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Sea Lions Take Advantage of Lockdown to Rest in Streets

Sea lions are seen on a street of Mar del Plata harbor during the lockdown due to the coronavirus pandemic, in Mar del Plata, some 400 km south of Buenos Aires, Argentina | AFP.
Sea lions are seen on a street of Mar del Plata harbor during the lockdown due to the coronavirus pandemic, in Mar del Plata, some 400 km south of Buenos Aires, Argentina | AFP.
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Sea Lions Take Advantage of Lockdown to Rest in Streets

Sea lions are seen on a street of Mar del Plata harbor during the lockdown due to the coronavirus pandemic, in Mar del Plata, some 400 km south of Buenos Aires, Argentina | AFP.
Sea lions are seen on a street of Mar del Plata harbor during the lockdown due to the coronavirus pandemic, in Mar del Plata, some 400 km south of Buenos Aires, Argentina | AFP.

Sea lions, often seen on the shores of South Latin America, took advantage of isolation measures imposed on humans by the emerging coronavirus to relax in the resort of Mar del Plata on the west coast of Argentina, AFP reported.

Vacationers used to see the sea lions on the coast of the city of 750 thousand people, located 400 kilometers southwest of Buenos Aires, but they are investing this opportunity to go further on land. They can now be seen playing in the parking lots or in front of closed souvenir shops.

"Because of the house quarantine, the streets are empty of people, so sea lions ventured to move away a little from their usual place," said Juan Lorenzani, president of the Fona Argentina Foundation.

These mammals are accustomed to the hustle and bustle of the city, which welcomes thousands of tourists all year round, and is now enjoying an unprecedented calm since 20 March, when forced isolation was imposed on 44 million Argentines.

"These animals weigh between 350 and 500 kilograms of the largest size," Lorenzani said, explaining that they have the ability to control the temperature of their bodies and seek protection from the wind.

Commenting on the issue, Jorge Persio said, as he went shopping, "This is unusual! The animals are taking advantage of the situation to enjoy more comfort."

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China Says its Astronauts Complete Record-breaking Spacewalk

File Photo: Astronaut Liu Yang waves as she is out of a return capsule of the Shenzhou-14 spacecraft, following a six-month mission on China's space station, at the Dongfeng landing site in Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, China December 4, 2022. China Daily via REUTERS
File Photo: Astronaut Liu Yang waves as she is out of a return capsule of the Shenzhou-14 spacecraft, following a six-month mission on China's space station, at the Dongfeng landing site in Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, China December 4, 2022. China Daily via REUTERS
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China Says its Astronauts Complete Record-breaking Spacewalk

File Photo: Astronaut Liu Yang waves as she is out of a return capsule of the Shenzhou-14 spacecraft, following a six-month mission on China's space station, at the Dongfeng landing site in Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, China December 4, 2022. China Daily via REUTERS
File Photo: Astronaut Liu Yang waves as she is out of a return capsule of the Shenzhou-14 spacecraft, following a six-month mission on China's space station, at the Dongfeng landing site in Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, China December 4, 2022. China Daily via REUTERS

Two Chinese astronauts this week completed a world-record spacewalk of more than nine hours, according to a statement from China's Manned Space Agency, marking another milestone for Beijing's rapidly expanding space program.

The spacewalk, carried out by Cai Xuzhe and Song Lingdong outside the Tiangong space station in low-Earth orbit on Tuesday, was at least four minutes longer than the last record set by NASA astronauts James Voss and Susan Helms in 2001, according to Reuters.

The two astronauts of China's Shenzhou-19 mission donned their Feitian spacesuits to carry out an array of tasks on the station's exterior, including the installation of space-debris protection devices, China's space agency said.

"They successfully completed all the planned tasks and felt very excited about it," Wu Hao, a staffer from the China Astronaut Research and Training Center, told China Central Television, a state broadcaster.

The former Soviet Union in 1965 became the first nation to carry out a spacewalk. Since then, Russia and the United States have conducted hundreds of such missions, primarily outside the International Space Station for tasks ranging from solar panel installations to materials research.

The first spacewalk by a Chinese astronaut occurred in 2008.

China's spacewalking milestone this week comes amid a flurry of other recent cosmic achievements that have boosted Beijing's competitive footing with the United States.

China landed its first rover on Mars in 2021 and earlier this year became the first country to retrieve rock samples from the moon's treacherous far side in its Chang'e-6 mission.

Beijing is targeting 2030 to land its first astronauts on the moon to become the second country after the US to put humans there. Beijing has courted roughly a dozen countries for its International Lunar Research Station program, an effort to build a moon base on the moon's south pole.

That program rivals NASA's Artemis program, which aims to return US astronauts to the moon for the first time since the final Apollo mission of 1972.