The combined effect of heavy rains and windstorm that occurred Friday night killed three-year-old Sharif Bashir and destroyed about 100 houses in Tudun-Yando village in Dange Shuni local government area (LGA) of Sokoto State.
Windstorm leaves a building and a car in ruins
EnviroNews gathered that the disasters, which occurred in the early hours of Saturday, affected Tudun Yan-dogo, Kwanar Kinba, Dogon Marke, Shuni town, Rafin Ali, Betta and Kadabale, among other villages.
What is left of a petrol station
The bereaved father, Bashir Aliyu, confirmed to EnviroNews that Sharif died as a result of a wall that fell down on him at around 3.00am on Saturday.
Destroyed roofing
He said: “We regard the death of Sharif as an act of God. We have since buried him.” He added that, apart from farm produce and livestock that were lost to the combined disasters, several houses, schools and filling stations were also affected.
Destruction trails the Tudun-Yando village windstorm
Sympathising with the victims of the disasters, the local government council chairman, Alhaji Mode Dan Tasallah, told EnviroNews that the council would provide temporary shelters to them in schools and other public buildings.
Twisted steel roofing components litter the filling station
He added that the council would “set up a committee comprised 10 members to assess the extent of damage caused by the disasters. It will also recommend the types of assistance to be extended to the victims.”
Director-General of the State Emergency Management Agency (SEMA), Hassan Maccido, told EnviroNews that the agency would assess the situation and make recommendations to government.
Sustainable Development Ambassador Peter Thomson, President-elect of the United National General Assembly, has signaled that unlocking finance for the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development is a key challenge of our times.
Ambassador Peter Thomson
At a meeting in New York convened by the UN Environment Inquiry and UN Women on 24 August, Ambassador Thomson – currently Fiji’s Permanent Representative to the UN – declared that it was not enough to just wish there was adequate sums of public finance, or wonder why large amounts of private finance are so hard to attract to the right investments.
Opening the meeting, he said: “Implementing the SDGs will not be possible without adequate financing. We have to be creative in mobilising finance from every possible source and ambitious in exploring how to work together in aligning our global financial system with sustainable development.”
Given between $5-7 trillion a year is needed to implement the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), Ambassador Thomson said the stakes were high and the transition to a sustainable low-carbon green economy was required in order to realign the world’s financial system to make it the enabler of the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda.
Presentations at the meeting were made by People’s Bank of China’s Research Bureau Chief Economist, Ma Jun, President of the Brazilian Federation of Bankers, Murilo Portugal, CalPERS Investment Director, Anne Simpson, and the United Kingdom Treasury’s Deputy Director of Global Financial Markets, Robert Ward.
During the meeting, Yannick Glemarec, Assistant Secretary-General, Deputy Executive Director of UN Women and co-chair of the meeting, stated, “UN Women is deeply committed to addressing the gender gap in access to finance in order to ensure that new financial solutions benefit women and men equally in support of sustainable development.”
Following the meeting Simon Zadek, co-director of the Inquiry, said: “With less than a month to go before the 71st session of the General Assembly, it is extremely positive that the incoming President is willing to take a leadership position around financing the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.”
After its inauguration in March, the United Nations System Staff College (UNSSC) – Knowledge Centre for Sustainable Development organised its first ever UN Summer Academy at the UN Campus in Bonn, Germany from 22-26 August. It was the fifth UN Summer Academy globally with previous editions hosted in New York and Turin, Italy.
Participants at the UN Academy
This year’s UN Summer Academy focused on the Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development. The Summer Academy’s theme “Shaping a Sustainable Future” echoes the motto and work of the United Nations in Bonn (UN Bonn). UN Bonn, consisting of 18 different UN organisations, builds a powerhouse for sustainable development and different UN Bonn entities contributed with their expertise to the panel discussions, key note speeches and workshops.
More than 50 participants and speakers from over 30 countries across the globe attended the UN Summer Academy at the UN Campus’ historic Haus Carstanjen, where the UNSSC Knowledge Centre for Sustainable Development sits. The week-long interactive learning and sharing event gathered UN staff, sustainability practitioners, researchers, businesses and representatives from different governments and public authorities. It aimed to stimulate exchange and learning from action in areas of critical importance: People, Planet, Prosperity, Partnerships and Peace – the elements that underpin Agenda 2030 with its Sustainable Development Goals.
