Hawaii’s Mauna Loa volcano is erupting for the first time since 1984

For the first time in nearly 40 years, the world’s largest active volcano is erupting in Hawaii, after weeks of increased activity at the caldera

Earth



28 November 2022
, updated 28 November 2022

By James Dinneen and Madeleine Cuff

A thermal camera on the north rim of Mauna Loa’s summit caldera captured the eruption

US Geological Survey

The world’s largest active volcano, Mauna Loa in Hawaii, is erupting for the first time in almost 40 years, with US officials warning nearby residents to prepare for possible evacuation.

The eruption, the volcano’s first since 1984, began at 11.30pm local time on 27 November at Moku‘āweoweo, the summit’s caldera located inside Hawai‘i Volcanoes National Park on the island of Hawaii.

So far, the eruption is confined to the summit area but officials warned the situation could change rapidly.

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Along the sides of the volcano are two so-called rift zones, extending north-east and south-west from the caldera, where the surface of the volcano can crack and split. “Very fluid and fast-moving lava” can quickly run from a new fissure, threatening populated neighbourhoods downstream, said Ken Hon at the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory in a briefing on 28 November.

“Right now, we just don’t know what’s going to happen – if this is going to stay as a summit-only eruption or move into one of the rift zones,” he said.

On 28 November, officials from the US Geological Survey said lava had started to spill out of the summit’s caldera, but said there is no evidence of lava erupting from the rift zones.

A warning for ashfall has been issued for Hawaii’s Big Island, with medically vulnerable residents advised to stay inside or wear filter masks. Shelters have been opened to provide safety for islanders, although there is no immediate threat to populated areas, according to officials.

Mauna Loa is a giant shield volcano, standing at around 4 kilometres tall and covering a land area of about 5000 square kilometres.

It has erupted 33 times since 1843, most seriously in 1950 when it inundated the coastal town of Hoʻōpūloa within 3 hours, destroying houses, a church and the local highway.

During its last eruption in 1984, lava flows came within 5 miles of the city of Hilo.

Volcanologists have been reporting an uptick in activity at Mauna Loa for weeks, with dozens of small, shallow earthquakes recorded around the summit in the last month. “Then it really kicked up right before the eruption started,” says Paul Segall at Stanford University in California.

Deeper earthquakes around the volcano over the past several years have indicated Mauna Loa might be ready to erupt. “This has been on our radar for a while,” he says.

In a statement, the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory said it will conduct aerial reconnaissance “as soon as possible” to better understand the risks posed by the current eruption.

Segall says the eruption may help volcanologists understand more about the connection between Mauna Loa and another Hawaiian volcano called Kīlauea. “We don’t really understand the plumbing system where the magma separates” to flow to the two volcanos, he says. One theory behind the long delay since Mauna Loa’s last eruption is that magma was being diverted to Kīlauea, which saw a major eruption in 2018 that caused a caldera collapse.

Segall says he sees no indication at this point that the Mauna Loa eruption could become as forceful as the 2018 eruption of Kīlauea. “Statistically speaking, this thing is going to be relatively modest,” he says.

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Japanese firm ispace is racing to put first private lander on the moon

The Japanese Hakuto-R lander is vying to be the first privately-funded spacecraft to land on the moon

Space



28 November 2022

By Leah Crane

The ispace lunar lander inside the fairing of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket

ispace

A Japanese company called ispace is getting ready to launch its Hakuto-R lunar lander on 30 November. If the mission is a success, it will be the first spacecraft funded and built by a private firm to ever land on the moon – provided it isn’t beaten by competitors set to launch next year on a more direct route through space.

The Israeli non-profit SpaceIL made a similar landing attempt in 2019 with the Beresheet spacecraft, but it suffered a fatal engine flaw during the landing attempt and ended up crashing on the lunar surface. Like SpaceIL, ispace started working on its lander as part of the Google Lunar X Prize, which offered a cash prize to the first successful moon landing not funded by a government. The prize ended without a winner in January 2018, and so far, only governments – the US, the Soviet Union and China – have managed to land on the moon.

