Latest news with #IAU
National Geographic
7 days ago
- Science
- National Geographic
Pluto
The world was introduced to dwarf planets in 2006, when petite Pluto was stripped of its planet status and reclassified as a dwarf planet. The International Astronomical Union (IAU) currently recognizes two other dwarf planets, Eris and Ceres. What differentiates a dwarf planet from a planet? For the most part, they are identical, but there's one key difference: A dwarf planet hasn't "cleared the neighborhood" around its orbit, which means it has not become gravitationally dominant and it shares its orbital space with other bodies of a similar size. (Astronomers and other experts are debating this definition.) Is Pluto a Dwarf Planet? Because it has not cleared the neighborhood around its orbit, Pluto is considered a dwarf planet. It orbits in a disc-like zone beyond the orbit of Neptune called the Kuiper belt, a distant region populated with frozen bodies left over from the solar system's formation. The dwarf planet is a whopping 3.7 billion miles (5.9 billion kilometers) from the sun, and its average temperature hovers around -356 degrees Fahrenheit (-215 degrees Celsius). Pluto's surface is composed of a mixture of frozen nitrogen, methane, and carbon monoxide ices. The dwarf planet also has polar caps and regions of frozen methane and nitrogen. Pluto has three known moons, Hydra, Nix, and Charon. With a diameter of about 737 miles (1,186 kilometers), Charon is the largest of Pluto's moons. The duo's gravity puts them in a synchronous orbit, which means they face each other with the same side all the time. In January 2006, NASA launched its New Horizons spacecraft. It swung past Jupiter for a gravity boost and scientific studies in February 2007, conducted a six-month-long reconnaissance flyby study of Pluto and its moons in summer 2015, and culminated with Pluto's closest approach on July 14, 2015. As part of an extended mission, the spacecraft is heading farther into the Kuiper Belt to examine another of the ancient, icy mini-worlds in that vast region, at least a billion miles beyond Neptune's orbit. New Horizons also found Pluto to have blue skies and water ice. Pluto nearly fills the frame in this black and white image from the Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) aboard NASA's New Horizons spacecraft, taken on July 13, 2015 when the spacecraft was 476,000 miles (768,000 kilometers) from the surface. This is the last and most detailed image sent to Earth before the spacecraft's closest approach to Pluto on July 14. Photograph courtesy NASA/APL/SwRI Ceres Also considered by many to be an asteroid, Ceres, like Pluto, was also renamed as a dwarf planet in 2006. Ceres was discovered by Italian astronomer Giuseppe Piazzi in 1801. Ceres's shape resembles a flattened sphere with a diameter of about 590 miles (950 kilometers). It is by far the largest and most massive known body in the asteroid belt, and it contains about one-third of the estimated total mass of all asteroids in the belt. Ceres is made up of a rocky inner core surrounded by a mantle of water-ice. A thin, dusty, outer crust covers the dwarf planet named after the Roman goddess of grain.
Daily Mirror
15-07-2025
- Business
- Daily Mirror
Huge boost for Brits as five-months of airport strikes come to an end
After the Finnish Aviation Union (IAU) held strikes on May 2, 5, 16, 19, 30, June 2, 4 and 11, more industrial action has been called off after an agreement was reached After close to five months of disruption, the Finnish aviation strikes have officially ended. The breakthrough came on July 13, when the Finnish Aviation Union and Service Sector Employers Palta approved a new labour agreement, immediately cancelling all planned strikes for July 16, 18, 21, 23, and 25. This is a big breakthrough and one that has a serious impact on UK passengers. In the past few months, these strikes have disrupted more than 1,200 flights, affecting more than 155,000 passengers, including thousands of Brits. The end to Finland's disruptive industrial action marks one of the most significant developments for Europe's summer travel season, offering huge relief to both holidaymakers and the travel industry. "After prolonged negotiations, it's good that we were able to reach a mutually acceptable deal," said Palta's director of labour market affairs Minna Ääri. However, she expressed disappointment that the agreement didn't include broader development of working conditions alongside the wage settlement. In the past four months, no other country in Europe has had as many strikes as Finland: more than 15 (a record for any country), making this latest agreement a game changer for Europe and UK holidaymakers alike. Negotiations had dragged on for over six months, during which Finnair cancelled more than 1,200 flights due to IAU strike action. Palta estimates the cancellations affected around 100,000 passengers. Anton Radchenko, founder of AirAdvisor, said: 'The end of Finland's aviation strikes is not just a labour deal, but it's a strategic reset for European summer travel. Over the past few months, passengers, especially from the UK, have dealt with a roulette of delays, rerouting, and increased costs just to reach or connect through Helsinki. Now, with restored schedules and reduced travel anxiety, people can plan with confidence again." When the Finnish Aviation Union (IAU) organised strikes on May 2, 5, 16, 19, 30, June 2, 4 and 11, it was predicted that they could result in the cancellation of more flights on 17 and 19 June across Finnish airports, potentially affecting as many as 64 UK flights and up to 11,520 passengers. Airlines such as KLM, easyJet, Lufthansa, and Air Baltic were impacted. Key routes that were hit included those from