Latest news with #SWAN
Agriland
4 days ago
- Politics
- Agriland
Concern that gov proposal lowers protection for rivers and lakes
The Sustainable Water Network (SWAN) and the Rivers Trust are raising the alarm over a government plan that would make it easier to damage hundreds of rivers, lakes, and coastal waters across the country. According to the groups, under the proposed plan protections for 466 stretches of water would be weakened by labelling them 'heavily modified water bodies'. The groups believe the label is a 'technical term' that, in practice, means they would no longer have to meet the same high standards for environmental health as other rivers and lakes. They claim this gives the green light for widespread dredging, digging, and clearance works that harm rivers, riverbanks and other wildlife habitats such as salmon pools. Both SWAN and the Rivers Trust claim that the changes would affect 10% of Ireland's waters. Rivers SWAN CEO, Sinéad O'Brien believes that the proposal is 'reckless' and that it shows 'disregard for the public'. She said: 'The government's plan to lower protections for one in 10 of our rivers, lakes, and coastal waters, without evidence or proper explanation, shows disregard for the public. 'People could be forgiven for thinking this is just a way to make our poor water quality stats look better on paper. But it's out of step with EU rules and puts wildlife like kingfishers, otters and trout at risk.' 'This must be stopped until proper assessments of possible restoration measures and of all alternative options are carried out,' she explained. The plan is part of a formal government consultation, but SWAN and the Rivers Trust say the process has been confusing, inaccessible, and difficult for communities to engage with. Both organisations are calling for the current consultation to be redesigned and reopened later when the 'required analysis' has been done, and as part of the development of the 4th Water Action Plan. The deputy director of the Rivers Trust, Dr. Constanze O'Toole said: 'The Rivers Trust has come together with SWAN because we share deep concerns about the lack of transparency and accessibility in this consultation process.' 'Environmental decisions must be based on clear data and local knowledge. Labelling rivers as 'heavily modified' has long-term consequences, so people deserve to see the evidence and understand the impact.' 'If we want strong, fair decisions about our rivers, we need open access to the facts, easier-to-understand consultations, and a real say for local communities in what happens to their water,' she added.
Daily Mirror
01-05-2025
- Health
- Daily Mirror
'Our daughter is a baby living in an adult's body and we have no idea why'
Mia is fourteen but has the mental age of a much younger child of around six months after being diagnosed with chronic epilepsy as a child, with doctors unsure what caused it A father has spoken of his sadness how his teenage daughter with the mental age of a baby will never 'go to university, be married or grow up' thanks to an unknown condition. Parents Chris and Emma Connor grew concerned for little Mia when they realised she was missing milestones growing up. Over her first Christmas she was taken to hospital for tests and diagnosed with chronic epilepsy, but since then the exact nature of her condition has remained a mystery. Now doctors say the 14-year-old has the mental age of a baby aged between six and nine months - with no clue as to what caused it. Chris told WalesOnline: 'It was a very difficult time, but beyond that was realising Mia was not going to grow up as normal. 'We suddenly realised, she's not going to uni, she's never going to a ball, never going to be married, never going to have her own children, everything you'd hope and expect for your child – none of that is going to happen for Mia. 'It took me quite a while to accept. I just couldn't understand – I'd think to myself, what's the point of Mia? What is she giving to society? "But when you get through to her and when you see her smile – everybody feels it. And in time I've come to realise that that is Mia's job - to make people happy. 'The cause of Mia's problems are still unknown. They've found no genetic markers. Lots of studies have been done and they've found nothing. She's now going through the SWAN clinic in Cardiff in a last-ditch attempt to find a reason for how she is. But I don't know if they ever will find any answers.' Chris and Emma continue to give Mia the best life possible, and Chris runs regularly with Mia in a special adapted buggy, often through the Merthyr Mawr sand dunes near the family home in Bridgend. He is running the Brecon Carreg Porthcawl 10K for Tŷ Hafan Children's Hospice this July as they have supported his family and Mia for more than a decade. Chris added: 'Our family has never been able to help us and if we didn't have Tŷ Hafan, we'd have struggled massively with no support. Tŷ Hafan has definitely helped to keep our little family together and it has given us more of an existence, more of a life, with the opportunity to change to be normal and not just carers. 'Emma and me always get on better, when we stay at Tŷ Hafan. We're always that bit more giggly and better with each other. 'Mia is now quite big, and she has no sense of danger. That means every minute of every day, almost every second of every day Em and I have to look out for her. 'It's really only when we are at Tŷ Hafan that we are able to power our brains or systems down enough to properly relax because it is only there we are able to trust Mia's in safe hands.' The parents have also had to face their own health battles, as Emma was diagnosed with cancer and Chris has mild heart problems. James Davies-Hale, head of fundraising for Tŷ Hafan Children's Hospice, said: 'We're so grateful to Chris and everyone who will be running the Brecon Carreg Porthcawl 10K for us on Sunday, July 6.'