“The first UN Summer Academy here in Bonn was a great success,” emphasises Patrick van Weerelt, Head of Office of UNSSC Knowledge Centre for Sustainable Development Bonn. “It allowed for fruitful discussions between a multitudes of actors with many different perspectives. I am sure the UN Summer Academy will become a permanent feature of our annual program in Bonn, opening the UN Campus to a wider audience and providing a unique space for reflection and discussion in a different setting. “Shaping a Sustainable Future”, the motto of this year’s UN Summer Academy, is particularly pertinent here in Bonn, which is an outstanding model for sustainability.”
Through the support of the Federal Foreign Office Germany and the state North Rhine-Westphalia, the UNSSC Knowledge Centre was able to offer a total of 13 scholarships, which allowed a wide spectrum of nationalities to take part. Recipients of the scholarships included government representatives from Ukraine and Egypt, as well as PhD students from Brazil and Germany, working on research on sustainability.
“This year’s UN Summer Academy represents the new spirit of openness and integration of the new agenda and models the need for countries, as well as the UN system, to work in a more integrated way with stakeholders from all sectors of society,” said Ambassador Ingrid Jung, Head of the Liaison Office of the Federal Foreign Office to the United Nations in Bonn during her opening speech. She further added: “We see the work of the UNSSC Knowledge Centre as a useful extension of our approach to foster a vision of foreign policy as an opportunity for cooperation and as a basis upon which to build the foundation for a working partnership on global matters. We are very much looking forward to future joint projects with UNSSC.”
During a “Share Fair”, the Summer Academy opened its doors to the UN staff in Bonn to provide a networking platform for the participants. Every participant had the opportunity to present his or her own work, no matter how big or small, on sustainable development.
“This year’s UN Summer Academy provided us with an opportunity to explore ideas and learn from each other as well as a chance to meet experts in the field of sustainable development. We go back to our countries inspired and with many new connections, which will help us to make a difference back home,” explains Dwiti Vikramaditya, representative of Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences (KISS) India, an NGO educating 25,000 deprived indigenous children across the subcontinent. “Education is the first step to change attitudes and behaviors in the long term.”
Participants also had the chance to experience some of the biggest global challenges that the UN addresses today via UN Virtual Reality. “Clouds over Sidra”, “My Mothers Wing” and “Waves of Grace” allow to explore the effects of displacement and conflict as well as Ebola through an immersive experience.
As leaders of the world’s largest economies prepare to attend the upcoming G20 meeting in Hangzhou, China, 130 investors with over $13 trillion in assets under management (AUM) have written to the G20 Heads of State, urging them to ratify the Paris Climate Change Agreement this year.
The CBD skyline of Hangzhou, China. The city will host the upcoming G20. Photo credit: cnbc.com meeting
The investors, from a coalition of six organisations, have also called on G20 nations to double global investment in clean energy, tighten up climate disclosure mandates, develop carbon pricing and phase out fossil fuel subsidies.
“The Paris Agreement on climate change provides a clear signal to investors that the transition to the low-carbon, clean energy economy is inevitable and already underway.
Governments have a responsibility to work with the private sector to ensure that this transition happens fast enough to catalyse the significant investment required to achieve the Paris Agreement’s goals including:
Holding the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels, and pursuing efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, and
Achieving net zero greenhouse gas emissions (“a balance between anthropogenic emissions by sources and removals by sinks of GHGs”) in the second half of the century.”
The six organisations co-sponsoring the letter are: IIGCC – Europe’s Institutional Investors Group on Climate Change; Ceres/INCR – the North American Investor Network on Climate Risk; IGCC – the Australia/New Zealand Investor Group on Climate Change; AIGCC – the Asia Investor Group on Climate Change; CDP and PRI.
Commenting on the letter, Stephanie Pfeifer, CEO of the Institutional Investors Group on Climate Change (IIGCC), said: “The Paris Agreement provides a clear signal to investors that the transition to the low-carbon, clean energy economy is inevitable and already underway. Governments must ratify the Paris agreement swiftly and have a responsibility to implement policies that drive better disclosure of climate risk, curb fossil fuel subsidies and put in place strong pricing signals sufficient to catalyse the significant private sector investment in low carbon solutions required to realise the agreement’s goals.”
Investors also called on the G20 leaders to prioritise rulemaking by national financial regulators to require disclosure of “material” climate risks.
