planet

warm the planet comfortably

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“Stay cool while you warm up America “United States again.” With that brief message, the Trump Administration has declared war on the function Start & Stop that most cars have implemented for a few years. He has announced the Environmental Protection Agency as one of the measures to protect the vehicle, please the consumer and “fix a stupid feature” that slowly kills the car. Where do we start? ANDl advertisement. Here it is: 27 seconds of video send a very clear message: the Start & Stop button is unnecessary in a powerful car, turn off your air conditioning and it’s ‘woke’. It is also curious to see the number of errors there are in a video of just 27 seconds. And we are not just referring to the continuity failure when placing the red car first on the right and then on the left. “Universally hated”. Beyond the video, there is a release in which the EPA is proud of the decision. In 2012, the EPA itself (under the Obama Administration) advocated for a system of rewards and subsidies to encourage the adoption of Start & Stop systems in vehicles. The operation is “simple”: when a car stops at the traffic light, the engine turns off. When it is idling, too, but the system ‘starts’ again as soon as we want to start driving again. The theory says that emissions and consumption are reduced, but Lee Zeldin, head of the EPA, disagrees. “As I traveled through all 50 states last year, countless Americans told me that they not only disliked the system, but wanted it to be a thing of the past. Not only do many find it annoying, but it kills the battery and has no benefit to the environment. Consumer choice is a priority for Trump’s EPA, and we are proud to continue delivering common sense for the American people,” says the administrator. The importance of language. Department of Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy notes that removing incentives for brands to stop adding the feature will “make cars more affordable again by eliminating a stupid requirement that is universally hated.” The statement as a whole is very interesting because it is difficult to see an official document using such… passionate language. And it demonstrates the importance of language to reach exactly the population you want to reach. In just a few paragraphs and in external statements in which it is said that “everyone hates him”, he has been baptized as an “Obama switch” (when it is also in the rest of the world) and it is stated that “it kills the battery without any significant benefit to the environment”, they send a very powerful message. There is sometimes a misconception that these systems are bad for the engine or starting, so some drivers disable the functionality” – Alex Knizek, director of automotive testing development at Consumer Reports Raising an eyebrow. But no matter how powerful it is, it does not imply that it is true. The system was not invented by Obama, but was a response to the oil crisis from the 80s. Like many other technologies, it was widely applied decades later, but the idea is simple: if the engine is turned off when it can be turned off, it will consume less and emit less CO₂. We don’t say it: the United States says it. Well, the Department of Energy in a analysis. In the technical study, they tested four vehicles with and without Start & Stop in three situations: urban cycle (FTP), aggressive cycle (US06) and cycle in New York. The result was that there were consumption improvements of up to 7.27% in the FTP cycle and up to 26.4% in New York, a city in which 38% of the journey is spent idling (the engine continues running, polluting and consuming). Canada also measured improvements in consumption of between 4 and 10% depending on conditions. Or both. Here the logic is overwhelming: less engine time running, greater fuel savings and lower emissions. And here you may be thinking that it is true that the system is sometimes annoying, the battery suffers and the air conditioning stops working. There is an asterisk in this matter and it all depends on whether the car is combustion, hybrid and even how the system has been designed. In a combustion car, if the engine is turned off, the air conditioning is turned off. The fan keeps pulling air and pushing fresh air until it runs out. At a traffic light it is something that is barely noticeable. In a hybrid, the most common thing is that the air conditioning system is regulated by the electrical system, so that problem would not be present (and the Prius in the advertisement above is a hybrid). Logic tells us that the battery suffers more by having more work and increasing cycles, but the industry and consumer organizations (such as the American Consumer Reports) point to reinforced electrical systemsprecisely to withstand the overload. And something more important: there is no evidence of massive failures attributed to this technology and the moments in which it is not activated may be because, consciously, the system is protecting a battery that may be about to die or in poor condition. Volantazo and “drill, baby, drill”. But it doesn’t matter the evidence because Zeldin is proud to have signed “the largest deregulatory action in US history.” It is the continuation of the shift in climate policies that Trump’s second presidency has embarked on. They claim that there is no scientific evidence that the climate changeor put health at risk or to environment and his battle in cars is not only against the Start & Stop button. Also against other technologies such as the reuse of engine heat to heat the interior of the car, the use of reflective paint for better passive insulation or research into more efficient fuels. Locking this, and stopping giving “environmental credits” to manufacturers who adopt these measures, the United States continues on … Read more

We just found a planetary system that breaks the rules of the game with a planet where it should not be