Since the X Prize, ispace has grown to become a multinational firm with offices in Japan, the US and Luxembourg. “We’re a quite international business already, and I’d like to position ispace as an international bridge between the US and other companies,” says ispace founder and CEO Takeshi Hakamada. The company now has contracts with NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) to land on the lunar far side and collect samples of moon dust and water, as well as other collaborations with companies and agencies around the world.

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Its first mission, called M-1, will launch on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral in Florida on 30 November. The lander will carry a small rover for the United Arab Emirates’ Mohammed bin Rashid Space Centre (MBRSC), an even smaller two-wheeled robot for the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), and a camera and flight computer prototype for Canadian companies. If it succeeds, it will not only be the first private moon landing but also the first time any craft from Japan or the United Arab Emirates has visited the lunar surface.

Hakuto-R’s path to the moon is a circuitous one, designed to require less fuel so the spacecraft can fit more scientific payloads aboard. Rather than flying straight there, it will use the gravity of Earth and the sun to give it an extra push during its four-month voyage. The two-metre-tall craft will weigh about 1000 kilograms when it launches, but most of that mass is propellant which will be burned on the way, and the lander will have a mass of only 340 kilograms by the time it touches down.

Once it arrives at the moon, it will spend about two weeks in orbit, with each circle around the moon taking it closer to the surface. Finally, if all goes well, it will land softly in an area called Atlas Crater.

There is a slight wrench in ispace’s plan to be the first private firm on the moon, though: there are two other contenders from the US, the Nova-C lander built by Intuitive Machines and the Peregrine lander from Astrobotic. While both spacecraft are not scheduled to launch until early next year, they will take more direct routes to the moon and could potentially beat Hakuto-R there.

“We don’t care very much about who is going to land first,” says Hakamada. “Our vision is to create an economically viable lunar ecosystem – I don’t think it’s possible to do that with only one company, so we want several companies to do business there.” The company has two more lunar missions already in development, with the goal of maintaining momentum with launches in 2024 and 2025.

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Orionid meteor shower 2022: How to see dust from Halley’s comet

The Orionid meteor shower has been steadily building throughout the month and could offer an early winter treat for stargazers. It’s one of two meteor showers associated with Halley’s comet: the other being the Eta Aquariids in May. The Orionids are easily identified by their fast speeds and are often considered as one of the most beautiful. They are by far the best shower since the Perseid meteor shower in August, especially since a full Moon somewhat scuppered viewing conditions this year.

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So, what’s the best way to maximise your chances of spotting an Orionid? What causes the Orionid meteor shower? And, when exactly should you look up to see it?

If you’re keen to make the most of the longer evenings, make sure you check out our astronomy for beginners' guide and our full Moon calendar. For a full roundup of this year's meteor showers, we’ve got all the essentials listed in our meteor shower calendar.

When can you see the Orionid meteor shower 2022 in the UK?

The Orionid meteor shower began at the end of September and will be visible until around 7 November 2022. The number of meteors starts to rise sharply as we reach the peak on 21-22 October, and we should be offered relatively decent viewing conditions, thanks to a waning (shrinking) crescent Moon. The Moon itself will rise at 2:21am on 21 October and at 3:36am on 22 October.

The best time to view the Orionids in 2022, will be between midnight and sunrise (which occurs at approximately 7:34am) on the morning of Friday 21 October, and the same time on 22 October.

However, if you miss the Orionids at their peak, all is not lost. This meteor shower has a more sustained maximum than other showers, lasting for around a week centred on the peak, before tapering off as we head into November.

Where to look

The Orionids are visible from both the northern and southern hemispheres. The radiant – the point in the sky from which the meteors appear to originate – as the name implies, is situated in the winter constellation, Orion.

However, you don’t need to restrict your viewing towards Orion; the meteors will be visible across the night sky. Looking away from the radiant will also give you the added advantage of potentially seeing ‘longer’ meteors, as opposed to the shorter meteors you might spot nearer the radiant.

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This is due to something called ‘foreshortening’ – an optical illusion that causes a meteor’s train to look shorter, because it is angled towards us.

The radiant is easy to find, look towards the eastern horizon after midnight, and locate the three distinctive stars that make up Orion’s Belt: Alnilam, Mintaka and Alnitak. If you look slightly below Orion’s belt, keen eyes may even be able to spot a fuzzy patch; the Orion Nebula. The radiant itself, is at a point at the northwest corner of the constellation.

