The Ticking Time-Bomb of WWII-era Shipwrecks

adam horwood

Picture this.

“You’ve got a really healthy ecosystem with amazing corals and healthy marine life on these amazing structures,” says Matt Carter, Research Director at ocean research and conservation charity Major Projects Foundation (MPF). “And then inside these ships there’s thousands and thousands of liters of oil that’s potentially going to wipe out all this marine life.” While it might sound like a movie script, this isn’t a hypothetical scenario.

Exploring shipwrecks is a popular form of recreational scuba diving, and wrecks make up some of the world’s most famous dive sites. Some of the most famous include: the SS Yongala in Townsville, Australia—a luxury passenger ship that sank in a storm in 1911; Egypt’s SS Thistlegorm, a British army freighter sunk by bombs on just its fourth voyage in 1941; the German Fleet in Scapa Flow, Scotland, which was scuttled at the end of World War I on the orders of a commander who didn’t want the ships to become spoils of war; and, of course, the spectacular shipwrecks found at the renowned Chuuk (Truk) Lagoon in the Pacific.

“Why bother visiting a rusty old hunk of scrap metal?” non-divers might ask; especially those who aren’t particularly interested in how the wreck came to be at the bottom of the ocean. Those who imagine a wreck as a barren shell might be surprised to find these structures teeming with life, since shipwrecks act as an artificial reef that provides a habitat for coral and other sea creatures. Most of the passionate divers who come to explore these underwater playgrounds—packed with colorful corals, sponges, tropical fish and even sharks and rays—have little idea of the threat looming behind this beautiful ecosystem.

During World War II, over 3,000 ships—about 300 of them oil tankers—sank in the Pacific. As they rust, many are at risk of leaking oil, which could devastate the underwater ecosystem. Fish exposed to oil can have lower chances of survival due to stunted growth, altered heart and respiration rates, enlarged livers and impaired reproduction.

Image from the Kiyosumi Maru dive site in Truk Lagoon Steve Trewavas

Determining which shipwrecks pose the greatest risk to the oceans—and getting to them before they leak—is a daunting task. The majority of the Earth’s oceans are unexplored and we have better maps of the moon than of the bottom of the ocean—so how is it even possible to know which of these ticking time-bombs might pose the biggest threat?

Marine archaeologist Matt Carter, Research Director at ocean research and conservation charity Major Projects Foundation (MPF)—along with partners from The University of Newcastle, Australia, and the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP)—is working against the clock to find out. He’s just returned from a reconnaissance expedition to Chuuk (also known as Truk) Lagoon to establish the condition of some of the many wrecks in this diving hotspot.

“There’s about 65 shipwrecks on the lagoon and 17 are on our list of highest risk potentially polluting wrecks,” Carter told me. During this trip, he used 3D photogrammetry to create a model of the 9,627-ton Rio de Janeiro Maru. This enormous eight-deck passenger liner, which could carry over 1,100 passengers and 150 crew, has been lying on her starboard side at a maximum depth of just over 30m, slowly deteriorating since she was sunk in February 1944 by American aircraft.

Creating an accurate 3D model—made up of 7,331 photos of the Rio de Janeiro recording every single aspect of the wreck from multiple angles—was, in Carter’s own words, “a bit of a mission.” Capturing the photos of the 140m wreck involved over 3.5 hours underwater (broken up into three separate dives) taking photos every second. To make sure nothing is missed, each photo must overlap with the next by about 60 percent. “So, you can imagine swimming along and click, click, click,” he described. “When it comes together, it gives you a really detailed map of the wreck.”

While waiting patiently for the final image to be ready—so large it took days to process—he explained: “At the end of it we’ll have a 3D map with the most detailed resolution of the wreck that there’s ever been.”

Computer software called Agisoft Metashape turns these thousands of photos into a scalable 3D model to help Matt and his team get as much information as they can about the wreck; creating a visual inspection of its size and measurements, exactly what condition it’s in and where the fuel tanks are. You can even zoom into and rotate the model to get an accurate picture of its condition. The tool, he explains, “allows us to survey these wrecks faster and record them more accurately than ever before!” They will then compile an environmental risk assessment which considers how much oil might still be on the ship and, if nothing is done, what the environmental impact could be if—and when—it escapes. The information he gathers from this modeling is critical in determining what should be done next.

There’s no doubt the wrecks at Chuuk are deteriorating. Regular divers to spoke of seeing visible evidence of the wrecks collapsing over the years. Marine corrosion expert Dr Ian MacLeod, who is also part of the MPF, had previously estimated the wrecks in Chuuk Lagoon would enter a “peak leak” period, when they start to break down, around 2015 to 2020. “They’re really getting to the end of their life and collapsing significantly,” said Carter. Time is not on our side.

