Asteroid 2008 TC4 passes the Earth.

Asteroid 2008 TC4 passed by the Earth at a distance of about 12 911 000 km (33.6 times the average distance between the Earth and the Moon, or 8.63% of the distance between the Earth and the Sun), slightly before 1.45 am GMT on Tuesday 24 October 2017. There was no danger of the asteroid hitting us, though were it to do so it would have presented a significant threat. 2008 TC4 has an estimated equivalent diameter of 94-300 m (i.e. it is estimated that a spherical object with the same volume would be 94-300 m in diameter), and an object at the upper end of this size range would be predicted to be capable of passing through the Earth's atmosphere relatively intact, impacting the ground directly with an explosion that would be 65 000 times as powerful as the Hiroshima bomb. Such an impact would result in an impact crater over 4.6 km in diameter and devastation on a global scale, as well as climatic effects that would last decades or even centuries.

The calculated orbit of 2008 TC4. Minor Planet Center.

2008 TC4 was discovered on 7 October 2007 by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Lincoln Near Earth Asteroid Research Laboratory in Socorro, New Mexico. The designation 2008 TC4 implies that it was the 103rd asteroid (asteroid C4) discovered in the first half of October 2008 (period 2008 T).

2008 TC4 has a 252 day orbital period, with an elliptical orbit tilted at an angle of 10.6° to the plain of the Solar System which takes in to 0.35 AU from the Sun (35% of the distance at which the Earth orbits the Sun; inside the orbit of the planet Mercury) and out to 1.21 AU (21% further away from the Sun than the Earth). This means that close encounters between the asteroid and Earth are fairly common, with the last thought to have happened in October 2015 and the next predicted in October 2019. Although it does cross the Earth's orbit and is briefly further from the Sun on each cycle, 2008 TC4 spends most of its time closer to the Sun than we are, and is therefore classified as an Aten Group Asteroid. As an asteroid probably larger than 150 m in diameter that occasionally comes within 0.05 AU of the Earth, 2008 TC4 is also classified as a Potentially Hazardous Asteroid.

2008 TC4 also has frequent close encounters with the planets Mercury, which it is thought to have last passed in April this year, and is next predicted to pass in February 2022, and Venus, which it last came close to in February 2004 and is next predicted to pass in April 2021. Asteroids which make close passes to multiple planets are considered to be in unstable orbits, and are often eventually knocked out of these orbits by these encounters, either being knocked onto a new, more stable orbit, dropped into the Sun, knocked out of the Solar System or occasionally colliding with a planet.

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Dozens of Octopus crawl up Welsh beach.

Dozens of Octopus have been sighted crawling up a beach near New Quay in Ceredigion, Mid Wales, over the weekend Friday 27-Sunday 29 October 2017.  Up to 25 Curled Octopus, Eledone cirrhosa, were seen each night on Harbour Beach. Some local residents have attempting to help the animals back into the sea, despite which several dead Octopus have been found on the beach in the mornings. The National Marine Aquarium in Plymouth has also received reports of Octopus strandings on other beaches in Wales as well as the north coast of Devon this week.

A Curled Octopus on Harbour Beach, Ceredigion, on 27 October 2017. SeaMôr Dolphin Watching Boat Trips.

The cause of this behaviour is not clear, as it is not something that Octopus usually do. Mass strandings of Fish are more common, as Fish will sometimes attempt to escape a deteriorating environment by crossing land, a good way of getting out of shrinking ponds or tidal pools. Octopus, at first sight, are less suited to such activity, as they lack the rigid skeletons and water-tight skin of Bony Fish. However, as many Fishermen have discovered, an Octopus left in a bucket on land or a boat is likely to escape very quickly. Exactly what the Octopus might be  trying to escape from is also uncertain. Marine organisms leaving the water usually do it because they have become trapped in a smaller body of water, such as a tidal pool, where the water chemistry can change quickly, for example by the oxygen becoming depleted, or evaporation raising the salinity level, but this unlikely to be the case in the open ocean. Brett Stones of SeaMôr Dolphin Watching Boat Trips has suggested that the Octopus may have been attempting to escape from Dolphins, which have been seen in Cardigan Bay this week and which are significant predators of Octopus.

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Family forced to evacuate home after landslide in Pahang State, Malaysia.

A family of five has been forced to evacuate their home after a landslide in the town of Mentakab in the Temerloh District of Pahang State in Peninsula Malaysia on Sunday 29 October 2017. The incident happened at about 4.00 pm local time, on the road downslope of the property, but has apparently partially undermined the building. The family has been ordered to leave by local authorities in case of further land slippage.

