Feeders to achieve a rules-based outcome compliant with the norms of international trade.
Tuesday, December 02, 2025
How deforestation turbocharged Indonesia’s deadly floods
Experts, environmentalists and even government officials have pointed to the role of deforestation in Indonesia's deadly floods
- Copyright AFP CHAIDEER MAHYUDDIN
Marchio Gorbiano and Dessy Sagita
The deadly flooding that has killed hundreds in Indonesia was largely the result of monsoon rains and a rare tropical storm. But something else may have played a role: deforestation.
Environmentalists, experts and even Indonesia’s government have pointed to the role forest loss played in flash flooding and landslides that washed torrents of mud into villages and stranded residents on roofs.
Forests help absorb rainfall and stabilise the ground held by their roots, and their absence makes areas more prone to flash flooding and landslides.
Indonesia is regularly among the countries in the world with the largest annual forest loss.
Mining, plantations and fires have caused the clearance of large tracts of the country’s lush rainforest over recent decades.
In 2024, over 240,000 hectares of primary forest was lost, and that was less than the year before, according to analysis by conservation start-up The TreeMap’s Nusantara Atlas project.
“Forests upstream act as a protective barrier, a bit like a sponge,” explained David Gaveau, founder of The TreeMap.
“The canopy captures some of the rain before it reaches the ground. The roots also help stabilise the soil. When the forest is cleared upstream, rainwater runs off rapidly into rivers creating flash floods.” – ‘Prevent deforestation’ –
Environmentalists have long urged the government to better protect the country’s forests, which are a key carbon sink, absorbing planet-warming carbon dioxide.
Indonesia’s forests are also home to enormous biodiversity and some of the world’s most threatened species, including orangutans.
And in the wake of the flooding, even the country’s president urged action.
“We must truly prevent deforestation and forest destruction,” President Prabowo Subianto said Friday as the scale of the disaster began to emerge.
“Protecting our forests is crucial.”
The floods carried not only collapsed hillsides and torrents of mud, but also timber that fuelled speculation about the link between deforestation and the disaster.
On one beach in Padang, AFP saw workers dressed in orange using chainsaws to break up massive logs strewn along the sand.
The forestry ministry is reportedly investigating claims of illegal logging in affected areas, and Forestry Minister Raja Juli Antoni called the disaster a chance to “evaluate our policies”.
“The pendulum between the economy and ecology seems to have swung too far towards the economy and needs to be pulled back to the centre,” he said over the weekend.
That is a message environmentalists in Indonesia have long delivered.
In one of the worst-affected areas, Batang Toru, “there are seven companies operating along the upstream region,” said Uli Arta Siagian, forest and plantation campaign manager for conservation group Walhi.
“There is a gold mine that has already cleared around 300 hectares of forest cover… the Batang Toru Hydropower Plant has caused the loss of 350 hectares of forest,” she told AFP.
Large tracts of forest have also been converted into palm oil plantations.
“All of this contributes to increasing our vulnerability.”
– Protection and restoration –
Sumatra, where the flood damage was concentrated, is particularly vulnerable because its river basins are relatively small, explained Kiki Taufik, head of Greenpeace Indonesia’s forest campaign.
“The massive change in forest cover is the main factor in the occurrence of flash floods,” he told AFP, accusing the government of “recklessly and carelessly” granting permits for mines and plantations.
Deforestation rates in Sumatra are among the highest in Indonesia, according to Herry Purnomo, country director at the Center for International Forestry Research and World Agroforestry (CIFOR-ICRAF).
Losing forest also raises flooding risks because soil washes into rivers, raising the riverbed and reducing the capacity of waterways to absorb sudden torrential downpours, he said.
Two things are needed, added Herry, a professor at IPB University in Bogor: “Prevent deforestation, avoid it, and also carry out restoration.”
Hundreds of thousands of Asia flood survivors face food and fuel shortages
Hundreds of thousands of people stranded by the violent floods that have swept through in Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia were on Tuesday facing increasingly alarming shortages of food and fuel. More than 1,300 have been killed in the torrents triggered by monsoon rains and cyclones.