The wreck of the freighter Amagisan Maru Steve Trewavas

Nor is the climate. While healthy oceans produce over half of the world's oxygen, absorb carbon dioxide, and store excess heat in the atmosphere—all of which help us avoid the worst consequences of climate change—climate change itself is speeding up the degradation of these long-submerged wrecks. More severe storms increase the rate of corrosion and thus increase the chance of a leak.

It might be a silent threat, but the risk is significant. In 2001, a State of Emergency was declared in Yap State, Micronesia, when a sunken World War II US military oil tanker, the USS Mississinewa, started leaking oil in a remote atoll. A complete ban on fishing was imposed and the US Navy was brought in to conduct a major salvage operation, removing around 6,000 tons of oil from the sunken vessel. Many Pacific Island communities are worried about a similar situation happening if other wrecks in their waters begin to leak.

The 500-foot Shinkoku Maru oil tanker, one of the most popular dive sites in Chuuk Lagoon and another of MPF’s high priority wrecks, was damaged by Typhoon Maysak in 2015, although it’s still thought to hold a significant amount of oil. Diving this wreck on his recent Chuuk expedition, and seeing how much of an impact nature can have on big shipwrecks like this, was “a real eye-opener” for Carter. It’s also why these recon missions are so important. “We’d love to find out that there’s hardly any oil on them left but there’s no indications that that’s the case,” said Carter. With tankers still containing oil, another storm of that magnitude could be catastrophic. The worst-case scenario? A simultaneous release of oil from multiple shipwrecks.

It’s quite common to remove the oil from this kind of dangerous shipwrecks. The U.S. Coastguard removed more than 450,000 gallons of oil from the Coimbra shipwreck in July 2019. The previous October, the U.S. Navy recovered just under 230,000 gallons of oil from Prinz Eugen, a capsized World War II German cruiser. While a preventative clean-up operation can be expensive, cleaning up oil from a wreck that has already leaked is significantly more so.

So, while Matt and his team are finding the information critical to mitigating the risks of a potentially devastating oil spill, what else can be done to protect the wrecks at Chuuk and around the world?

These amazing archaeological sites are incredibly popular with divers—making tourism an enormous economic asset for the region—so responsible diver behavior is important in minimizing deterioration. Carter explains: “Good diving practices will help the wrecks maintain their strength as long as possible—not crashing into them and kicking them will help preserve them.”

Funding is also an issue. While in many places this type of work is being done by the likes of NOAA (in the U.S.) and the Ministry of Defense (in the U.K.), for countries such as Micronesia, Papua New Guinea and the Solomons, there’s very little money available for this type of operation. Of the 1,200 potentially polluting shipwrecks around the Pacific, Carter and his team at MPF have shortlisted the 50 highest risk wrecks and are calling for support to help protect them.

While there “hasn’t been much done” over the past 15 years of continued corrosion, Carter is hopeful of the increased concern for the ocean in recent years. Public support and donations could be a major factor in whether his team can protect the oceans from these wrecks. Whatever happens, it may well be “right at the last minute” because these wrecks, which are already collapsing substantially, “are going to rupture soon.” 

Astronomers Detect Gamma Rays From an Extreme Pulsar Spinning 707 Times Per Second

Artist's impression of a black widow pulsar.

The second-fastest pulsar ever discovered has been caught spitting out gamma rays, and this surprise discovery could help astronomers better understand the properties of these strange and extreme stars.

The gamma radiation of millisecond pulsar PSR J0952−0607 is so faint, detecting it required some clever new search methods - and these made it possible to take unprecedented measurements of the star.

Pulsars are a type of dead star called neutron stars, the end result of a star that's too massive to become a white dwarf, and not massive enough to become a black hole. But the rotation of these pulsars is such that, as they spin, they sweep Earth with a beam of radiation, sometimes on timescales so precise they can help us measure the Universe.

Some of these pulsars are rotating so fast, they go round on millisecond scales; fittingly, we call those millisecond pulsars, and they are usually found with a binary companion. It's thought that their rotation speeds up as they suck material away from that companion.

The first time gamma radiation was discovered emitting from a millisecond pulsar was in 1999. The second wasn't discovered until 2009, but since then, many more millisecond pulsars have been linked with gamma rays.

