'Meteoroid cluster' phenomenon observed in northeastern Japan
The Perseids are one of the three major meteor showers.
An observatory in Hirosaki City says a fixed camera pointing north-northeast captured footage of many meteors appearing almost at the same time shortly before 1 a.m. on Wednesday.
Distinguished Professor Watanabe Junichi of the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan said the phenomenon is believed to have occurred when space dust broke apart near Earth before entering the atmosphere.
He said the event was also observed in Hokkaido in northern Japan, Akita Prefecture in the northeast and elsewhere.
The phenomenon was observed for the first time during the Leonid meteor shower in 1997. Since then, there have only been about 10 recorded sightings worldwide.
Watanabe said the latest observation is thought to be the first of its kind in the Perseids, as there are no other confirmed cases of the cluster phenomenon in this meteor shower anywhere in the world.
He also said that analyzing reports from multiple observation sites could yield more accurate information on the meteors' trajectory and origin. He urged people with valuable data to contact the observatory.
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NHK
2 days ago
- NHK
'Meteoroid cluster' phenomenon observed in northeastern Japan
The "meteoroid cluster" phenomenon, a rare sight in which many meteors appear almost simultaneously, was observed in Aomori Prefecture in northeastern Japan as the Perseid meteor shower peaked on Wednesday. The Perseids are one of the three major meteor showers. An observatory in Hirosaki City says a fixed camera pointing north-northeast captured footage of many meteors appearing almost at the same time shortly before 1 a.m. on Wednesday. Distinguished Professor Watanabe Junichi of the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan said the phenomenon is believed to have occurred when space dust broke apart near Earth before entering the atmosphere. He said the event was also observed in Hokkaido in northern Japan, Akita Prefecture in the northeast and elsewhere. The phenomenon was observed for the first time during the Leonid meteor shower in 1997. Since then, there have only been about 10 recorded sightings worldwide. Watanabe said the latest observation is thought to be the first of its kind in the Perseids, as there are no other confirmed cases of the cluster phenomenon in this meteor shower anywhere in the world. He also said that analyzing reports from multiple observation sites could yield more accurate information on the meteors' trajectory and origin. He urged people with valuable data to contact the observatory.
Japan Times
3 days ago
- Japan Times
Hidden rosters and the legacy of Japan's germ warfare
Katsutoshi Takegami, a retired cafe owner in the city of Komagane, Nagano Prefecture, was cleaning the storehouse of his home seven years ago when he stumbled across a big wooden box. When he opened it, he found a trove of documents, diaries and photo albums kept by his late father, Toshiichi Miyashita, who spent nearly 15 years as a nurse soldier for the Imperial Japanese Army before and during World War II. 'My father didn't look like someone who had spent a long time in the military,' Takegami, 77, recalled. 'I was never slapped or beaten, and he remained calm even when he had drinks. He never once raised his voice.' Intrigued, Takegami obtained Miyashita's military records from the local municipal government. The information he got was astounding: the father had belonged to Unit 1644 in the city of Nanjing in eastern China. Its official responsibility was epidemic control and water purification, but it is believed to have conducted biological weapons research and development in tandem with the infamous Unit 731. A photo album Takegami discovered in his storehouse shows a portrait of his father, Toshiichi Miyashita. | JOHAN BROOKS Together with Katsuo Nishiyama, professor emeritus at Shiga University of Medical Science, Takegami has been investigating the details of these lesser-known sister units to gain a fuller understanding of the Imperial Japanese Army's biological warfare network. In May, the National Archives of Japan disclosed to them rosters containing the names of all personnel who belonged to Unit 1644 , which was based in Nanjing, and Unit 8604, which was based in Guangzhou in southern China. Compiled in 1945, the lists contain information such as the names of every soldier and military civilian in the units, the dates of their assignments and transfers, their addresses, the names of relatives designated as contact persons, the years of their conscription and their dates of birth. Called rusu meibo, the rosters were created by the Imperial Japanese Army to manage records for units stationed abroad and to facilitate communication between those units and the soldiers' families at home. The lists show that some 2,500 people belonged to Unit 1644, quite a large operation comparable to Unit 731's 3,700 members, while Unit 8604 had about 1,000 members. The Imperial Japanese Army had two more similar units — Unit 1855 in Beijing and Unit 9420 in Singapore. A photo album found in the home of Takegami bears a stamp that says "Memories of the Holy War." | JOHAN BROOKS On Aug. 6, Katsutoshi Takegami shows one of many photos left by his father at his home in Komagane, Nagano Prefecture. | JOHAN BROOKS Military records of Toshiichi Miyashita describe detailed activities of his stint in the Imperial Japanese Army, including in the biological warfare unit of Unit 1644. | JOHAN BROOKS After the war, doctors and medical researchers who engaged in human experiments under these units settled into prominent positions in academia and industry. Some are suspected of having obtained advanced medical degrees from top universities using data from the wartime human experiments. Shiro Ishii, leader of Unit 731, was purged from public service by the Allied Occupation and kept a low profile. Ryoichi Naito , a physician who worked under Ishii, went on to establish the Japan Blood Bank, the predecessor of Osaka-based pharmaceutical firm Green Cross Corp. The firm was implicated in a HIV-tainted blood scandal in the 1980s. Tachio Ishikawa, another member who brought back 8,000 slides of pathological samples from Pingfang, became a professor at Kanazawa University. None of them were tried for war crimes, thanks to immunity granted by the United States in exchange for their research data. The disclosure of rosters symbolizes how Japan has lagged behind in its efforts to confront the medical community's war responsibility, which has long remained a taboo, Nishiyama said. Takegami gazes out a glass door at his home in Nagano Prefecture. | JOHAN BROOKS 'Medical education in this country has barely addressed Unit 731,' he said. 'Today, the overwhelming majority of medical students know nothing about it. Without that knowledge, future doctors could end up committing similar acts, or feel they have no choice but to go along. No one in medicine should ever think that way.' Takegami, for his part, is driven more by his interest in his father's life story. The father had no medical background when he joined the military, but he went on to lead a 20- or 30-member team. How Miyashita managed to climb the ranks during the war remains unknown. None of the historical materials Takegami has unearthed and the contacts he has tracked down have uncovered any direct involvement by his father in germ warfare. Not yet at least. 'There's a chance he may have been involved,' he said. 'If he had been, it would prove that, in war, anybody can be forced into committing such acts (of brutality).'