ABC News
30-04-2025
- Science
- ABC News
Comet C/2025 F2 SWAN was discovered by an Australian amateur astronomer. This is how he found it.
Most days, Michael Mattiazzo logs into his computer and looks through public data from a spacecraft orbiting the Sun. He's not an astronomer by trade, and he's not interested in our stellar neighbour. Instead, he's hunting comets. Michael has been doing this for more than two decades, and when asked why, he's delightfully honest. "It's the kudos," he laughs. " It's the excitement of new discovery. " While most of the night sky is mapped by professional astronomical surveys, Michael studies the tiny patch of sky those surveys can miss. "There's just a little window where a comet can approach from behind the Sun and be hidden," he says. In March, Michael discovered a green comet called C/2025 F2 SWAN — his tenth discovery using public data from the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO). Observations of the comet since then suggest it started falling apart in mid-April and disintegrated before it was due to pass the Sun this week. "The Sun is at solar maximum this year and it was just too much for this small, fragile, icy body getting so close to it," he says. But Michael is worried his chance of finding any more comets is also fading — and C/2025 F2 SWAN may be his last. A new state-of-the-art observatory, scheduled to be completed later this year, is likely to sniff out distant comets long before amateur astronomers can. An old solar observatory SOHO was not built to find comets : it was launched in 1995 by the European Space Agency and NASA to study the Sun. Its mission was expected to last just two years, but it's now well past that. Later this year the spacecraft will hit three decades in space. SOHO has been studying the Sun for almost 30 years. ( Supplied:ESA/ATG/NASA SOHO/CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO ) Aboard SOHO is an ultraviolet camera called SWAN that highlights ionised hydrogen and is used by scientists to peek at the solar atmosphere on the far side of the Sun. But when the data became public around the 2000s, amateur astronomers quickly realised that glimpses of comets could sometimes be seen on the camera's edges. When comets get close to the Sun, the water inside them turns into ionised hydrogen, making them appear "very bright", Michael says. "SWAN is an excellent detector for comets. Data from the SWAN all-sky map on March 27 showed a blip which was confirmed be caused by the comet. ( (Supplied: Michael Mattiazzo) ) " I'm just grateful for them for providing that data for us to use. " How to catch a comet But a discovery of a comet needs more than just finding a blip in SWAN data. The sky map which SWAN produces also highlights many false positives. Michael Mattiazzo has his own telescope, but normally discovers comets using publicly available data. ( Supplied: Michael Mattiazzo ) For C/2025 F2 SWAN, the telltale flash of light was discovered on March 30, 2025. Once he was pretty sure it was a new comet, Michael needed to find it before anyone else did. "Well, we sort of keep it secret," he says. "I kept it quiet so that I could confirm it myself … [but] the longer you delay it, the more people can pick it up." The comet was seen on SWAN data taken on March 27, but because the data is only released publicly a few days later, the comet has already travelled into another area of sky . With only a faint smudge in one area of the sky, it's particularly hard to forecast where the comet might have moved to. In the case of C/2025 F2 SWAN, there was another issue — it's a comet only visible in the Northern Hemisphere. As much as he would have liked to find it himself, Michael had to request help from a larger amateur astronomy group. After putting out the call, Qicheng Zang, an astronomer in Arizona, was the first to directly image the comet, and once it was found visually, Michael took a remote snap from a telescope in Utah. An image of comet C/2025 F2 SWAN taken using a remote telescope in Utah on April 6. ( Supplied: Michael Mattiazzo ) An international rivalry The delay in imaging the comet meant Michael wasn't the only one credited with the discovery. It was independently seen in the SWAN data by three people: Michael, American Rob Matson, and Ukrainian Vladimir Bezugly. All