Governments and aid groups on Tuesday worked to rush aid to hundreds of thousands stranded by deadly flooding that has so far killed at least 1,338 people: 744 in Indonesia, 410 in Sri Lanka, 181 in Thailand and three in Malaysia.
Torrential monsoon season deluges paired with two separate tropical cyclones last week dumped heavy rain across the region.
Climate change is producing more intense rain events because a warmer atmosphere holds more moisture, and warmer oceans can turbocharge storms.
The floodwaters have now largely receded, but the devastation means hundreds of thousands of people are now living in shelters and struggling to secure clean water and food.
"Road access is mostly cut off in flood-affected areas," 29-year-old Erna Mardhiah said as she joined a long queue at a petrol station in Banda Aceh.
"People are worried about running out of fuel," she added from the line she had been in for two hours.
The pressure has caused skyrocketing prices.
"Most things are already sky-high ... chillies alone are up to 300,000 rupiah per kilo ($18), so that's probably why people are panic-buying," she said.
On Monday, Indonesia's government said it was sending 34,000 tons of rice and 6.8 million litres of cooking oil to the three worst-affected provinces, Aceh, North Sumatra and West Sumatra.
"There can be no delays," Agriculture Minister Andi Amran Sulaiman said. Food shortage risk
Aid groups said they were working to ship supplies to affected areas, warning that local markets were running out of essential supplies and prices had tripled already.
"Communities across Aceh are at severe risk of food shortages and hunger if supply lines are not reestablished in the next seven days," charity group Islamic Relief said.
A shipment of 12 tonnes of food from the group aboard an Indonesian navy vessel was due to arrive in Aceh on Tuesday.
A million people have evacuated from their homes, according to the disaster agency.
Survivors have described terrifying waves of water that arrived without warning.
In East Aceh, Zamzami said the floodwaters had been "unstoppable, like a tsunami wave".
"We can't explain how big the water seemed, it was truly extraordinary," said the 33-year-old, who like many Indonesians goes by one name.
People in his village sheltered atop a local two-storey fish market to escape the deluge and were now trying to clean the mud and debris left behind while battling power and telecommunications outages.
"It's difficult for us (to get) clean water," he told AFP on Monday.
"There are children who are starting to get fevers, and there's no medicine."
The weather system that inundated Indonesia also brought heavy rain to southern Thailand. Colombo floodwaters recede
A separate storm brought heavy rains across all of Sri Lanka, triggering flash floods and deadly landslides.
Some of the worst-hit areas in the country's centre are still difficult to reach.
President Anura Kumara Dissanayake has declared a state of emergency to deal with what he called the "most challenging natural disaster in our history".
Unlike his Indonesian counterpart, he has called for international aid.
Sri Lanka's air force, backed by counterparts from India and Pakistan, has been evacuating stranded residents and delivering food and other supplies.
In the capital Colombo, floodwaters were slowly subsiding on Tuesday.
The speed with which waters rose around the city surprised local residents used to seasonal flooding.
"It is not just the amount of water, but how quickly everything went under."
Rains have eased across the country, but landslide alerts remain in force across most of the hardest-hit central region, officials said.
(FRANCE 24 with AFP)
Flooding Kills 1,000+ Across South Asia as Climate Crisis Fuels More Extreme Rain
“We need to confront climate change effectively,” Indonesia’s president said.
People wade through a flooded road on November 30, 2025, in Sumatra, Indonesia. (Photo by Li Zhiquan/China News Service/VCG via Getty Images)
More than 1,100 people across South Asia have died after torrential rains fueled by warming temperatures caused widespread flooding and landslides in recent days.
Following days of unprecedented cyclone conditions, people across Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand have been left with their homes destroyed and forced to flee for their lives. A separate cyclone in Sri Lanka has left hundreds more dead. RECOMMENDED...
The worst devastation has been seen in Indonesia, where Cyclone Senyar has claimed over 500 lives as of Sunday. On the island of Sumatra, rescue teams have struggled to reach stranded people as roads have been blocked by mudslides and high floodwaters. Many areas are still reportedly unreachable.