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The universe has a curious habit: every time we think we have a perfect standard model for how things form, something comes along that forces us to rewrite the textbooks. At the moment, our solar system (like many others) seems to have a logical order with rocky planets like the Earth near the Sun and gas giants far away, but what just published the magazine Science It is the exception that confirms that the rules are meant to be broken. A new model. An international team, with strong Spanish participation from IEEC-CSIC and the IAChas discovered LHS 1903, a system 120 light years away which presents an “impossible” architecture according to traditional models: rocky, gaseous, gaseous and… rocky again. The importance of order. This study details the discovery of four exoplanets orbiting a red dwarf starwhich a priori does not seem anything out of the ordinary. But the focus is on how they are placed, as can be summarized in the following list: LHS 1903 b: an inner rocky planet. LHS 1903 c: a gaseous sub-Neptune. LHS 1903 d: another gaseous sub-Neptune. LHS 1903 e: an outer rocky planet. The normal thing in planetary formation is that the outer planets, when formed far from the heat of the star where ice and gas are abundant, accumulate enormous gaseous atmospheres like Jupiter or Neptune. This is why a rocky, bare planet, without a gaseous envelope, in the outermost orbit is an anomaly that has baffled astronomers. It’s like there are two Earths in locations where they shouldn’t be. How it has been seen. To confirm this strange system, a single telescope was not enough. The finding is the result of the combination of data from TESSNASA’s exoplanet hunter, and the satellite’s surgical precision Cheops of the European Space Agency (ESA). In this way, while TESS detects the general transit signals when a planet passes in front of the star, Cheops is able to refine those observations to determine the exact size. Combining all this with velocity measurements from ground-based observatories such as the Canary Islands telescope, the team was able to calculate the densities and confirm that planet ‘e’ is indeed a solitary rock on the outside. How is it possible? A priori, there are two theories to explain why a planet loses its gas and becomes rocky: photoevaporation and the internal heat of the planet. However, neither of these theories work for LHS 1903 e. As the most distant planet, it receives much less radiation than its inner gaseous brethren and is too cold to have lost its atmosphere on its own. In this way, if the planet did not lose its atmosphere a priori, the only logical explanation that the authors find is that it never had it. The study proposes a training model in a gas-depleted environment where the protoplanetary disk ((the cloud of gas and dust where the planets are born) did not form all the bodies at once. What happened, theoretically speaking, is that the inner planets formed first when there was a lot of gas and the outer planet formed later. He is left with the crumbs. By the time the last planet finished forming, the gas in the disk had already dissipated or been absorbed by its older brothers. In this way, it was formed from solid “leftovers”, with no gas available to build an atmosphere. This supports the theory of the “inside-out” formation, where the planets appear sequentially. It is a scenario that has rarely been confirmed with such observational clarity as until now in this system. Its importance. This discovery forces us to rethink the history of solar systems around red dwarfs, which are the most common stars in our galaxy. And we even thought that the position of a planet determined its destiny, but LHS 1903 teaches us that timing is just as important. The LHS 1903 system thus becomes a perfect laboratory: four planets, the same star, but completely different birth stories coexisting in a stable orbital balance. Images | THAT Images | There are satellites in space that need to be “towed.” And a company from Galicia has exactly what is needed

We know it as “the red planet”, but 3.37 billion years ago Mars was almost as blue as Earth

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The mystery of Mars and water has a new chapter. The missions like Curiosity in the Gale crater they show clear evidence for the existence of liquid water lakes for thousands or millions of years. That climate models show that the early Mars It was a cold place. with temperatures significantly below the freezing point, it was elucidated with seasonal ice shields. However, among the pending subjects of Mars astronomy is knowing how much there was water and when was there. Mars was (half) blue. A recent study published in the scientific journal npj Space Exploration echoes the discovery of a “tide line” that explains that there was once an interconnected water system. Ignatius Argadestya, the lead author of the study, explains that although today Mars is a dry and reddish planet: “our results show that in the past it was a blue planet similar to Earth.” In fact, they have been able to demonstrate the existence of the deepest and most extensive ocean that has existed on Mars to date, account the scientist that half the red planet was once blue: “an ocean that extended across the planet’s northern hemisphere.” Valles Marineris in Hi-Res The “deltas” of Mars. More specifically, they have investigated geological formations called deposits with steep front located in the region of Valles Marineristhe largest canyon system in the solar system. Using very high resolution images from Cassis of the European Space Agency and the CTX and HiRISE from NASA (the latter provides a maximum resolution of about 25 to 30 centimeters per pixel), have been able to identify these deposits with identical morphology to the river deltas that we see in rivers such as the Ebro or the Danube when they flow into the sea. Thus, on Mars there was a time when water flowed from the mountains through branching channels until it reached a kind of lake or sea, where sediments were deposited. These deltas end in an abrupt step that is located at exactly the same altitude at different points on the planet, between -3750 and -3650 meters with respect to the reference level of Mars. About 3.37 billion years ago. This is not a geological coincidence, it is that at one time there was a body of water like a sea that maintained a stable level for a long time: it is a mark of the shore of a primeval Mars, since these deposits were formed between the Late Hesperian and Early Amazonian periods. According to the research team, that was the time in the history of Mars with the greatest availability of liquid water on its surface. Why is it important. Already had applied previously the existence and size of this Martian ocean, but its conclusions come with more precise and direct evidence. In addition, they have been able to determine when the water peak occurred on Mars. The deltas found constitute a magnificent base to study their sediments in depth in search of traces of life because where there is water, there could be life. On the other hand, among the next steps is to understand how Mars went from having an ocean that occupied half the planet to being a frozen desert. In fact, there are already clues: the research team detected desiccation cracks and dunes on these channels, which indicates that after this aquatic period, there was a progressive drying until they became arid. In Xataka | Mars has just entered the exclusive club of planets with rays. This is discouraging news for NASA. In Xataka | We had been wondering for decades how Mars could have water, cold and life. Today we finally have an answer Cover | Javier Miranda

