There are already airlines planning flights to see the solar eclipse from the air: is it worth it?

The solar eclipse on August 12, 2026 will not be seen in Belgium in full totalitybut they are going to express the bias in a very curious way: planning a flight to see it from the air. It will be carried out by the Brussels Airlines companyin collaboration with the Urania Public Observatory, the University of Antwerp and the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB). In Spain, at the moment, there are companies using the solar eclipse only as a teaser. This is the case of Lufthansa, which is sending emails to its customers encouraging them to fly with them during the eclipse. However, for now they have not planned any specific flights, as the Belgian company has done. Better without clouds. The advantage of viewing a solar eclipse from the air is that commercial flights usually travel above the clouds, usually at altitudes between 9,000 and 13,000 meters. This allows you to see the solar eclipse without the obstruction of clouds, but also without other atmospheric distortions. In the case of the eclipse that will be seen in Spain this August 12, 2026, totality will take place around sunset. With the Sun so low on the horizon, it will be very important that the skies are sufficiently clear and clean to enjoy it in all its splendor. In Belgium the Moon will cover, in the best of cases, 91% of the Sun. It will also happen around sunset, so for Brussels Airlines, its proposal may be a good way to see it in this very particular situation. The details. The flight will leave Brussels for France at 7:20 p.m. and will arrive back in Belgian territory at 9:20 p.m. The maximum occultation of the Sun will take place at 8:21 p.m., in the middle of the trip. The 100 people who have purchased the flights will have plenty of space to observe the solar eclipse, since aisle seats will not be sold, in order to have greater visibility. The experience will be accompanied at all times by the comments of an expert from the Urania observatory and, of course, with protection, since the company will distribute approved glasses to all passengers. All for the modest? price of 299 euros. There are already testimonies. In reality, this will not be a pioneering trip. During the solar eclipse of 2024, for example, many American airlines planned flights specifically for observation. Furthermore, there are eclipse chasers who, after seeing many of these phenomena from the ground, wanted to try the experience in small planes. This is, for example, the case of Glenn Schneider, who in 2017 told in statements to Space that the image is very different from what is seen from the ground. With the air cleaner and the eclipse below, rather than above, it is easier to see the solar corona and specific details such as Baily’s pearls. In Spain what? Spain has already organized a multitude of parties and activities around the solar eclipse on August 12. At the moment, it does not seem that it has organized any flights, like the one that will be organized in Belgium. In this country they have wanted to hurry up, ensuring that there will not be another similar opportunity until September 2090. In Spain, luckily, there will be another solar eclipse within a single year. Perhaps this is the time for companies to get on the organized travel bandwagon. Image | Magnific/Wikimedia Commons In Xataka | Puertomingalvo, the Teruel town of 130 inhabitants that has been without free beds for the eclipse for more than a year

a communications system that is already planning to replace

Deutsche Bahn has stopped all its trains on Tuesday night after the GSM-R network fell. This network is basically the digital system that allows machinists and control centers to speak. The service was finally restored around 12:50 a.m., according to media reports such as the BBC, after more than two and a half hours of total paralysis. What happened. At 10:30 p.m. on Tuesday (local time), Deutsche Bahn announced that all its trains were being held at stations for a widespread failure in the GSM-R networkthe digital radio communications system that connects drivers with railway traffic management centers. Without that connection, basically no train can run safely. So the operator chose to paralyze its entire railway network, both long-distance and regional trains and also the S-Bahn (which are commuter trains that link the suburbs with urban centers). What is GSM-R and why is it so critical. The acronym corresponds to Global System for Mobile Communications–Railway, an adaptation of the 2G standard designed specifically for railways. According to the European Union Railway Agency, It has been implemented throughout Europe since 2000 as a common operating system. The objective of the system is to guarantee communication between train drivers and signal control stations. It is mandatory and essential, so without that active line, it is impossible to operate safely. Deutsche Bahn already knows that the system is obsolete, in fact has signed a contract with Nokia to replace it with a 5G network based on the FRMCS (Future Railway Mobile Communication System) standard, but in the meantime it continues to depend on it. As has managed the problem. Shortly after midnight, the company announced that had identified the cause of the failurealthough without specifying which one it was. Technicians worked to restore the network, which was back up and running around 12:50 a.m. Deutsche Bahn CEO Evelyn Palla counted to the newspaper Bild that they managed to “stabilize the situation with an emergency system.” The company distributed taxi and accommodation vouchers for affected passengers and offered alternative transportation where possible. He also set up stationary cars at the stations so that travelers could wait seated. No signs of cyber attack. The Register points out that there are no indications that the incident was the result of a computer attack, nor of cable cuts or other physical failures that could explain a drop in national coverage. What the same media does point out is that a network that supports such critical infrastructure should have sufficient layers of redundancy to avoid this type of total paralysis. The exact cause of the failure has not yet been made public. Infrastructure under renovation. It seems that delays and interruptions have become increasingly frequent on the German rail network, a country that has historically boasted punctuality in its trains. Deutsche Bahn, the public operator, has been carrying out renovations on its main lines for years to try to counteract the deterioration of its infrastructure, a deterioration that has been accumulating for decades by insufficient investment. However, a complete technical shutdown of the entire network is quite unusual. And when Germany has paralyzed its trains in the past, it has usually been due to meteorological causes, not due to technical failures. Cover image | Deutsche Bahn In Xataka | From Ukraine to Germany without getting off the train: the birth of a very long line of 1,300 kilometers in the heart of Europe