As Reuters reported Monday, more than 28,000 homes have been damaged across the country and 1.4 million people affected, according to government figures. At least 464 were reported missing as of Sunday.
Other countries in the region were also battered. In Thailand, the death toll was reported at 176 as of Monday, and more than 3 million people are reported to be affected. The worst destruction has been in the southern city of Hat Yai, which on November 21 alone experienced 335mm of rain, its single largest recorded rainfall in over 300 years.
At least two more have been killed in Malaysia, where nearly 12,000 people still remain in evacuation centers.
Sri Lanka has witnessed similar devastation in recent days from another storm, Cyclone Ditwah, that formed around the same time as Senyar. Floods and mudslides have similarly killed at least 330 people, and destroyed around 20,000 homes, while leaving around a third of the country without electricity. More than 200 people are missing, and over 108,000 are in state-run shelters, officials say.
Work has begun in Indonesia to restore damaged roads, bridges, and telecommunication services. But after he visited survivors in Sumatra, Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto said that the work will extend beyond merely recovering from the storm.
“We need to confront climate change effectively,” Prabowo told reporters. “Local governments must take a significant role in safeguarding the environment and preparing for the extreme weather conditions that will arise from future climate change.”
Southeast Asia was top-of-mind for many attendees at last month’s COP30 climate summit in Brazil. As Winston Chow, a professor of urban climate at Singapore Management University and part of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), told the Straits Times, this is because the region “is highly vulnerable to climate change.”
“As a whole, it faces multiple climate risks and hazards, such as rising temperatures, sea-level rise, increasing droughts and floods, and the intensification of extreme events like typhoons,” he continued.
In recent years, the region has been hit by annual devastating heatwaves, resulting in record-shattering temperatures. In Myanmar, where temperatures exceeded 110°F last April, Radio Free Asia reported that 1,473 people died from extreme heat in just one month.
Floods have likewise grown more deadly in recent years. Just this month, floods killed dozens more people in Vietnam, and a pair of typhoons killed hundreds more in the Philippines and forced over a million people to evacuate their homes.
While it’s difficult to determine the extent to which any one disaster was caused by climate change, in aggregate, they are growing more intense as the planet warms.
“As the world’s oceans and atmosphere warm at an accelerating rate due to the rise in greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels, tropical cyclones are expected to become more intense,” explained Steve Turton, an adjunct professor of environmental geography at CQUniversity Australia in The Conversation on Sunday. “This is because cyclones get their energy from warm oceans. The warmer the ocean, the more fuel for the storm.”
According to the National Centers for Environmental Information, part of the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, October 2025 was the third-warmest October on record globally and had above-average tropical cyclone activity.
“The warming atmosphere is supercharging the global water cycle, and peak rainfall rates are increasing,” Turton said. “When more rain falls in a short time, flash flooding becomes more likely.”
At COP30, protesters from across Southeast Asia assembled to demand action from global leaders. On November 10, shortly after her home in Manila was battered by a pair of typhoons, 25-year-old activist Ellenor Bartolome savaged corporations and world leaders who have continued to block global action to reduce fossil fuel usage.
“It gets worse every year, and for every disaster, it is utterly enraging that we are counting hundreds of bodies, hundreds of missing people... while the elite and the corporations are counting money from fossil fuels,” she told attendees as they entered the conference.
Ultimately, many climate activists and scientists left the conference enraged yet again, as the final agreement stripped out all language related to fossil fuels.
Adaptation Finance Low-Balled, Glaring Omission of Just Transition Away from Fossil Fuels in New COP30 Text Friday November, 21 2025, Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS)
BELÉM, Brazil - The annual UN climate talks, COP30, are entering their final hours after a fire briefly shut down the venue yesterday. Early this morning, the COP Presidency released a raft of new negotiations text including an updated version of Brazil’s Mutirão, an overarching political package for climate outcomes put forward by the Presidency. Despite its omission from the latest text, there is increasing support for a roadmap for a transition away from fossil fuels, endorsed by over 80 countries. Also this morning, Colombia led a press conference presenting the Belém Declaration on the Transition Away from Fossil Fuels, highlighting the growing number of countries at COP30 calling for a global just transition from fossil fuels to clean energy.
