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Huge 6.6 magnitude earthquake strikes near an Australian island  6.6 magnitude earthquake recorded west of Macquarie Island on Sunday Island is located 1,600km southeast of Tasmania in the South Pacific Ocean

The Bureau of Meteorology said there was no tsunami threat to Australia

By KYLIE STEVENS FOR DAILY MAIL AUSTRALIA

PUBLISHED: 22:11 AEDT, 12 December 2021 | UPDATED: 22:11 AEDT, 12 December 2021

 

   

 

An island between Australia and Antarctica has been rocked by a 6.6 magnitude earthquake.

A tremor 10km below ground was recorded west of Macquarie Island in the South Pacific Ocean just before 7pm on Sunday.

The Bureau of Meteorology said there was no tsunami threat to Australia.

No aftershocks have been registered so far. 

A 6.6 earthquake was recorded west of Macquarie Island in the South Pacific Ocean  

A 6.6 earthquake was recorded west of Macquarie Island in the South Pacific Ocean

There are no people living within 100km of the earthquake impact. 

Located 1,600km southeast of Tasmania, Macquarie Island is home is to the Australian Antarctic Division station, which is occupied all year round.

It has been listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1997.

The island had a 8.2 magnitude earthquake in 1989, the largest intra-oceanic earthquake of the 20th century and also recorded a 8.1 magnitude earthquake in 2004. 

Macquarie Island (pictured) is home is to the Australian Antarctic Division station  

Macquarie Island (pictured) is home is to the Australian Antarctic Division station

Marine geophysicist professor Mike Coffin from University of Tasmania's Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies recently called for plans to modernise the Australian Antarctic Division station to be delayed until the tsunami risk is better understood. 

He expressed concerns that the tsunami risk to the station from underwater landslides is 'unassessed' despite the island's 'highly active tectonic environment'.

Professor Coffin the 'elevation of a modernised scientific research station' should be 'confirmed or adjusted' so it is suitable to 'mitigate tsunami hazard and risk arising from both submarine mass-wasting and earthquakes.'.

'They have tsunami warning systems on the island from earthquakes, but landslides don't necessarily get triggered by earthquakes, landslides can just happen on their own,' he told the ABC.

'So an earthquake monitor might not tell you when a tsunami is going to be generated on the island.'

There is no tsunami threat to Australia after a 6.6 magnitude earthquake off Macquarie Island  

There is no tsunami threat to Australia after a 6.6 magnitude earthquake off Macquarie Island

 

Celia - That's the first I've heard of it , I don't think it made the news 

Same here Hola!

I guess the ABC will put it on tonights news, I have found over the years they are a bit slow in the news don't you think?     

 

Pictured: The incredible uninhabited Croatian island that looks like a giant fingerprint - thanks to an amazing network of walls built by local farmers in the 1800s

Pictured: Bavljenac, the incredible uninhabited Croatian island that looks like a giant

The tiny island is called Bavljenac and is one of 249 islands in the Adriatic Sibenik archipelago. The stone walls were built by the inhabitants of neighbouring Kaprije island, who cleared Bavljenac's harsh vegetation to make room for fig and citrus trees, as well as grapevines, building a web of stone walls to protect the crops from the wind, and to divide up the plots. The stone walls, if joined together, would run for 23km (14 miles).

 

Quite an amazing aerial photo, thanks Celia.

Darwin is rocked by magnitude 7.3 earthquake which struck the Barat Daya islands in Indonesia

Darwin has been rocked by a magnitude 7.3 earthquake which struck Indonesia overnight.

Australia has its coolest year in a decade and the wettest November EVER as La Nina drenches the east coast - and there's plenty more rain to come

According to the Bureau of Meteorology, 2021 was the coldest year since 2012 for Ausralia and the wettest since 2016.

 

 

Terrible!

 

 

 


Shocking moment Brazilian cliff collapses on two tourist boats near popular sightseeing spot, killing at least five people, seriously injuring nine and leaving 20 missing

Part of a Brazilian canyon fell on top of two tourist boats and sent debris flying to other vessels at a popular tourist spot on Saturday

At least five were killed, nine were seriously injured and 20 are reported missing  Officials said at least 32 have been taken to the hospital as emergency responders search for those missing Authorities had issued a warning to stay away from waterfalls in the area after major rainfall left the cliffsides vulnerable

 

Brazilian canyon collapses on boats, killing at least five, injuring nine and leaving 20 missing  | Daily Mail Online

 

Video captured the moment the cliffside went down

 

 

Tragic.

