Soyuz capsule returns to Earth from International Space Station
According to Russian space agency Roscosmos, the capsule carrying Roscosmos cosmonauts Alexey Ovchinin and Ivan Vagner and astronaut Don Pettit of US space agency Nasa landed on the Kazakh steppe near the city of Zhezkazgan at 6.20am (0120 GMT).
Roscosmos said the parachute-assisted landing was a trouble-free descent.
Welcome home! @Astro_Pettit and his cosmonaut crewmates, Alexey Ovchinin and Ivan Vagner, completed their mission after seven months on the @Space_Station. https://t.co/FTa8rWrAgj pic.twitter.com/iQVJtHzTNp
— NASA (@NASA) April 20, 2025
The three men returned after spending 220 days in space and orbiting the Earth 3,520 times, Nasa said in a statement.
The agency noted that, coincidentally, Mr Pettit celebrated his 70th birthday on Sunday.
Nasa said it was following its routine postlanding medical checks, and that the crew would return to the recovery staging area in Karaganda, Kazakhstan.
Pettit will then board a Nasa plane bound for the agency's Johnson Space Centre in Houston, Texas, while Roscosmos said Ovchinin and Vagner will depart for a training base in Star City, Russia.
On Friday, Mr Ovchinin handed over command of the ISS to Japanese astronaut Takuya Onishi in a change of command ceremony.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
6 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Earth just had one of its shortest days in over 50 years
July 10, 2025 was the shortest day of this year, so far, as well as one of the shortest days the planet has seen since atomic clocks were invented. The odd thing is, we're not exactly sure why! The length of each day here on Earth, at 24 hours, is what's known as a solar day — the length of time it takes for planet to rotate around so that the Sun returns to the exact same position in the sky as the previous day. We define the length of day as equal to 86,400 seconds, and scientists track that timing, day by day, using extremely precise atomic clocks. There's one complication, though. Only rarely is each day actually 86,400 seconds long. The western hemisphere of Earth at night. (NASA's Earth Observatory) Due to a variety of factors, our days are usually a tiny bit shorter or longer, on the order of 1 or 2 thousandths of a second (a.k.a. a milliseconds). There are many things that influence Earth's rotation. Our distance from the Sun and the Moon's distance from Earth affect the tides, which can shorten or lengthen the day. The motions of Earth's core, mantle, and crust can do so as well. Even much more transient events, such as powerful hurricanes and earthquakes have their effects. Plus, we've already seen how changes in the mass of glaciers near Earth's poles can change the length of day. READ MORE: So far, the pattern doesn't really match up with anything specific, though. It could even be a combination of some, or even all of these things, but nobody knows for sure. And there is a pattern! Over a half century of records now, the shortest day of each year has occurred in June, July, or August. Meanwhile, the longest day has usually been sometime between March and May, but occasionally happened in October or November. There is even a shorter pattern of oscillations overlaid on top of that longer pattern, where the length of day swings back and forth between longer and shorter every 5-8 days or so. This graph of length of day (in milliseconds over (+) or under (-1) the average of 86,400,000 ms) shows the unusual pattern in the lengthening and shortening of our days here on Earth. The data represented, ranging from April 17 through July 14, 2025, is the latest data available from the IERS as of July 16. (Data from IERS) According to the International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service (IERS), in 2025, the longest day of the year so far was Saturday, March 29, at 1.12 milliseconds longer than usual. The shortest day of the year, so far, was Thursday, July 10, at 1.37 milliseconds shorter than usual. That's not the shortest day in history. July 5, 2024 appears to hold that title, at least over the past half-century or so, at 1.66 ms shorter. However, based on the data presented by July 10, 2025 is the fifth shortest day, going back to 1973. This, in of itself, is rather odd. From 1973 through 2019, each year has seen an average length of day greater than usual, and the tally of all that 'extra time' at the end of each year has added up to anywhere from 100 to 1,100 milliseconds. In fact, this is the reason why we have introduced leap seconds into our calendar. So far, there have been 25 leap seconds added, either on June 30 or December 31 of any specific year. This happened when the total yearly differences in the actual time vs the standard time added up to around 1 second or more. Sometimes it took more than one year for that extra time to accumulate. However, since 2020, Earth has been spinning faster. The average length of day and the total yearly difference have both been negative for each year of the past 5 years, and also for 2025, so far. This table reveals how Earth's days have been getting shorterly in recent years. (Earth at night courtesy NASA's Earth Observatory. Data courtesy IERS via "Nobody expected this," Leonid Zotov, a leading authority on Earth's rotation at Moscow State University, told "The cause of this acceleration is not explained." According to Zotov, most researchers believe it may be something inside the Earth that is causing the days to get shorter right now. As for when this trend might reverse, Zotov has seen indictations, in both early 2024 and again in 2025, that the acceleration may be slowing. "I think we have reached the minimum," he told "Sooner or later, Earth will decelerate." Watch below: Why one planet in our solar systems spins 'backwards' — Out of this World Click here to view the video
CBS News
8 minutes ago
- CBS News
Astronomers capture birth of new solar system around a sun-like baby star