three reported the discovery on the Minor Planet Center's "Once we get enough data positions, it's then officially announced," Michael says. The three comet hunters have become co-discoverers on a number of comets since the early 2000s, all by closely looking at the same SWAN data. While he does think of this as "a competition", Michael is also fond of the other two. "Vladimir Bezugly is getting bombs dropped [on him]," he says. "He should get a very special mention, doing this from war-torn Ukraine." Photo shows Retired astronomer Rob McNaught is pictured with a brightly coloured mural in Coonabarabran. The mural features Comet McNaught. Robert H McNaught can close his eyes and pinpoint the greatest moment in his career — eyeballing for the first time one of the brightest comets in living memory. To have a comet named after you — for example "[Terry Lovejoy's] telescope can do automatic survey searching. So it images a patch of sky, and then it does its own processing, the way professionals do it, but at an amateur capacity," Michael says. "That's much harder to do than spending five minutes on a PC every day looking at an ultraviolet image. "[What I do] it's almost cheating." While the search for comets is international, Australians have discovered more than their fair share. Comet McNaught was the brightest comet seen since the 1960s. ( Rob McNaught ) Both Terry Lovejoy and Robert McNaught live in Australia, How comet hunting has evolved In the days of Bill Bradfield in the late 20th century, comets were discovered using amateur astronomer's own telescopes to look directly at the night sky. When the public data from SWAN was made available, this changed the game. According to Michael, SWAN was a "threat to the visual comet hunter". Similarly, the soon-to-be-completed Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile is a threat to the comet hunters using SWAN. "It's going to be an amazing survey," Michael says. " It has got a gigantic mirror on it with a gigantic camera … everything will get picked up. " But Michael worries that it will make it even harder for amateur astronomers to spot comets before the experts do, particularly because the data won't be publicly available for two years after it's collected — much too late for comet discoveries. "I think Vera Rubin is really going to shut the door on us," he says. Rebecca McElroy, an astronomer at the University of Southern Queensland who is part of the team working on the new observatory, doesn't agree. She thinks the time between the surveys will still leave "room for amateur discoveries", although she understands that it might make it harder than before. The Vera C Rubin Observatory will photograph the entire available sky every few nights. ( Supplied: Mason Productions Inc./LSST Corporation/ ) "The 8.4-metre telescope … will be home to the largest digital camera ever made," she says. "[The telescope] will mean that the southern sky is always being watched for anything interesting that might happen." For Dr McElroy, this means she'll be able to quickly spot supermassive black holes called quasars in the distant sky, but the telescope's sensitivity and scope means it'll see a lot more than that. The telescope is scheduled to start making scientific observations later this year, so the days of SWAN might be almost up. Despite this looming deadline, Michael is still optimistic there will be tiny slivers of sky that SWAN can see, but other telescopes like Vera Rubin can't. "There might still be a little gap where [the comet] comes in on the far side of the Sun," he says. But the best-case scenario for amateur astronomers like him is that the data is searchable. And if scientists are looking for volunteers to comb the results for comets, Michael knows a few amateur astronomers who could be interested. Science in your inbox Get all the latest science stories from across the ABC. Your information is being handled in accordance with the Email address Subscribe
India Today
25-04-2025
- Science
- India Today
Cosmic smiley face: How to watch the Moon, Venus, and Saturn align this week