[one doesn't thing of this area of the planet being this cold]

 

Twenty-two people DIE as epic snow storm leaves 125,0000 cars stranded in Pakistan: At least 10 children among dead who froze to death or were asphyxiated by car fumes trying to keep warm on road to mountain resort

Traffic jam started after thousands of tourists got stuck in unusually heavy snow Police said most had frozen to death in their cars, others died from asphyxiation   Among the fatalities were an Islamabad police officer, his wife and six childrenSoldiers mobilised to free tourists stuck in Muree, outside capital the Islamabad

 

Twenty-two people DIE as epic snow storm leaves 125,0000 cars stranded in Pakistan | Daily Mail Online

More than four feet of snow fell in the hillside town overnight on Friday, trapping tourists and blocking all incoming traffic to Murree, around 70km northeast of the capital Islamabad, the next day.  

Interior Minister Sheikh Rashid said the military had been mobilised to clear roads and rescue thousands still trapped. The Punjab province chief minister's office said the area had been declared a 'disaster area' and urged people to stay away.  

Soldiers, including a special military mountain unit, were called in to assist rescue efforts and had freed thousands of vehicles by Saturday morning, though thousands more were still stuck in the area. 

At least 22 people have died in a traffic jam after tens of thousands of visitors thronging a Pakistani hill town to see unusually heavy snowfall  

At least 22 people have died in a traffic jam after tens of thousands of visitors thronging a Pakistani hill town to see unusually heavy snowfall

Police said most people had frozen to death in their cars but that others may have died from asphyxiation after turning on their vehicle's heaters to keep warm  

Police said most people had frozen to death in their cars but that others may have died from asphyxiation after turning on their vehicle's heaters to keep warm

Soldiers were called in to assist rescue efforts and had freed thousands of vehicles by Saturday morning, though thousands more were still stuck in the area  

Soldiers were called in to assist rescue efforts and had freed thousands of vehicles by Saturday morning, though thousands more were still stuck in the area

Murree, a resort town around 70km northeast of the capital Islamabad, attracts more than a million tourists annually though streets leading into the city are often blocked by snow in winter  

Murree, a resort town around 70km northeast of the capital Islamabad, attracts more than a million tourists annually though streets leading into the city are often blocked by snow in winter

 

ANOTHER large eruption hits Tonga volcano as Australian makes emotional plea to find his aid worker sister missing in tsunami after wall of water crashed through her home in 'once-a-millennium' blast

 

NEW Angela Glover, 50, (left) was with her husband James when a wall of water crashed through their coastal home in Veitongo on the Polynesian island, triggered by a huge volcanic eruption (right). 'URGENT! To any of Angela's friends. I am Angela's brother in Sydney. I have just heard of the tsunami that has just occurred in Tonga,' her brother Nick Eleini (inset) in Sydney posted on her Facebook page on Sunday. 'If anyone has Angela's address please can you DM me or phone me.

 

 

SNOW falls in the SAHARA: Ice blankets the dunes in rare desert phenomenon after temperatures plummeted overnightSNOW falls in the SAHARA as ice blankets the dunes in rare desert phenomenon

Snow has fallen on the sand in the Sahara Desert after temperatures dropped below freezing. Ice blanketed the dune in the unusual phenomenon in the largest hot desert in the world, where temperatures of 58C have been recorded. Photographer Karim Bouchetata took pictures of the snow and ice in the town of Ain Sefra in northwestern Algeria yesterday. The dusting of snow is the fifth time in 42 years that the town has seen snow, with previous occurrences in 1979, 2016, 2018 and 2021.

Amazing scenes.

Earth's interior is cooling faster than expected meaning our planet will become inactive like Mercury and Mars much quicker than previously thought, study suggests 

The thermal properties of bridgmanite, the primary mineral that makes up the boundary between Earth's mantle and outer core, were studied by researchers from ETH Zürich

 

Asteroids could be approaching Earth undetected as NASA scientists find a danger zone that allows space rocks to 'sneak up' on telescopes because of a quirk of the planet's daily rotation

This is the warning of University of Hawai?i experts who investigated how telescopes nearly missed a 328-feet-wide asteroid that came within 43,500 miles of Earth back in 2019

 

 

Poor little Tonga!