But PSR J0952−0607, discovered in 2017, rotates at a mind-blowing 707 times per second; it's now the fastest millisecond pulsar for which astronomers have been able to measure its spin-down rate (the rate at which it is slowing down), and its surface magnetic field.

According to the official Fermi website in 2016, at least 17 percent of millisecond pulsars have been detected emitting gamma rays, compared to just 3 percent of the normal pulsar population.

But PSR J0952−0607 is one of the most extreme yet, second only to PSR J1748-2446ad, discovered in 2006 to be rocketing around at 716 rotations per second.

To put PSR J0952−0607's 707 rotation in perspective, if we assume a diameter of 20 kilometres (standard for neutron stars), its equator would be travelling at an insane 44,422 kilometres per second - around 14 percent of the speed of light.

It's also what we call a "black widow". The pulsar is 1.4 times the mass of the Sun, squished down into that teeny tiny diameter, with a binary companion around 0.02 times the mass of the Sun. What makes it a black widow is that insanely low binary companion mass: the pulsar has clearly slurped up most of its companion.

Space is silent

For sound waves to travel, the most essential requirement is a medium. As there is no atmosphere in space, sound cannot travel there, making it eerily silent. Therefore, astronauts use radios to communicate with each other

However, when it was discovered in 2017, no gamma rays were detected emanating from the pulsar when researchers used the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope. The pulsar itself was discovered with the Low-Frequency Array (LOFAR) radio telescope, in frequencies well below those typically used for pulsar searches.

Astronomer Lars Nieder of the Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics is working on expanding the catalogue of gamma-ray pulsars, so he decided to take a closer look at PSR J0952−0607.

He and colleagues combed through 8.5 years of data from Fermi - between August 2008 and January 2017 - and combined that with two years' worth of observations from LOFAR. He also took new optical observations from two telescopes, and even conducted a search for gravitational waves using LIGO.

"This search is extremely challenging because [Fermi] only registered the equivalent of about 200 gamma rays from the faint pulsar over the 8.5 years of observations. During this time the pulsar itself rotated circa 200 billion times. In other words, only once in every billion rotations was a gamma ray observed," Nieder said.

"For each of these gamma rays, the search must identify exactly when during each of the 1.4 millisecond rotations it was emitted."

This search for gamma-ray emissions was conducted using the powerful Atlas Computing Cluster. And it found the signal - but something, Nieder said, was awry.

"The signal was very faint and not quite where it was supposed to be. The reason: our detection of gamma rays from J0952-0607 had revealed a position error in the initial optical-telescope observations which we used to target our analysis. Our discovery of the gamma-ray pulsations revealed this error," he explained.

"This mistake was corrected in the publication reporting the radio pulsar discovery. A new and extended gamma-ray search made a rather faint - but statistically significant - gamma-ray pulsar discovery at the corrected position."

And there was another surprise: there were no gamma-ray detections in the data before 2011. Why? Well, we don't know.

It's possible stellar variability has something to do with it; maybe the gamma radiation was weaker then - too weak to detect, for some reason. Or there was a change in the orbit or rotation, although nothing else in the data suggests this at all. The team will keep studying the star to try and understand this peculiar behaviour.

This new, closer distance also meant the team could go back and revise the known physical parameters of the pulsar. And they found that it has among the 10 weakest magnetic fields ever detected in a pulsar.

This is consistent with the theory that active accretion by a pulsar dampens its magnetic field - and it could, the researchers say, help us place a constraint on the minimum magnetic field strength of these wild stars.

Three British climbers stranded on peak in north Pakistan

A group of British climbers had an accident on a peak in north Pakistan. File pic

A Pakistan army helicopter is trying to reach three British climbers who are stranded on a peak in the country's north.

Two climbers have so far been airlifted to safety after the five-member British team had an accident at Koyo Zom peak in the Hindu Raj mountain range on Sunday.

Karrar Haidi, the secretary of the Alpine Club of Pakistan, said on Monday that the three remaining climbers have been spotted on the 22,545ft (6,872m) peak, and that a helicopter rescue is underway.

He did not elaborate on the nature of the accident.

Hundreds of local and foreign climbers scale mountains and peaks in northern Pakistan every year and accidents are common due to avalanches and sudden changes in weather.

Planet Nine could actually be a hidden 'primordial' black hole

A primordial black hole could explain the evidence for Planet Nine

A black hole hidden on the edge of our solar system could explain the evidence for an undiscovered ninth planet, according to new research.

For more than a century some astronomers have suggested that the weird gravitational forces observed acting on distant bodies in the solar system were being caused by another planet.