The most surveilled place on the planet is not Ukraine or Taiwan. You are on a Canary Island with thousands of sensors pointing to a lethal threat

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For almost three months, between September and December 2021, the island of La Palma experienced the eruption longest and most destructive of its recent history. It happened when the Tajogait volcanoand opened the earth in the Cumbre Vieja dorsal and forced the evacuation of thousands of people, buried entire neighborhoods under lava and irreversibly altered the landscape and life of the island, inaugurating a new stage in which the end of the fire did not mean the end of the volcano. The town that did not stop breathing volcano. In Puerto Naos The lava never arrived, but the volcano did, seeping under streets, garages and foundations in the form of carbon dioxide, an invisible gas that for years kept the neighborhood evacuated and turned daily life into a permanent risk equation. After the eruption of Tajogaite, the ground continued to exhale CO₂ of magmatic origin, reaching in some points extreme concentrationstypical of a lethal environment, forcing the closure of homes, businesses and beaches while residents learned that the danger no longer burned on the surface, but silently accumulated under their feet. Thousands of sensors and an experiment. They counted this week in a BBC report that has approached the enclave that the response transformed Puerto Naos into the most guarded place in the world in terms of CO₂, with more than 1,300 sensors distributed throughout homes, streets, streetlights, beaches, garages and hotels, connected to a continuous monitoring system capable of detecting any spike in real time. This deployment, driven by the CO₂ Alert projectallowed gas to stop being an unpredictable threat and become a measured, interpreted and managed phenomenon, making it possible the progressive return of the neighbors and the reopening of the urban center, always under the premise that normality here only exists as long as the data confirms that the air continues to be breathable. Living with alarms. For years, life in Puerto Naos was reorganized around the sensorswith garages permanently open for ventilation, closed basements, cordoned off areas and neighbors who learned to live with warning beeps as part of the soundscape. CO₂, denser than air, accumulated in the low points and it became visible like a diffuse waterfall in narrow courtyards, killing small animals along the way, corroding metals and remembering that the volcano was still active even though it was no longer expelling lava, molding not only the terrain but also psychology and decisions of those who refused to leave their home permanently. View of part of Puerto Naos Playa Chica, the pulse. In 2026 the problem is no longer general, but surgical: a small strip in Playa Chica and some specific garages where CO₂ continues to emerge straight from the underground through extremely porous terrain, one described by technicians as a “volcanic Gruyere cheese.” All the effort is now concentrated there, not so much to bring the town back to life (because it has already returned) but to close the last point where the volcano still sets the pace, remembering along the way that the eruption did not end when the fire ceased, but when the subsoil stopped breathing its last breath. Extract gas from the earth. The proven solution successfully by experts changes the traditional logic in these situations: instead of ventilating the buildings, the ground has been ventilated, capturing CO₂ underground and conveying it through pipes to controlled expulsion points near the sea, where the gas is quickly dispersed without danger. Not only that. Tests have shown drastic reductionsgoing from concentrations close to half a million ppm to safe levels. In other words, it has been confirmed that the method works and that the pending challenge is not a conceptual hypothesis, but a technical one, a fine adjustment to avoid load losses and guarantee that the system can operate in a stable and permanent way. Close the volcano. Puerto Naos it’s already openinhabited and functioning, but closing the volcano means turning this experiment into a complete a definitive infrastructureintegrate the extraction of CO₂ into the urban network and accept that the island will continue to be a “volcano” even when it seems calm. Perhaps for this reason, no one expects inaugurations or epic endings to what happened, just a silent moment in which Playa Chica leaves to be an exception and the air will once again be just that, demonstrating that on the island of La Palma the volcanic forces not only have shaped the earthbut also the way in which a community has learned to live, monitor and resist over it. Image | Eduardo RobainaHyperfinch In Xataka | Gran Canaria is increasingly at risk of blackouts. And he already has an idea on the table: imitate Russia in the Arctic In Xataka | The Canary Islands and Galicia have set off the Navy’s alarm bells. Russia’s ghost fleet has arrived in Spain with warships

The biggest geopolitical risk on the planet is not Greenland. It’s a smaller island with a disturbing neighbor: Taiwan

