China developing military space tech ‘breathtakingly fast' as they threaten to blast ahead of US in space race
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Time Out
a day ago
- Time Out
Perseid meteor shower 2025: How to see the biggest meteor shower of the year in Montreal
Look up! The Perseids are the best meteor shower of the year and you won't want to miss it. Known for their bright, fast-moving meteors that often leave glowing trails, they can produce 50 to 100 meteors per hour, offering an ideal summer viewing experience. They're also famous for their fireballs—larger, brighter bursts of light from bigger comet particles—that can linger longer than typical meteors and shine brighter. If you thought the meteorite that just landed outside of Montreal was cool, or the pink moon and strawberry moon, you're in for a wonderful surprise. What are the Perseids? Every mid-August, Earth swings near the orbit of comet 109P/Swift-Tuttle, where dust particles create the dazzling Perseid meteor shower. The spectacle's intensity shifts yearly, depending on our planet's path through the densest debris and the Moon's brightness. It's one of the most amazing free things you can do in Montreal! You can spot meteorites with the naked eye by their colours, which reveal their composition as they burn—red for oxygen and nitrogen, yellow-gold for iron, mauve for calcium, orange for sodium, and blue-turquoise for magnesium. What is the best time to see the Perseids in Montreal? You can see the Perseid meteor shower from July 17 to August 24, 2025. The peak of visibility in Montreal will be on the night of August 11 to 12, 2025. Tips for viewing the Perseids meteor shower Find a dark location: Get away from city lights as much as possible. Allow your eyes to adjust: It takes about 20 minutes for your eyes to adjust to the dark. Bring a blanket or lawn chair: You'll want to be comfortable while watching. Look away from the radiant: While the meteors appear to come from the constellation Perseus, it's best to look slightly away from it in the sky. Be patient: It can take some time to spot meteors, so be prepared to watch for at least 15-20 minutes. Avoid using your phone: The light from your phone can interfere with your night vision.
Daily Mail
a day ago
- Daily Mail
Enormous asteroid bigger than a 15-story building headed toward Earth in just DAYS
An asteroid the size of the Leaning Tower of Pisa has been spotted just days before it screams past Earth in the latest near-miss astronomers have tracked. NASA has announced that asteroid 2025 OW is expected to pass within 393,000 miles of Earth on Monday, July 28. It's actually one of five asteroids NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) making a close pass by Earth over the next week. Two other asteroids, both between 100 and 200 feet long, are projected to miss Earth by more than a million miles on Thursday. Another small asteroid is expected to pass our planet on Saturday. However, 2025 OW is the largest of this ominous group and will also come much closer to striking the planet on Monday. The space rock has been measured to be approximately 210 feet long, making it comparable to a 15-story building or a large airplane. Its projected distance of 393,000 miles would put it just beyond the moon, which orbits Earth 239,000 miles away. While NASA has said that 2025 OW poses no risk at this time, they noted asteroids of this size could cause minor structural damage or shatter windows if it were to enter the atmosphere over a populated area. Astronomers categorize 2025 OW as a small to medium-sized asteroid, meaning it's not a 'planet-killer' which would cause an extinction-level event on Earth. This type of asteroid generally explodes in the atmosphere and doesn't reach the Earth's surface due to the intense frictional heating and pressure placed on the rock as it enters at high speeds. Scientists said 2025 OW is traveling at about 47,000 miles per hour, which is about an average speed for a near-Earth asteroid (NEA). For comparison, the 500-foot asteroid 2024 MK was traveling at roughly 34,000 mph when it came within 184,000 miles of Earth last July. Meanwhile, the worryingly large, 1,100-foot 99942 Apophis is traveling at 67,000 mph and is expected to come within 20,000 miles of Earth on April 13, 2029. At just 210 feet in length, it won't be visible with the naked eye or through binoculars when it reaches its closest point from the Earth. When it comes to tracking potentially dangerous asteroids, NASA's calculations are typically right on the money, meaning a major error that brings 2025 OW on a collision course with us unlikely. NASA JPL's Center for Near-Earth Object Studies (CNEOS) uses ground-based telescopes and planetary radar systems like the Goldstone Solar System Radar to detect and track asteroids. These systems measure an asteroid's position, velocity, and brightness to determine its orbit and size. While NASA is staying on top of these smaller asteroids in view, scientists have recently raised alarm about dangerous objects coming at our planet from our stellar 'blind side.' A recent study warned that Venus blocks out our view of many near-Earth asteroids - large space rocks that cross or come near Earth's orbit - setting up the potential for a devastating impact no one sees coming. Researchers from Brazil, France, and Italy found that several asteroids in sync with Venus's orbit are extremely hard to spot because they're often hidden by the sun's glare. Three in particular, 2020 SB, 524522, and 2020 CL1, have orbits that take these asteroids dangerously close to Earth. The three asteroids flying along with Venus measure between 330 and 1,300 feet in diameter, making each one capable of leveling entire cities and setting off massive fires and tsunamis.
Rhyl Journal
2 days ago
- Rhyl Journal
Covid crisis was ‘detrimental to brain health'
Academics suggest the strain on people's lives – from isolation for weeks on end to the uncertainty surrounding the crisis – may have aged the brains of the nation. They found that brain ageing during the pandemic was 'more pronounced' among men, older people and people from deprived backgrounds. Brain ageing models were trained on more than 15,000 healthy people. These were then applied to almost 1,000 people taking part in the UK Biobank study – a long-term study tracking the health of middle and older aged adults. Half of the group had brain scans before the pandemic while the others had brain scans before and after the global crisis. After looking at the scans, academics said that the pandemic 'significantly' accelerated brain ageing. This was assessed by their brain age, as determined by the scans, compared with their actual age. The research team found that, on average, the scans taken after people had lived through the crisis had a '5.5-month higher deviation of brain age gap'. 'We found that the Covid-19 pandemic was detrimental to brain health and induced accelerated brain ageing… regardless of SARS-CoV-2 infection,' the experts from the University of Nottingham wrote in the journal Nature Communications. Dr Ali-Reza Mohammadi-Nejad, who led the study, said: 'What surprised me most was that even people who hadn't had Covid showed significant increases in brain ageing rates. 'It really shows how much the experience of the pandemic itself, everything from isolation to uncertainty, may have affected our brain health.' The research team also examined whether having Covid-19 affected someone's cognitive performance by examining the results of tests taken at the time of the scans. They found that people who were infected with the virus appeared to perform more poorly on cognitive tests when they were assessed again after the pandemic. Professor Dorothee Auer, professor of neuroimaging and senior author on the study, added: 'This study reminds us that brain health is shaped not only by illness, but by our everyday environment. 'The pandemic put a strain on people's lives, especially those already facing disadvantage. We can't yet test whether the changes we saw will reverse, but it's certainly possible, and that's an encouraging thought.'
