The Indian Panorama

Tag: Weather

  • Indian-Origin UK Minister Alok Sharma Unveils UK’s Investment to Tackle Dangers by Space Debris

    Indian-Origin UK Minister Alok Sharma Unveils UK’s Investment to Tackle Dangers by Space Debris

    LONDON (TIP): Indian – Origin Alok Sharma, UK Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, on Wednesday, September 16, confirmed a GBP 1-million government investment to be divided between seven companies to tackle the dangers presented by space debris to satellites of everyday importance.

    The seven projects will develop new sensor technology or artificial intelligence (AI) to monitor hazardous space debris.

    As part of a wider strategy, the UK Space Agency has signed a formal agreement with the Ministry of Defense (MoD) to work together on monitoring threats and hazards in orbit and track so-called “space junk” which could also pose a threat to the International Space Station (ISS) and its crew.

    “Millions of pieces of space junk orbiting the earth present a significant threat to UK satellite systems which provide the vital services that we all take for granted – from mobile communications to weather forecasting,” said Mr Sharma.

    “By developing new AI and sensor technology, the seven pioneering space projects we are backing today will significantly strengthen the UK’s capabilities to monitor these hazardous space objects, helping to create new jobs and protect the services we rely on in our everyday lives,” the India-born minister said.

    Estimates of the amount of space debris in orbit vary, from around 900,000 pieces of space junk larger than 1 cm to over 160 million orbital objects in total.

    Only a fraction of this debris can currently be tracked and avoided by working satellites. The UK government says it has a significant opportunity to benefit from the new age of satellite mega constellations — vast networks made up of hundreds or even thousands of spacecrafts — so it is more important than ever to effectively track this debris.

    “People probably do not realize just how cluttered space is. You would never let a car drive down a motorway full of broken glass and wreckages, and yet this is what satellites and the space station have to navigate every day in their orbital lanes,” said Graham Turnock, Chief Executive of the UK Space Agency.

    “In this new age of space mega constellations the UK has an unmissable opportunity to lead the way in monitoring and tackling this space junk. This funding will help us grasp this opportunity and in doing so create sought after expertise and new high skill jobs across the country,” he said.

    The projects being offered the new funding include Lift Me Off, who will develop and test machine learning algorithms to distinguish between satellites and space debris, and Fujitsu who are combining machine learning and quantum inspired processing to improve mission planning to remove debris.

    Two companies, Deimos and Northern Space and Security, will develop new optical sensors to track space objects from the UK whilst Andor, based in Northern Ireland, will enhance their astronomy camera to track and map ever smaller sized debris.

    D-Orbit UK will use a space-based sensor on their recently launched satellite platform to capture images of space objects and couple this with Passive Bistatic radar techniques developed by the University of Strathclyde.

    And, new satellite laser ranging technologies will be researched by Lumi Space to precisely track smaller space objects.

    The UK Space Agency revealed that last year there was a close call in which a GBP 100 million spacecraft operated by the European Space Agency (ESA) had to light up its thrusters to dodge a satellite.

    A clash between the spacecraft was far from certain, but the trajectories posed enough of a threat that ESA concluded that they needed to maneuver the spacecraft out of harm’s way.

    The new civil and military collaboration between the UK Space Agency and MoD to work together on space domain awareness aims to bring together data and analysis from defense, civil and commercial space users to better understand what is happening in orbit to ensure the safety and security of UK licensed satellites.

    Space surveillance and tracking (SST) is a growing international market, which consultants Euroconsult and London Economics forecast could potentially reach over GBP 100 million.

    The UK Space Agency believes that as a world-leader in small satellite technology, telecommunications, robotics and Earth observation, the UK could work alongside global allies, such as the US, to support continued work to enhance space sustainability.

  • A heat wave forecast for the U.S. has scientists alarmed

    A heat wave forecast for the U.S. has scientists alarmed

    The coming heat is projected to affect huge stretches of the U.S., from eastern New Mexico and Colorado across the Central Plains and into the Northeast.

    NEW YORK (TIP): A sustained blast of heat is expected to bake much of the United States with hotter-than-usual temperatures this holiday weekend, and forecasts suggest that the heat and the humidity could linger for several weeks.

    The extreme weather — the first major heat wave of the season — comes as many states are scrambling to contain the rampant spread of the coronavirus and resources are already strained. And while the pandemic presents some unique challenges this summer, experts say these extreme events will continue to pose public health risks because climate change is making heat waves around the world more frequent and more intense.

    The coming heat is projected to affect huge parts of the U.S., from eastern New Mexico and Colorado across the central Plains and into the Northeast.

    “The first half of July looks to have well-above-normal temperatures, at pretty high probabilities, beginning around the Fourth of July or slightly before,” said Jon Gottschalck, chief of the Operational Prediction Branch at the National Weather Service’s Climate Prediction Center.

    Some places are already sweltering under record conditions. Miami recently had its hottest week on record and posted its 11th consecutive day with a heat index over 103 degrees, Brian McNoldy, a senior research associate at the University of Miami’s Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science, tweeted Thursday.

    Gottschalck said it’s likely that several regions may be under heat advisories and excessive heat watches, and he said warm conditions may persist into the evenings, with little relief from the humidity.

    The heat is being driven by the northward shift of the jet stream, which creates a “ridging effect” — a pocket of high pressure that allows for warm, dry conditions at the surface, Gottschalck said. The impending blast of heat could also create a “ring of fire” weather pattern, in which storms ride along the periphery of the heat dome and trigger severe thunderstorms across the northern Plains, he said.

    Current forecasts show that this dome of heat could stick around well into the month.

    “Our models indicate that this is going to be somewhat persistent through the first two weeks of July, and potentially longer,” Gottschalck said.

    He said the Climate Prediction Center has been working closely with the Federal Emergency Management Agency and local agencies on how to manage heat waves and other extreme weather events during the pandemic.

    Some cities, for instance, may not be able to provide relief for vulnerable people because of social distancing guidelines.

    “We’re dealing with such a unique situation, where even if some areas can open up cooling centers and things like that, they’re likely to have limited capacity,” said Julie Caron, a climate scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado. “So now, you could have a vulnerable population that has to make a choice to either stay home and risk the heat or go to a cooling center and risk exposure to the virus.”

    But even without the pandemic, she said, these events are troubling in the context of global warming.

    “There’s a long-term warming trend, but we’re also seeing an increasing rate of change that’s notable since 2015,” Caron said. “What that means is we’re getting hotter and more frequent heat waves on top of each other.”

    The changes are magnified in the summer, particularly because July is typically when most parts of the contiguous U.S. have their hottest days of the year.

    “You’re exacerbating heat extremes in an already hot season,” Caron said. “That’s why it’s not just about heat waves, necessarily. It’s that we’re seeing hotter-than-normal seasons.”

    (Source: NBC)