Category: Science

The harvest full moon is out tonight. (The harvest full moon is the full moon that happens closest to the start of autumn).

I gave the picture to Claude AI to look at and point out some of the craters and lunar maria (Latin for ‘seas’, but they are actually ancient solidified lava plains). Claude complained that the resolution of my picture was not good enough, so I went to NASA’s website for a better one.

This Year’s Record-Breaking El Niño in 3 Charts
Reported by Mira Rojanasakul and Chico Harlan for The New York Times

This year’s El Niño is already intense, and it’s not done growing. Scientists expect that by December, when El Niño events typically reach their peak, this one will wind up as the strongest in at least 80 years of precise record keeping. And perhaps as the most powerful in centuries.

The event will alter weather patterns across the planet and could drive an additional 49 million people into hunger, according to a projection by the United Nations’ World Food Program. It will also temporarily boost global temperatures that were already rising because of climate change.

El Niños are essentially anomalies in the tropical Pacific Ocean. Their magnitude is measured by how far temperatures there rise beyond the norm. Temperatures must jump 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) above average to qualify as a Super El Niño. But this year’s event is expected to go even further, well exceeding the prior strong El Niños that began in 1997, 2015 and 2023.

It’s unusual to have three strong El Niños in 11 years. And scientists are divided about whether that run is just a coincidence, or whether climate change might be making El Niño events more frequent and intense.

An El Niño’s magnitude is measured in a vast rectangular zone of the Pacific that runs along the Equator, starting off the coast of South America. Most years, temperatures in that zone hit a peak of around 28 degrees Celsius (82 degrees Fahrenheit) in May and then gently decline through the Northern Hemisphere summer. But during an El Niño year, temperatures break from that pattern, and this year they are spiking like never before. In no other year on record have temperatures held above 29 degrees Celsius (84 degrees Fahrenheit) in July and August.

This warming is happening in an ocean that has been heating up for decades as it absorbs heat trapped by greenhouse gas emissions from human activity. The effects are not constrained to the Pacific. On Saturday, the daily global average sea surface temperature reached 21.1 degrees Celsius (70 degrees Fahrenheit), according to Europe’s Copernicus Climate Change Service, breaking the previous record set in March 2024.

The heat that builds up near the surface of the tropical Pacific eventually makes the entire planet warmer. The trend takes a while to materialize, but recent El Niños have led to annual global heat records in the year after they form. To that end, scientists broadly expect 2027 to be the hottest year humans have ever experienced. But the heat is altering the trajectory of 2026 as well. The first half of this year, while broadly hotter than in previous decades, generally did not approach the heat records set in 2024. But recent days in August have been warmer than comparable dates in any prior year.

The first total solar eclipse in decades in Europe swept across the continent on Wednesday, turning day to dark across several countries as crowds watched from hilltops, coastlines and other open spaces.

The coincidence of Earth, the moon and the sun falling into perfect alignment — a fleeting celestial event known as totality — created a frenzy across the region. People paid exorbitant hotel rates to be in the inner part, or umbra, of the lunar shadow. Along that path, where the sky was clear, the sun became a black disk ensconced in a hazy corona, surrounded by planets and stars.
– Jason Horowitz reporting for the New York Times from Castrillo de la Reina, Spain

A powerful earthquake struck western Colombia on Monday morning, rattling much of the country, killing more than 100 people and sending residents fleeing from swaying and crumbling buildings in multiple major cities. As rescuers searched the rubble of damaged buildings and officials warned of possible aftershocks, the death toll appeared likely to rise.

The 7.4 magnitude earthquake occurred at 7:34 a.m. local time, according to the United States Geological Survey and Colombia’s geological service, with the epicenter roughly three miles east of San José del Palmar, a town of some 5,000 people in a rural part of the Chocó region, where officials reported significant damage. Videos showed collapsed and partially collapsed buildings in the major cities of Pereira, Manizales and Cali.
– Genevieve Glatsky and Julie Turkewitz reporting for the New York Times from Bogotá, Colombia

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This one in Colombia occurred seven weeks after the devastating 7.5 magnitude earthquake in Venezuela, and does not appear to be related to it.
The epicenters are some 800 miles (1,200 km) apart and on different plates.

There are 15 to 20 earthquakes of this magnitude or greater every year around the world.

A suspected outbreak of the rare hantavirus on a cruise ship in the Atlantic kills 3 people

CAPE TOWN, South Africa (AP) — A deadly outbreak of the rare hantavirus unfolded over the course of weeks on a cruise ship that sailed from Argentina toward Antarctica and then across the Atlantic Ocean, stopping at or near remote islands on the way as passengers and crew members fell sick, according to information from the cruise operator, the World Health Organization and ship tracking data.

It shows nearly a month passed between when an elderly Dutch man fell sick and died in the South Atlantic and laboratory tests in South Africa — more than 3,500 kilometers (2,174 miles) away — confirmed hantavirus infections.

Three passengers in total have died, one is in intensive care in a South African hospital, and three other people still on the cruise ship have shown symptoms and were waiting for evacuations. Nearly 150 passengers and crew members from 23 countries were on the ship, which is waiting off the coast of West Africa.
– Reporting by Associated Press

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I am following the hantavirus outbreak on the polar cruise ship MV Hondius.
I hope there is a resolution soon for those trapped on the ship.

Authorities do not know if the passengers that fell ill contracted the virus while on excursions away from the ship, or from rodents on the ship itself. The hantavirus is not really contagious except for one specific type: the Andes virus, found in long-tailed pygmy rice rats.

Happy World Quantum Day.

World Quantum Day is an international celebration held annually on April 14 (4.14, a nod to Planck’s constant*, to promote public awareness and understanding of quantum science and technology.
It features global events, including lectures, lab tours, and workshops, aiming to make quantum physics more accessible.

*The value of Planck’s constant is about 4.135667696×10^−15 eV⋅Hz−1.
There is another value for it, in SI units— the one that we used in science class in high school, which came to approximately 6.62607015×10^−34 J⋅Hz−1 .
Ten to the power minus 34 is an infinitesimally small quantity and we would say about something annoying or boring ‘I care less about it than Planck’s Constant, ha ha ha 😁’ as a little inside joke, understood and appreciated by the science class nerds.

Reported by the staff from National Public Radio at npr.org:

The Artemis II astronauts are making their way back to Earth after the lunar flyby.

The crew became the first astronauts in over 50 years to fly around the far side of the moon. They also experienced a solar eclipse.

During the mission’s loop around the moon, the crew took geological observations of places of interest on the lunar surface with their own eyes and snapping thousands of photos of the surface.

The crew will return to Earth on Friday and splash down off the coast of California. NASA says a landing on the lunar surface won’t happen until 2028, at the earliest.

Happy Friday.
Happy vernal equinox and happy autumn equinox (for those in the southern hemisphere), as well.

The rain brought on by the atmospheric river from the Pacific Ocean has finally stopped here in Seattle.
Several rivers and low-lying areas are under flood conditions today, which will continue into the weekend.