Commenting on this, Mindy Lubber, President of the US NGO Ceres and Director of the Investor Network on Climate Risk (INCR), said: “Financial regulators, like the SEC, should step up attention to improve the quality of corporate climate disclosures, which are broadly lagging when considering wide-ranging and escalating climate risks. Improving the quality of climate-related financial disclosure, and aligning it between different jurisdictions, is vital to spurring broad capital market action on this issue. Our organisations are fully engaged with the Financial Stability Board’s Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosure (TCFD). We applaud this initiative and encourage G20 nations to consider the TCFD’s forthcoming recommendations as inputs to their national disclosure rules.”
Investors urged the G20 to support a doubling of global investment in clean energy by 2020, as called for by the UN Secretary-General in January 2016.
Speaking about this, Emma Herd, CEO of the Investor Group on Climate Change (IGCC), said: “While the private sector can provide much of this vital investment, policy signals must also support climate goals in the clearest possible manner. Maintaining strong growth in clean energy investment is key to tackling climate change. We strongly encourage G20 nations to ratify Paris and help drive trillions of dollars into new clean energy investment opportunities.”
The letter also welcomes the work of the G20 Green Finance Study Group, which aims to enhance the contribution of institutional investors to the greening of mainstream financial flows.
Fiona Reynolds, Managing Director of PRI, said, “Investors signing this letter understand that the study group’s conclusions will be presented at the G20 Leaders’ Summit in 2016. We therefore ask for the green finance agenda to be taken forward by the German and other future G20 presidencies. In order for green financing to reach its potential, the G20 must encourage the public and private sectors to work more closely together on issues such as stronger environmental protection and implementation of regulation. Incentives and policy frameworks must also be in place so that private capital flows more freely into green investments.”
Commenting further, Paul Simpson, CEO of CDP, added: “Investors also highlight the recommendations made to world leaders a year ago in the 2015 Global Investor Statement on Climate Change and renew their calls for the G20 to support both the development of carbon pricing and the prompt phase-out of fossil fuel subsidies.”
Finally, the investors, in the letter, urged the G20 to both prioritise implementation of their nationally determined contributions (NDCs) and to prepare to strengthen them with the goal of ensuring all G20 nations meet their commitments and raise their climate ambition during 2018 to achieve the Paris Agreement’s goals.
Flood on Tuesday morning destroyed about 50 houses in Bachaka village of Gudu Local Government Area (LGA) in Sokoto State.
Flooding in northern Nigeria
The State House of Assembly member representing Gudu LGA, Sani Yakubu, told news men in Sokoto on Wednesday that the disaster was as a result of several hours of heavy downpour.
According to Yakubu, “The disaster affected about 300 families, leaving them hopelessly displaced and squatting in schools and with relatives. No life was lost but domestic wares and foodstuffs were destroyed.”
The lawmaker, who said that he had visited the affected village, said that the victims were in immediate need of food items as well as building materials to enable them raise the destroyed houses.
While calling for the relocation of the village to a safe place in order to avoid recurrence of the incidence, Yakubu said that he had so far donated a total sum of N1.1 million, between Tuesday and Wednesday.
Appealing to Gudu LGA and the Sokoto State Government to provide immediate assistance to cushion the effects of the disaster before assessment of the entire incident was made, Yakubu also called on the State and National Emergency Management Agencies (SEMA/NEMA) to hasten the assessment process in order to quicken the assistance.
Head of Sokoto NEMA office, Muhammad Sulaiman, told EnviroNews that although he had not received any report in that regard, “we will confirm from SEMA and take appropriate action.”
However, the Director-General of SEMA, Alhaji Hassan Maccido, told EnviroNews that the agency would dispatch a team of experts to assess the disaster. “We will assess the extent of damage and recommend to the state government the forms of assistance to give to the victims.”
Drilling for water is a fraught business in Africa – like being a pirate without a treasure map. In many areas, the rock is old – some of the oldest on our planet.
Africa Groundwater Atlas overview
This cracked, shattered stone that is blasted by desert heat or soaked in tropical rains with often only a thin covering of rust-stained soil, can hold substantial amounts of water, but a driller needs to know where to look and the skill to develop a water source that will last. A metre or two can make the difference between a dry hole and a well that could supply a village or a farm for a lifetime.
