…, strengthen environmental checks, and implement stricter rare earth environmental policies,” Su Bo was quoted as saying by the Xinhua news agency. According to Xinhua, the association will have 155 members, including some of the biggest producers of rare earths, and report to the Ministry of Industry and Technology which regulates production of these elements. …
…live in harmony with nature. The organization functions through a network of more than 90 offices in more than 40 countries worldwide. Its first office was founded in Morges, Switzerland, on September 11, 1961….
…h Hour 2011 was the biggest year in the campaign’s five year history, reaffirming it as the largest ever voluntary action for the environment. It took place in a record 5,251 cities and towns in 135 countries and territories in all seven continents. It had an estimated reach of 1.8 billion people across the globe. In addition to this, the campaign’s digital footprint grew to 91 million…
…US, said: “It is the first time humanity has been able to discover an object similar to the Earth around a star, so maybe we will be able to find others. “This could be an important milestone. I think 10 years or maybe even 100 years from now people will look back and ask when was the first Earth-sized planet found. It is very exciting.” The parent star, Kepler-20, is not exactly a close neighbor,…
…se gas emissions are on track to warm the world by at least 3C on average by 2100 • most river basins contain places where drinking water standards are below World Health Organization standards • only 1.6% of the world’s oceans are protected. A few hours after GEO-5′s release, the journal Nature published a review of evidence on environmental change concluding that the biosphere –…
It is well known that Earth is unique as the only planet in the solar system which can sustain life. However, in other respects, Earth may not be quite as unusually as is often thought. Astronomers studying Titan, Saturn’s largest moon, have described it as “a weirdly Earth-like place” when it comes to geology. Titan boasts landscapes shaped by the flow of rivers – though…
Asteroid 2012 DA14, a 150-foot space rock orbiting Earth, will pass closer than geostationary satellites to our planet on February next year. NASA’s Impact Risk report said that the odds of the space rock actually hitting Earth are very low indeed – but on February 15, 2013, it will pass just 17,000 miles from Earth, closer than “geostationary” satellites. If an asteroid of that size…
…pass” of Earth, which is an area it passes through on the orbit before it would hit Earth. According to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab, this will be within a mere 0.02 astronomical units of our planet, or 1.86 million miles. NASA has identified a 460 ft wide asteroid, 2011 AG5, soaring through space and calculated that it could potentially impact Earth on February 5th 2040 According to NASA, a…
…ing to stream pictures. Venus transits occur four times in approximately 243 years; more precisely, they appear in pairs of events separated by about eight years and these pairs are separated by about 105 or 121 years. The reason for the long intervals lies in the fact that the orbits of Venus and Earth do not lie in the same plane and a transit can only occur if both planets and the Sun are situa…
Astronomers from European Southern Observatory (ESO) have found a planet which is one of the best candidates for life ever found by telescopes on Earth. The newly discovered planet is rocky, like Earth, and orbits its sun within the “habitable zone”, where temperatures are just right for liquid water to exist on the planet’s surface. The temperature on the surface could be close to Earth…
A satellite, weighing six tons and currently out-of-control, will strike Earth at 18,000 mph and could land almost anywhere this evening – NASA warned last night. The satellite has the size of a bus and will break up on entering Earth’s atmosphere, flinging huge chunks of metal weighing up to 350 lb (150 kg) across hundreds of miles. The six-ton Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite will crash to…
…e is coal black and it spins slowly through space. It travels at 30,000 mph and was last this close to Earth some 200 years ago. The last time a large cosmic interloper came that close to Earth was in 1976, and it won’t happen again until 2028. However, it was bad news for all but the most committed of stargazers. It was not visible to the naked eye – even at its closest point to Earth…
Asteroid 2012 JU passed within nearly 119,000 miles of Earth on May 14, just a whisker away from us in astronomical terms. Indeed, the bus-sized asteroid came closer to us than the moon does, with our celestial partner spinning around us at a distance of 238,000 miles. Luckily, we were never in any danger from the 12-metre wide asteroid, but it is another reminder of the risk we face from these r…
…7;s climate and could, its author says, be crucial to “predicting long-term changes in future climate”. Two “cycles” in the way Earth’s axis spins have an effect on the cycle – one lasting 10,000 years and one lasting roughly 40,000 years. When they align correctly, ice melts. At the other extreme, glaciers advance. The idea that these could dictate the cycles of glaciation in Earth…
Phobos-Ground, the $170 million Russian probe, is now heading back to Earth and will crash between January 6 and January 19, but it’s not possible to predict where until a few days beforehand. The Phobos-Ground craft, which was supposed to travel to Phobos, one of Mars’s two moons, became stuck in Earth orbit after its thrusters failed. What’s more, one of the probe’s gauges has a small amount of…
A spectacular night-time view of Earth, called Black Marble, has been assembled from a series of cloud-free images acquired by one of the most capable satellites in the sky today – the Suomi spacecraft. The platform was launched by the US last year, principally to deliver critical meteorological data. The Black Marble dataset shows off one of Suomi’s key innovations: the low-light sen…
…al level – all those things are pushing the green economy forwards.” The need to put the world on a sustainable track, and the perils of not doing so, were outlined most influentially in a 1987 commission chaired by Gro Harlem Brundtland, then Prime Minister of Norway. “Obviously when you look back 25 years now, less than one would have expected has happened – that’s…