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Throughout the cold warthere were points on the map whose real value was not measured by their size, but by what could be triggered if someone tried to force the situation. Today, one of those places once again concentrates gazes, calculations and uncomfortable silences among the great powers. and it is not in Greenlandbut on a smaller island. The global risk enclave. The tension between United States and China is concentrating increasingly evident in Taiwan, a territory small in size but enormous in strategic consequences. While Washington allows itself dramatize scenarios secondary in the Arctic, Chinese military maneuvers around the island they have been become routineincreasingly aggressive and similar to real blocking or maximum pressure tests. The absence of clear and quick responses from the White House projects a dangerous sign in a context where deterrence depends less on formal declarations than on immediate political reflections. The deterrence that is called into question. The contrast between Trump’s political lukewarmness and the warnings of the US military apparatus itself has opened a visible crack. The Telegraph said that Pentagon commanders have been warning for some time that China is preparing to be able to fight and win a conflict over Taiwan before the end of the decade, although that diagnosis does not always translate into credible public messages. This dissonance reduces the perceived cost of a Chinese action and leaves open the possibility of a calculation error on Xi Jinping’s part, especially if he interprets American caution as a lack of will. Taiwan as a key piece. Taiwan’s importance to the United States is not symbolic, but rather structural. We are talking about an advanced democracy in a region dominated by authoritarian regimes, one that houses the core of world production advanced semiconductor and is part of the first island chain that limits military projection China in the Pacific. From that perspective, the fall would be a direct blow to the global economy, Western technological superiority and Washington’s strategic credibility in Asia. Taiwan Navy It’s not 1996 anymore. Unlike previous crises, when American naval and air superiority was overwhelming, today the balance is much tighter. China has built a navy larger than the American in number of ships, an air force with hundreds of fifth generation fighters and, above all, a massive arsenal conventional missiles capable of hitting bases, ports and fleets at great distances. Although the United States continues to spend more on defense, lower Chinese industrial costs and its geographic proximity to the theater of operations significantly erode that advantage. The “logistics” weapon. The New York Times recalled in a column that one of the factors that moderated Beijing’s behavior for years was its dependence on critical raw materials from countries aligned with the West, especially Australian iron ore. That brake is weakening as China secure supplies alternatives from Africa, reducing their vulnerability to sanctions or blockades in the event of conflict. The result: an environment in which the economic costs of a war over Taiwan, while enormous, are already They are not so deterrent for Beijing as they were in the past. No clear winner. The open simulations and internal leaks From Washington they agree on a most uncomfortable diagnosis: if necessary, a war over Taiwan it would be devastating even for those who managed to impose their immediate objective. China could fail in invasion, but the United States and its allies would pay a military price not seen since World War II, with massive losses of aircraft, ships and personnel. Taiwan, even if it managed to resist, would be deeply damaged as a country and as a global economic engine, dragging the world into a prolonged crisis. The island that weighs the most. All this explains why Taiwan is, by far, the increased geopolitical risk of the planet at this time and a strategic priority, surely far above scenarios like greenland. It is not about territory, or not only, but about credibility, balance of power and stability of the international system between two superpowers. And, on that board, every gesture of ambiguity counts, and every sign of weakness can bring closer a conflict that no one would win on paperbut whose consequences would affect everyone. Image | Pexels, 總統府 In Xataka | China has just shown the world that it “plays” in another league: it only needs one soldier to control 200 drones in combat In Xataka | China’s best weapon doesn’t fire a single bullet: 300km ‘moving wall’ to close sea routes instantly