“The new texts released this morning are disappointing across the board and the Mutirão text is much weaker than the earlier version. The COP Presidency must intensify its efforts to bridge differences, including in open and transparent plenaries in these final hours, to secure an ambitious outcome at COP30.
“The lack of finance for a clean energy transition and adaptation from richer nations—a critical part of the Paris Agreement—remains an ongoing obstacle to securing bold and fair outcomes. Political leaders from wealthier countries must show a willingness to meet their responsibilities instead of once again forcing those least responsible for the climate crisis into an inequitable compromise.
“Adaptation finance, which is a top priority for climate vulnerable nations coming into this COP, has been low-balled yet again. Lower income countries are unjustly enduring blow-after-blow from climate impacts caused primarily by heat-trapping emissions from rich nations, impacts that will worsen as the world overshoots 1.5 C of global warming. A strong outcome on funding for adaptation is essential to restore trust and deliver a fair outcome at COP30.
“The Mutirão text has completely dropped mention of a roadmap for a just transition away from fossil fuels, a glaring omission of an urgent call championed here by more than 80 countries. Fossil fuels are the root cause of the climate crisis and there is no credible pathway to meet science-based climate goals without a fast, fair, funded phaseout of fossil fuels. Lower income nations cannot make this transition rapidly, nor can they close the vast energy poverty gap that millions suffer from today, without funding from richer countries. Public finance is essential.
“More and more countries are demanding a just transition away from fossil fuels to clean energy to protect people and the planet while building thriving economies. The Belém Declaration led by Colombia is a bold complement to the roadmap nations are calling to include in the Mutirão, setting a high bar for ambition. How we make the transition away from fossil fuels to clean energy is crucial to ensuring this transition serves the needs of people, not fossil fuel interests bent on extracting profits. In addition to ramping up renewable energy and energy efficiency, a just transition must include support for workers currently dependent on fossil fuels for their livelihoods and for communities suffering from fossil fuel pollution.
“At COP28 in Dubai, nations agreed to transition away from fossil fuels. Now at COP30, billed as the ‘implementation COP,’ world leaders must secure a just transition package that sets the world firmly on a path to turn that commitment into reality within this critical decade and beyond.”
The Union of Concerned Scientists is the leading science-based nonprofit working for a healthy environment and a safer world. UCS combines independent scientific research and citizen action to develop innovative, practical solutions and to secure responsible changes in government policy, corporate practices, and consumer choices.
SPACE/COSMOS
Alaknanda: JWST discovers massive grand-design spiral galaxy from the universe's infancy
Image of the newly discovered spiral galaxy Alaknanda (inset) as observed in the shorter wavelength JWST bands. Several bright galaxies from the foreground Abell 2744 cluster are also seen.
A spiral galaxy, shaped much like our Milky Way, has been found in an era when astronomers believed such well-formed galaxies could not yet exist. Two astronomers from India have identified a remarkably mature galaxy just 1.5 billion years after the Big Bang—a discovery that challenges our understanding of how galaxies form and evolve.
NASA's James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is a powerful telescope capable of detecting extremely faint light from the early Universe. Using JWST, researchers Rashi Jain and Yogesh Wadadekar spotted a galaxy remarkably similar to our own Milky Way. Yet this system formed when the cosmos was barely 1.5 billion years old—roughly a tenth of its present age. They named it Alaknanda, after the Himalayan river that is a twin headstream of the Ganga alongside the Mandakini—fittingly, the Hindi name for the Milky Way.
