Science Wrap: A Chinese "out-of-control rocket" crashes in Pacific, and November is warmer

This week in science was marked by unsurprising global issues caused by human activities, namely rising global temperatures and worsening air quality. Higher up in the cosmos, the Sun seems to be smiling in a NASA photo while Artemis-1 readies itself for yet another attempt at going to the Moon. It has also been a week of space crashes with an Indian satellite running out of fuel and a Chinese rocket planning to land towards an unknown location. 

1. Artemis 1 gets ready for third launch attempt 

The highly-anticipated launch of NASA’s moon orbiter mission Artemis 1 has undergone several technological failures to prevent its successful launch. Hurricane Ian’s havoc in Florida only caused further delays. However, now, finally NASA has some hope with an estimated lift-off date of November 14. 

The “moon rocket” would include the launch of the Space Launch System (SLS) with the Orion spacecraft. The $4.1 billion test flight (unmanned) will mark NASA's return to the moon since the 1960s and 1970s-era Apollo missions.

2-.China’s 23-ton rocket finally falls back into the Pacific. 

China’s Long March 5B Rocket containing the Megtian space module was shot up to its space station Tiangong by the China Manned Space Agency (CSMA) on October 31. With most of this rocket burning up in the planet’s atmosphere, chunks of it were expected fall back on the planet with scientists baffled about the exact location of reentry. Finally, the rocket fell into the Pacific Ocean yesterday as US Space Command reported. 

While the debris of most orbital rockets fall in uninhabited areas like oceans, this reentry is definitely uncontrolled due to complications that the Chinese authorities have not disclosed fully. Australian in-orbit satellite inspection company HEO Robotics detected the phenomenon with experts at the American non-profit Aerospace Corporation estimating “the risk to an individual is six per 10 trillion. That's a really small number.” In layperson terms, the risk is still small and shouldn’t be overhyped. Yet, it will be interesting to see where the remains of the rocket finally land. 

3. Climate change is definitely real. November in India will be warmer. 

Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) Director General Mrutyunjay Mohapatra announced in a press conference that India would have to wait longer for winter with even night temperatures being above-normal in high-altitude areas such as Ladakh, Himachal Pradesh, and Uttarakhand. Coldwave predictions are naturally ruled out for most parts of the country this month. 

This news shouldn’t come as a surprise given how the entire world is facing the threat of warmer winters. According to a report by World Meteorological Organisation, Europe has warmed more than twice as much as the rest of the world in the past thirty years. With even European summers witnessing the melting of Alpine glaciers and the Greenland ice sheet, winter also hardly seems to offer any hope. 

4. NASA captures a creepy image of “smiling sun” right around Halloween

Cameras at NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory captured an image of the sun that is being seen as creepy by some while the rest on the Internet are busy making memes on it. 

In this image from last week, the sun seems to be showing eyes and a grinning mouth. These dark patches are known as coronal holes, spots from which solar winds gush out into space. In fact, these winds can also lead to geomagnetic storms in some extreme situations. 

5. Post-Diwali season gets the usual bad air quality, AQI “severe” in Noida and Delhi

Stubble burning incidents in Punjab and Haryana along with the usual share of industrial pollution have led to worsening air conditions in the National Capital Region. 

According to data procured by SAFAR-India on November 3, the overall Air Quality Index (AQI) of Delhi stood at 472, Noida at 562 while Gurugram's AQI stood at 539 (all in "Severe" category). To bring down the pollution levels, Delhi government is relying on anti-smog guns and firefighters are even spraying roads with water. Schools are also to remain closed. 

6. Indian satellite RISAT-2 crashes into the Indian Ocean 

India's first dedicated reconnaissance satellite RISAT-2 was launched in 2009 for a proposed duration of 5 years. As it finally decayed and crashed into the Indian Ocean on October 31, the satellite completed 13 years. Definitely an impressive feat for ISRO, the space agency’s press statement reads, “Risat-2 is a clear example of ISRO’s capability to carry out spacecraft orbital operations in an efficient and optimal way.”

Apart from weather-monitoring capabilities, the satellite was also designed for defence purpose with a potential application being tracking hostile ships that can be military threats. The 300 kilogram probe finally reentered the Earth’s atmosphere, crashing over the Indian Ocean near Indonesia’s Jakarta. The reason for it to crash was merely the fact that it now ran out of fuel after staying in orbit for more than a decade.