Download Large asteroid streaks past Earth

ARAB TIMES, THURSDAY, APRIL 20, 2017
INTERNATIONAL
18
World News Roundup
In this artist tendering provided by M. Weiss Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, a newly-discovered rocky exoplanet, LHS 1140b. This planet is located in the liquid water habitable zone surrounding its host star, a
small, faint red star named LHS 1140. The planet weighs about 6.6 times the mass of Earth and is shown passing in front of LHS 1140. Depicted in blue is the atmosphere the planet may have retained. (AP)
Health
Space
Gates backs push
‘2014 J025’ largest to come near the planet
‘Progress against
tropical diseases’
Large asteroid streaks past Earth
GENEVA, April 19, (Agencies): The World Health
Organisation (WHO) on Wednesday reported remarkable achievements in tackling neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) since 2007. An estimated one billion
people received treatment in 2015 alone.
“WHO has observed record-breaking progress towards bringing ancient scourges like sleeping sickness
and elephantiasis to their knees,” said WHO DirectorGeneral, Dr. Margaret Chan in the report.
“Over the past 10 years, millions of people have
been rescued from disability and poverty, thanks to
one of the most effective global partnerships in modern public health”.
The WHO report, integrating neglected tropical diseases in global health and development, demonstrates
how strong political support,
generous donations of medicines, and improvements in
living conditions have led to
sustained expansion of disease
control programmes in countries where these diseases are
most prevalent.
Since 2007, when a group of
global partners met to agree to
tackle NTDs together, a variety
of local and international partBill
ners have worked alongside
ministries of health in endemic countries to deliver
quality-assured medicines, and provide people with
care and long-term management.
In 2012, partners endorsed a WHO NTD roadmap,
committing additional support and resources to eliminating 10 of the most common NTDs.
Key achievements included one billion people
treated for at least one neglected tropical disease in
2015 alone, 556 million people receiving preventive
treatment for lymphatic filariasis (elephantiasis), and
more than 114 million people received treatment for
onchocerciasis.
Only 25 human cases of Guinea-worm disease were
reported in 2016, putting eradication within reach.
Cases of human African trypanosomiasis (sleeping
sickness) have been reduced from 37,000 new cases in
1999 to well under 3,000 cases in 2015.
Trachoma - the world’s leading infectious cause
of blindness - has been eliminated as a public health
problem in Mexico, Morocco, and Oman. More than
185,000 trachoma patients had surgery for trichiasis
worldwide and more than 56 million people received
antibiotics in 2015 alone.
Meanwhile, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation,
Western countries and drug companies pledged fresh
support on Wednesday to wipe out diseases that blind,
disable and disfigure millions of poor in tropical areas
each year and urged new donors to join the fight.
Some 1.5 billion people, mainly in Asia, Africa and
Latin America, are infected with one of 18 neglected
tropical diseases known as NTDs, the World Health
Organisation (WHO) said. One billion of them are receiving treatment, half of them children.
Jennifer Doudna of the US poses after receiving the Japan Prize in the
‘life science’ field during a ceremony
in Tokyo on April 19. Jennifer Doudna
and Emmanuelle Charpentier were
awarded the 33rd Japan prize for elucidation of the genome editing mechanism. (AFP)
Discovery
EPA seeks to scuttle cleanup: The
Trump administration is once again seeking
to scuttle cuts to pollution from coal-fired
power plants.
The Environmental Protection Agency
on Tuesday asked a federal appeals court in
Washington to postpone consideration of
2012 rules requiring energy companies to
cut emissions of toxic chemicals.
The agency said in a court filing it wants
to review the restrictions, which are already
in effect. Nationally, most utilities are
already on pace to comply with the new
standards.
It is the latest in a string of moves by
President Donald Trump’s appointees to
help companies that profit from burning of
fossil fuels.
Last week EPA administrator Scott
Pruitt announced he would seek to rewrite
Obama-era rules limiting water pollution
from coal-fired power plants. The agency
also sought to roll back tighter restrictions
on pollution from coal mines.(AP)
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Egypt unveils statue of Ramses II:
Egypt has unveiled a massive granite
statue of Ramses II, the most powerful and
celebrated of the ancient Pharaohs, after
completing its restoration.
Standing 11 metres tall and weighing 75
tonnes, the statue was presented in a floodlit
ceremony at the Luxor Temple on the banks
of the Nile on Tuesday evening. When the
statue was discovered between 1958 and
1960, it was in 57 pieces.
Ramses II, also known as Ramses the
Great or Ozymandias, reigned more than
3,000 years ago. He led several military
expeditions and expanded the Egyptian
Empire to stretch from Syria in the north to
Nubia in the south.
WASHINGTON, April 19, (Agencies):
An asteroid more than a quarter mile
(400 meters) wide wass passing close
to Earth on Wednesday, zooming by at
a distance of just over a million miles
(1.8 million km), but with no chance of
impact, according to NASA scientists.