The good news is that, in many parts of Africa, there is more groundwater available close to most areas where it is needed and the potential to store more with land use or technology changes. Currently, groundwater is an underused natural resource in much of Africa – where water insecurity is rife and drought is currently threatening the lives and livelihoods of millions of people in southern and eastern Africa.
For once, there may even be a rare silver lining to climate change – as it appears that in some environments groundwater recharge happens more readily when rainfall intensity is high.
Thus understanding and managing Africa’s aquifers should be central to poverty alleviation and climate resilience strategies.
A challenge up until now has been the lack of easily available groundwater information:
“When you drill a borehole in the UK, there are incredibly detailed maps and borehole logs (registered with the British Geological Survey – BGS) to help you decide where to drill,” Sean Furey, a water and sanitation specialist at Skat told The Guardian. “Even in countries where a similar organisation exists, that sort of data isn’t available because NGOs, the private sector or even governments who commission boreholes aren’t aware that they need to submit their drilling logs.”
In May, the Africa Groundwater Atlas was launched and is a major step forward in addressing this information gap.
The British Geological Survey has developed the Atlas in partnership with the International Association of Hydrogeologists (IAH) Burdon Groundwater Network for Developing Countries, and with more than 50 collaborating groundwater experts across Africa.
For each of 51 African countries, the Africa Groundwater Atlas provides new overview geology and hydrogeology maps and summaries of the key geological environments and aquifers in each country.
There are sections on groundwater status, use and management, including groundwater monitoring, with up to date information on the national organisations involved in groundwater development and management. There is supporting material on geographical setting, climate, surface water, soil and land cover, with accompanying maps; and finally, there are references and links to more detailed information for those wishing to find out more.
Accompanying pages highlight important issues related to African groundwater, such as recharge, groundwater development techniques and transboundary aquifers; with links to sources of further information.
Also available is the Africa Groundwater Literature Archive, which enables users to search (geographically and by keyword) and freely access thousands of articles, reports and other documents about African groundwater.
The Africa Groundwater Atlas is still being developed. Some of the pages still have limited information, and for many others there may be more details to be added or updates to be made – and there is still a need for country-level collection of borehole logs. However, if you are working in Africa on rural or urban water supply, water resources, environmental protection, agriculture, mining or forestry, you should bookmark the Atlas in your web browser today.
We can’t tell you if X marks the spot of the hidden treasure you are looking for – but at least now you have a map.
What’s the weather doing? It is a question that obsesses many. But, for many Ethiopians, it is a question that makes the difference between plenty and destitution.
Community River monitoring in Dangila woreda, Ethopia. Photo credit: D. Walker, Newcastle University
Ethiopia is a rich and diverse country that is home to around 100 million people, 88 different languages and imbued with long, diverse history. Its highlands are seasonally wet and fertile and its lowland deserts are among the most parched places on Earth.
Dangila woreda, or district, is a hilly area in the north west of the country with a population of around 160,000 people spread across an area of about 900 km2. Although the area receives rainfall at around 1,600mm a year, over 90% of this falls between May and October. For farmers, who depend on livestock and rainfed crops, understanding and predicting these rains is crucial to their livelihoods. Traditional strategies, which have served for millennia, are coming under threat from new pressures of shifting climate patterns, land degradation and population growth.
Exactly what is happening now and what is likely to happen in the future is uncertain due to the lack of rainfall, river flow and groundwater level data. Throughout much of sub-Saharan Africa, under-investment by governments has led to a widespread decline in environmental monitoring and this, in turn, makes water resources management harder and harder.
But what if those who stood to gain most from better understanding and management of water resources were those leading the data collection? Can communities reliably collect accurate weather, river and groundwater data? This is the question that is being investigated by researchers, led by Newcastle University in the UK through an UPGro-supported project called AMGRAF).
In a new paper in the Journal of Hydrology, David Walker and his colleagues explain why they think citizen science has a future in rural Ethiopia and beyond:
“The benefits of community involvement in science are being slowly recognised across many fields, in large part because it helps build public understanding of science, ownership and pride in the results, and this can benefit both individuals and local planning processes,” said Walker. “Because there are so few formal monitoring stations and such large areas that need to be understood and managed, we need to think differently about how data collection can be done.”
The community-based monitoring programme was started in February 2014 and residents of an area called Dangesheta were involved in the siting new rain and river gauges, and identifying wells that were suitable to be monitored. Five wells are manually dipped every two days, with a deep meter to measure the depth from the ground surface and the water level in the well; a rain gauge was installed in the smallholding of a resident who then took measurements every day at 9am; two river gauge boards were installed in the Kilti and Brante rivers and were monitored daily at 6am and 6pm.