But despite what a team of astronomers from the US and UK calls the "growing body of observational anomalies" connected to distant objects in our solar system, Planet Nine has not been directly detected.

The color-enhanced image was taken on May 23, 2018, as the spacecraft performed its 13th close flyby of Jupiter.

According to the new research, this could be because Planet Nine is actually a primordial black hole, a hypothetical type of black hole which would have been formed at the very beginning of the universe.

The gravitational effects of this black hole could explain why objects beyond Neptune have strange orbits, and also why Planet Nine has not been directly observed.

"Perhaps the most natural explanation [for the gravitational anomalies] is that they are caused by the existence of an unknown population of planets," the researchers write.

NASA launched the Pioneer 5 space probe, via a Thor-Able 4 rocket, to investigate the interplanetary space between Earth and Venus. The probe was designed to provide information on solar flares, radiation and interplanetary magnetic fields.

However this "would imply that our models for planet formation may need to be updated to account for this new population of free floating planets".

Instead, the researchers chose to "focus on a more exciting possibility" that a primordial black hole is causing the anomalies.

They write that such a black hole could have what is known as a dark matter microhalo, a region of space around a black hole which emits "annihilation signals" that scientists could detect to prove their hypothesis.

The research paper, by Jakub Sholtz at Durham University's institute for particle physics, and James Unwin, assistant professor at the University of Illinois, has not yet been peer-reviewed but is available on the arXiv preprint service.

UK weather: Flood warnings issued as torrential rain forecast across country

Heavy rain, lightning and hail are set to lash parts of the UK following a weekend of downpours which caused flooding in many areas and saw the transport network struggling to cope.

The Met Office has issued a yellow weather warning for rain across Wales and areas of north-west England, which it said could cause disruption due to localised flooding later on Monday into Tuesday.

Early on Monday morning the Environment Agency listed 72 localised flood warnings across England and Wales, advising people “action is required” and also recorded 164 alerts for possible flooding, warning people should “be prepared

The remnants of Hurricane Lorenzo, a former category 5 storm in the central Atlantic, may also cause high winds to reach the UK.

The brunt of the storm is forecast to hit the Azores islands off Portugal with winds up to 100mph on Tuesday, but could then spin close to Britain by Thursday.

Met Office forecaster Nicola Maxey told The Independent: “We’ve got a warning in place from 3pm today through to midnight, and that covers south and mid-Wales and through to the north Midlands and Northern England, for rain.

“We’ve got an area of heavy rain, with 15-30mm expected to fall quite widely, with 40mm over higher ground in South Wales. And that’s falling on already wet ground as we’ve had quite a lot of rain this weekend, so it could cause localised flooding and disruption, so it could impact rush hour this evening.”

A further weather warning for rain on Tuesday covers the area south of Birmingham down to the south coast, including south Wales, but not all of Cornwall and Devon.

Thundery downpours with the possibility of hail is expected across the south west, moving to the south east by the afternoon.

“We’re going to see some heavy rain,” Ms Maxey said. “We could see 40-50mm possible in only a couple of hours. The clouds are quite slow moving which is why you get this build-up of rainfall.

“There’s also a chance you might see some lightning and hail mixed up in those as well.”

The warning for Tuesday is in place from 6am – 10pm.

“We’re working very closely with the Environment Agency to assess where the heaviest rain will be, and there are hydrologists who work with the agency and with the Met Office to work out the impact the rain will have on river catchments and surface water issues,” Ms Maxey added.

She also confirmed the possibility Scotland could see its first snow of the season this week.

“There is colder air coming down from the north, through Wednesday and Thursday and there is the possibility we may see snow over the tops of the highest mountains in Scotland. It’s fairly normal for this time of year, and there’s nothing unusual about it – it will just be on the tops of the mountains. We’re not just about to see six foot of snow on Plymouth Hoe or in the middle of Manchester, it’s just the mountain tops in Scotland.”

Ms Maxey also said in addition to rain and the localised flood risks, there is additional concern due to the spring tides, which have been the highest of the year – posing a threat to coastal areas.

Later in the week, more unsettled conditions are expected, partly due to Hurricane Lorenzo, which has now diminished to a category 2 storm. “By the time it comes to the UK it will be an ex-tropical storm, it won’t be a hurricane anymore,” Ms Maxey said.

The Met Office’s computer weather models are yet to reach a consensus on how Lorenzo will move after it leaves the Azores, but some suggest the storm could pass by the UK entirely, others indicate it could bring strong winds to the north of Scotland, and others point to it crossing the south west of the UK.