Astronomers have, for the first time, discovered the moment when planets started to form around a sun-like baby star, scientists reported Wednesday. The specks of planet-forming material are emerging around HOPS-315, a protostar or baby star located 1,300 light-years away from us. One light year is approximately 5.88 trillion miles. While astronomers have seen discs of gas and dust around protostars before, they've never before identified a new planetary system at such an early stage. Minerals in the system around HOPS-315 are just starting to form. "We're seeing a system that looks like what our Solar System looked like when it was just beginning to form," study co-author Merel van 't Hoff, a professor at Purdue University, said in a news release from the European Southern Observatory (ESO). The observatory paired up with NASA's Webb Space Telescope to identify the minerals forming the new solar system. Researchers turned to data from our own solar system to determine that these minerals show the start of a new system. In Earth's solar system, the first solid materials to form can now be found inside ancient meteorites. Those ancient meteorites contain a mineral called silicon monoxide, which only forms at extremely high temperatures, like those near a young star. Scientists were able to identify the formation of silicon monoxide around HOPS-315, which they said tells them they've caught the development of a solar system at an early stage. "This is the first time this early stage of planet-building has ever been observed outside our own Solar System," the Planetary Society wrote in a social media post about the discovery. The discovery marks "the birth of the seeds of the planets," study co-author Edwin Bergin, a professor at the University of Michigan, told CBS News. The silicate-mineral rich material around HOPS-315 will make planets after another million years or so. "So we are watching the beginnings of the construction of planets," Bergin said. With the discovery, Bergin said researchers now know what to look for to find other budding systems. ESO's Alma telescope network in Chile captured an image of the still-forming planetary system around HOPS-315. In orange, the image shows the distribution of carbon monoxide blowing away from HOPS-315. Blue shows a narrow jet of silicon monoxide, which is also beaming away from the baby star. Astronomers hope it can help them learn more about the dawn of our solar system. "This system is one of the best that we know to actually probe some of the processes that happened in our Solar System," van 't Hoff said in a news release. HOPS-315 is much younger than the Sun; it's about 100,000 years old, Bergin said. "So we get a glimpse of the system in its infancy," Bergin said in an email. "Given that the Sun is 4.6 Billion years old this is a baby star that is still gaining mass and getting bigger."
The Hill
2 hours ago
- The Hill
Removing aging dams could help strengthen communities facing extreme weather: Report
Eliminating obsolete or unsafe dams could help bolster community safety amid climate-induced weather extremes, watershed experts are recommending. Storms and floods have intensified in both frequency and severity, since the construction of the dams — many of which are now in a state of disrepair, according to a new white paper, published by Utah State University. 'Removing dangerous and obsolete dams and barriers improves resilience to flooding, drought, increasing temperatures, sea level rise, and changing rivers,' said lead author Sarah Null, a professor of watershed sciences at Utah State University, in a statement. 'Many dams provide useful services and should not be removed,' Null acknowledged. 'But for those structures that are outdated or unsafe, removal can be a smart decision for communities.' Crossing the nation's rivers today are more than 550,000 dams and 298,000 transportation-related barriers, such as culverts, structures that enable water to flow underneath a road or railway. About 70 percent of U.S. dams have exceeded their designed lifespan, with 16,700 deemed high-hazard and a risk to people downstream, the authors explained, citing data from the National Inventory of Dams. The average age of American dams is 64, and the number of structures that are jeopardizing communities is surging, the researchers warned. 'Many of the dams we built decades ago are not equipped to handle today's extreme weather,' said co-author Ann Willis, regional California director of American Rivers, in a statement. 'In a lot of cases, aging dams and dams that are not adequately designed or maintained are ticking time bombs, putting people at risk,' Willis added. Removing obsolete dams rather than renovating them requires just a fraction of the expense associated with the latter — typically amounting to just 30 percent to 40 percent of the cost of a retrofit, according to the report. Dam and barrier elimination also provides a means for preserving cultural practices, by facilitating fish harvests in areas where the natural flow of native species has long been impaired, the authors noted. Restored river health and improvements in water quality can thereby help bring fish and wildlife back to their former habitats, while establishing cooler, free-flowing waters that are more capable of withstanding drought, per the report. The researchers acknowledge that dams can provide climate resilience benefits when they are well-maintained and offer cost-effective services. In places where removal would not be practical, the authors suggested creating additional storage and coordinating surface and groundwater management as promising strategies for reducing flood risk. But in so many cases over the past several years, communities have endured extreme weather conditions that have compromised dams — often when storm flow has surpassed dam design specifications, according to the report. 'Removing unsafe, outdated dams is a proven approach to restoring rivers and strengthening communities,' said co-author Shara Sparks, senior program officer for the Open Rivers Fund, in a statement. 'For communities challenged by extreme weather, restoring their rivers via dam and barrier removal can deliver a host of benefits,' Sparks added.