Every month, the volunteers would then give their hard copy records to the Dangila woreda government office, who then typed them into an Excel spreadsheet and emailed to the research team.
But is this data any good? For David and his colleagues, this was a critical question that could make or break the whole approach. The challenges of data validation are substantial, and there are generally two types of error:
Sampling errors come from the variability of rainfall, river flow and groundwater level over time and over area. The sampling error increases with rainfall and decreases with increased gauge density. A challenge in tropical areas, such as Ethiopia, is much of the rain is high-intensity thunderstorms, which can be quite short in duration and small in size, and therefore easy to miss, or only partially record, if the density of monitoring stations is low.
Observational errors are the second type, and can come from a number of things: wind turbulence, splashing around the gauge, evaporation can affect how much is in the rain gauge, and then the observer might not read the gauge accurately or make a mistake or unclear notation, when writing the measurement down.
“Tracking down errors is tricky, but it can be done, mainly through statistical comparison with established monitoring stations and with each other,” said Walker. “What we found was that the community collected data is more reliable than that gathered through remote sensing instruments from satellites.”
It is hoped that this promising approach can attract further support and be used more widely, but what are the secrets, and challenges, to making community monitoring work?
“People are at the heart of this process and selection of volunteers is crucial to avoid problems with data falsification or vandalism,” concluded Walker. “Feedback is absolutely vital and through workshops and meetings the data can be presented and analysed with the community so that they can make decisions on how best use the available rainfall, river flows, and groundwater to provide secure sources of water for their farms and their homes.”
The Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth Nigeria (ERA/FoEN) has criticised the Nigerian government’s agreement with Russia’s ROSATOM to build four nuclear power plants in the country. The group is concerned with inherent dangers of the project, adding that it is uncalled for at a time most civilised nations are exploring safe renewables.
An impression of the proposed 1,200 MW Hanhikivi nuclear power plant in Pyhajoki, Finland
The agreement provides for the construction of a Centre with the two-circuit pool-type reactor of the Russian design and a nominal power rating of 10 MW in Sheba-Abuja. Four nuclear plants that ROSATOM will build will cost about $80 billion, with the first expected to be ready by 2025. The other three will be ready by 2035.
In the statement, Franklin Erepamo Osaisai, chairman and CEO of the Nigeria Atomic Energy Commission (NAEC) was quoted as saying that the plants would be financed by ROSATOM, which will then build, own, operate and transfer (BOOT) them to the Nigerian government which will enter a power-purchasing agreement. Kogi and Akwa Ibom States are to host the plants.
But, in a reaction to the development, ERA/FoEN said the decision of the Nigerian government to experiment with the nuclear option is not only shocking, but also a betrayal of the Nigerian people who have roundly rejected the dangerous path since the technology is unsafe and, by virtue of its total control by the Russian firm, will create a state within the Nigerian state.
ERA/FoEN Executive Director, Godwin Uyi Ojo, said in a statement: “We are miffed that a cooperation agreement on this dangerous experiment has been reached despite the aversion of Nigerians to the nuclear option for generating power. We reject it and refuse to be led into a radioactive misadventure that western countries that hitherto experimented are weaning themselves off and exploring safe renewables,”
Ojo noted that, with the Chernobyl and recent Fukushima incident in Japan still fresh in the mind, the Nigerian and Russian promoters of the project have neither consulted Nigerians nor taken into cognisance the fact that the project will ultimately tie the country to the whims of the Russian vendor which can be described as the Russian Ministry of Atomic Energy.
“We also gathered that the huge cost associated with the plants also leaves much to be desired because one facility of the kind and capacity that ROSATOM is planning to construct in Nigeria is about 7 billion Euro in Finland while same goes for $20 billion here.
Ojo explained that ERA/FoEN was part of a team of environmental activists and journalists who visited the proposed 1,200 MW Hanhikivi nuclear power plant in Pyhajoki, Finland, being constructed by ROSATOM and at the venue expressed misgivings about the project and total aversion of Nigerians to building same in Nigeria.
In Finland, the issue of how the spent nuclear fuel will be managed is now a burning question among local activists who staged resistance rallies against the planned construction in July.