Japan Times
3 days ago
- Japan Times
The real nuclear moonshot is here on Earth
In America in 2025 it's tough to know which we will see first, the Epstein files or a nuclear power plant on the moon. The Trump administration certainly seems more committed to the latter. Transportation Secretary and acting head of NASA Sean Duffy wants a lunar-ready reactor by 2030. This is certainly one way of pushing more federal funding toward advanced reactor research. It also magnifies, through a fantastical lens, the broader hype around new nuclear power — and the daunting challenge of getting it deployed to meet our more immediate needs for carbon-free power back here at home. Developing extraterrestrial nuclear power is a worthy research project. If we are to someday establish permanent settlements on the moon, they will require a lot of energy for melting ice, growing food, mining crypto and whatnot. Nuclear power offers the benefit of requiring relatively little fuel for high output and, unlike solar power, could keep running through the roughly two-weeklong lunar night. NASA already has an ongoing effort to develop a 40 kilowatt reactor design, the Fission Surface Power project. A typical nuclear plant is one gigawatt, or 25,000 times that, and even so-called small modular reactor, or SMR, designs usually aim for tens of megawatts. Duffy is aiming for a 100 kilowatt unit. The U.S. has certainly designed nuclear reactors for demanding environments before, like beneath the Greenland ice cap or inside submarines sailing the ocean depths. But developing one that can operate safely in the face of the moon's ultraextreme temperatures, low gravity and exposure to solar radiation, to cite a few wrinkles, is far beyond that. It would also have to be carried almost a quarter-of-a-million miles through space and deposited gently on the lunar surface. The transport cost alone would be literally astronomical. NASA has previously targeted a reactor weight of under six metric tons. Even assuming that could be met, before taking into account the cost of designing and building the thing, shipping it skyward could cost $7 billion alone — or, on a per kilowatt basis, roughly 6,000 times the estimated cost of building a regular nuclear plant on Earth. Putting dollars towards this when ordinary household power bills are taking off possibly doesn't present the best optics. Conceivably, Space Exploration Technologies, or SpaceX, might eventually cut that shipping cost dramatically. But this rather assumes we are all happy putting fissile material on rockets that have sometimes spontaneously disassembled in spectacular fashion as well as U.S. President Donald Trump allowing such a contract to go to one of Elon Musk's companies in the first place. You don't go to the moon to save money, though. The bigger problem here is the five-year goal. True, the U.S. crushed that 1960s end-of-decade space deadline. But the U.S. nuclear power industry's track record is less inspiring. One of the main pitches for SMRs is that they offer a solution to the time and cost overruns that have plagued conventional plants. As of today, however, only one developer, NuScale Power, has received approval from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for its reactor, and there are no commercial reactors under construction. Trump has signed several executive orders to reinvigorate the U.S. nuclear sector by streamlining approvals and directing national laboratories and the military to pitch in, calling for 10 gigawatts of new capacity to get under way by the end of this decade. Strategic considerations mean the ambition is laudable enough and there are signs of growing interest in nuclear power, from Silicon Valley's hyperscalers to New York's governor. But interest does not a nuclear renaissance make — and certainly not one that delivers at scale this side of 2030. The inherent risks and higher costs involved in first-of-a-kind deployments of new nuclear capacity mean potential customers would rather see someone else take the plunge first. Even the hyperscalers, with their deep pockets and power-hungry AI ambitions, remain long on intent and short on binding commitments. There is much government push but less in the way of market pull, as Bloomberg NEF's Chris Gadomski summed up in a recent report. Yet you wouldn't know that from looking at the stocks of SMR startups, which have launched early. Duffy's lunar ambitions will no doubt add to the enthusiasm. But for the SMR darlings, delivering on such high-priced expectations, just for here on plain old planet Earth, is a moonshot already. Liam Denning is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering energy.
