AFP UK

Chase Hays sued a local coal mining company after recent lethal flooding in Lost Creek, Kentucky

Chase Hays says he is “torn.” After seeing floods ravage his hamlet in the mountains of eastern Kentucky, he filed a lawsuit against the mine that overlooks it, but the 34-year-old doesn’t want to be seen as an “enemy” of coal.

Like him, many in his Appalachian region are reluctant to question an industry that has long provided the only high-paying jobs.

And with the US midterm elections approaching, few candidates dare talk about climate change.

Yet the state has been devastated recently by extreme weather.

In December, tornadoes killed 80 people in western Kentucky, and in late July, unprecedented heavy rains left 40 residents dead in the east of the state.

Standing at the bottom of a remote valley on the banks of a small creek, Hays had never seen water come down so fast.

He barely had time to cut through a fence to escape with his family before the torrent washed away his porch, an above-ground pool, even a pig, and flooded the foundation of his house.

Even if he still cannot live there, he considers himself “one of the lucky ones in my neighborhood,” called River Caney, where about 20 houses were destroyed and two women swept away.

Moreover, he was insured, unlike his neighbors, some of whom are still sleeping in tents with no prospect of finding a roof before winter.

On behalf of those neighbors, he filed a complaint against the mining company that extracts coal above the hamlet.

Hays is convinced that one of the company’s retaining ponds broke when the rain intensified.

“A big part of the reason why the ponds (were) able to break was they were just blasting way too hard and probably cracked the ponds,” he said.

– Climate change and fossil fuels –

But Hays comes from a long line of miners, and is cautious about making generalizations.

“What happened here was the fault of (things) not being maintained and checked on,” he said.

About 50 neighbors have joined his lawsuit, including Christy White, a 57-year-old woman whose once well-kept home is now a damp shell.

A grandmother, White finds her voice quivering at mention of the floods.

“Eventually you start bombing and drilling and cutting into the corners, you know, something’s gonna happen eventually. It’s just common knowledge,” she said.

In recent years, mining companies in Appalachia have taken to mountaintop removal, known as strip mining, to gain easier access to coal seams.

Whether strip mining worsens flooding is uncertain, said William Haneberg, the state geologist of Kentucky and director of the Kentucky Geological Survey.

Mountaintop removals “expose a lot of bare rock and remove the trees and the natural vegetation,” he said, but the rubble is dumped into the valleys, and flattens terrain “and that might decrease the severity of floods.”

He acknowledged a “very strong consensus” among scientists that global warming is driven by the burning of fossil fuels.

“In that way, coal mines do tie into the recent events,” he said.

– ‘Long-simmering hostility’ –

Yet this conclusion is not one shared by many in Kentucky, which has 20 percent of the active coal mines in the United States.

Hays has heard the studies on global warming: “Around here, it’s not a nice subject to talk about, just because without coal, this place is dwindling.”

Luke Glaser, an independent city councilman in nearby Hazard who has been heavily involved in relief efforts, said that there is “long-simmering hostility towards climate-change initiatives” locally. 

“Appalachians… are very proud of the fact that the work they’ve done has powered the nation over centuries. So it feels like you’re not just attacking someone’s job but attacking someone’s values,” Glaser said.

The state, once contested by the two major political parties, has since the 1990s turned overwhelmingly Republican, partly due to energy and environmental issues, said Steve Voss, a political science professor at the University of Kentucky.

More recently, candidates from both parties are careful to “stress that they are friends of coal,” although some Democrats are starting to talk about climate, he said.

For locals like Hays, the climate change debate has little effect on elections, even with disastrous flooding. 

“We feel forgotten about here,” Hays said. “We’re just looked down on as uneducated and incapable people.”

As for White, an avid fan of former president Donald Trump, her damaged home occupies all her thoughts, and she hasn’t pondered the midterm elections at all.

As she sorted through her belongings, she cast doubt on whether global warming had anything to do with the disasters: “I just think it’s God’s will… God’s just trying to get us prepared for what’s to come.”

A blast of Siberian weather dubbed the "Beast from the East" in 2018 kept the mercury far below zero in huge parts of Europe.

Across Europe, governments are scrambling to prevent energy rationing and blackouts this winter. Whether they succeed will depend in part on something they have no control over: the weather.