London, Manchester, and Edinburgh to Helsinki. Other routes with one or two stops swept up in the chaos include Birmingham, Bristol, Belfast, Nottingham, Southampton, and Leeds to Helsinki via Amsterdam, Stockholm, Copenhagen, and Latvia, will also be disrupted. Each strike day cost Finnair and Finavia (the operator of Helsinki Airport) between €10 to €20 million (£8.5million to £17 million) in lost revenue, with wider economic impacts on tourism and hospitality. By the end of the summer, the sector was predicted to lose between €100-€150 million. Booking trends analysis indicates a 7–12% drop in UK bookings to Finland for the summer season, with passengers opting for alternative destinations like Sweden, Norway, or Estonia. Passenger rights company AirAdvisor has predicted a big positive uptick in sales following the end of the strikes. The firm has said routes from London, Manchester, and Edinburgh to Helsinki benefit the most and will now see a 10-15% booking surge for Helsinki connections in July-August. Smaller UK airports such as Liverpool, Birmingham, and Bristol, which previously saw 15-20% fewer bookings due to strike-related delays, will see significant recovery. With full schedules restored, British holidaymakers and business travellers no longer face rerouting, uncertainty, or last-minute cancellations during the busiest months of the year. Ground handling, baggage, catering, maintenance, and customer service staff represented by the IAU downed tools in a row over pay with PALTA. The IAU released figures showing that while Finnair Group employees' average salaries rose by 6.4 percent from 2020 to 2023, during the same time frame, national averages saw a hike of 10.4 percent across all sectors.
Yahoo
03-07-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
A new 'interstellar visitor' has entered the solar system. Astronomers aren't sure what it is.
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Astronomers have spotted what they think might be an "interstellar object" hurtling through the solar system — and it's headed toward us. The visiting space object, potentially the third of its kind ever seen, will make its closest approach to the sun in around four months, before eventually leaving our cosmic neighborhood forever. The newly discovered object, currently dubbed A11pl3Z, was first spotted in data collected between June 25 and June 29 by the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS), which automatically scans the night sky using telescopes in Hawaii and South Africa. The mystery object was confirmed by both NASA's Center for Near Earth Object Studies and the International Astronomical Union's Minor Planet Center on Tuesday (July 1), according to A11pl3Z is most likely a large asteroid, or maybe a comet, potentially spanning up to 12 miles (20 kilometers). It is traveling toward the inner solar system at around 152,000 mph (245,000 km/h) and is approaching us from the part of the night sky where the bar of the Milky Way is located. Based on A11pl3Z's speed and trajectory, experts think it originated from beyond the sun's gravitational influence and has enough momentum to shoot straight through our cosmic neighborhood without slowing down. However, more observations are needed to tell for sure. Until now, only two confirmed interstellar visitors have ever been spotted: Comet 2I/Borisov, which was seen sailing through the solar system in 2019; and 'Oumuamua, a cigar-shaped object that made headlines in 2017 when some astronomers argued it was potentially an alien probe, before experts showed it was most likely a hydrogen-spewing space rock. But scientists have long suspected that many more interstellar interlopers likely pass through our cosmic neighborhood without ever being detected. Related: 1 million 'interstellar objects' — each larger than the Statue of Liberty — may lurk in the outer solar system A11pl3Z is currently around 3.8 times as far from the sun as Earth is. Its first close approach to a planet will be on Oct. 3, when it comes relatively close to Mars. Shortly afterward, it will reach its closest point to the sun, or perihelion, on Oct. 23, coming within two Earth-sun distances of our home star, according to Universe Today. Earth will be on the opposite side of the sun as A11pl3Z during the object's solar flyby, so it will pose no risk to our planet. The object will likely make its closest approach to Earth in December, on its journey back out of the solar system. Researchers will continue to study the object in the coming weeks and months to learn more about its size, shape and origins. And, compared with when the previous interstellar objects passed by, we now have better ways of tracking and imaging the mysterious space rock. RELATED STORIES —An interstellar object exploded over Earth in 2014, declassified government data reveal —Scientists want to build an 'interstellar interceptor' to play hide-and-seek with the next 'Oumuamua —An interstellar visitor may have changed the course of 4 solar system planets, study suggests For example, the Vera C. Rubin Observatory — the world's most powerful optical telescope, which recently released its first images — will likely be fully operational by the time A11pl3Z is closest to us, and the telescope is exceptionally good at spotting moving objects, like asteroids. Some researchers have also proposed using NASA's Mars rovers to photograph the object as it flies close to the Red Planet. Avi Loeb, an astronomer at Harvard University who first proposed that 'Oumuamua might be an alien probe, has additionally suggested using the James Webb Space Telescope to search for signs of "non-gravitational acceleration" — indicating, perhaps, some kind of artificial propulsion system — in A11pl3Z, via a post on Medium.