While we continue planning how to colonize the Moon, China already has a bricklayer robot to start building a base

If we talk about lunar exploration we immediately think of the Artemis programbut the United States is not the only country pushing towards the colonization of our satellite. China also has a program underway and they just showed off a new lunar rover with four wheels and a humanoid upper body. Your job will be to assist in the collection of samples, transportation and deployment of instruments, something like a porter mason. What exactly is it. It is a robot weighing about 100kg with a lower part with four wheels and a humanoid torso with two arms on the upper part. It is not a typical scientific rover, but Its main function is to act as a carrierpicking up and placing different objects and instruments in their positions. The hybrid design, with wheels to move and arms to manipulate, responds to a specific need: on the Moon there are no operators who can move equipment, connect sensors or install instruments. Someone has to do it, and that someone is going to be this robot. Technical challenges. The robot is equipped with AI systems, remote vision and 3D mapping to be able to function in a totally unknown environment. The team that developed it, led by the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, has South China Morning Post that the main challenge is to ensure that both arms move in a coordinated and precise manner to manipulate fragile instruments. On Earth it is already a complex task, but here you will have to do it in a hostile environment with extreme temperatures, uneven terrain and no one who can repair a possible breakdown. To operate, the robot is powered by solar energy and is designed to operate for two years on the lunar surface, which implies that it will spend 24 lunar nights, each of more than 14 Earth days. During these periods, as it does not receive sunlight, the robot will have to enter a hibernation state and wake up at the beginning of a new day. The mission. The robot is part of the Chang’e-8 missionscheduled for 2028-2029. It will be the eighth mission of the series Chang’e, which China has been using since 2007 to progressively explore the Moon: first orbiters, then landers, rovers and sample collection. The goal of the Chang’e-8 mission is to deliver materials and begin preparing the ground for a permanent presence at the lunar south pole. That’s why the robot is not only designed to explore, but also works. Chang’e-8 is a key part of the International Lunar Research Station (ILRS), the joint project of China and Russia to build a base on the Moon using 3D printing techniques. Why the south pole. The choice of location is not accidental. The lunar south pole has great strategic importance for space agencies because It is where reserves of water ice have been discovered in its craters. That ice has the potential to become fuel, oxygen and water for any permanent base. Whoever arrives first, learns to navigate the terrain and installs more instruments will have a huge advantage. That is why both Chang’e-8 and Artemis III go to the same region. Image | Xataka with Gemini In Xataka | China’s most ambitious space project: an advanced hyperspectral satellite to make a “CT” of the Earth