Analysts say Russian President Vladimir Putin is hoping for a cold winter or a prolonged period of freezing temperatures after cutting Russia gas exports to Europe in retaliation for EU support for Ukraine.

Another cold season like 2010/2011 or a prolonged Artic blast like the “Beast from the East” which blew into western Europe from Siberia in 2018 could cause hardships that might weaken EU resolve in supporting Ukraine.

“The energy weapon has one bullet in the chamber and he has just fired it,” said Eliot A. Cohen, a war historian and security expert at the the Center for Strategic and International Studies at Johns Hopkins University. 

“Europeans will go through the worst of it this winter,” he told AFP. 

In many countries, households are being urged to turn down their thermostats and companies are being asked to find energy savings under EU plans to reduce gas consumption this winter by 15 percent compared to average.

In recent months, European states have raced to fill up their strategic reserves, buying extra supplies at record prices from Algeria, Qatar, Norway and the United States among other global gas suppliers.

EU stocks are now almost full — at around 90 percent capacity — providing a major safety cushion for consumers and businesses that rely on gas to heat their homes, offices and factories.

“Europe is well-placed to go through the winter under normal weather conditions,” Alireza Nahvi, a research associate at Wood Mackenzie, an energy consultancy, told AFP in an email.

– ‘Warm overall’ – 

With so much at stake, seasonal weather forecasts have become unusually important, with traders and policy makers eyeing reports from the EU-funded European Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasts in particular.

Their Copernicus Climate Change Service produces rolling three-month forecasts that assess the probability of different weather patterns over the continent, using a supercomputer that crunches data from national forecasters.

“The last few weeks have been really busy for us,” Carlo Buontempo, director of Copernicus Climate Change Service, told AFP ahead of the publication on Thursday of their next forecast for the November-January period. 

“This year, there is clearly a geopolitical interest in the question,” he added.

Although it is still too early to make confident predictions about the winter, initial indications are that it will be warm overall, but with a risk of early cold snaps in November and December.

“When you get into winter, the direction of the wind is what matters. If in mid-November to December, we have some of those strong easternly winds and and snow dropping over Europe, this will certainly have an impact on gas demand, prices and geopolitics,” Buontempo explained.

On the other hand, after a summer of record temperatures in Europe, the Atlantic Ocean is warmer than usual, serving as a heatsink which should help keep temperatures higher when the winds are from the west.

“I stand by the fact that it is probably going to be a warm winter overall, but there is a higher than even chance of having an outbreak of cold periods at the beginning,” he added.

– ‘Achilles heel’ – 

The International Energy Agency, an energy consultancy financed by Western nations, has also been stress-testing Europe’s ability to withstand this winter without Russian gas.

At average temperatures and assuming a reduction in gas demand of around nine percent this year compared to average, it believes that the continent will make it through without major disruption.

“If we don’t have any Russian supplies and we have a winter that is colder-than-average by around 10 percent, that will put pressure on the European gas system,” cautions Gergely Molnar, an IEA gas analyst.

Another important factor will be the level of stocks, which are mostly held in depleted gas fields or underground aquifiers.

Although they are filled to around 90 percent currently, not all of this gas can be accessed.

As the stocks are used up, the pressure falls, meaning the last 30 percent is difficult to extract.

A late cold spell in February or March when the pressure will be low was described by the agency as  “the Achilles heel of European gas supply security” in a recent report.

Molnar also stressed to AFP that the weather is increasingly important for renewable electricity sources which make up a rising proportion of the European energy mix.

“One episode that should be remembered is the ‘Beast from the East’ which really showed how vulnerable the gas system can be to a major cold spell,” he said.

The solid-fuel Epsilon rocket has been in service since 2013, and has been successfully launched five times

Japan’s space agency said it sent a self-destruct order to its Epsilon rocket after a failed launch on Wednesday because of a problem that meant the craft could not safely fly.

The unmanned rocket, on its sixth mission, was taking satellites into orbit to demonstrate “innovative” technologies.

“The rocket can’t continue a safe flight, because of the danger it would create if it falls on the ground,” a JAXA official said in televised comments.

“So we took measures to avoid such an incident, and we sent the signal (to destroy the rocket),” he said, adding that information on the cause of the issue was not immediately available.