…#8211; Ebb and Flow – mapping the moon’s gravity using tiny variations in their flight path to measure what is “inside” the moon. The images were taken aboard the Ebb spacecraft from March 15-17 and downlinked to Earth on March 20. “MoonKAM is based on the premise that if your average picture is worth a thousand words, then a picture from lunar orbit may be worth a classroom full of en…
…TO rules,” said Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Liu Weimin. “Exports have been stable. China will continue to export, and will manage rare earths based on WTO rules,” he said. The 17 metals are used in electrical products, as well as many renewable energy devices. There have been concerns that Beijing has implemented the quotas in a bid to ensure that prices remain low within…
Scientists have proposed a new idea in the long-running debate over the Moon formation. What is certain is that some sort of impact from another body freed material from the young Earth and the resulting debris coalesced into today’s Moon. But the exact details of the impactor’s size and speed have remained debatable. In a report online to be published in Icarus, researchers suggest t…
NASA announces that an asteroid the size of a bus is set to pass extremely close to Earth today. Asteroid 2012 BX34 will pass within 36,750 miles of Earth at about 3:30 p.m GMT/10:30 a.m. EST Friday, January 27, tweeted astronomers with NASA’s Asteroid Watch program. Even though this is more than five times closer than the moon, at 11 meters wide, the rock won’t be any threat to Earth. “It…
Today is the last chance to see the natural wonder of a total lunar eclipse in 2011. The Earth passed between the moon and the sun this morning, treating early risers to a cosmic, rusty-red lunar light spectacular. And additionally it was a rare chance to see an “impossible” eclipse, with the moon red and the rising sun in the sky simultaneously. Unlike total solar eclipses total lunar eclipses a…
Specialists announce that the sun is today bombarding Earth with radiation from the biggest solar storm in almost seven years, with more to come from the fast-moving eruption. The solar storm occurred at about 11: 00 p.m. Eastern Time on Sunday and will hit Earth with three different effects at three different times. The biggest issue is radiation, which is mostly a concern for satellite disrupti…
Astronomers using Hubble Space Telescope have confirmed the existence of a new class of planet: a waterworld with a thick, steamy atmosphere. The exoplanet GJ 1214b is a so-called “Super Earth” – bigger than our planet, but smaller than gas giants such as Jupiter. Observations using the Hubble telescope now seem to confirm that a large fraction of its mass is water. The planet&#…
Phobos-Grunt, the Russian’s failed Mars probe, is about to fall back to Earth – quite probably on Sunday. Phobos-Grunt spacecraft has been losing altitude rapidly in recent days and will soon be pulled into the top of the atmosphere where it will be destroyed. The probe weighed some 13 tons at launch, but very little of this mass should make it through to the surface. Russian space ag…
Eurovision 2013: Russia calls Azerbaijan's failure to award any points as outrageous actionRussian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has called Azerbaijan's failure to award any points to Russia's entry in this year’s Eurovision song contest as "outrageous". Sergei…
Brad Pitt says he felt he was wasting his life while married to Jennifer AnistonBrad Pitt has revealed he felt he was wasting his life on drugs while he was married to Jennifer Aniston. In yet another blow to his ex-wife Jennifer Aniston, Brad Pitt…
George Michael fell out of his car at 70 mph while travelling on a four-lane stretch of M1 motorwayAn M1 motorway driver has described the moment she nearly ran over George Michael as he lay covered in blood on the road after falling from his car at 70 mph. Katherine Fox,…
Lady Gaga is back in her favorite high heels after recovering from hip surgeryLady Gaga has been reunited with her favorite heels as she hit the town in New York in her trademark super high boots. Lady Gaga's re-emergence comes after she was seen…
Hilaria Baldwin joins husband Alec at Cannes Film Festival 2013 to promote his documentary Seduced and AbandonedAlec Baldwin famously lost his cool with film producer Harvey Weinstein at last year's Cannes film festival. But it appears that Alec Baldwin, 55, has managed to keep his…
Jennifer Lawrence wears blue body paint to portray X-Men's MystiqueJennifer Lawrence has hit the X-Men set like a bolt from the blue and her fans have been given a glimpse of the 22-year-old star in all her painted glory as she reprises her…
Dominique Venner: Suicide inside Notre-Dame de Paris
Eurovision 2013: Russia calls Azerbaijan’s failure to award any points as outrageous action
Brad Pitt says he felt he was wasting his life while married to Jennifer Aniston
Did Amanda Berry’s 911 dispatcher curse at her?
Christie Brinkley poses in a swimsuit at 59
Tiger Woods and Lindsey Vonn drop his kids off at school
George Michael fell out of his car at 70 mph while travelling on a four-lane stretch of M1 motorway
Lady Gaga is back in her favorite high heels after recovering from hip surgery
Travis Alexander home becomes tourist attraction
Carl Pistorius: Oscar Pistorius’ brother acquitted in Marietjie Barnard’s death case
Jose Manuel Barroso urges full tax data exchange
Why penguin can’t fly
Apple among America’s big tax avoiders
North Korea releases Chinese fishing crew
Efrain Rios Montt genocide and crimes against humanity conviction overturned
Hilaria Baldwin joins husband Alec at Cannes Film Festival 2013 to promote his documentary Seduced and Abandoned
Jennifer Lawrence wears blue body paint to portray X-Men’s Mystique
Oklahoma tornado kills at least 51 people as two entire schools flattened in Moore
Ray Manzarek dead: The Doors co-founder dies aged 74 after long battle with cancer
Christine White dies in a nursing home in Washington at the age of 86
Brazilian husband caught cheating wife as lover escapes from window
Travis Alexander case: Jodi Arias’ attorneys file motion for mistrial
Laura Fernee claims she is too pretty to work
Full spring cleaning burns more calories than running a marathon
Face Trainer: Training balaclava claims to tone up saggy faces
Macaulay Culkin at risk of lung cancer
Eurovision 2013: Azerbaijan inquiry into “nul points” for Russia
Oscar Pistorius will not compete in 2013
Kate Middleton has a Marilyn Monroe dress blow up moment at William van Cutsem wedding
Iraq: At least 54 people killed in series of car bomb attacks in Baghdad, Basra and Samarra