Classic spiral galaxies like ours—with two clear, symmetric arms (called a ‘grand-design’ spiral)—were thought to take billions of years to form. The prevailing view held that early galaxies should appear irregular and disordered—still in the chaotic process of assembly rather than settled into the graceful spirals we see so often in the nearby Universe. Building a grand spiral requires time: gas must flow in steadily from surrounding space (called ‘gas accretion’), settle into a rotating disk, then slow-moving waves (called ‘density waves’) may perturb the disk to sculpt the spiral arms, and the whole system needs to remain undisturbed by violent collisions with other galaxies.
Alaknanda defies these expectations. It already has two sweeping spiral arms wrapped around a bright, rounded central region (the galaxy’s ‘bulge’), spanning about 30,000 light-years across. Even more impressively, it is annually churning out new stars, their combined mass roughly equivalent to 60 times the mass of our Sun. This rate is about 20 times that of the present-day Milky Way! About half of Alaknanda’s stars appear to have formed in only 200 million years—a blink in cosmic time.
"Alaknanda has the structural maturity we associate with galaxies that are billions of years older," explains Rashi Jain, the study's lead author. "Finding such a well-organised spiral disk at this epoch tells us that the physical processes driving galaxy formation—gas accretion, disk settling, and possibly the development of spiral density waves—can operate far more efficiently than current models predict. It's forcing us to rethink our theoretical framework."
A cosmic magnifying glass
Alaknanda lies in the direction of a massive galaxy cluster called Abell 2744, also known as Pandora's Cluster. The cluster's enormous gravity bends and magnifies light from distant cosmic objects in its background, much like a magnifying glass. Called gravitational lensing, this effect made Alaknanda appear twice as bright, allowing JWST to capture its spiral structure in stunning detail.
Jain & Wadadekar analysed JWST images of the galaxy taken through as many as 21 different filters, each revealing a different part of its light. This wealth of data—part of JWST's UNCOVER and MegaScience surveys—allowed them to estimate with unusual precision the galaxy's distance, dust content, how many stars the galaxy contains, and how quickly new stars have been forming over time.
Rewriting the cosmic timeline
The discovery adds to a growing body of evidence from JWST that the early Universe was far more mature than astronomers expected. Several disk-shaped galaxies have now been found at similarly vast distances, but Alaknanda stands out as one of the clearest examples of a textbook "grand-design" spiral (a galaxy with two prominent, symmetric arms) at such an early epoch.
"Alaknanda reveals that the early Universe was capable of far more rapid galaxy assembly than we anticipated," says Yogesh Wadadekar, the study's co-author. "Somehow, this galaxy managed to pull together ten billion solar masses of stars and organise them into a beautiful spiral disk in just a few hundred million years. That's extraordinarily fast by cosmic standards, and it compels astronomers to rethink how galaxies form.”
Scientists will now debate how Alaknanda's spiral arms arose. One possibility is that the galaxy grew steadily by pulling in streams of cold gas, allowing density waves to naturally carve out spiral patterns. Another is that a gravitational encounter with a smaller companion galaxy triggered the arms—though such tidally induced spirals tend to fade quickly. Future observations with JWST's own spectroscopic instruments or the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) telescope in Chile could measure how fast the galaxy is rotating and whether its disk is moving in an orderly way (dynamically "cold") or is more turbulent (dynamically "hot"), helping to distinguish between these scenarios.
What does this mean for us?
This discovery is more than a pretty picture from the distant past. It forces astronomers to reconsider the cosmic timeline—the story of how stars, galaxies, and ultimately planets like Earth came to be. If galaxies could mature this quickly, the early Universe was a far more dynamic and fertile place than we imagined, and the conditions for forming worlds like ours may have arisen earlier than anyone thought.
As JWST continues to peer deeper into space and time, more galaxies like Alaknanda are sure to emerge—each one a new clue to the Universe's surprisingly rapid early development.
The early Universe was far more capable of building complex and stable structures than previously believed—and Alaknanda is compelling evidence of that being the furthest disk-dominated grand-design spiral galaxy ever discovered.
Left panel: Image of Alaknanda in rest-frame near-ultraviolet filters. The star-forming regions in the spiral arms form a beads-on-a-string pattern, characteristic of UV emission from massive stars in star-forming regions. Right panel: Alaknanda as seen in rest-frame optical filters. The spiral arms are less prominent and the underlying disk is clearly seen.