The Hindu
21-06-2025
- Science
- The Hindu
Is it a moon? Is it a dwarf planet? Well, it's Charon, and it could well be both!
Charon's discovery The story of Charon's discovery takes us back to 1978 – a time when even astronomers were still thinking that Pluto was a planet. Little was known about Pluto and its system, but all that was about to change in the decades that followed. On the morning of June 22, American astronomer James Christy already had his head whirling around. If you were under the impression that he was zeroing in on the solution for an astronomical problem, you couldn't be further from the truth. Christy was sharpening his plans to move his house, getting ready for a week's leave from the U.S. Naval Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona – his workplace. It was under these circumstances that Robert Harrington, his boss, handed him a set of six photographs of Pluto. Christy and Harrington were looking to refine Pluto's orbit around the sun – a journey that takes Pluto 248 Earth years. Pluto's average distance from the sun is 5.9 billion km. The technology available at that time meant that even the best photographs of it hardly revealed anything. What's more, these six images – acquired in pairs over three nights in the month between April 13 and May 12 – were labelled as 'defective.' Odd blobs The reason why these pictures were labelled thus owed to the fact that they revealed Pluto to be oddly elongated. Viewing them under a microscope, Christy noticed that the fuzzy blob that was to be Pluto stretched in a northern direction in two of those pairs, while the final pair showed a southward direction. The defects were attributed either to atmospheric distortion or improper optical alignment in the telescope used for observations. After ruling out an explosion on Pluto as an unlikely explanation – especially as it lasted a month – Christy searched for other plausible reasons. There was a chance that Pluto itself was irregular in shape. Or could there be an unseen moon, even though one of his former professors, celebrated Dutch-American astronomer Gerard Kuiper, had searched for exactly the same decades earlier without any success? When Christy went over to the archives to check through older plates from 1965 onwards, there it was... the same elongation. What's more, all these images had also been dismissed as defective on every occasion. Correct conclusions Christy and Harrington, however, realised that they were onto something. By reviewing all the images with the elongations, they were able to state that the bulge occurred with a predictable frequency. This frequency of the unseen moon's orbital period – 6.4 Earth days – matched with what astronomers believed to be Pluto's rotational period, suggesting a synchronously locked binary system. The duo ruled out other possible reasons for the bulge and concluded correctly that Pluto had another companion at a distance of 19,640 km. The discovery of 'S/1978 P1' was announced by them through the International Astronomical Union (IAU) on July 7 and their findings were published in the Astronomical Journal. What started out as reviewing six defective images, served as the seeds for a whole new discovery. As Christy himself once pointed out, 'Discovery is where the scientist touches nature in its least predictable aspect.' What's in a name? As the discoverer, Christy wanted to exercise his rights for naming Pluto's companion. And he had his mind set on naming it after his wife. The Naval Observatory he worked for had suggested the name Persephone, the wife of Hades. Hades, the god of the underworld in Greek mythology, was the equivalent of the Roman god Pluto after which it is named. As luck would have it, Christy came across a reference to Charon, a boatman who ferried the dead across a river in the underworld to Hades. Charon's close mythical association with Hades, or Pluto, made it a great option for the newly discovered astronomical object. It was the perfect option for Christy as his wife's name was Charlene. In addition to sharing the first four letters, 'Char' was the nickname that friends and family used to call his wife. Just like how protons and electrons have the 'on' suffix, Christy saw Charon as 'Char' with the suffix 'on' and submitted his name. Eclipses and occultations By the time this name was accepted by IAU in January 1986, Pluto and Charon had a series of mutual eclipses and occultations. Studying them enabled astronomers in general, and Harrington in particular, to confirm the existence of Charon as he observed the eclipses and occultations to occur as predicted. Observing Pluto and Charon in this manner also enabled astronomers to arrive at Charon's diameter to be about 1,200 km, while also arriving at better estimates of the size and mass of Pluto. From a small dot in a photograph, Charon had become much much more – almost a world in its own right. It definitely meant the world to Christy in more ways than one, as he was also able to gift his wife the moon! Charlene Christy probably summed it the best when she said 'A lot of husbands promise their wives the moon, but Jim actually delivered.' Charon fact sheet Most of what we know about Charon, or even Pluto for that matter, is thanks to NASA's New Horizons mission. Approved in 2001 as the first flyby of Pluto and its largest moon Charon, it was launched in January 2006. This was months before IAU's decision in August the same year to demote Pluto's designation from a planet to a dwarf planet. Despite the fact that Pluto was plutoed, the mission went on, providing us invaluable information. Before New Horizons' closest approach to Pluto on July 14, 2015, the spacecraft captured plenty of images of Charon. While the images revealed a striking reddish north (top) polar region, Charon's colour palette wasn't as diverse as Pluto's. The origins of this red colouration is a mystery for now and no other icy object in the solar system sports a similar feature. Charon is 1,214 km across and is at a distance of 19,640 km from Pluto. As Pluto's equatorial diameter is about 2,377 km, Charon is nearly half the size of Pluto. This makes it the largest known satellite relative to its parent body for most astronomers. It is this same size, however, that forces other astronomers to consider Pluto and Charon as a double dwarf planet system. Charon's orbit takes 6.4 Earth days to go around Pluto. Charon neither rises or sets, however, but instead hovers near the same region on Pluto's surface. The same surfaces of Charon and Pluto always face each other due to a phenomenon called mutual tidal locking.