It was Japan’s first failed rocket launch since 2003, and public broadcaster NHK said the self-destruct order was issued around 10 minutes after liftoff.

A JAXA livestream of the launch from Uchinoura Space Center in southern Japan’s Kagoshima was interrupted and presenters said there had been a problem, without giving details.

The solid-fuel Epsilon rocket has been in use since 2013.

It is smaller than the country’s previous liquid-fuelled model, and a successor to the solid-fuel “M-5” rocket that was retired in 2006 due to its high cost.

JAXA describes Epsilon as “a solid-fuel rocket designed to lower the threshold to space… and usher in an age in which everyone can make active use of space”.

A box-shaped satellite carried by the rocket, called RAISE-3, had been due to orbit the Earth for at least a year, according to a JAXA fact sheet about the mission that was named “Innovative Satellite Technology Demonstration-3”.

Universities, research institutions and companies had been invited to engineer new technologies to try out on RAISE-3.

They ranged from Tokyo Metropolitan University’s “pulsed-plasma thruster” to an experiment in “harvesting energy with (a) lightweight integrated origami structure”.

As well as RAISE-3, eight microsatellites were also being launched by the Epsilon rocket, the fact sheet said.

Japan’s last failed space rocket take-off was in 2003, when the country aborted the launch of a pair of spy satellites to monitor North Korea.

The solid-fuel Epsilon rocket has been in service since 2013, and has been successfully launched five times

Japan’s space agency said it sent a self-destruct order to its Epsilon rocket after a failed launch on Wednesday because of a problem that meant the craft could not safely fly.

The unmanned rocket, designed to launch in three stages, was taking several satellites into orbit on its sixth space mission.

“The rocket can’t continue a safe flight, because of the danger it would create if it falls on the ground,” a JAXA official said in comments broadcast by TBS television network.

“So we took measures to avoid such an incident, and we sent the signal (to destroy the rocket),” he said, adding that information on the problem’s cause was not immediately available.

Public broadcaster NHK and other media outlets said it was Japan’s first failed rocket launch since 2003.

A JAXA livestream of the launch from Uchinoura Space Center in the southern Kagoshima region was interrupted and presenters said there had been a problem, without giving details.

The solid-fuel Epsilon rocket has been in service since 2013.

It is smaller than the country’s previous liquid-fuelled model, and a successor to the solid-fuel “M-5” rocket that was retired in 2006 due to its high cost.

One of the satellites being carried by the rocket, called RAISE-3, had been due to orbit the Earth for at least a year, according to a NASA article about the launch.

Hotter summers are making southern England suitable for growing grape varieties that have been grown in northern France and Germany

Under a blue sky, seasonal workers ran their secateurs along long rows of grapevines, harvesting a variety of pinot noir grown during the summer heatwave.

This was not a village in France, however, but Appledore in Kent in southern England, where high temperatures needed to grow the grape variety are no longer rare.

“At the moment, I think we have similar growing conditions to Champagne in the (19)70s and 80s,” said Charlie Holland, head winemaker and chief executive at Gusbourne Estate. 

“We’re seeing the same sort of growth conditions, the same ripening period” in England as back then in France, he added.

That is good news for Britain’s embryonic viticulture which is now able to produce a wide variety of still and sparkling wines from grape varieties including pinot noir, chardonnay and riesling that are traditionally more accustomed to France and Germany.

“It’s not so often that you see a new wine region appearing on the map,” said Holland.

“In England, now we can make an exceptional sparkling wine, we have a perfect climate, we have a very long growing season.”

– ‘Quite frightening’ –

At Gusbourne Estate, tractors were transporting baskets full of grapes to the winery. The fruit was immediately destemmed and pressed to begin the fermentation process.

During the harvest period, the estate is a beehive of 200 workers, more than half of them seasonal.

Holland was everywhere, darting between presses, vats and oak barrels as he inspected and tasted the produce.

Climate change may be helping England’s vineyards for now but the fast pace of transition risks major planning difficulties, warned Alistair Nesbitt, co-author of an outlook study on the country’s winemaking industry.

“That’s a really quite frighteningly short period of time to have such a transition of varietals suitability, and that really shows the pace of change that certain areas of the UK are starting to see as a result of climate change,” he noted.