The ESA/NASA Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) has been observing the Sun for 30 years. In that time, SOHO has observed nearly three of the Sun’s 11-year solar cycles, throughout which solar activity waxes and wanes.
Credit: Credit: SOHO (ESA & NASA) Acknowledgements: F. Auchère & ATG Europe
On 2 December 1995 the ESA/NASA Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) blasted into space – on what was supposed to be a two-year mission.
From its outpost 1.5 million km away from Earth in the direction of the Sun, SOHO enjoys uninterrupted views of our star. It has provided a nearly continuous record of our Sun’s activity for close to three 11-year-long solar cycles.
"It is testament to the ingenuity of our engineers, operators and scientists, and to international collaboration, that this mission has exceeded all expectations," says Prof. Carole Mundell, ESA Director of Science. "SOHO has overcome nail-biting challenges to become one of the longest-operating space missions of all time."
"The SOHO mission is a great example of the incredible partnerships between NASA and ESA,” adds Nicky Fox, associate administrator, Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "Congratulations to the NASA and ESA teams on an amazing thirty years working together."
The mission has not been without drama. Two-and-a-half years after launch, the spacecraft suffered a critical error, spinning out of control and losing contact with Earth. An international rescue team worked tirelessly for three months to locate and recover it.
Then, in November & December 1998, the spacecraft’s stabilising gyroscopes failed and a new race to save the mission began. By February 1999, new software enabled the spacecraft to fly without the need for gyroscopes, and it has been revolutionising solar science ever since.
“SOHO pioneered new fields in solar science. It is a game-changer in the study of space weather, providing real-time monitoring of the Sun to forecast potentially dangerous solar storms heading towards Earth, and its legacy continues to guide future missions,” says Daniel Müller, ESA Project Scientist for SOHO and Solar Orbiter.
“SOHO is still producing high-quality data on a daily basis, and with hundreds of papers being published every year, its scientific productivity remains very high.”
Here are five highlights from the last five years:
1. A single plasma conveyor belt
SOHO led the way in ‘helioseismology’. Akin to studying how seismic waves traverse Earth during an earthquake, helioseismology probes the inside of the Sun by studying how sound waves reverberate through it. Early in its career, SOHO provided the first images of plasma flows (electrically charged material) beneath the Sun’s surface, offering a unique window into its layered interior.
Thanks to SOHO’s long lifetime, scientists have used helioseismology to solve an enduring mystery: plasma flows along a single loop, or cell, in each of the Sun's hemispheres – not multiple cells as previously thought.
The data show that it takes about 22 years for plasma to complete an entire loop around this single ‘conveyor belt’, flowing from the surface near the equator up to the poles, then traveling back down deep inside towards the equator. This matches the timeline of the Sun’s magnetic cycle, explaining how sunspots – regions where intense magnetic fields break through the Sun’s surface – emerge progressively closer to the equator over the solar cycle.
The amount of energy that floods out of the Sun is a fundamental quantity in understanding the impact of solar heating on Earth’s atmosphere and climate. SOHO’s three decades of data, in combination with older measurements, provide unrivalled measurements spanning nearly fifty years.
The total energy output of the Sun changes very little – on average, by only 0.06% over the solar cycle. By contrast, the variation in extreme ultraviolet radiation is substantial, doubling between solar minimum and maximum. Solar extreme ultraviolet radiation significantly influences the temperature and chemistry in Earth’s upper atmosphere, but is not a direct driver of the global warming trends observed near Earth’s surface.
3. Solar storm monitoring made law
SOHO has played such a pivotal role in the development of real-time space weather monitoring systems that it was signed into United States law in October 2020.
The ‘Promoting Research and Observations of Space Weather to Improve the Forecasting of Tomorrow’ (PROSWIFT) act specifically mentions SOHO's Large Angle and Spectrometric Coronagraph (LASCO) instrument.