Daily Mirror
16-06-2025
- Business
- Daily Mirror
Brits warned of travel chaos as European airport hit by 10th walkout in 45 days
The Finnish Aviation Union (IAU) has held strikes on on May 2, 5, 16, 19, 30, June 2, 4, with June 17 and 19, with the likes of Ryanair, British Airways and Norwegian impacted A country is to be hit with a tenth walkout of staff in 45 days. Yet more flights are set to be cancelled on 17 and 19 June in airports across Finland, with as many as 64 UK flights impacted by the disruption, and as many as 11,520 impacted. The Finnish Aviation Union (IAU) has held strikes on on May 2, 5, 16, 19, 30, June 2, 4, with June 17 and 19. Fourteen direct flights (eight Finnair, four British Airways, one Ryanair and one Norwegian) and as many as 50 indirect flights on airlines such as KLM, easyJet, Lufthansa, Air Baltic will be impacted later this week. Key routes impacted include London, Manchester, and Edinburgh to Helsinki, which have 14 direct flights on the two days earmarked for industrial action. Other routes with one or two stops include Birmingham, Bristol, Belfast, Nottingham, Southampton, and Leeds to Helsinki via Amsterdam, Stockholm, Copenhagen, and Latvia. Each strike day costs Finnair and Finavia (Helsinki Airport operator) €10 to €20 million (£8.5million to £17 million) in lost revenue, with broader economic ripple effects on tourism and hospitality. By summer's end, the sector could lose €100-€150 million, according to air passenger rights company AirAdvisor. Based on the analysis of booking trends, there's a 7–12% drop in UK bookings to Finland for the summer season, with passengers shifting travel plans to alternatives like Sweden, Norway, or Estonia. Passengers impacted by these strikes don't qualify for EU261 compensation; however, they are still entitled to meals, accommodation, and assistance. Check out our refund rights guide if you're caught up in strike action while flying. Passengers concerned about being caught up in the travel disruption can buy strike-cover insurance for as little as £20, use websites such as FlightRadar24 for real-time flight tracking, and avoid Helsinki connections by taking other routes such as vua Stockholm. Anton Radchenko, aviation expert and founder of AirAdvisor, said: 'We've reached a point where UK travellers no longer need to be warned about Finnish aviation strikes, they expect them, which is a serious reputational crisis. For many Brits, Finland is no longer seen as a safe or reliable part of the travel map. "These aren't isolated events anymore; they're stacking disruptions. Passengers are missing connections, losing confidence, and taking their business elsewhere. "The deeper issue here is one of trust. Travellers don't just book tickets, they plan around reliability. And what we're seeing is a full-scale erosion of that trust. When people start rebooking through Stockholm or rerouting Asia trips via Frankfurt instead of Helsinki, the damage isn't temporary; it becomes structural. Airlines eventually follow those behaviours, shifting routes and investing in more stable hubs." The IAU, which represents ground handling, baggage, catering, maintenance, and customer service staff, has called the strikes over pay disputes with PALTA. According to the IAU, the average earnings of Finnair Group employees increased by 6.4 percent between 2020 and 2023. During that same period, the national average increase across all sectors was 10.4 percent. At the beginning of June a spokesperson for Finnair told the Mirror: "We are deeply sorry that our customers' important travel plans were disrupted." The airline has been contacted for additional comment.