“Hopefully the world will get (its) act together and we won’t see that continuing increase for too much longer, because that’s threatening to everyone, including producers in the UK,” added Nesbitt, who is chief executive of consultancy Vinescapes.

Nesbitt forecasts that beyond 2040, England’s vineyards could be working with grape varieties found further south in France, such as merlot and cabernet sauvignon. 

This assumes that climate change continues on its expected path amid global reductions in carbon emissions.

– ‘Niche producer’ –

Britain’s wine growers are planting grapes in droves to meet booming demand at home and abroad.

The surface area of vineyards in the country has doubled in eight years, according to industry organisation WineGB.

UK vineyards are however dwarfed on the international stage, covering a total of 3,800 hectares — or about one tenth of France’s champagne-producing region.

Britain “will likely remain a niche wine producer”, said Daniel Mettyear, research director at consultancy IWSR Drinks Market Analysis.

Despite the relatively high price — £45 ($50) for one of Gusbourne’s sparkling wines — demand is growing both in Britain and abroad for the drink.

“Quality has improved significantly in recent years,” added Mettyear, noting strong interest from North American and Nordic countries, as well as from Australia.

Gusbourne exports about one third of its wine to 28 nations worldwide, mostly to Norway but also to France.

Dimorphos' egg-like shape and craggy, boulder-dotted surface finally came into clear view in the last few moments before DART's impact

NASA on Tuesday celebrated exceeding expectations during a mission to deflect a distant asteroid, in a sci-fi like test of humanity’s ability to stop an incoming cosmic object from devastating life on Earth.

The fridge-sized Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) impactor deliberately smashed into the moonlet asteroid Dimorphos on September 26, pushing it into a smaller, faster orbit around its big brother Didymos, NASA chief Bill Nelson announced.

That changed its orbital period by four percent, or 32 minutes — from 11 hour 55 minutes to 11 hours 23 minutes, bettering an expectation of 10 minutes.

“At some point in the future, if we find an asteroid that is threatening to hit Earth, and would be large enough to really do some damage, thank goodness that we will have had this successful test,” Nelson told AFP.

The asteroid pair loop together around our Sun every 2.1 years, and pose no threat to our planet.

But they are ideal for studying the “kinetic impact” method of planetary defense.

DART’s success as a proof-of-concept has made a reality what was once science fiction — notably films such as “Armageddon,” “Deep Impact,” and “Don’t Look Up.”

Never actually photographed before, Dimorphos, which is 530 feet (160 meters) in diameter or roughly the size of a big Egyptian pyramid, appeared as a speck of light around an hour before impact.

Its egg-like shape and craggy, boulder-dotted surface finally came into clear view in the last few moments, as DART raced toward it at roughly 14,500 miles (23,500 kilometers) per hour.

– Pseudo-comet –

In the days that followed, astronomers rejoiced in stunning images of matter spreading out thousands of miles — pictures collected by Earth and space telescopes, as well as a tiny companion satellite that traveled to the zone with DART.

Thanks to its temporary new tail, Dimorphos has turned into a man-made comet.

But quantifying just how well the test worked required an analysis of light patterns from ground telescopes, which took a few weeks to become apparent.

The binary asteroid system, which was around 6.8 million miles (11 million kilometers) from Earth at impact, is visible only as a single dot from the ground.

The dot’s brightness changes as Dimorphos passes in front of Didymos, which is significantly bigger at half-a-mile wide.

Four optical telescopes were involved in measuring the orbital period — all in Chile and South Africa — while two US based radar telescopes helped confirm the finding, said NASA planetary scientist Nancy Chabot.

The test also showed scientists that the asteroid is less like a solid rock, and more like a “rubbish pile” of boulders bound by mutual gravity.

If an asteroid is more solid, the momentum imparted by a spaceship will be limited. But if significant mass is pushed at high velocity in the opposite direction to impact, there will be an additional boost.

“It looks like the recoil from the ejecta blast off the surface was a substantial contributor to the overall push given to the asteroid,” said NASA scientist Tom Statler at a briefing.

The test will serve as an “anchor point” for simulations and calculations about the outcome of future impacts, he added.

– Mass extinction –

No known asteroid larger than 140 meters (460 feet) in size — big enough to devastate a city — has a significant chance to hit Earth for the next 100 years, according to NASA.

But wait long enough, and it will happen.

