Last Viewed News Blogs (3,096)

In response to:

9 Dead in Wildfire That Destroyed Northern California Town and Is Now the Most Destructive Fire in California History
By Pam Wright 3 hours ago weather.com

The town of Paradise was destroyed by the fire and nine people have lost their lives. The Camp Fire is now the most destructive fire in California history. Authorities confirmed several injuries and at least 6,700 structures destroyed in Butte County.

Nine people have died as a result of the Camp Fire, a fast-moving Northern California wildfire that has become the state's most destructive on record, officials said Friday night.

Butte County Sheriff Korey Honea said three people were found outside homes and four people inside vehicles. He said another victim was found outside near a vehicle.

All the victims were found in Paradise, a town of 27,000 that was evacuated as a result of the fire.

Authorities say they conducted numerous rescues Friday as they fought the flames, including using helicopters to rescue five people in the nearby community of Magalia.

An estimated 6,453 homes and 260 commercial structures have already been destroyed by the fire, according to CalFire. Another 15,000 remained threatened in the area.

An estimated 80 to 90 percent of Paradise was wiped out by flames Thursday night, the town mayor told the Sacremento Bee.

The sheriff says they have taken 35 reports of missing people.

Three firefighters have been injured, CalFire said Friday.

The Camp Fire, which started early Thursday morning, had grown in size to 156 square miles by Saturday morning and was 20 percent contained.

Pacific Gas & Electric Co. said in a one-paragraph summary filed Thursday with state utility regulators that it had experienced a problem on an electrical transmission line near the Camp Fire site 15 minutes before the blaze broke out, the Associated Press reported. The company said it later observed damage to a transmission tower on the line near the town of Paradise.

Capt. Scott McLean of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection said crews basically gave up attacking the flames and instead helped people get out alive.

“There was really no firefight involved,” he said.

By Friday morning, the fire was encroaching on the nearby city of Chico, prompting new evacuations.

Capt. Scott McLean of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection said flames from the blaze had reached the eastern side of Chico, a city of more than 90,000 residents.

The small communities of Stirling City and Inskip, north of Paradise, were also evacuated on Friday.

Officials told the Associated Press that some Paradise residents who attempted to escape the fire in their vehicles Thursday were forced to flee on foot – some holding pets and even babies in their grasp – as the flames drew closer. With few options out of Paradise, roads quickly became gridlocked, and abandoned cars left in the middle of the road only made problems worse.

"It is pure chaos up here," CHP public information officer Ryan Lambert told the Los Angeles Times.

Other towns evacuated included Centerville and Butte Creek, northwest of Paradise. Evacuations were also ordered in the nearby hamlets of Pulga and Concow.

"It’s bad," Honea told the Chico Enterprise-Record. "We’re trying to get as many people out as quickly as possible and save as many lives as we can."...

In response to: China’s Yutu 2 rover has been crawling across the moon’s surface for almost three years. Since landing in the Von Kármán crater on January 3, 2019, it has finally made an interesting discovery. On December 3rd, the rover spotted a cube-shaped object on the horizon. Yutu 2 logged the strange entity in its driving diary, referring to it as a mystery moon hut.

According to Our Space, a Chinese media channel affiliated with the Chinese National Space Administration, the moon hut was spotted in a series of moon photos taken by China’s Yutu 2. As expected, the team behind the exploration will want to get a close look at the object and are driving toward it. The rover is currently about 262 feet (80 meters) away and is expected to reach the site in about two or three lunar days – or two or three Earth months.

It’s worth noting that the term “mystery hut” (or for us, moon hut) is just a placeholder name based on the object’s appearance. It’s not actually a hut or house. Possible theories about the object’s true origin are based on science and not on an episode of X-Files. The most logical explanation is that it could be a large boulder that was excavated by an impact event on the moon.

While this moon hut may turn out to be nothing more than a basic moon rock, China’s latest discovery comes as the country has been accelerating its space program. China launched a three-person crew for a six-month mission aboard its own space station in October. They aim to set a new record for the length of time spent in space by Chinese astronauts. The country also successfully landed a solar-powered rover on Mars earlier this year.

Although the mystery moon hut is causing a lot of online buzz, Philip Stooke, a research professor in the Department of Geography and Institute for Earth and Space Exploration at the University of Western Ontario dismissed the find with one sweeping statement. Speaking to Inside Outer Space (via Space.com) he said the object is just a rock on a crater rim north of the rover’s last parking location.

The professor’s dismissive statement might be disheartening to those who are intrigued by the moon hut discovery. But based on previous moon explorations it probably is just a large boulder. While giant block-shaped moon rocks aren’t that common, its specific shape might be due to the low resolution of the image. Only better photos taken from a closer range will reveal the object’s true form. The rock is also visible in imagery snapped by NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO). However, if it does turn out to be something unnatural, like an artifact, it would be a game-changer for space exploration.

In recent times scientists have started to take the search for ancient relics of alien civilizations more seriously. These artifacts could be found on the moon, on Mars, or in any number of places in the solar system. So the next time you look at the night sky, wondering if the truth is out there – remember dedicated teams are trying to answer that question too.