The “Casas Clavo” that planted the progress of urban planning in China

Imagine a small house with a couple of floors surrounded by huge blocks of homes. You don’t have to imagine too much, since we have seen it in Pixar’s popular ‘up’ movie, but far from being fiction material, such constructions exist, enduring firm before progress and concrete advance. They are the so -called “Casa Clavo”. It is a global phenomenon, but in China we find some of the most iconic cases that became a sample of popular resistance. Dīngzihù. When we talk about “Casa Clavo”, it is literal. The Chinese term “dīngzihù” comes to say precisely that. Dīngzi means “clavo” and hù is “family” or “home.” And it is an expression that refers to the owners who resist evicing their homes so that they are demolished, becoming that building into a nail that is difficult to get. It is a term that became popular with the modernization of the country. The new urban development projects needed land to build, so they offered economic compensations to the residents of these areas to leave their homes. Those who refused due to personal reasons or economic disagreements, saw how their house was the only one in the neighborhood that was stood, while huge moles of concrete were erected around them. In China, it is also curious because the phenomenon is relatively recent. Private property did not have much importance until not so ago, but in 2007 approved The first modern law of private property that hindered forced expropriation and empowered the owners. The only way to demolish a home was to justify the “public interest” of the new construction, and that is what originated a series of movements of the population to protect their homes. Wu ping. These ‘resistance’ movements are very media both for personal history and for the aesthetics of the new street, with small and traditional houses isolated in the midst of the new buildings. Several throughout these years have occurred, but if one perfectly reflects that struggle spirit, it is Chongqing in 2004. Wu Ping and Yang Wu refused to sell their property for the construction of a shopping center. The rest of the neighborhood was demolished, but his house endured and the photo is shocking: at the top of a mound, surrounded by excavation to start the construction of the complex as soon as possible. The marriage was the only one among 281 families in the area that rejected the moving to another area and declared that it was not “stubborn or rebellious -as they had described in the media.” I only try to protect my personal rights as a citizen, and I will continue until the end. “ Apart from why he did not want, in that house his family had lived for three generations. And do not believe that the contest was peaceful: the real estate developers cut the water and energy when they excavated the pit. For his part, Mr. Yang Wu, champion Marcial Arts, Nunchakus used to create an impromptu ladder to his house and threatened to hit anyone who tried to dislodge it. He also raised a Chinese flag on the property. After years of legal and media battle, they reached a millionaire agreement with the promoters and an apartment in the city center with a size similar to that of their old house. The house was demolished. Chinese resistance. Although the photo of the house Wu is, perhaps, the most picturesque, the case of that marriage is not Not much less unique As far as media noise is concerned. In Nanning, a small house was trapped in the center of a great avenue. Around the house, as if it were a roundabout, there was only asphalt and cars circulating. They ended up arriving at an agreement, but also left a photo for the story. Something similar occurred In Zhejiang, when in 2012 a five -story house was standing in the middle of a highway. Another 450 buildings were demolished, but the owners of this house considered that the compensation was ridiculous and could not buy an equivalent home. After greater compensation and land, they accepted and left their home, which was demolished. They will end up succumbing or not, something is clear: these examples are just a few of this sample of popular resistance in China, a defense of heritage and individual rights against a modernization that, in the Asian giant, has taken steps. Edith Macefield. But this of refusing to leave home so that they throw it is not something exclusive to China, and a case that you surely know, but not by this name, is that of Edith Macefield. In the American city of Seattle, the house of this lady caught the attention of half the world when she refused to compensate one million dollars to leave her home. The 84 -year -old lady at that time, received complementary offers, as free domiciliary care for the rest of her life, but did not give in: her house was not going to be demolished to build a shopping center. It was not for touching the noses: I was advanced and considered tedious to have to move. After several failures, the builders made the decision to raise the complex equally, but in a less hostile way than the cases we have seen in China. Three of the sides of the house with five -story high walls and Mrs. Macefield lived there until she died in 2008. The house is still there, empty, as a sign of that particular heroism. And why do I say that the house design and history may sound to you? Because it is the one that served as inspiration for Pixar to create the magnificent ‘UP‘. There are more stories on American soil, such as Thirsty Beaveran open bar in 2008 that was built in the middle of a field, but that in 2015 was surrounded by a huge floors building after its refusal to sell. And there it continues. Inspiration. As we say, there are other … Read more

Log In

Forgot password?

Forgot password?

Enter your account data and we will send you a link to reset your password.

Your password reset link appears to be invalid or expired.

Log in

Privacy Policy

Add to Collection

No Collections

Here you'll find all collections you've created before.