The radiant for the Orionid meteor shower is to the northwest of the constellation Orion © PA Graphics

How many meteors will you be able to see?

The Orionids are known for their brightness and speed; these meteors are fast, which gives us certain benefits when viewing. Travelling at speeds of up to 66km per second (that’s 148,000 mph!), means that – weather permitting – we might be treated to glowing trails that persist for longer. Fast meteors also mean a slightly higher chance of seeing a fireball (an exceptionally bright meteor), although still rare.

At its peak on 21-22 October 2022, the Orionid meteor shower has a maximum zenithal hourly rate (ZHR) of around 20-25 meteors per hour. This figure, however, assumes perfect (or near-perfect) conditions: clear skies and no light pollution, as well as a radiant that is directly overhead. In 2007, a whopping 80 meteors per hour were reported.

Given that the Orionids have a relatively low-altitude radiant (i.e. the constellation Orion is still fairly low in the sky), it’s unlikely we’ll see this many. In reality, we can expect to see around 10-15 meteors per hour.

Where do the Orionids come from?

Like the Eta Aquariids in May, the Orionids are the result of debris from 1P/Halley, more commonly known as the famous Halley’s Comet.

Halley’s Comet itself is a crumbly, ‘dirty snowball’ comet, comprised of a mixture of volatile ices and dust. It’s been travelling around the Sun for at least 16,000 years, leaving a trail of debris in its wake. It has a highly elliptical orbit that stretches out around the Sun like an elongated oval, extending beyond the orbit of Neptune at its furthest point.

Every time Earth ploughs into this stream of dust from Halley’s comet, which it does twice a year, particles enter our atmosphere and disintegrate, leaving bright streaks in the sky that we see as meteor showers.

Minute particles of dust and ice, about the size of a grain of sand, leftover from the passage of Halley's comet, are responsible for both the Orionids and Eta Aquariid meteor showers © Getty Images

Viewing tips

If you can, find an area away from light pollution. Night temperatures on the 21-22 October are expected to be fairly mild, around 9 to 11°C with a light cloud and low chance of precipitation in London – but remember to check your local weather forecast. Even so, be sure to wrap up warm, as you’re probably not going to be moving around much.

Lie back in a reclining chair, hammock, or on a blanket, and let your eyes adjust to the darkness for around 10 to 20 minutes.

After a while, and with a little patience, you’ll find your eyes become more accustomed to seeing the meteor trails as they streak across the sky. Try not to look at other bright sources of light (such as your phone) during this time. If you do, use a red filter. This is because the rod cells in our eyes are not sensitive to red light, and therefore it doesn’t interrupt the accumulated night vision. Many astronomers use red light torches and filters for this reason.

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Could South American volcanoes have triggered whale extinctions?

Today, increasing levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere are warming up the planet. Climate change can disrupt the balance of ecosystems and contribute to endangerment and extinction of some species. New research suggests that a period of intense volcanism in the Central Andes may be the missing link in the story of past climate changes that led to the extinctions of ancient marine mammals. Mark Clementz and Barbara Carrapa will present their findings at the GSA Connects meeting in Denver tomorrow.

While we often hear about the important role human emissions of carbon dioxide play in the climate today, much of our understanding of current and future climate is rooted in Earth's long history of variable climate. Many factors affect the carbon cycle -- with carbon moving between the atmosphere, oceans, rocks, soil, and living things. Between 7.6 and 5.4 million years ago, the planet experienced a period of rapid cooling known as the Late Miocene Cooling Event. This was accompanied by massive changes to plant and animal communities both on land and in the oceans. Until recently, the cooling was attributed to carbon dioxide drawdown from the atmosphere by silicate weathering of the Himalayas.

Clementz and Carrapa propose a different contributing factor -- a major increase in volcanism in the Andes around seven million years ago. They explain that the Andes were positioned to deliver ash to both the Pacific and Atlantic oceans -- providing nutrients to global oceans that spurred an explosion of life. Small marine organisms called diatoms used these nutrients to thrive, and in turn, the marine mammals that fed on them, like baleen whales, also thrived. Given their massive size, large numbers of marine mammals could store a lot of carbon. By excreting their waste in shallow water, whales cycle nutrients back into those diatom communities, and the cycle continued to create what is known as a "biogenic bloom" -- an explosion of life.