Ojo pointed out that other issues that readily pop up are how the wastes will also be managed in Nigeria and where ROSATOM will get the funds for the construction.
“Without mincing words, for the average Nigerian, the details are scary enough. We reject the nuclear option for power generation because they are dangerous and we do not have the capacity to manage the potential disaster a nuclear breach may cause.
“We advocate the renewal of the Nigerian grid and energy sector. In doing this, renewables are the way to go since they make for both profitable business and safety. We do not support the dirty, unsafe and expensive reactors this government has agreed to build,” Ojo insisted.
In an article published by Nature World News on Wednesday, researchers announced the discovery of a new “Earth-like” planet orbiting a star not far from our sun. The planet has not been named yet, but was found circling the star Proxima Centauri – a “cool, tiny red dwarf” scientists have long suspected might be capable of having a planet in its orbit. The unnamed planet, known as Proxima b, is reported to orbit within Proxima Centauri’s “habitable zone” and is a only a short distance of 4.25 light-years away from Earth. Scientists estimate the planet receives enough radiation to retain a surface temperature of around -40° Fahrenheit. Based on what is known about other red dwarf star planets, Proxima b is likely rocky and has one side constantly left in darkness. Scientists are unsure whether it is in fact capable of supporting alien life, but it is believed it could have a surface “capable of holding liquid water” and sustaining life forms.
Artist’s impression of the surface of Proxima b. Photo credit: M. Kornmesser/European Southern Observatory
Scientists have discovered what they believe to be a new planet, the closest one ever detected outside our solar system. It is a small, rocky planet not unlike our own, orbiting the sun’s closest stellar neighbor.
“It’s so inspiring, it’s our closest star,” Lisa Kaltenegger, a Cornell astronomer who wasn’t involved in the new study, told The Washington Post. “A planet next door. How much more inspiring can it get?”
Located about 4.25 light-years from the sun, Proxima is less famous than the Alpha Centauribinary star system it hangs around with. But while Alpha Centauri is made up of two rather sun-like stars, Proxima is actually closer. It used to be that scientists were far more interested in stars like our own sun than in dim little dwarves like Proxima, but the times are changing – these types of stars are far more common in the galaxy, and scientists now believe they might be just as capable of hosting life as more familiar looking suns.
The proposed planet comes to light not long after a would-be-world orbiting Alpha Centauri B was determined to be nothing but a fluke in the data. Scientists know that most stars in the galaxy harbor planets, but we’ve had difficulty finding our closest companions in the cosmos.
Proxima b will no doubt be dubbed “Earthlike” by many, but let’s not jump the gun. Here’s what we know: The planet, based on statistical analysis of the behavior of its star, is quite likely to exist. Beyond that, we know very little.
Proxima b orbits its parent star every 11 days. Because of the method used to detect it, we don’t actually know how massive the planet candidate is – but we can say with confidence that it’s at least 1.3 times as massive as the Earth. It’s just over four million miles away from its cool, tiny red dwarf of a star (much closer than we are to our own sun), so it is blasted with enough radiation to maintain a balmy surface temperature of around minus 40 degrees Fahrenheit.
Based on what we know about the planets that form around red dwarf stars, it’s probably rocky – like Earth, Venus and Mars – and is likely tidally locked, meaning that one face of the planet constantly stares at the sun while the other half is left in darkness.
To call a planet “Earthlike,” scientists have to show that a planet is likely to be rocky and capable of holding liquid water. If Proxima b has an atmosphere – a question unlikely to be answered anytime soon – then it could have a temperature quite close to Earth’s, meaning it would at least be capable of maintaining liquid water on its surface.
Even if Proxima b has (or once had) an atmosphere and held water, the evolution of life is far from guaranteed. For one thing, we’re working with a sample size of one (the Earth) and have no idea how common the spark of life really is – even on planets that have all the same ingredients as the ones found at home.
Then there’s Proxima itself: Known as a flare star, the red devil lashes huge flares of radiation out into space every few hours. Anything that evolved on a nearby planet would have to live deep underground or underwater to survive – unless it evolved some level of protection from radiation that scientists on Earth can scarcely imagine.
