The Philadelphia region faced the worst air quality in the US early Thursday as the impact of Canadian

Hi, it’s Lisa, your Pursuits correspondent in Dubai. A year ago, people here were looking at home prices

Minuscule traces of metal from space junk that's designed to be disposable are invisibly polluting the Earth's atmosphere, a new study has found. In recent times, spacecrafts launched into space have been designed so that they fall out of orbit and fall back down to Earth after their intended use. So instead of the materials crashing on land, they can burn up in the upper atmosphere. Although the debris of rockets and satellites burn up when re-entering the planet's atmosphere, the consequences of metal vapour being left behind currently remain unknown. But given the amount of space exploration taking place, the amount of metal vapour is expected to rise in the years to come. Physicist Daniel Murphy of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has led a team of researchers to investigate what effects this metal vapour could have as well as its impact over time and this study was published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, as per Science Alert. He listed "iron, silicon, and magnesium from the natural meteoric source" as the current refractory material in stratospheric particular. Murphy has warned how this composition could be affected by the metal vapour from space junk. "However, the amount of material from the reentry of upper-stage rockets and satellites is projected to increase dramatically in the next 10 to 30 years," he wrote. "As a result, the amount of aluminum in stratospheric sulfuric acid particles is expected to become comparable to or even exceed the amount of meteoric iron, with unknown consequences for inclusions and ice nucleation." To find out if metal vapour remained, Murphy and his team took and analyzed 500,000 stratospheric aerosol droplet samples to see if they had traces of spacecraft metals. Aerosols contain sulfuric acid droplets made from the oxidation of the carbonyl sulfide gas and in the atmosphere, this can appear naturally or as a pollutant. Metal and silicon traces can be found in these droplets too, acquired from meteors which vaporize upon atmospheric entry. Around 20 metals were discovered from this research, and while some metals had similar ratios to the vaporizing meteors, other metals such as lithium, aluminium, copper, and lead exceeded the anticipated amounts. Particles from vaporized spacecraft were found in 10 per cent of stratospheric aerosols over a certain size while other common spacecraft metals such as niobium and hafnium were also present. Consequently, these traces of spacecraft particles could affect how water freezes into ice in the stratosphere, and stratospheric aerosol particles could change in size. Due to more space exploration planned in an "era of rapid growth" for the industry, the researchers predict "the percentage of stratospheric sulfuric acid particles that contain aluminum and other metals from satellite reentry will be comparable to the roughly 50 per cent that now contain meteoric metals." Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

Earlier this year, the U.S. Department of Justice sued Google for breaking antitrust laws with

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(Reuters) -Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp on Thursday lifted its annual capital expenditure forecast to around $7.5 billion and said it

The personal data of more than 1,000 people, including victims of crime, was included in Freedom of Information (FoI) responses issued by Norfolk and Suffolk Police, the forces have said. In a statement, the two East Anglian constabularies said a “technical issue” meant raw crime report data was included in a “very small percentage” of FoI responses issued between April 2021 and March 2022. It is the latest data breach involving police responses to FoI requests, coming after the Police Service of Northern Ireland published a document which included the names and other details of around 10,000 officers and staff. A joint statement said: “Norfolk and Suffolk Constabularies have identified an issue relating to a very small percentage of responses to Freedom of Information (FOI) requests for crime statistics, issued between April 2021 and March 2022. “A technical issue has led to some raw data belonging to the constabularies being included within the files produced in response to the FOI requests in question. The data was hidden from anyone opening the files, but it should not have been included. “The data impacted was information held on a specific police system and related to crime reports. The data includes personal identifiable information on victims, witnesses, and suspects, as well as descriptions of offences. It related to a range of offences, including domestic incidents, sexual offences, assaults, thefts and hate crime. “A full and thorough analysis into the data impacted has now been completed, and today we have started the process of contacting those individuals who need to be notified about an impact to their personal data. “This will be done via letter, phone, and, in some cases, face to face, depending on what information was impacted and what support is required. “We expect this process to be complete by the end of September. We will be notifying a total of 1,230 people whose data has been breached.” The data watchdog the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) is investigating. Stephen Bonner, deputy commissioner at the ICO, said: “The potential impact of a breach like this reminds us that data protection is about people. It’s too soon to say what our investigation will find, but this breach – and all breaches – highlights just how important it is to have robust measures in place to protect personal information, especially when that data is so sensitive. “We are currently investigating this breach and a separate breach reported to us in November 2022. “In the meantime, we’ll continue to support organisations to get data protection right so that people can feel confident that their information is secure. “If you’re concerned about the way your information has been handled, you can get advice on what to do from our website.” Read More Charity boss speaks out over ‘traumatic’ encounter with royal aide Ukraine war’s heaviest fight rages in east - follow live Police chief calls for parents to be held accountable over social media crazes Hackers ’emptied’ victims’ accounts and tried to blackmail GTA maker, court told AI can predict Parkinson’s subtype with up to 95% accuracy, study suggests

French defence and technology group Thales said on Wednesday it started talks to buy French supplier of airborne

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