the greenhouse gas that warms the planet faster than CO₂

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In November 1776, while traveling on horseback between Italy and Switzerland, Carlo Giuseppe Campi saw bubbles in the marshes surrounding Lake Maggiore. He approached them and decided to investigate them. Almost by accident he discovered that they were flammable and He told it to his friend Alessandro Volta. Years later, Volta discovered that this gas was methane. Since then we have not stopped having problems with him. Colorless, odorless and highly flammable, methane (CH₄) It is a gas composed of one carbon atom and four hydrogen atoms. It is the simplest hydrocarbon and, in fact, is the fundamental component of natural gas (and therefore a key fuel for boilers, power plants and part of industry). In addition to the energy context, methane also appears in biological and geological processes: it is a chemical compound that arises, naturally, in the processes of anaerobic decomposition of organic matter. That is, in wetlands, in landfills, in the digestive system of ruminants or in large bags under the ground. Otherwise, methane is used for many other things. Not in vain, it is a raw material for the chemical industry and is an essential part of the production of hydrogen, ammonia or methanol. But the global conversation is not has been talking about methane for decades for none of that. Because, curiously, the big problem with methane is that it is a much more powerful greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. After all, from what we know, its molecules capture between about 82 times hotter than CO2 (taking a period of 20 years as a reference). If we broaden the focus and use the 100-year term, its global warming potential is 29.88 times greater than that of CO₂. The only good thing, so as not to paint a picture that is too gloomy or malicious, is that it has an atmospheric half-life (11.8 years on average) compared to a much longer average. This explains why, despite collecting much more heat than the other, the long-term impact of methane is not so great. So? Well, it is an “accelerator” of short-term warming and, in that sense, it is a first-order problem for us. Not only because we are not moving forward; but because if we manage to reduce it, it can provide relatively rapid climate benefits. The problem is that it is not an easy thing to solve. On a planetary scale, annual methane emissions are around hundreds of millions of tons and 40% of them are due to natural sources that we cannot directly control. The other 60% is due, generally speaking, to human sources. According to the Global Methane Budget, there are three main causes: agriculture and rice, fossil fuels and waste. Agrolivestock Monika Kubala For years, experts have discussed the impact of livestock farming (especially ruminants such as cows and sheep). The calculation, in any case, is complex: not only is it difficult to estimate methane production from enteric fermentation (due to digestion), but things as ‘simple’ as manure management suffered from an “information blackout” that makes them very difficult to evaluate. In addition to this (and it is important), you must add the rice. Every year they consume more than 500 million metric tons of rice. That’s a lot of rice (it’s the main source of calories for 3 billion people), but it’s also a lot of methane: because, favored by floods that leave wide plains without oxygen, our gas rises to the surface. Fossil fuels Methane leaking throughout the oil, gas and coal chain is also difficult to measure, but less so. After all, leaks in wells and equipment, ventsinefficient flaring, outdated compressors, plumbing or storage are money wasted. And if we know how to measure something, it is money. The International Energy Agency esteem that the production and use of fossil fuels generated about 120 million tons of methane emissions in 2023. Waste, landfills and wastewater This case is the simplest and the one that most clearly shows that the methane problem really does not matter much to us: landfills, wastewater and other types of waste accumulation areas are areas especially conducive to the generation of methane (due to pure anaerobic activity) and since we do not capture it, it is released into the atmosphere. Thus, the atmospheric concentration of methane remains high and increasing. To give an example, NOAA estimated which, between 2023 and 2024, went from 1915.73 ppb to 1921.79 ppb on average. And, as I say, it is a shame because methane is surely one of the fastest routes: according to UNEP/CCAC, a strong reduction in human emissions (up to 45% this decade, with available measures) “could avoid almost 0.3 ºC of warming by 2045.” Biomethane (also called “renewable natural gas“) is the term that we have coined to refer to a methane of biological origin that is obtained, above all, by improving biogas: the CO₂ and other contaminants in it are eliminated until a gas rich in CH₄ is ​​achieved and comparable, in almost all aspects, to natural gas. As a result of this process, a fuel is obtained that can be injected into the gas network. That is, it is an efficient way to take advantage of (and make the capture and processing economically interesting) a whole series of waste: from manure and sewage sludge to municipal waste or agro-industrial remains. Obviously, “green methane” does not automatically mean that it has “zero environmental impact.” Only that it has a biological origin and can be used like natural gas. For its environmental impact to be low, other things are required such as control of leaks, the origin of the waste or its impact on the network as a whole. Image | Katie Rodriguez In Xataka | The importance of the colors of hydrogen and what it means if it is green, brown, blue or turquoise

Russia has reminded the planet that the war in Ukraine is a ticking bomb. And for this he has pressed a nuclear button: Oreshnik