"But it may have been a case where they contributed to their own death," explains Carrapa. Too many nutrients in the water can lead to toxic algae blooms, one possible stressor that contributed to the extinctions that followed this period of blossoming life. Another possibility is that ash from ongoing volcanism could have poisoned the air. Clementz and Carrapa plan on future work to look for evidence that might distinguish between these possible drivers of extinction. The observed increases in biological productivity may have contributed to cooling and extinction by altering important shallow marine habitats.

While volcanoes emit carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, the story of past carbon cycling pieced together by Clementz and Carrapa suggests that under some conditions, volcanism could actually induce net decreases in atmospheric carbon.

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#Nature | https://sciencespies.com/nature/could-south-american-volcanoes-have-triggered-whale-extinctions/

Out of the loop: Ecologists report short-term plant-soil feedback experiments fall short in predicting competition outcome of long-term field experiment

 The cause-effect sequence or “feedback” between plants and their soil microbial communities plays an important role in structuring plant communities. To predict this synergistic coexistence, researchers conduct short-term, pairwise experiments – measuring growth response of two plant species growing in soil cultivated by each of the species – based on mathematical theory. But does it work?

Utah State University ecologist Noelle Beckman and colleagues Ray Dybzinski of Loyola University Chicago and David Tilman of the University of Minnesota measured plant-soil feedbacks for six perennial prairie grass species in a short-term greenhouse study, and say their findings do not match outcomes observed in the long-term experiment conducted at Minnesota’s Cedar Creek Ecosystem Science Reserve. They report results in the Oct. 8, 2022 issue of Ecology. Their research is supported by the National Science Foundation.

“With the theoretical advancement of a pairwise feedback metric, there’s been a proliferation of short-term experiments,” says Beckman, assistant professor in USU’s Department of Biology and the USU Ecology Center. “However, few studies have linked the predictions of coexistence from species pairwise comparisons of plant growth from short-term experiments to the outcome of competitive interactions in the field.”

Plant-soil feedbacks, she says, are expected to shift with nutrient availability.

“The pairwise feedback metric is only valid, when the two species exhibit an internal equilibrium, but that condition is only true for two of the four possible outcomes of species interactions,” says Dybzinski, assistant professor in LUC’s Institute of Environmental Sustainability. “To make predictions using all four possible outcomes requires measuring plant biomass in uncultured soil, which is methodologically challenging and thus, seldom done.”

For their short-term experiments, the team measured plant-soil feedbacks in a greenhouse study under low and high nitrogen availability, with soil collected from field monocultures.

“Our study provides important insight into the use of short-term greenhouse experiments for predicting the outcome of pairwise competition under varying levels of nitrogen,” Beckman says. “Our results suggest we still have much to learn about these feedbacks and what we can specifically extrapolate from short-term experiments for long-term coexistence outcomes.”

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Materials provided by Utah State University. Original written by Mary-Ann Muffoletto. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

#Nature | https://sciencespies.com/nature/out-of-the-loop-ecologists-report-short-term-plant-soil-feedback-experiments-fall-short-in-predicting-competition-outcome-of-long-term-field-experiment/

NASA’s DART mission moved an asteroid's orbit by smashing into it

After the Double Asteroid Redirect Test mission slammed into the asteroid Dimorphos, it was pushed closer to its larger host asteroid, Didymos, and its orbit became 32 minutes shorter

Space



11 October 2022

By Leah Crane

The plumes of ejecta streaming from the Dimorphos asteroid after NASA’s DART mission made impact with it

ASI/NASA/APL

The Double Asteroid Redirect Test (DART) mission was officially a success. Its crash into Dimorphos changed the small asteroid’s orbit around its larger host asteroid, Didymos, shortening it by 32 minutes.

DART slammed into Dimorphos on 26 September, sending an enormous plume of material shooting off the asteroid’s surface. Before the impact, Dimorphos – which is just 160 metres wide – circled Didymos once every 11 hours and 55 minutes. On 11 October, NASA officials confirmed that an orbit now takes only 11 hours and 23 minutes – Dimorphos is just a little bit closer to Didymos now.