Smaller asteroids routinely make
closer passes to Earth, but 2014 J025,
discovered in May 2014, the largest
asteroid to come this near to the planet
since 2004, flying by at only about 4.6
times the distance from the Earth to the
Moon, 1.1 million miles (1.8 million
km).
“We know the time that the object is
going to be closest within seconds, and
the distance is known within hundreds
of kilometers (miles),” Davide Farnocchia, a mathematician at NASA’s
Near-Earth Object program, said by
telephone on Tuesday.
Having several years of data on the
asteroid’s trajectory gives scientists the
ability to predict its path very confidently, he added.
The asteroid, estimated to be between one-quarter and three-quarters
of a mile (600-1,400 meters) wide and
twice as reflective as the Moon, isn’t be
visible to the naked eye, but sky watchers are able to view it with home telescopes for one or two nights starting
on Wednesday.
The approach of J025 is the asteroid’s closest for at least the next 500
years.
In 2004, the 3.1-mile (5-kms) wide
asteroid Toutatis passed about four lunar distances, or just under a million
miles (1.6 million km) from Earth.
Amateur astronomers may be watching J025’s journey, but Farnocchia said
he and his colleagues have moved on to
tracking even closer encounters, such
as asteroid 1999 AN10, a half-mile
(800-meter) wide rock predicted to pass
only 236,000 miles (380,000 kms) from
Earth, or slightly less than the distance
to the Moon, in 2027.
‘Super-Earth’ orbiting nearby star
boosts search for extra-solar life
PARIS, April 19, (AFP): Astronomers on Wednesday announced
the discovery of a “super-Earth” orbiting a nearby star which may offer the most promising target yet in
the search for life beyond the Solar
System.
Named LHS 1140b, the planet orbits a star 40 light years away, circling
it in the coveted “Goldilocks” zone.
This is the distance from a star
where the temperature is not too hot,
nor too cold, but just right.
So if there is water, the stuff of life,
it can exist encouragingly in liquid
form and not as rock-solid ice or vapour.
Previous worlds in this temperate zone have already been spotted,
notably a clutch unveiled just two
months ago to great fanfare.
But LHS 1140b is exceptional because of its location. Astronomers
have a relatively grandstand view of
it, and already some beguiling things
are known.
One way to hunt exoplanets, a field
launched a quarter of a century ago,
is to analyse tiny dips in starlight that
occur when a planet transits in front
of its star.
From these minute changes, useful but sketchy details can be gleaned
about the passing object.
In the case of LHS 1140b, the starlight is bright, the orbit is only 25 days
and the planet is seen almost edge-
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Mongolia launched its first satellite
on Wednesday, part of its efforts to
make use of new technology to diversify its resource-dependent economy.
The 1,227-megahertz satellite, called
Mongol Sat-1, will help landlocked
Mongolia expand its television, telecoms and broadband services, accord-
The statue was displayed just hours after
archaeologists unveiled the tomb of a nobleman from more than 3,000 years ago, the
latest in a series of discoveries that Egypt
hopes will revive a tourist business hit by
political instability. (RTRS)
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Sulphur-powered shipworm found: An
enormous black worm that lives in the mud
of the sea floor and survives on the remnants
of noxious gases digested by bacteria has
Trump
Pruitt
on from Earth.
As a result, astronomers have
been able to get close, frequent looks
at the all-important light signature —
a big plus in the drive to figure out a
planet’s size, mass and possible atmosphere.
“This is the most exciting exoplanet
I’ve seen in decades,” said Jason
Dittmann of the Harvard Smithsonian
Center for Astrophysics, who led the
team.
“We could hardly hope for a better
target to perform one of the biggest
quests in science — searching for
evidence of life beyond Earth.”
LHS 1140b, whose discovery is
published in the journal Nature, orbits
a so-called red dwarf star called LHS
1140 in the constellation of Cetus, the
Sea Monster.
The planet’s orbit is 10 times closer
to its star than the Earth is to the Sun,
according to early measurements.
In our Solar System, such a planet
would be so scorched that any atmosphere and surface water would
be stripped away.
But red dwarves are much smaller
and cooler than our Sun — LHS
1140b receives only half as much
sunlight as we do.
Early measurements suggest it is
about five billion years old, or about
500 million years more than the
Earth, and has a diameter about 1.4
times the size of our planet.
ing to a video posted on the official
website of Mongolia’s parliament.
The satellite was launched in partnership with Asia Broadcast Satellite
(ABS), a telecoms and broadcast provider for the region. No details about
the cost of the satellite and the launch
were provided, and government agencies could not be immediately reached
for comment.
been unveiled by scientists for the first time.
The slimy giant shipworm can grow up to
155 centimetres (five feet) in length, despite
living a sedentary life in ocean sediment
and apparently eating nothing more than the
waste products of the micro-organisms that
live in its gills.
“We are amazed. This is the first time we
saw a shipworm as large as this. Usually,
shipworms are only as short as a matchstick
and are white,” Filipino marine biologist
Julie Albano told AFP.