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Over the past few months, the war in Ukraine has seemed advance by inertia: fronts that barely move, stalled negotiations and constant wear and tear that threatens with normalizing the conflict in Europe. But in recent weeks Moscow has remembered, without the need for major territorial conquests, that it continues to have the ability to alter the chessboard with a single gesture: the nuclear one. The button that is always there. In a stuck war In the mud of the front and industrial wear and tear, Russia has once again remembered that it is still sitting on a strategic bomb pressing a button that does not need to be pressed completely to take effect: that of Oreshnik missilean intermediate-range system with nuclear capacity whose use, even with inert or conventional charges, functions as a political message rather than as a tactical weapon. The launch detection from the Kapustin Yar strategic polygon and the subsequent explosions near Lviv, a few kilometers from the Polish border, do not seek so much to destroy decisive objectives as to point out that Moscow can escalate whenever it wants and from wherever it wants, even from facilities associated with its strategic nuclear forces, deliberately breaking the “conventional” routine of the conflict. Symbolic weapon, real threat. It we have counted before: the Oreshnik, derived from the RS-26 program and capable of carrying multiple warheads that separate in flight, it is not a missile designed to win battles in Ukraine, but to cross psychological red lines in Europe. Its hypersonic speed, its potential range of up to 5,500 kilometers and the fact that Ukraine lacks defenses capable of intercepting it turn each launch into a demonstration of the structural vulnerability of NATO’s eastern flank. When Russia first used it against Dnipro in 2024 with dummy heads, he made it clear that he was not testing marksmanship, but rather strategic credibility. Now, by bringing the impact closer to the NATO border and the European Union, the message is even more explicit. Controlled climbing. The reappearance of the Oreshnik is no coincidence. It occurs while Ukraine refuses to give up territory in the negotiations, while Moscow insists that any Western troops deployed on Ukrainian soil would be a legitimate objective and while Washington, under Trump, intensifies pressure on Russia’s allies like Venezuela. The Kremlin justifies the attacks as retaliation for alleged Ukrainian attempts to attack the residence of Vladimir Putinaccusations that even US intelligence services they doubtbut the real logic is different: to raise the psychological and political cost of Western support without formally crossing the nuclear threshold. Energy, winter and strategic terror. As in previous winters, Russian missiles and drones are once again baiting the Ukrainian energy infrastructureleaving entire neighborhoods in kyiv and other cities without electricity or heating amid sub-zero temperatures. The Oreshnik fits into this strategy of calculated terror: not only does it damage critical facilities, but it amplifies the feeling of helplessness by introducing a weapon that symbolizes the maximum possible escalation. Ukraine responds by hitting power grids in Russian regions such as Belgorod or Oryol, but the strategic asymmetry remains intact. Europe as a target audience. Furthermore, by hitting near Lviv and, by extension, Poland, Russia is not just talking to kyiv, but with Brussels, Berlin and Paris. The Oreshnik is a reminder that Ukrainian theater is inseparably linked to European security and that any expansion of military support has an immediate reflection on the deterrence ladder. It is no coincidence that Moscow recently showed the deployment of the system in Belarus, further extending the reach shadow over the continent. The temptation of blackmail. Thus, with minimal and extremely slow territorial advances, and a growing human and industrial cost, Russia uses the Oreshnik missile as a substitute for victories on the battlefield. It is not a weapon to conquer Ukraine, of course, but rather to remind the world that the conflict cannot be closed by ignoring the Russian nuclear dimension. From that prism, each launch is a warning: Moscow does not need to detonate a warhead to reactivate the founding fear of the Cold War. Just show the button, press it even half and make it clear that it is still there, waiting, like a time bomb that sets the pace of all future negotiations. Image | Ministry of Defense of Ukraine In Xataka | Ukraine has become an animal slaughterhouse: Russian soldiers appear with horses and drones blow them up In Xataka | First it was Finland, now the US has confirmed it: when the war in Ukraine ends, Russia has a plan for Europe

Yemen is one of the most dangerous places on the planet. And despite this there are Spanish tourists traveling to one of their islands

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Socotra is a paradisiacal archipelago located in the Indian Ocean, near the Gulf of Aden, just over 300 kilometers from the southern coast of Yemen, the country to which it belongs. Its biodiversity and abundance of native species earned it becoming a World Heritage Site 18 years ago. However, despite its idyllic appearance, for a few days Socotra has been something more: a large mousetrap in which they have been trapped. 600 touristsincluding 20 Spaniards. The reason? Socotra is full of corners instagrammablebut it is also (like the rest of Yemen) a destination that Foreign advises against visiting. What has happened? What was promised as a dream vacation on an idyllic island in the Indian Ocean has ended up turning into a nightmare. And all by the work and grace of the complex situation politics that Yemen is going through, marked by tensions between the Government and a separatist faction that at the beginning of December took control from two important provinces in the south of the country. With this backdrop, on December 30, the Executive decided to apply a air embargosea and land of several days that fully affected flights with Socotra, the largest of the islands that make up the archipelago of the same name. The territory was left without one-way services. No return. And how do I get out of here? That is the question that more than one in the archipelago asked. About 60,000 islanders who depend on Yemen reside there, but also hundreds of tourists. In fact, at the time of the cancellation of the flights, it is estimated that there were close to 600 foreigners. Although not all of them have the same nationality, they do share the same problem: How to leave the island? With flights cancelled, they were stranded more than 300 km from the coast. The regional deputy governor for Tourism and Cultural Affairs, Yahya Saleh Afrar, was quick to clarify that the situation in Socotra is “good” and the archipelago “safe.” “Everything’s fine”, emphasized a few days ago after ensuring that tourists continued with “their activities thanks to the agreements of the tourism companies.” That does not mean, Afrar also acknowledged, that “a certain anxiety” about the situation spread among travelers. In fact, as soon as talk of evacuation began, the authorities they found each other with that “everyone wanted to travel, but they were afraid.” Does it affect Spain? Yes. Most of the 600 affected tourists are Russians and Polesbut the list includes travelers from many other countries: Brazil, Italy, Russia, Poland, the US and China… Also Spain. Local authorities have confirmed that there have been a variety of cases on the island “between 15 and 20” who suffer exactly the same fate as the rest of international travelers. Yesterday the Ministry of Foreign Affairs assured to the EFE agency that the group is fine, but is still on the island, with no choice but to extend their stay in Socotra. Everything indicates, however, that their ‘adventure’ will not last much longer. Why’s that? Because in recent days evacuation flights have begun to take off. The first one left on Wednesday with 179 people on board, another one followed yesterday with 145 foreign travelers and the idea, assures Swiss Infois that two more trips are scheduled today and tomorrow to get the rest of the tourists out of the archipelago. A priori and according to the data managed by EFEthe twenty Spaniards were still in Socotra yesterday, so they would fly today or tomorrow. Evacuations come after Russia and Poland They will confirm on Tuesday a new scheduled air route of the Yemeni national airline, Yemenia Airways, to Jeddah, the second largest city in Saudi Arabia. As slide The New York TimesUntil now, tourists traveled to Socotra basically from Abu Dhabi (United Arab Emirates) aboard the Air Arabia airline. The change is interesting because both countries, Saudi Arabia and the Emirates, are indirect protagonists of the Yemen conflict. The first supports the recognized Yemeni Executive. The latter (UAE) support the separatist forces. Holidays in Socotra? Like many other tourist destinations, Socotra has “a side A and B” for island lovers: it is a paradisiacal enclave, but clouded by the political scene. UNESCO stands out that the archipelago has “global importance” for its biodiversity, flora and fauna, with a great abundance of native species that are only found on its islands. The images that are shared on networks also show endless sandy beaches bathed by turquoise water, dunes and unique vegetation. The “B side” (much less friendly) is marked by the conflict in Yemen. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is very clear. On your website make it clear which “advises against travel under any circumstances” to the country, including the island of Socotra, and invites any Spanish visitor to leave the territory “as soon as possible.” “Some agencies and tour operators organize trips to offshore islands, such as Socotra. This type of trip is discouraged due to the lack of safety guarantees and the possibility of problems returning.” Images | Valerian Guillot (Flickr) and Rod Waddington (Flickr) In Xataka | The Valencian Community has a single inhabited island. And when summer arrives, tourism is the least of their problems