The geological record shows, for example, that a six-mile wide asteroid struck Earth 66 million years ago, plunging the world into a long winter that led to the mass extinction of the dinosaurs along with 75 percent of all species.

The agency plans to launch in 2026 a telescope called the Near-Earth Object (NEO) Surveyor to better characterize potentially hazardous 140-meter asteroids and comets that come within 30 million miles. 

So far, less than half of the estimated 25,000 NEOs of 140 meters have been discovered.

Kinetic impact with a spaceship is just one way to defend the planet, albeit the only method possible with current technology.

Should an approaching object be detected early, a spaceship could be sent to fly alongside it for long enough to divert its path via using the ship’s gravitational pull, creating a so-called gravity tractor.

Another option would be launching nuclear explosives to redirect or destroy an asteroid.

NASA believes the best way to deploy such weapons would be at a distance, to impart force without blowing the asteroid to smithereens, which could further imperil Earth.

Thirty-six people are confirmed to have died in the landslide

Hopes were fading Tuesday of finding alive any of 56 people missing after a devastating landslide swept through a Venezuelan town with 36 confirmed deaths to date.

President Nicolas Maduro said on state television that the death toll is expected to reach 100.

Neighbors and rescuers — some 3,000 police, soldiers and other professionals — were engaged in the ever-more desperate search among the fast-hardening mud, tree trunks and rocks dumped Saturday on the town of Las Tejerias. 

Rescuers told AFP it would be difficult to find any survivors in the town some 50 kilometers (31 miles) from the capital Caracas.

“I don’t know whether to scream, I don’t know whether to run… whether to cry,” Nathalie Matos, 34, told AFP of the frustrating wait for news on the fate of her 65-year-old mother, who she had on the phone as the deluge came.  

“She told me: ‘Daughter, I am drowning, the water got in, get me out, get me out… save me!'” Matos recounted.

“I tried to call her back, she picked up, but there was just noise.”

A rescue team is at her mother’s mud-filled house.

“The dog gave signs here, in this area that was the living room and the kitchen,” said a firefighter, though all their digging so far had yielded nothing.

“I know she is there,” insisted Mato.  

A few meters away, another team examined a piece of land where a house stood until Saturday, when Las Tejerias became the site of Venezuela’s worst natural disaster in decades.  

Neighbors were helping to reconstruct what would have been the floor plan to get an idea of where to dig.

A civil protection official, who did not have permission to speak in an official capacity, told AFP most victims of the storm died after they were struck by tree trunks, large rocks or other objects swept along by the raging waters, and others of hypothermia.  

Unusually heavy rains caused a major river and several streams to overflow on Saturday, causing a torrent of mud that washed away cars, parts of homes, businesses and telephone wires, and felled massive trees.

Vice President Delcy Rodriguez said a month’s worth of rain fell in the area in just eight hours.

The government has declared three days of mourning.

– Town ‘will be reborn’ –

Experts say the storm was aggravated by the seasonal La Nina weather phenomenon gripping the region, as well as the effects of Hurricane Julia which also claimed at least 26 lives in Central America and caused extensive damage.

Crisis-hit Venezuela is no stranger to seasonal storms, but this was the worst so far this year following historic rain levels that caused dozens of deaths in recent months. 

In 1999, about 10,000 people died in a massive landslide in the northern state of Vargas. 

Maduro had visited Las Tejerias on Monday, vowing to rebuild “each and every” home and business destroyed by the freak storm.

“We take with us the pain, the clamor, the despair, the tears of the people, but they must know that Las Tejerias will rise like the phoenix, Las Tejerias will be reborn,” he said.

Rodriguez said 317 homes were destroyed and 757 damaged by the mudslide. 

The authorities have erected refuge centers in Maracay, the capital of the affected Aragua province, and announced the distribution of 300 tons of food. 

Dimorphos' egg-like shape and craggy, boulder-dotted surface finally came into clear view in the last few moments before DART's impact

NASA on Tuesday celebrated exceeding expectations during a mission to deflect a distant asteroid, in a sci-fi like test of humanity’s ability to stop an incoming cosmic object from devastating life on Earth.

The fridge-sized Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) impactor deliberately smashed into the moonlet asteroid Dimorphos on September 26, pushing it into a smaller, faster orbit around its big brother Didymos, NASA chief Bill Nelson announced.