“It’s quite difficult to say what the exact impact will be, but we’re looking at potentially some wet and windy weather through Thursday and into Friday, but exactly how strong the winds will be and where we see the rain is a little bit uncertain at the moment.” 

Following the weekend’s downpours, there was no train service from Sheffield to Manchester due to water on the tracks, and there were speed restrictions in the opposite direction.

The operator warned it had imposed speed restrictions on many parts of its network due to safety concerns.

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Northern Rail asked cycling fans turning out for the final day of the UCI Road World Championships in North Yorkshire on Sunday to rethink their travel plans after the route had to be changed to avoid flooding. The fanzone in Harrogate also had to be closed.

Despite the heavy weather, the Men’s Elite Road Race went ahead, although organisers had to amend the route to skip some of the most scenic parts of the Upper Dales.

Undeterred by the appalling weather, thousands of fans lined the route with umbrellas and wellies to watch one of the biggest events on the cycling calendar.

Planet Venus may have been habitable for billions of years, says Nasa

Venus may have been warm and wet for billions of years, long enough for life to become established

The planet Venus may have been habitable for billions of years, Nasa scientists have calculated.

New computer models of the climate history of the second planet from the Sun, show that until around 700 million years ago temperatures ranged from 68F (20C) to 122F (50C), cool enough for liquid water.

In the 1980s, Nasa’s Pioneer Venus mission found hints that the planet once had a shallow ocean, but because it receives far more sunlight than Earth, scientists believed it had quickly evaporated before life could become established.

In the late 1950s and early 1960s, many thought that America’s next space project would be the establishment of a crewed space station. It was believed at the time, that space flights to other destinations would originate from this station. Langley researchers worked with Goodyear Aircraft Corporation on a 24-foot diameter inflatable ring or torus. Langley built several models of this configuration, including a full-sized version that was displayed for a December 1961 visit by then NASA Administrator James Webb

With no water left on the surface, carbon dioxide rose in the atmosphere, triggering a runaway greenhouse effect that created current conditions.

Today Venus has a crushing carbon dioxide atmosphere 90 times as thick as Earth’s and temperatures at the surface reach 864 degrees Fahrenheit (462C), making life impossible.

But new computer modelling by Nasa Goddard Institute for Space Science suggests that the ocean may have lasted for two to three billion years.

Not only does it suggest that life could have once evolved on Venus, but it opens up new possibilities about where aliens may exist outside of our Solar System.

“Our hypothesis is that Venus may have had a stable climate for billions of years,” said lead researcher Dr Michael Way.

After intense public support and interest in NASA's space program after the moon landing, NASA had proposed a "space station" that could house people living and working in space. In 1969, the Space Base concept (artist's conception shown here) was born. The Marshall-McDonnel Douglas approach envisioned the use of two common modules as the core configuration of a 12-man space station. But, in order to keep costs down, NASA would need to develop a reusable vehicle to go between Earth and the space station. This vehicle would become toe Space Shuttle. 

 “It is possible that the near-global resurfacing event is responsible for its transformation from an Earth-like climate to the hellish hot-house we see today.

“Our models show that there is a real possibility that Venus could have been habitable and radically different from the Venus we see today. 

“This opens up all kinds of implications for exoplanets found in what is called the ‘Venus Zone’, which may in fact host liquid water and temperate climates.”

At around 4.2 billion years ago, soon after its formation, Venus would have completed a period of rapid cooling and its atmosphere would have been dominated by carbon-dioxide. 

Today the surface of Venus is too hot for life

If the planet evolved in an Earth-like way over the next 3 billion years, the carbon dioxide would have been drawn down by rocks and locked into the surface.

By around 715 million years ago, the atmosphere would have been dominated by nitrogen with trace amounts of carbon dioxide and methane – similar to the Earth’s today – and these conditions could have remained stable up until present times.

However Dr Way believes that intense volcanic activity around 700 million years ago transformed Venus. One possibility is that large amounts of magma bubbled up, releasing carbon dioxide from molten rocks into the atmosphere. 

The magma solidified before reaching the surface and this created a barrier that meant that the gas could not be reabsorbed, causing runaway global warming.  

Images taken by Nasa's Pioneer mission hinted that Venus once had an ocean

Most researchers believe that Venus is beyond the inner boundary of our Solar System’s habitable zone and is too close to the Sun to support liquid water. But the new study suggests that this might not be the case.

“Venus currently has almost twice the solar radiation that we have at Earth. However, in all the scenarios we have modelled, we have found that Venus could still support surface temperatures amenable for liquid water,” said Dr Way.