Property in Temerloh District, Pahang, partially undermined by a landslip on 29 October 2017. Pahang Civil Defence Force.

he cause of the event is as yet unclear, but Peninsula Malaysia has been suffering an exceptionally wet rainy season, with numerous floods and related occurrences. Landslides are a common problem after severe weather events, as excess pore water pressure can overcome cohesion in soil and sediments, allowing them to flow like liquids. Malaysia has become increasingly landslip-prone in recent years due to extensive deforestation, which leaves soil exposed to heavy tropical rainfall. Concerns have also been raised about the large number of construction sites on steep hillslopes in urban areas, where workers are particularly vulnerable to landslip events during the rainy season.

Pahang has a wet tropical climate with rain averaging over 200 mm per month, but has distinct wetter and dryer periods within this. October and November are typically the months with the highest rainfall,  usually over 390 mm in each month, associated with monsoon winds from the South China Sea.

Monsoons are tropical sea breezes triggered by heating of the land during the warmer part of the year (summer). Both the land and sea are warmed by the Sun, but the land has a lower ability to absorb heat, radiating it back so that the air above landmasses becomes significantly warmer than that over the sea, causing the air above the land to rise and drawing in water from over the sea; since this has also been warmed it carries a high evaporated water content, and brings with it heavy rainfall. In the tropical dry season the situation is reversed, as the air over the land cools more rapidly with the seasons, leading to warmer air over the sea, and thus breezes moving from the shore to the sea (where air is rising more rapidly) and a drying of the climate.

 Diagrammatic representation of wind and rainfall patterns in a tropical monsoon climate. Geosciences/University of Arizona.

Southeast Asia has two distinct Monsoon Seasons, with a Northeast Monsoon driven by winds from  the South China Sea during the Southern Hemisphere Summer and a Southwest Monsoon driven by winds from the southern Indian Ocean in the Northern Hemisphere Summer. Such a double Monsoon Season is common close to the equator, where the Sun is highest overhead around the equinoxes and lowest on the horizons around the solstices, making the solstices the coolest part of the year and the equinoxes the hottest.

The winds that drive the Northeast and Southwest Monsoons in Southeast Asia. Mynewshub.

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Magnitude 5.2 Earthquake in Badakhshan Province, Afghanistan.

The United States Geological Survey recorded a Magnitude 5.2 Earthquake at a depth of 101.3 km in the Kuran wa Munjan District of Badakshan Province, Afghanistan, at about 10.15 pm local time (about 5.45 pm GMT) on Saturday 28 October 2017. Quakes at this depth are seldom dangerous, but are often felt over a wide area, and this one was reportedly felt across eastern Afghanistan, western Tajikistan, northern Pakistan and in Jammu and Kashmir State, India.

The approximate location of the 28 October 2017 Badakshan Earthquake.Google Maps.

Eastern Afghanistan lies close to the boundary between the Indian and Eurasian tectonic plates, which runs through northern Afghanistan. The Indian Plate is moving northward relative to the Eurasian Plate, causing folding and uplift along this boundary, which has led to the formation of the Hindu Kush Mountains of Afghanistan, the Himalayas and the other mountain ranges of Central Asia., and which makes the nations in this boundary zone prone to Earthquakes.

Plate boundaries and movements beneath southern Pakistan, Iran and the Arabian Sea. University of Southampton.

Witness accounts of Earthquakes can help geologists to understand these events, and the structures that cause them. The international non-profit organization Earthquake Report is interested in hearing from people who may have felt this event; if you felt this quake then you can report it to Earthquake Report here.

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Matheronodon provincialis: A new species of Rhabdodontid Dinosaur from the Late Cretaceous of Provence, southern France.

The Rhabdodontids are a group of Iguanadontid Ornithischian Dinosaurs known only from the Late Cretaceous of southern Europe. They were predominantly large, robust animals, though dwarf species are known from the Haţeg Basin of Romania, deposits interpreted as having been laid down on a relatively small island, which contain dwarfed species of a number of Dinosaur groups. Most Iguanadontids resemble the related Hadrosaurs, in that they developed ever larger batteries of small, closely packed crushing teeth over time, interpreted as an adaptation to precessing hard, woody, plant material. However, the Rhabdodontids differ from this pattern in that they showed both a reduction in tooth number, and enlargement of the individual teeth, over time, suggesting a different feeding strategy.