LASCO is a coronagraph, a telescope with a disc masking the centre of view. By blocking out the direct light coming from the Sun, the instrument can see light from the surrounding atmosphere, called the corona. This allows us to see coronal mass ejections – large eruptions of solar material and magnetic fields – as they set off from the Sun, providing up to three days warning of potentially disruptive incoming space weather reaching Earth.
The telescope’s prowess as a comet hunter was unplanned, but turned out to be an unexpected success. Thanks to the screening effect of SOHO’s coronagraph, ‘sungrazer’ comets – those that approach the Sun at very close distances – also become visible.
Not all comets seen by SOHO are sungrazers. For example, it also beautifully captured Comet Tsuchinshan–ATLAS, also called the Great Comet of 2024, a non-periodic comet from the outer reaches of the Solar System.
SOHO discovered its 5000th comet in March 2024, making it the most prolific comet-discoverer in history. Most of these have been found by citizen scientists worldwide through the Sungrazer Project. The observations have provided valuable data on the movement, composition and dust production of comets.
5. Enabling future discoveries
SOHO’s success has shaped the next generation of solar observatories, both in terms of their technology and scientific objectives, as well as being a role model for open data policies and international collaboration.
For example, the ESA-led Solar Orbiter mission is imaging the solar poles from higher latitude and flying much closer to the Sun, with many of its instruments being successors of SOHO's. Similarly, NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory carries improved versions of SOHO’s instruments to continue the legacy that SOHO began in areas of full-disc imaging and helioseismology. Moreover, SOHO frequently contributes to ‘multipoint’ measurements, providing essential context for Solar Orbiter and NASA’s Parker Solar Probe as they fly along their own unique orbits around the Sun.
Even more recently, ESA’s Proba-3 took to the skies to open up new views of the Sun’s faint corona, while the Agency’s upcoming Vigil mission will be the first to monitor the Sun from the ‘side’, detecting solar storms before they roll into SOHO’s line-of-sight.
“SOHO is an all-round shining success, thanks to the dedication of the teams keeping this incredible machine flying,” says Daniel. “Its science remains valuable and relevant, serving generations of scientists, and I’m certain that its legacy will continue to guide solar science for decades to come.”
Launched on 2 December 1995, the ESA/NASA Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) has been observing the Sun for 30 years. This graphic highlights some of the mission’s impressive numbers to date, which will continue to increase over the coming years.
[Image description: Infographic showing cartoon icons and related numbers. In the centre, an image of the Sun has ‘30 years’ written inside it and the SOHO spacecraft partially overlapping its left side. Clockwise from the top, the graphic lists: 3 solar cycles, 24 million images, 300 PhD theses, 7000 papers published, 60 TB data in the SOHO archive, 2.8 million command blocks sent, 18 years on ground stations, 5000 comets and 40 000 coronal mass ejections. The bottom right of the graphic adds a note ‘...and counting’.]
Credit
Credit: SOHO (ESA & NASA) Acknowledgements: ATG Europe
Humanity had a dream: the alien world we hope to call home
Since humanity’s first steps on the Moon, the aspiration to extend human civilization beyond Earth has been a central objective of international space agencies, targeting long-term extraterrestrial habitation. Among the celestial bodies within our reach, Mars is considered our next home. The Red Planet, with its stark landscapes and tantalizing similarities to Earth, beckons as the frontier of human exploration and settlement. But establishing a permanent foothold on Mars remains one of humanity’s boldest dreams and the most formidable scientific and engineering challenge.
The Red Planet, once draped in a thick atmosphere, has undergone dramatic transformation over billions of years. Its protective blanket vanished, leaving behind an environment nearly unrecognizable to terrestrial life. Today, its air is whisper-thin and rich in carbon dioxide, pressure is less than one percent of Earth’s, and temperatures swing wildly from a freezing –90°C to a mild 26°C. Add to this constant cosmic radiation and the absence of breathable air, and it becomes clear: creating shelter on Mars is about much more than building walls. It’s about crafting a life-supporting sanctuary that stands strong against an alien world. Transporting building materials from Earth is prohibitively expensive and impractical. The solution? Learning to build using what Mars itself offers. In situ resource utilization (ISRU), harnessing local materials, is the key to unlocking sustainable human presence on Mars.
