August 2023

Astronomy enthusiasts are in for a treat Wednesday night: a rare “super blue moon” that won’t be seen again for more than a decade. 

Supermoons occur when the moon passes through its perigee — the point in its elliptical orbit that takes it closest to Earth. This makes it look about 14% bigger, compared with when it is at its furthest point, and a touch brighter.  

Full moons are defined by the exact moment they are opposite the sun, which will occur at 9:36 p.m. Eastern Time on August 30 (0136 GMT Thursday), according to NASA.  

The Virtual Telescope Project, hosted by Italian astronomer Gianluca Masi, will host a YouTube livestream beginning at 0336 GMT as it sets below the skyline of Rome. 

Despite the description, it won’t actually be blue: the term “blue moon” simply refers to when we see a full moon twice in a month. This happens because lunar cycles are a bit shorter at 29.5 days than calendar months, which last 30 or 31 days, so it’s possible for one to happen at the start of a month and a second at the end. 

The previous super blue moon occurred in December 2009, with the next set to come in quick succession: January and March of 2037. 

The origins of the English expression “once in a blue moon,” today understood to mean something that is very rare, go back hundreds of years. In Elizabethan times, “he would argue the moon was blue” could be said about a person making outlandish or patently absurd claims. 

It is possible, however, for the moon to take on a blue hue in the right circumstances. This can occur as a result of smoke or dust particles in the atmosphere scattering red wavelengths of life, such as following the eruption of Krakatoa in Indonesia in 1883. 

Dust from the event “turned sunsets green and the Moon blue all around the world for the best part of two years,” according to Sky & Telescope magazine. A more recent example may have occurred after 1950’s Chinchaga Firestorm, a huge blaze that consumed the northern boreal forests of Canada. 

The planet Saturn, just a few days out from its closest and brightest approach to Earth this year, will also appear near the moon. 

Wednesday’s full moon coincides with the Hindu festival “Raksha Bandhan” or Rakhi, which celebrates the bond between siblings. It is traditional for sisters to tie a rakhi, or cotton bracelet, around their brother’s wrist, who give a gift in return. 

It also falls in the month of Elul in the Hebrew calendar, a time of seeking and granting others forgiveness, as well as beginning and ending letters with wishes for the recipient to have a good year. 

“As usual, the wearing of suitably celebratory celestial attire is encouraged in honor of the full Moon. Take care of your siblings, let go of grudges, and here’s wishing you a good year!” a NASA post said. 

While the super blue moon will make for spectacular photos, its stronger gravitational pull also makes tides higher, which could exacerbate coastal flooding from Hurricane Idalia as it sweeps across Florida. 
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There is a lot less plastic pollution floating on the surface of the oceans, according to a recent study published in the scientific journal, Nature Geoscience. And while that sounds like good news, it means there must be much more plastic deep within the oceans, the study added.

The report also indicated the amount of plastic that reaches the sea is 10 times less than some scientists previously thought. 

Still, using 3D computer modeling of beaches, sea surfaces and ocean depths to determine the flow of the plastics, the researchers estimated that about a half million metric tons of plastic makes its way into the oceans each year.

“We’re accumulating more and more plastics in the environment,” said Mikael Kaandorp, the lead author and a research scientist at Forschungszentrum Jülich, a research institute in Germany.

Earlier this year, the Five Gyres Institute, a California-based group that focuses on reducing plastic pollution, published a study that estimated similar amounts of plastic floating in the ocean.

“Even with the lower estimates of the amount of plastics entering the ocean each year, we are still faced with its visible and widespread impacts globally,” said Britta Baechler, associate director of oceans plastics research with the Ocean Conservancy in Portland, Oregon, in the northwestern U.S. Baechler, who did not take part in the study, told VOA, “They’re pervading coastlines and critical habitats, as well as smothering corals and invading sensitive ecosystems.”

According to the report, more than 3 million metric tons of surface plastic could remain in the water for decades. And plastic going into the oceans is likely to increase by 4% each year, meaning sea surface plastic could double within 20 years.

Most of the plastic is larger and likely to be concentrated in huge garbage patches in ocean gyres formed from circulating ocean currents.

About half of the plastic is from fishing gear, such as nets and ropes. The other half comes off the land.