“The minimum requirement for changing the orbital period was really only 73 seconds,” said NASA’s Lori Glaze in a press conference announcing the result. Computer simulations of the collisions predicted that the orbit would change by a few minutes to a few tens of minutes, so the final result is on the high end of what we expected, Glaze said.

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After the collision, many telescopes observed Dimorphos from Earth and space alike – four of the most powerful telescopes on Earth have observed it every single night since the smash-up. These observatories watched the light from the pair of asteroids to measure when it dipped slightly as Dimorphos passed between Didymos and Earth. Radar instruments also directly measured the same orbital period.

These observatories also made measurements of the asteroid itself and the debris cloud, which will help us understand Dimorphos, including making the first measurement of its mass. This data will also reveal exactly how DART’s impact affected the asteroid.

“It looks like the recoil from the ejecta blasted off the surface was a substantial contributor to the overall push given to the asteroid, in addition to the push of the spacecraft directly impacting,” said NASA’s Tom Statler during the press conference. Figuring out the mechanics of the collision is a crucial part of DART’s ultimate goal, which was to test a method for deflecting any hazardous asteroid that might be heading towards Earth.

“Asteroids are not all the same… We should not be too eager to say one test on one asteroid tells us exactly how every other asteroid will behave in a similar situation,” said Statler. “But what we can do is use this test as an anchor point for our physics calculations and our simulations that tell us how different kinds of impacts in different situations should behave.” The more we know about the details of this collision, the better we can predict how others might go.

“This is a 4 per cent change in the orbital period of Dimorphos around Didymos… it just gave it a small nudge,” said Nancy Chabot at Johns Hopkins University in Maryland during the press conference. “If you wanted to do this in the future [to deflect an asteroid headed towards Earth], it could potentially work, but you’d want to do it years in advance.”

If we gave a dangerous asteroid even a small nudge far enough in advance, it could push the rock off track so that it would pass right by Earth instead of hitting it.

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Insect-slapping flower stamens maximize pollination

For centuries scientists have observed that when a visiting insect's tongue touches the nectar-producing parts of certain flowers, the pollen-containing stamen snaps forward. The new study proves that this action helps increase the flower's reproductive success while reducing the costs of insects lingering too long and feeding on the flower's nectar, similar to in a restaurant, where table turnover is crucial to maximise profits.

"We tested three scenarios," says lead author Deng-Fei Li, a PhD student at the Institute of Evolution and Ecology at the School of Life Sciences, Central China Normal University, Wuhan, China. "These included whether snapping stamens help flowers by controlling how much pollen each insect takes, filtering out less proficient pollinators, or reducing the amount of nectar taken by each visitor."

Li and colleagues immobilised the stamen of the flowers of barberry bushes by dipping the floral pedicel in an alcohol bath for 35-45 minutes. They confirmed that the alcohol treatment, or the lingering smell from the alocohol, did not deter pollinators. They then compared the behaviour of insects and the pollination success of flowers with mobile or immobilised stamens under glass containers in the laboratory and directly outdoors. They also stained the flowers' pollen to track how efficiently insects transported it to other nearby flowers.

Their work showed that insects visiting flowers with immobilised stamens stayed 3.6 times longer and removed more nectar than those visiting flowers with mobile stamens. However, the insects deposited 2 times fewer pollen grains per flower visit than insects visiting flowers with mobile stamens. Additionally, the team found that insect visitors deposited pollen from flowers with mobile stamens on about 3 times more flowers, and on flowers further away, increasing the likelihood of reproductive success for the plant.

The team did not find evidence that the slapping stamens helped exclude less helpful pollinators. All five species of bees and flies that were tested on visiting the flowers stayed about four times longer on flowers with immobile stamens.

"Our study helps resolve the mystery of the purpose of insect-triggered movement of flower parts that has troubled botanists since Linnaeus first observed mobile stamen in 1755," explains senior author Shuang-Quan Huang, professor at the Institute of Evolution and Ecology at the School of Life Sciences, Central China Normal University. "We've shown that plants use rapidly moving stamens to enhance the turnover of bees and flies on their flowers, thereby reducing their nectar costs per successfully transported pollen grain."

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#Environment | https://sciencespies.com/environment/insect-slapping-flower-stamens-maximize-pollination/