A planet has just disappeared. NASA’s Hubble telescope has captured a violent cosmic event that changes everything

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Investigating the universe beyond the Solar System we know sometimes brings up more questions than answers. The search for exoplanets has left findings so different from what we know as fascinating. Thus, more than a decade ago the Kepler space telescope identified the Kepler-16ba planet with “two suns” along Star Wars Tatooine and the James Webb telescope stumbled upon a world of boiling lava that paradoxically it’s colder what the theory says. In the process of investigating the universe you can witness the disappearance of a planet, as NASA’s Hubble has monitored, to discover that there was nothing like a planet: they were in front of a violent cosmic phenomenon. First they detected a bright point of light and assumed that it was a planet covered in dust where the brightness of its star was reflected. Then the object disappeared and a different bright source appeared nearby. Finally, this international research team realized that they were not seeing planets at all: the light came from incandescent debris generated by violent collisions, as they later published in Science. A planetesimal collision that changes everything In their observations in time, they captured two different and very powerful impacts that generated large amounts of dust in the same planetary system, which constitutes a magnificent opportunity to understand how planets are formed and what type of materials they are made of. Their main hypothesis: they have glimpsed not one, but two extremely rare events: one (two) planetesimal collisionthat is, a collision between small rocky objects similar to asteroids. Northwestern University astrophysicist Jason Wang explains that it is the first time they have seen a planetesimal collision outside the solar system and that its study is “key to understanding how planets form and can also provide information about the structure of asteroids, something important for planetary defense programs such as the DART test.” Paul Kalas, an astronomer at the University of California at Berkeley and lead author, insists on the exceptionality of the event: “It is not present in any of our previous Hubble images, which means that we have just witnessed a violent collision between two massive objects and a huge cloud of debris, something that has no parallel in our current solar system.” By NASA, ESA, P. Kalas, J. Graham, E. Chiang, E. Kite (University of California, Berkeley), M. Clampin (NASA Goddard Space Flight Center), M. Fitzgerald (Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory), and K. Stapelfeldt and J. Krist (NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory) These collisions occurred in the planetary system surrounding the star Fomalhautwhich is larger than the Sun, is surrounded by an extensive and dense set of dusty debris belts and located about 25 light years from Earth, in the constellation Pisces Austrinus. That dust belt is so large that it is a real candy for research. Planet it seems, cloud of dust it is In 2008 they detected Fomalhaut b, a bright object of unknown nature that some researchers thought was a planet and others believed it was an expanding cloud of dust from a collision. Back in 2023, a new Hubble observation gave an unexpected twist to everything: the original light source was no longer there and another bright object had appeared in a slightly different area. As explains Wang, first They assumed it was Fomalhaut b, but they got a surprise: “We assumed the bright light was Fomalhaut b because it was the known source of the system. But by carefully comparing the new images with the old ones, we realized that it couldn’t be the same source. It was exciting, but also perplexing” So they had to change perspective and nomenclature: the original object was renamed Fomalhaut cs1 and its disappearance supports the idea that it was a cloud of dust that was slowly dispersing after a collision. They called the second bright source Fomalhaut cs2 and its behavior reinforces the conclusion that neither of the two objects was a planet: everything indicates that they are clouds of debris created when large planetesimals collide with each other. Investigating Fomalhaut cs2 they concluded that it looked very similar to the beginnings of cs1 from two decades ago, both in brightness and location. So the team already estimates the frequency of collisions in this guy in the system: every 100,000 years or even less. After all, in 20 years they have already seen two. Kalas explains that “if you took a movie of the last 3,000 years and sped it up so that each year lasted a fraction of a second, imagine how many flashes you would see. The Fomalhaut planetary system would be full of these crashes.” Fomalhaut cs1 no longer exists, but the research team wants to continue monitoring the system and has its eyes on cs2, which could hide more valuable information about how collisions develop in young planetary systems. Of course, in addition to the old Hubble, they will use the near-infrared camera of the James Webb Space Telescope since the NIRCam can capture detailed information about color, so they can determine the size and composition of dust grainsfor example if they contain water or ice. The confirmation of these collisions put a warning on the table for hunters of planets outside the Solar System: the gLarge clouds of dust can very well imitate the appearance of an exoplanetto by reflecting light from its star, which can lead to error using the reflected light detection system. Kalas sums it up: “What we learned from studying cs1 is that a large dust cloud can masquerade as a planet for many years.” As new observatories point to the sky to obtain direct images of Earth-like planets, differentiating between real planets and temporary dust clouds seems providential. In Xataka | Poland and Spain are the European countries that have increased their contribution to space the most. For very different reasons In Xataka | China reveals its cards for 2030: it will go in search of an “Earth 2.0” on its own Cover | Javier Miranda By ESA, NASA, and L. … Read more