In a paper published in the journal Scientific Reports on 26 October 2017, Pascal Godefroit of the Directorate ‘Earth and History of Life’ at the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences, Géraldine Garcia of the Université de Poitiers, Bernard Gomez of the Laboratoire de Géologie de Lyon, Koen Stein of the Chemistry Department at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Aude Cincotta, also of the Directorate ‘Earth and History of Life’ at the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences and the Department of Geology at the University of Namur, Ulysse Lefèvre, again of the Directorate ‘Earth and History of Life’ at the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences, and of the Department of Geology at Liège University, and Xavier Valentin, also of the Université de Poitiers, and of the Palaios Association, describe a new species of Rhabdodontid Dinosaur from the Begudian Sandstones of the Aix-en-Provence Basin in the Bouches-du-Rhône Department, Provence region of southern France.

The new species is named Matheronodon provincialis, where 'Matheronodon' means 'Matheron's Tooth', in honour of Philippe Matheron, the nineteenth century French geologist and palaeontologist who was the first person to describe Dinosaurs from the Provence region, and 'provincialis' means 'from Provence'. The species is described from a single right maxilla (upper jawbone) and a number of detached teeth.

Right maxilla of Matheronodon provincialis in dorsal (a), lateral (b), medial (c), and ventral (d) views. (e) Close-up of the second and third maxillary crowns. Godefroit et al. (2017).

Matheronodon provincialis shows extreme reduction in tooth number, with only eight teeth present on each side of the upper jaw, and presumably a similar number on the lower jaw. These teeth are greatly elongated, reaching 5 cm in length, and extremely thin and blade-like, with a ridge-pattern that favoured sharpening as the teeth wore down, making the species particularly extreme even for a Rhabdodontid in this regard. Godefroit et al. note that Hadrosaurs and non-Rhabdodontid Iguanadontids are typically associated with floras dominated by Conifers, plants which produce abundant woody material requiring considerable processing before it can be swallowed. The areas where Rhabdodontids are found, in contrast, had become dominated by Monocots such as Sabalites and Pandanites. These plants produce little woody material, but have large fibrous leaves, difficult to remove with crushing teeth, but presumably easier to process with the shear-like teeth seen in Rhabdodontids.

Reconstruction of Matheronodon provincialis showing large, blade-like teeth. Lukas Panzarin/Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences.

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Asteroid 2010 VT11 passes the Earth.

Asteroid 2010 VT11 passed by the Earth at a distance of about 13 550 000 km (35.3 times the average distance between the Earth and the Moon, or 9.06% of the distance between the Earth and the Sun), slightly after 7.45 am GMT on Sunday 22 October 2017. There was no danger of the asteroid hitting us, though were it to do so it would have presented a significant threat. 2010 VY11 has an estimated equivalent diameter of 99-310 m (i.e. it is estimated that a spherical object with the same volume would be 94-300 m in diameter), and an object of this size would be predicted to be capable of passing through the Earth's atmosphere relatively intact, impacting the ground directly with an explosion that would be 176-65 300 times as powerful as the Hiroshima bomb. Such an impact would result in an impact crater 1-5 km in diameter and devastation on a global scale, as well as climatic effects that would last years or even decades.

The calculated orbit of 2010 VT11. Minor Planet Center.

2010 VT11 was discovered on 2 November 2010 by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Lincoln Near Earth Asteroid Research Laboratory in Socorro, New Mexico. The designation 2010 VT11 implies that it was the 294th asteroid (asteroid T11) discovered in the first half of November 2010 (period 2010 V).

 

2010 VT11 has an 849 day orbital period and an eccentric orbit tilted at an angle of 2.48° to the plane of the Solar System, which takes it from 0.68 AU from the Sun (i.e. 68% of he average distance at which the Earth orbits the Sun and slightly inside the orbit of Venus) to 2.83 AU from the Sun (i.e. 283% of the average distance at which the Earth orbits the Sun, considerably more than the distance at which the planet Mars orbits the Sun). It is therefore classed as an Apollo Group Asteroid (an asteroid that is on average further from the Sun than the Earth, but which does get closer). This means that the asteroid has occasional close encounters with the planet Earth, with the last thought to have occurred in November 2010 and the next predicted to occur in September 2024. It is also calculated to have occasional close encounters with the planet Venus, with the last thought to have happened in October 2010 and the next predicted for August 2031. As an asteroid probably larger than 150 m in diameter that occasionally comes within 0.05 AU of the Earth, 2017 SN2 is also classified as a Potentially Hazardous Asteroid.

 

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