Such a sweet population of lovely people too.

Tonga is hit by a magnitude 6.2 earthquake just weeks after huge volcanic eruption and tsunami devastated the islands

The earthquake struck at 7.40pm local time around 130 miles from the island of Lifuka, Tonga, part of the Ha?apai island chain that was hard-hit during a devastating volcanic eruption earlier this month.

 

Why the 'ice giants' are different shades of BLUE: Haze layer in Uranus' atmosphere makes it paler in colour than Neptune, study revealsWhy Uranus and Neptune are different shades of blue

Uranus (pictured left) has a haze layer in its atmosphere that is roughly double the thickness of Neptune (pictured right), giving it the much paler colour, according to researchers led by the University of Oxford. It acts to lighten the appearance of the seventh planet from the sun, in a similar way to how tracing paper over a picture makes vibrant colours seem more milky. It is this methane that also gives both Neptune and Uranus their blue appearance, according to the study's authors, because it absorbs red light and leaves blue to be reflected back.

Astronomers spot two 'puffy' mini-Neptune exoplanets that are losing their atmospheres 'like steam from a pot of boiling water' and transforming into super-Earths

 

The mini-Neptune worlds revealed in the latest study, which was led by the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), are in star systems that are 103 and 73 light-years away, respectively. Experts say the worlds are likely transforming into 'super-Earths' because radiation from nearby stars is stripping away their 'puffy' atmospheres and driving hot gas to escape. So-called mini-Neptunes are one of two types of commonly seen exoplanets that fall into the category of being smaller, rocky worlds which orbit close to their stars. The other is super-Earths, which can be as large as 1.75 times the size of our planet, while mini-Neptunes tend to be between two and four times the size of Earth.

 

Scientists study the atmosphere of distant exoplanets using enormous space satellites like Hubble

Distant stars and their orbiting planets often have conditions unlike anything we see in our atmosphere. 

To understand these new world's, and what they are made of, scientists need to be able to detect what their atmospheres consist of.  

They often do this by using a telescope similar to Nasa's Hubble Telescope.

These enormous satellites scan the sky and lock on to exoplanets that Nasa think may be of interest. 

Here, the sensors on board perform different forms of analysis. 

One of the most important and useful is called absorption spectroscopy. 

This form of analysis measures the light that is coming out of a planet's atmosphere. 

Every gas absorbs a slightly different wavelength of light, and when this happens a black line appears on a complete spectrum. 

These lines correspond to a very specific molecule, which indicates it's presence on the planet. 

They are often called Fraunhofer lines after the German astronomer and physicist that first discovered them in 1814.

By combining all the different wavelengths of lights, scientists can determine all the chemicals that make up the atmosphere of a planet. 

The key is that what is missing, provides the clues to find out what is present.  

It is vitally important that this is done by space telescopes, as the atmosphere of Earth would then interfere. 

Absorption from chemicals in our atmosphere would skew the sample, which is why it is important to study the light before it has had chance to reach Earth. 

This is often used to look for helium, sodium and even oxygen in alien atmospheres.  

This diagram shows how light passing from a star and through the atmosphere of an exoplanet produces Fraunhofer lines indicating the presence of key compounds such as sodium or helium  

This diagram shows how light passing from a star and through the atmosphere of an exoplanet produces Fraunhofer lines indicating the presence of key compounds such as sodium or helium 

 

The Sun as you've never seen it before: Incredible new Solar Orbiter images show a curious patch of 'spikes' stretching 15,000 miles across the sun dubbed the HEDGEHOG

Solar Orbiter images capture the Sun like never before

The UK-built spacecraft's closest approach to the Sun, known as perihelion, took place on March 26 (top right), taking it inside the orbit of Mercury, at about one-third the distance from the Sun to the Earth. It captured a series of 'breathtaking' pictures, including views across the solar poles (bottom right) and of several solar flares, providing a taste of real-time space weather forecasting. This is becoming increasingly important because of the threat space weather poses to technology and astronauts. Another eye-catching feature the Solar Orbiter (inset) snapped was nicknamed 'the hedgehog' because of its multitude of spikes of hot and colder gas that reach out in all directions (left).

 

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