That changed its orbital period by four percent, or 32 minutes — from 11 hour 55 minutes to 11 hours 23 minutes, bettering an expectation of 10 minutes.

“At some point in the future, if we find an asteroid that is threatening to hit Earth, and would be large enough to really do some damage, thank goodness that we will have had this successful test,” Nelson told AFP.

The asteroid pair loop together around our Sun every 2.1 years, and pose no threat to our planet.

But they are ideal for studying the “kinetic impact” method of planetary defense.

DART’s success as a proof-of-concept has made a reality what was once science fiction — notably films such as “Armageddon,” “Deep Impact,” and “Don’t Look Up.”

Never actually photographed before, Dimorphos, which is 530 feet (160 meters) in diameter or roughly the size of a big Egyptian pyramid, appeared as a speck of light around an hour before impact.

Its egg-like shape and craggy, boulder-dotted surface finally came into clear view in the last few moments, as DART raced toward it at roughly 14,500 miles (23,500 kilometers) per hour.

– Pseudo-comet –

In the days that followed, astronomers rejoiced in stunning images of matter spreading out thousands of miles — pictures collected by Earth and space telescopes, as well as a tiny companion satellite that traveled to the zone with DART.

Thanks to its temporary new tail, Dimorphos has turned into a man-made comet.

But quantifying just how well the test worked required an analysis of light patterns from ground telescopes, which took a few weeks to become apparent.

The binary asteroid system, which was around 6.8 million miles (11 million kilometers) from Earth at impact, is visible only as a single dot from the ground.

The dot’s brightness changes as Dimorphos passes in front of Didymos, which is significantly bigger at half-a-mile wide.

Four optical telescopes were involved in measuring the orbital period — all in Chile and South Africa — while two US based radar telescopes helped confirm the finding, said NASA planetary scientist Nancy Chabot.

The test also showed scientists that the asteroid is less like a solid rock, and more like a “rubbish pile” of boulders bound by mutual gravity.

If an asteroid is more solid, the momentum imparted by a spaceship will be limited. But if significant mass is pushed at high velocity in the opposite direction to impact, there will be an additional boost.

“It looks like the recoil from the ejecta blast off the surface was a substantial contributor to the overall push given to the asteroid,” said NASA scientist Tom Statler at a briefing.

The test will serve as an “anchor point” for simulations and calculations about the outcome of future impacts, he added.

– Mass extinction –

No known asteroid larger than 140 meters (460 feet) in size — big enough to devastate a city — has a significant chance to hit Earth for the next 100 years, according to NASA.

But wait long enough, and it will happen.

The geological record shows, for example, that a six-mile wide asteroid struck Earth 66 million years ago, plunging the world into a long winter that led to the mass extinction of the dinosaurs along with 75 percent of all species.

The agency plans to launch in 2026 a telescope called the Near-Earth Object (NEO) Surveyor to better characterize potentially hazardous 140-meter asteroids and comets that come within 30 million miles. 

So far, less than half of the estimated 25,000 NEOs of 140 meters have been discovered.

Kinetic impact with a spaceship is just one way to defend the planet, albeit the only method possible with current technology.

Should an approaching object be detected early, a spaceship could be sent to fly alongside it for long enough to divert its path via using the ship’s gravitational pull, creating a so-called gravity tractor.

Another option would be launching nuclear explosives to redirect or destroy an asteroid.

NASA believes the best way to deploy such weapons would be at a distance, to impart force without blowing the asteroid to smithereens, which could further imperil Earth.

Bear-ly there: by the time hibernation is over, bears will be shadows of their former selves, so gorging on salmon ahead of the winter is crucial to survival

A hugely popular web poll to find the fattest bear in an Alaskan national park has become the target of rampant ballot stuffing, according to organizers who said they had pounced to protect US democracy from another hammer blow.

With the country’s political class obsessing over election integrity, the annual Fat Bear Week poll seemed like the perfect example of a free and fair ballot.

But even this model of democratic probity appeared to have been sullied after a spam campaign to elevate Bear 435 over Bear 747, in a crucial semifinal head-to-head to determine which creature had piled on the most pounds. 

“Like bears stuff their face with fish, our ballot box, too, has been stuffed,” tweeted Katmai National Park Service, which organizes the annual tongue-in-cheek vote.