One of the most hostile places on the planet is, ironically, our best “air conditioning” against the greenhouse effect

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We knew that the Southern Ocean It is, in essence, the thermal lung of the Earth that is essential to regulate the temperature of the entire planet. But what we didn’t know exactly was how it managed to process such an amount of energy. Now, science has revealed that storms play a leading role that may be key to facing the global warming. Its usefulness. To put ourselves in context we must know that the Southern Ocean It has the ability to absorb more than 75% of excess heat that is generated by the emissions of greenhouse gases that humans themselves produce. This is something that makes it a true heat sink, potentially becoming the most important in the entire world. In this way, if we remove this Ocean from the equation of current life, the temperature of the atmosphere today would be much higher. A blind spot. The climate models that we use on a daily basis have it, since when trying to predict how water heats up, the calculations did not quite fit with what was happening in reality. Clearly, some type of element was missing here that we did not fully locate. But this has come to an end, thanks to the team led by Marcel du Plessis and Sebastiaan Swart who They have found the missing piece of the puzzle: ocean mixing driven by summer storms. A phenomenon that literally allows the ocean to ‘swallow’ atmospheric heat. How is it possible? The mechanism that this ocean follows is as violent as it is efficient. During the southern summer, the sun heats the surface layer of the ocean, and if the water remains stagnant, then the heat will remain on the surface stored in the water, making it easier for it to return to the atmosphere or accelerate the melting of ice. The correct thing to do in this case would be to literally bury it in the depths. And this is where storms come in, where the intense winds and extreme waves that are produced act like a giant mixer. In this way, the energy of the storm agitates the water, pushing heat from the surface into much deeper layers. Towards the depth. In this way, storms help the surface of the ocean cool, which gives it the ability to continue absorbing heat from the air in a more efficient way. And where does all this energy go? Well literally, When you go down to the deep sea you are ‘trapped’ there for decadesslowing down immediate atmospheric warming. Although we must keep our eyes on what will happen in the future. How it has been measured. This is a practically obligatory question when we talk about the deep sea, which are truly hostile places for anyone. That is why our best ally has been marine robotics. Instead of relying on satellites that have difficulty seeing through clouds or measuring depth accurately, this technology transferred to underwater gliders and autonomous buoys are capable of measuring temperature and salinity in real time. All this while a storm is passing over them, causing the phenomenon that has now been studied. In this way, this technology has given us the ability to monitor the ocean “from within” during events that are impossible to study on ships. We care (a lot). This discovery can be compared to that of a coin with two sides. On the one hand, we already have confirmation that the Southern Ocean is a very powerful ally in the fight against climate change. But on the other hand, we have a very disturbing question: what will happen if storm patterns change due to climate change itself? If the storms move or lose intensity in this area, we could lose this “sponge” of heat that is slowing climate change. The consequences would be quite clear: a large increase in the temperature of the atmosphere that would be felt throughout the planet. Images | jean wimmerlin Chris LeBoutillier In Xataka | We have known for 25 years that we were going to exceed 1.5 degrees of temperature increase and we have not cared

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