The discovery of this planet, be it Earthlike or not, has been a long time coming. Led by Guillem Anglada-Escudé from Queen Mary University of London, 31 scientists from eight different countries spent several months collecting data on Proxima. They were looking to build on previous indications of planetary presence, studying the “wiggle” in the star’s light that would be caused by the seesaw gravitational pull between it and an orbiting planet (this is known as the Doppler method). Such a wiggle had been seen before, but the signal wasn’t strong enough to prove a planet was there.
Anglada-Escudé and his colleagues applied for several months of observation time on the European Southern Observatory’s HARPS (High Accuracy Radial Velocity Planet Searcher) spectrograph, allowing them to collect 54 nights’ worth of data on this telltale stellar wiggle.
“There had previously been claims of other planets, so we had to be really careful here,” Anglada-Escudé said during an embargoed news briefing held by Nature on Tuesday. The data from those 54 nights made a pretty strong case for the presence of a planet, but “it wasn’t enough.” The researchers weren’t satisfied until they combined their data with the older signals, the ones that hadn’t made enough of a case on their own.
“And then the [statistical] significance goes sky high,” he said.
Others agree that while the planet has yet to be confirmed using direct observational methods, the researchers have likely found something special. ESO astronomer Henri Boffin, who previously worked as HARPS’s instrument scientist but wasn’t involved in the new research, told The Post that Proxima b’s signal looked to be about three times as strong as that of Alpha Centauri Bb, the “planet” that turned out to be nothing but noise.
“It is quite amazing that our closest stellar neighbor would harbor a low-mass planet,” Boffin said. “Even if this is not so surprising after all, as it now seems established that the vast majority of stars host at least one planet, it is still nice to have apparently found the closest to us.”
Now the researchers will look for other methods to help confirm the planet’s existence and learn about its composition. Direct observation – staring at the planet with a telescope – isn’t possible with current technology. The star is just too bright and close to the planet for any telescope to see the latter. There’s a small chance – something like 1.5 percent probability – that the planet “transits” in front of its star, or passes in front of the star from the perspective of Earth’s telescopes. If that’s the case, scientists will be able to study the planet’s mass and atmosphere by analyzing the way Proxima’s light passes around it.
“That’s the first thing we’re going to go look for,” John Brown Paul Strachan, a PhD student at Queen Mary University of London who contributed to the study, told The Post. “If it does transit, then that opens a whole field to us, where we might be able to start seeing details about the atmosphere of the planet.”
But Strachan and his colleagues aren’t giving up hope of a direct observation in the near future. They believe that instruments like the James Webb Space Telescope, launching in 2018, will allow them to glimpse Proxima b in no time.
If Proxima b proves to be a real planet – and one particularly worthy of study – a visit wouldn’t be totally outside the realm of possibility. But even though Proxima is our closest neighbor, it’s still awfully far: NASA’s New Horizons probe had to travel 3 billion miles to get to Pluto and took nearly a decade to do so. At around 25 trillion miles away, a trip to Proxima b would be more than 8,000 times as long. At least one well-funded group is trying to develop the technology needed to propel a tiny probe into the Centauri system, but don’t hold your breath.
Then again, the detection of an Earthlike atmosphere on Proxima b would provide some excellent motivation.
As Anglada-Escudé said in a statement, “The search for life on Proxima b comes next.”
The Italian Civil Protection agency has described Wednesday’s devastating earthquake that hit near Perrugia as a “severe” seismic event.
At least 120 people were killed after a 6.2-magnitude earthquake struck central Italy in the middle of the night.
Scores of buildings were reduced to dusty piles of masonry in communities close to the epicentre of the 3:32 a.m. quake in a remote area straddling the regions of Umbria, Marche, and Lazio.
A man is rescued alive from the ruins in Amatrice. Photo credit: Remo Casilli / ReutersA woman is helped to leave her home by rescuers in Amatrice. Photo credit: Remo Casilli / ReutersA woman holds a child as they stand in the street following an earthquake, in Amatrice. The magnitude-6 quake was felt across a broad swath of central Italy, including Rome, where residents of the capital felt a long swaying followed by aftershocks. Photo credit: Massimo Percossi/APRescuers stand by a collapsed house in Amatrice. More than 70 people were killed and hundreds injured as crews raced to dig out survivors. Photo credit: Massimo Percossi/ANSA via APA woman holds a dog in her arms as she walks with a man next to the rubble of buildings in Amatrice. Photo credit: Filippo Monteforte/AFP/GettyA man walks amid the rubble in Pescara del Tronto. Photo credit: Remo Casilli / Reuters