They enter from the coasts “as non-watertight landfills or maybe waste dumped into the sea by rain runoff in coastal cities or carried into the ocean by the wind,” said Kaandorp.

“I’ve seen shampoo bottles and wildlife interacting with all different sizes of plastic pollution,” said Erica Cirino, communications manager for the Plastic Pollution Coalition in Washington.

Marine animals can get tangled in the debris and become sick or injured from ingesting plastic.

Cirino, author of the book, Thicker Than Water: The Quest for Solutions to the Plastic Crisis, thinks the study is not providing the full picture of the problem.

She points out that two kinds of plastic commonly found in the oceans were excluded from the research, which focuses more on sea surface plastics, she said. The first is PVC, (Polyvinyl chloride) used for items like pipes, bottles and packaging, and the other is PET (Polyethylene terephthalate) used for fibers in clothing and in containers for liquids and foods.

“These are denser than water and so they are actually more likely to be suspended below the surface and ultimately sink,” Cirino told VOA.

There’s also a huge amount of tiny pieces of microplastic floating in the oceans, which are consumed by fish and other sea life. As they enter the marine food chain, they can pose a risk for human health.

“You can see these little flecks of brightly colored plastic that looks like confetti on the surface of the ocean,” said Lisa Erdle, director of science and innovation at the Five Gyres Institute. “You can see microfibers that are coming from ropes and clothing. Close to shore, near cities, you see fragments of plastic from car tires.”

Kaandorp said his study underscores that the plastic pollution problem will only get worse if action isn’t taken now.

“It’s going to take a really long time before these plastics actually are removed from our seas,” he emphasized.

“[What] we need to be looking at is what types of products can be eliminated,” Baechler of the Ocean Conservancy said. “Which ones don’t need to be made of plastic. There’s a lot of leakage of plastics into the environment since not all plastics are recyclable.”

Meanwhile, representatives of 175 nations are writing a global treaty to restrict the explosive growth of plastic pollution. The legally binding agreement would commit those countries to clean up plastic waste and to improve recycling as well as curb plastics production.
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A rare ‘super blue Moon’ that won’t be seen again for more than a decade
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Cameroon officials say a fifth case of polio was reported in the capital, Yaounde, this week, despite the launching of a new polio vaccination campaign in the central African country and its neighbors. Health officials are increasing surveillance and encouraging parents, many of whom still resist vaccination programs, to have their children inoculated. 

Cameroon’s health ministry says that five cases of type-2 poliovirus variants were discovered in the central African state’s capital, Yaounde, this week.  

The Cameroon government says sequencing results indicate the virus belongs to the NIE-ZAS-1 group that circulates in Niger, Chad, Cameroon and Nigeria.

The five cases constitute a national public health emergency given the high risk of the virus spreading very fast in the ongoing rainy season, according to the government.

Alma Mpiki is a pediatrician at Cameroon’s health ministry. She said to stop the spread of the disease as soon as possible the government of Cameroon has increased efforts to vaccinate all children under the age of five.

“There are still sporadic cases (of polio), that is why even though we are beginning to move towards the injectable form of the vaccines, we still continue to give the oral vaccination which is helpful and more efficient in protecting children,” she said.

Alma said the government is sending caravans to markets and communities to ask civilians to make sure all children are vaccinated.

Poliomyelitis is a highly infectious disease that is caused when the polio virus invades the nervous system of an infected person. The World Health Organization says polio has no cure and can cause paralysis and even death. 

The outbreak was reported three months after the launch of Africa’s largest polio vaccination campaign since 2020.

Cameroon health officials say they joined the massive inoculation exercise to reach out to children whose parents were refusing to take the children to hospitals for inoculation because of fear of the coronavirus.

Tchockfe Shalom Ndoula is the permanent secretary of Cameroon’s Expanded Vaccination Program.

Tchokfe said the inoculation exercise launched in May was a combined effort by Cameroon, Chad, the Central African Republic and Niger to immunize a total 21 million children under the age of five. He said before this week’s outbreak in Cameroon, 14 type-2 poliovirus infections were detected in sub-Saharan African countries.

Tchocfe said one case was detected in Niger, six confirmed cases were reported in Chad, and seven more in the Central African Republic since January.

Cameron’s health ministry says more than three million children in the country have been inoculated against polio since May. 
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