Scientific Bulletin – France is experiencing the longest period of rain on record

In a clear embodiment of the consequences of climate change, and in a precedent, France did not witness actual rainfall over a period of 32 days.

The French mainland experienced the longest period of precipitation, which lasted more than a month, based on the statement of the French Meteorological Service since it began taking precipitation measurements, starting in 1959.

From January 21 to February 21, the French mainland received less than a millimeter of precipitation a day. This long period of no rain raises great concern because it occurs during the winter and in the key period for reshaping and filling the aquifers with the necessary water to be used in irrigating agricultural crops during the summer.

The French Meteorological Service expects that the month of February 2023 will end with a decrease in precipitation of more than 50%, and thus this month will become the driest month ever.

This record level of scarcity of precipitation is part of a prolonged drought whose series began in August 2021, followed by exceptional droughts and heat waves in 2022.

On the other side of the Pyrenees, in Catalonia, Spain, water reserves are currently only 28.7% of their capacity, compared to 72% over the past ten years.

Nor is northern Italy immune to this situation, with 43% less snow-related water resources than the average recorded in the past ten years.

The mission to transport four astronauts to the International Space Station has been postponed by 24 hours after it was scheduled for Sunday, February 26.

NASA decided to postpone until next Monday the launch of the “Falcon 9” rocket from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. A SpaceX rocket will propel the Dragon capsule toward the International Space Station. The Dragon capsule will carry four astronauts, who are scheduled to spend six months in orbit. As for the four astronauts who began final preparations for travel to the International Space Station, they are the Americans Stephen Bowen and Warren Hoburg, the Russian Andrey Fedyaev and the Emirati Sultan Al Neyadi.

These astronauts who are members of the SpaceX Dragon Crew-6 mission will perform five-day lift-offs and deliveries with the other four Dragon Crew-5 crew members who have been completing their mission aboard the International Space Station since last October.

As for the reasons for postponing the date of their flight to an additional day, they are related to two issues. The first is to review the readiness of the “Falcon 9” missile and the “Dragon” vehicle. As for the second issue, it requires addressing many problems before launch, including conducting additional analyzes of the thermal performance of some of the outer shell cells in the space capsule.

At the same time, the Russian Space Agency indicated that the return of three astronauts stranded on the International Space Station due to an unexpected leak will take place next September, a year after the start of their space mission.

After an Australian search that took 20 years, geophysicists have finally found another core that the Earth’s core harbors. What is this nucleus made of?

Examining the center of the Earth is crucial to understanding planetary formation and evolution. Thanks to the unprecedented expansion of seismic networks in the world, specifically the dense networks in the United States, the Alaska Peninsula and the European Alps, the existence of a distinct and well-defined structure has been confirmed within the inner core of the planet, according to two Australian researchers from the Australian National University in Canberra in their study published in the journal Nature Communications.

It was found that the “earth’s innermost inner core” of the first is 650 km thick and is composed of a solid, blazing ball of iron and nickel that is housed by the main core, based on what was stated in the Australian study that took place on the networks measuring the seismic wave returns of two hundred earthquakes with a strength of more than 6 degrees on the scale. “Richter”.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-36074-2

Geophysicist at the Australian National University and co-author of the study Hrvoje Tkalčić tried to describe the mysterious interior of the Earth and said, “If we can somehow dismantle the Earth by removing its mantle and the liquid outer core, the inner core will appear to us as bright as a star. Its temperature is estimated at 5500 degrees Celsius to 6 thousand degrees Celsius, which is similar to the surface temperature of the sun. The two Australian researchers were able to differentiate between the two regions of the Earth’s core, due to the different behavior of seismic waves between them.