Approaching

With 2024 approaching, the frequency of solar storms, solar flares, geomagnetic storms, and other solar phenomena is set to increase. According to various models and predictions by scientists, the solar cycle 25 will enter the peak of solar maximum in mid-2024. Solar maximum is when the Sun has the highest number of sunspots (active areas of solar flares). These sunspots are what send these vicious solar storms toward the Earth. A recent report has suggested that a solar storm is set to hit Earth and there's a chance…

There's likely fewer than 30 days left before the crypto world's inevitable leap into traditional finance offers digital-money proponents a path to redemption post-FTX. That's the bullish narrative in virtual-currency land as the clock ticks down to Jan. 10 – when US regulators must finally decide whether to greenlight a physically-backed Bitcoin ETF. The Securities and Exchange Commission will by that time be required to either accept or deny an application from Cathie Wood's ARK Investment and 21Shares, who were the…

An exploding population of hard-to-eradicate "super pigs" in Canada is threatening to spill south of the border, and northern states like Minnesota, North Dakota and Montana are taking steps to stop the invasion.In Canada, the wild pigs roaming Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba pose a new threat.Ryan Brook, a professor at the University of Saskatchewan and one of Canada's leading authorities on the problem, calls feral swine, "the most invasive animal on the planet" and "an ecological train wreck." They are often…

A car-sized spacecraft is falling down to Earth — but there’s a plan to catch it. Aeolus, the first satellite to directly observe wind profiles from space, is almost out of fuel. Earth’s atmosphere and gravity are now dragging the 1360-kg craft down to our planet at increasing speed. In the original plan, Aelous was expected to fall naturally back to Earth. But the European Space Agency (ESA) has proposed another idea: an assisted re-entry — the first of its kind. Data from Aeolus was used by…

Asteroids are described as ancient space rocks left over from the early formation of our solar system around 4.6 billion years ago. These objects pass Earth occasionally at safe distances. NASA has carried out several missions to these rocks to study them up close. While the DART Test was in the news last year as the first-ever planetary defense test, the space agency also carried out missions like Dawn, OSIRIS-REx, and Hayabusa2. The purpose of these missions is to study asteroids, minimize any uncertainties around…

NASA monitors asteroids for any potential danger to Earth and tracks their orbits to minimize the uncertainty around the close approaches. When its telescopes track a new Near-Earth Asteroid (NEA), NASA astronomers measure the asteroid's observed positions in the sky and report them to the Minor Planet Center. The Center for Near-Earth Object Studies (CNEOS) then uses that data to determine the asteroid's most likely orbit around the Sun, according to NASA. To assess whether an impact is possible and narrow down where…

Last week, panic spread among people as reports of an ‘internet apocalypse' began doing the rounds on social media platforms. The reports suggested that a massive solar storm will strike the Earth in 2025 triggering the collapse of internet infrastructure globally. Later debunked, the news has still left many netizens concerned. For clarity purposes, it should be noted that while an intense solar storm powerful enough to destroy the internet may come someday, it is impossible to predict when that may happen, for we lack…

Hayley Atwell has revealed the “mad” method she used to adopt to fend off unwanted male attention in nightclubs.The Mission Impossible actor said: “I used to do really ugly, intense dancing that was totally out of rhythm, and almost like I was manically into them. And it would last like 10 seconds before they usually backed down.”Atwell also discussed how she collaborated with Tom Cruise and director Christopher McQuarrie to build her character, as well as stunt and combat training for the film.Check out Love Lives on…

An asteroid that was previously expected to strike Earth is now being deemed safe. However, it will come close enough to the planet in this decade, giving scientists a chance to study it. This asteroid is named 99942 Apophis and has been given the designation Asteroid 2004 MN4 by NASA's Center for Near-Earth Object Studies. According to NASA, Asteroid 99942 Apophis asteroid will make an extremely close trip to Earth on April 13, 2029. On that day, this space rock will come as close as 38000 kilometers to Earth's surface.…

Asteroids have the potential to cause armageddon on Earth, especially if they crash in a densely populated area. To counter this very threat to life, space agencies keep developing technology for asteroid prevention and countermeasures. While NASA's DART Test successfully deflected an asteroid off its course, other organizations are mounting up planetary defense efforts. The latest planetary protection effort comes from a California-based nonprofit organization that is looking to meet this threat by designing a new…