Here are today’s most important updates from the realm of Science and Space.
Scientists have warned that “dangerous climate breakdown” has arrived after the warmest January ever was recorded globally. The average temperature last month stood at 13.23C, which is 0.79C above the 1991 to 2020 average for January and 1.75C above the pre-industrial level, according to European space agency Copernicus. January 2025 is the 18th month in the last 19 months which saw the global average surface air temperature more than 1.5C above the pre-industrial level. The biggest driving factor for this record temperature remains greenhouse gas build-up from the burning of fossil fuels such as coal, oil and natural gas.
International astronomers tracked over 120 Starlink satellites re-entered Earth's atmosphere, and burned up creating spectacular fireballs in January alone. Astronomer Jonathan McDowell notes the unprecedented rate of daily re-entries, with approximately four to five Starlink satellites being retired and incinerated daily. Starlink is a satellite network developed by SpaceX to provide low-cost internet to remote locations. The major reason behind this sudden surge in crashing of Starlink satellites is mass retirement of the first-generation (Gen1) Starlink satellites, with over 500 of the 4,700 Gen1 satellites already reaching the end of life. While the re-entries produce visually stunning fireballs, they also raise concerns about atmospheric pollution. The disintegration of satellites adds metallic vapours to the atmosphere.
It became global headlines when researchers in a study claimed that the Covid-19 pandemic not only impacted Earth, but also the Moon. The 2024 study claimed that the pandemic on Earth led to a cooling down of temperatures on the Moon. Researchers from Missouri S&T and the University of West Indies (UWI) in St. Augustine, Trinidad and Tobago have challenged the findings and confirmed that there was an anomalous decrease in the lunar surface temperature during April- May 2020, however, this dip was also observed in 2018, long before the pandemic. The researchers concluded that they "cannot attribute the effects of the observed changes in the lunar surface temperature during April-May 2020 directly and unambiguously to reduced human activity during the Covid-19”.
The Santorini-Amorgos earthquake swarm just keeps going. It has now produced over 1,000 individual events since it began on January 27. pic.twitter.com/KQwxEj0Vbb
— Nahel Belgherze (@WxNB_) February 5, 2025
(Credit - X/@WxNB_)
Since January 27, the Greek islands of Santorini and Amorgos have been rattled by an ongoing earthquake swarm, with over 1,000 individual seismic events recorded. The seismic activity, characterised by hundreds of quakes with magnitudes between 3 and 4.9, has been concentrated between Santorini and the nearby island of Amorgos, both part of the Cyclades Islands. About 10,000 people have left on ferries and planes in recent days as hundreds of small quakes were registered in the surrounding sea, shaking buildings, kicking up dust on the island's rocky cliffs, and raising fears of a major earthquake.
