Verkhoyansk—a Siberian small town located in the #ArcticCircle breached the highest temperature record on June 20, 2020.
The temperature reached over 38°C (100° F)—a whopping 18°C more than normal mercury levels for this season.
#Trivia | The town used to be known for its extremely low temperatures, which drops to the level of -69.8°C, making it one of the coldest places on the planet.
As per WMO records, the previous such high temperature in the Verkhoyansk was recorded at 37.3°C on July 25, 1988. Another town, Fort Yukon in Alaska recorded the first-ever 37.7°C in 1915.
Reportedly, since the past few weeks, places around the arctic region have been witnessing an increase in the temperature levels, which was rarely seen earlier.
#TheArctic is regarded to be one of the fastest-warming regions worldwide and is said to be heating at twice the global average. As per the WMO data, the annual surface air temperatures over the last four years (2016–2019) in the Arctic region have been the highest on record.
Moreover, the impact of rising temperatures can be clearly seen through the melting of Arctic sea ice. In September 2019, the volume of Arctic sea-ice after its melting season declined by more than 50% compared to the mean value for 1979–2019.
As per the Russian Forest Service, about 12 million acres of land was on fire in early June. Increase in wildfire activity significantly contributes to a rise in temperatures.
According to reports, since 2003 there has been a drastic increase in the emissions from Arctic fires in the past two summers.
The emissions during June 2019 and June 2020, is said to be higher than combined emissions from all the June months from 2003-2018.
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While searching for life in the Gulf of Mexico, researchers pulled out a new bizarre-looking species of isopod, whose head resembles the Darth Vader from Star Wars!
This new-found crustacean, named Bathonymus yucatanensis, has 14 legs and is around 26 cm long — approximately 25 times larger than its closest relative, the common woodlouse.
While these blonde creatures seem pretty scary, the "Vanilla Vaders" are, in fact, harmless to humans.
Their huge size is only due to deep-sea gigantism — a phenomenon wherein ocean dwellers grow bigger than their terrestrial relatives due to lack of sunlight.
This super-Earth is a rocky world, on which a year is equal to just 11 Earth days.
The short orbit is down to the red dwarfs being a lot smaller than the Sun that centres our solar system. But the smaller sizes also make their gravitational fields less expansive than the Sun's.
Therefore, Ross 508b revolves around its red dwarf at a distance of just 5 million km. Mercury, in comparison, is about 60 million km from the Sun.
The short distance between this super-Earth & its red dwarf begs the question: how could it possibly be habitable?
#Japan is making grand plans of creating interplanetary #trains and champagne flute-like glass habitats in its bid to send and host humans on the #Moon and #Mars!
An interplanetary transportation system dubbed the 'Hexatrack', which maintains a gravity of 1G during long-distance travel to mitigate the effects of prolonged exposure to low gravity, has been proposed by #Japanese researchers.
The #trains will also possess 'Hexacapsules', which are essentially hexagon-shaped capsules with a moving device in the middle.
In 2012, the almost-complete skeleton of a new kind of #dinosaur was found in the northern Patagonia region of #Argentina.
The dinosaur has been christened #Meraxes gigas. The generic epithet is an ode to a dragon in the #GameOfThrones series.
Standing at the height of 11 m (36 ft) and weighing roughly 4000 kgs, the #dinosaur sported several crests, bumps and horns on its skull, which lent it a menacing appearance.
But the highlight of the findings is that the dinosaur had teeny-tiny arms, just like the #Trex!
Dr Jose, along with an international research team from the US, UK and Australia, will be examining the Galactic Centre Cloud (GCC) — the central molecular zone of our Milky Way — in April 2023.
They have been allotted 27.3 hours over the access period of 12 months.