Skygazers are in for a cosmic treat this week as the Moon aligns with Venus and Saturn to form a celestial 'smiley face' in the early morning sky. The rare alignment is set to occur just before sunrise on Friday, April 25, and will be visible for only a brief to the astronomy news site EarthSky, the event will be visible approximately 30 to 40 minutes before dawn. A thin waning crescent Moon will appear to the left of bright Venus and much dimmer Saturn. The three objects will look like a skewed smiley face shining in the eastern capture this elusive formation, observers have to pray for clear weather. Clouds or fog may block the view. While Venus and the Moon will be easily visible to the naked eye, Saturn's faint light may require binoculars or a telescope to see. Observers are cautioned not to look directly at the Sun during sunrise, as the intense glare can cause permanent eye damage. Experts advise careful timing and, if needed, the use of appropriate safety ComingAccording to USA Today, Coming on the heels of the smiley face alignment, another celestial event is to occur on Sunday, April 27 — the nearest new supermoon of 2025. Throughout this occurrence, the moon will pass by Earth at a mere 221,917 miles, just about 17,000 miles closer than its norm. Although, it is so close, the new moon will not be visible from Earth, as opposed to its full moon sibling, which usually illuminates the the smiley face alignment, another celestial event will take place on Sunday, April 27 — the closest new supermoon of 2025. During this event, the Moon will pass just 221,917 miles from Earth, roughly 17,000 miles closer than average. However, because it is a new moon, it won't be visible from Earth unlike the more radiant full Read: Will we ever see it again? Green Comet SWAN likely destroyedMust Watch
Yahoo
24-04-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Bright green Comet SWAN falls apart after once-in-a-lifetime appearance in our night sky
Another comet has fascinated skygazers but has already sung its swan song after approaching the Sun. Comet SWAN (C/2025 F2) was discovered in March with the Solar Wind Anisotropies (SWAN) instrument on Nasa's Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) spacecraft, hence why SWAN is in the comet's name. Since its discovery, hundreds of observations of the comet have been logged into the International Astronomical Union's Minor Planet Center from observatories around the world. Why The Closest Supermoon Of The Year Will Be Invisible To Earth Comet SWAN was set to reach perihelion, the closest distance to the Sun, around May 1, raising hopes the possibility of unaided-eye viewing could be on the table later this month. But recent observations show the comet didn't make it past the final approach. "It looks like there's not much left of it, and it seems to be just clouded dust at this point that's gradually getting more diffuse and flying apart," said Dr. Qicheng Zhang, a post-doctoral astronomer at Lowell Observatory in Arizona. Zhang studies comets that get very close to the Sun, known as sun-grazers, such as Comet C/2024 G3 ATLA's approach in January. Comet SWAN was a smaller comet and Zhang said this is likely the factor that led to its early end. See It: Lyrid Meteor Shower Peaks In Dazzling Worldwide Display "The thing with small comets is that they tend to get spun up really easily by just random variations in their outgassing," he said. "When the ice on them starts to sublimate and create gas. It tends to not come out perfectly symmetrically. And that asymmetry starts to like, torque the thing and just spin it up." As a comet spins up, it starts to fall apart, which is likely what is happening to Comet SWAN now before it ceases to be an active comet. Comet SWAN has been observed by professional and amateur astronomers worldwide with its notable green coloring. Zhang said this coloring is likely from diatomic carbon. "Comets have a lot of organic material. When you toss it out into space, you get UV rays from the Sun that hit those complicated organic molecules, which happen to contain a lot of carbon. And when they get broken down, you'll get pieces that contain essentially just two carbon atoms stuck together. And that's essentially just the green that we see in these comets," Zhang said. The comet's orbital period is 1.4 million years, so even if it survived perihelion, it would be the last chance to see it in our lifetime. So long, Comet article source: Bright green Comet SWAN falls apart after once-in-a-lifetime appearance in our night sky