As samples gathered by NASA’s Perseverance rover from Jezero Crater, an ancient Martian riverbed, may hold traces of primordial life, it invites us to dream beyond discovery. Could the same microbial fingerprints that once thrived on Mars also help us build on it?
From Earth to Mars
Once upon a time, life on Earth began with humble microorganisms in shallow pools and seas. These silent engineers transformed our planet, from filling the skies with oxygen to building resilient coral reefs that stand to this day. Now, as humanity’s gaze shifts skyward, these tiny creators may hold the key to turning a barren world into a vibrant home.
Our research pioneers a bold path, drawing inspiration from Mother Nature. In an internationally cross-disciplinary effort, we came together to harness a natural wonder: biomineralization. This phenomenon, which unfolds when microorganisms (bacteria, fungi, and microalgae) produce minerals as part of their metabolism, has shaped Earth’s landscapes for billions of years. These microorganisms that thrive not only in familiar waters but also in extreme environments like acidic lakes, volcanic soils, and deep caves may reveal the versatility needed for Martian adaptation.
Guided by data from Mars rovers regarding the Martian soil (regolith) composition, our research explores multiple microbial mineralization pathways to discover which can forge strong building materials for Mars habitats without posing an interplanetary pollution risk. Among them, biocementation, which uses microorganisms to generate natural cement-like materials like calcium carbonate at room temperature, shines as the most promising. At the core of our research is a collaborative effort between two remarkable bacteria: Sporosarcina pasteurii, a well-known bacterium that produces calcium carbonate via ureolysis, and Chroococcidiopsis, a resilient cyanobacterium known for surviving extreme environments, including simulated Martian conditions. Together, they form a powerful partnership. Chroococcidiopsis breathes life into its surroundings by releasing oxygen, creating a welcoming microenvironment for Sporosarcina pasteurii. Moreover, the extracellular polymeric substance secreted by Chroococcidiopsis shields Sporosarcina pasteurii from harmful UV radiation on the Martian surface. In turn, Sporosarcina secretes natural polymers that nurture mineral growth and strengthen regolith, turning loose soil into solid, concrete-like material.
We envision this bacterial co-culture mixed with Martian regolith as feedstock for 3D printing on Mars. At the intersection of astrobiology, geochemistry, material science, construction engineering, and robotics, this synergistic system could revolutionize the potential for construction on the Red Planet, redefining the design-for-manufacturing on Mars.
But this microbial partnership offers benefits beyond construction. Chroococcidiopsis, with its ability to produce oxygen, could support not just habitat integrity but also the life-support systems for astronauts. Over longer timescales, the ammonia produced as a metabolic byproduct of Sporosarcina pasteurii might be used to develop closed-loop agricultural systems and potentially help in Mars's terraforming efforts.
One step at a time
Yet the journey is just beginning. Although international agencies plan to build the first human habitat on Mars in the 2040s, the Mars sample return is facing recurring delays, constraining experimental validation of Mars-specific construction technologies. As space agencies prepare for crewed Mars missions in the coming decade, we must advance our understanding of bio-derived extraterrestrial construction to be ready for the day to come.
From an astrobiology perspective, we must unravel how these microbial communities interact with Martian regolith and survive stressors from the planet’s hostile environment. Laboratory regolith simulants offer a pragmatic approach to testing co-cultures in conditions that echo those on Mars and to building predictive models for biocementation performance. On the robotics front, one major challenge is replicating Martian gravity on Earth to test 3D printing processes and optimize autonomous construction control for future Mars missions. Therefore, we must develop robust control algorithms and tailored protocols that will enable us not only to build more efficiently but also to redefine manufacturing methods for Mars’s unique environment. The journey is vigorous, but step by step, every discovery, each successful trial and tested protocol, brings us closer to the day when humanity will call Mars our home.