“It appears someone has decided to spam the Fat Bear Week poll, but fortunately it is easy for us to tell which votes are fraudulent.”

Phew.

After a recount, Bear 747 — whose enormous mass and moniker have led to comparisons with Boeing’s jumbo plane — was named winner. He now faces off against Bear 901 in Tuesday’s grand final.

The week-long contest features match-ups between bears, with users voting for ones they believe look fattest after months of gorging on up to 100 pounds (45 kilograms) of salmon a day.

The layer of chubbiness is vital to help the bears through their hibernation during the cold of an Alaskan winter.

During five months of deep sleep, they do not wake to eat, drink or even go to the toilet, emerging famished — and a lot thinner — in the spring.

While the bears who are the subject of the voting are immune to the fat-shaming that plagues life for those in the public eye, the contest itself has become something of a behemoth.

It began in 2014 as a small-scale effort to raise awareness of the bears and the environmental challenges they face, but by last year had grown to a gargantuan event, with more than 800,000 ballots cast.

Dirmorphos' egg-like shape and craggy, boulder-dotted surface finally came into clear view in the last few moments before DART's impact

NASA on Tuesday said it had succeeded in deflecting an asteroid in a historic test of humanity’s ability to stop an incoming cosmic object from devastating life on Earth.

The fridge-sized Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) impactor deliberately smashed into the moonlet asteroid Dimorphos on September 26, pushing it into a smaller, faster orbit around its big brother Didymos, said NASA chief Bill Nelson.

“DART shortened the 11 hour 55 minute orbit to 11 hours and 23 minutes,” he said. Speeding up Dimorphos’ orbital period by 32 minutes exceeded NASA’s own expectation of 10 minutes.

“We showed the world that NASA is serious as a defender of this planet,” added Nelson.

The asteroid pair loop together around our Sun every 2.1 years, and pose no threat to our planet.

But they are ideal for studying the “kinetic impact” method of planetary defense, in case an actual approaching object is ever detected.

DART’s success as a proof-of-concept has made a reality of science fiction — notably in films such as “Armageddon” and “Don’t Look Up.” 

Astronomers rejoiced in stunning images of matter spreading out thousands of miles in the wake of the impact — pictures collected by Earth and space telescopes, as well as a mini satellite that had traveled to the zone with DART.

– Pseudo-comet –

Thanks to its temporary new tail, Dimorphos, which is 530-foot (160-meter) in diameter or roughly the size of a big Egyptian pyramid, has turned into a manmade comet.

But quantifying just how well the test worked required an analysis of light patterns from ground telescopes, which took a few weeks to become apparent.

The binary asteroid system, which was around 6.8 million miles (11 million kilometers) from Earth at impact, is visible only as a single dot from the ground.

Ahead of the test, NASA scientists said the results of the experiment would reveal whether the asteroid is a solid rock, or more like a “rubbish pile” of boulders bound by mutual gravity.

If an asteroid is more solid, the momentum imparted by a spaceship will be limited. But if it is “fluffy” and significant mass is pushed at high velocity in the opposite direction to impact, there will be an additional boost.

Never actually photographed before, Dimorphos appeared as a speck of light around an hour before impact.

Its egg-like shape and craggy, boulder-dotted surface finally came into clear view in the last few moments, as DART raced toward it at roughly 14,500 miles (23,500 kilometers) per hour.

– Mass extinction –

Very few of the billions of asteroids and comets in our solar system are considered potentially hazardous to our planet, and none are expected in the next hundred years or so. 

But wait long enough, and it will happen.

The geological record shows, for example, that a six-mile wide asteroid struck Earth 66 million years ago, plunging the world into a long winter that led to the mass extinction of the dinosaurs along with 75 percent of all species.

An asteroid the size of Dimorphos, by contrast, would only cause a regional impact, such as devastating a city.

Kinetic impact with a spaceship is just one way to defend the planet, albeit the only method possible with current technology.

Should an approaching object be detected early, a spaceship could be sent to fly alongside it for long enough to divert its path via using the ship’s gravitational pull, creating a so-called gravity tractor.

Another option would be launching nuclear explosives to redirect or destroy an asteroid.

NASA believes the best way to deploy such weapons would be at a distance, to impart force without blowing the asteroid to smithereens, which could further imperil Earth.