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China Launches Powerful Jielong-3 Rocket

Residents visit a New Year Goods fair ahead of the Chinese Lunar New Year in Beijing, China on Saturday, Jan. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)
Residents visit a New Year Goods fair ahead of the Chinese Lunar New Year in Beijing, China on Saturday, Jan. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)
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China Launches Powerful Jielong-3 Rocket

Residents visit a New Year Goods fair ahead of the Chinese Lunar New Year in Beijing, China on Saturday, Jan. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)
Residents visit a New Year Goods fair ahead of the Chinese Lunar New Year in Beijing, China on Saturday, Jan. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)

A small but powerful Chinese rocket capable of sending payloads at competitive costs delivered nine satellites into orbit on Saturday, Chinese state media reported, in what is gearing up to be another busy year for Chinese commercial launches.
The Jielong-3, or Smart Dragon-3, blasted off from a floating barge off the coast of Yangjiang in southern Guangdong province. It was the third launch of the rocket, developed by China Rocket Co, a commercial offshoot of a state-owned launch vehicle manufacturer, since December 2022.
President Xi Jinping has called for the expansion of strategic industries including the commercial space sector, deemed key to building constellations of satellites for communications, remote sensing and navigation.
Also on Saturday, Chinese automaker Geely Holding Group launched 11 satellites to boost its capacity to provide more accurate navigation for autonomous vehicles.
Critical to the construction of commercial satellite networks is China's ability to open more launch windows, expand rocket types to accommodate different payload sizes, lower launch costs, and increase the number of launch sites such as building more spaceports and using sea launch vessels.
Jielong-3 can carry a 1,500 kg (3,300 pounds) payload into a 500-km sun-synchronous orbit. China Rocket Co has previously said the rocket could carry over 20 satellites at a launch cost of under $10,000 per kg - a globally competitive rate for small-lift rockets, Reuters reported.
The cost is similar to the launches of other Chinese small-lift rockets including the Long March 11, but their payload sizes are significantly smaller.
Jielong-3 is comparable to the powerful Lijian-1, which first flew in 2022.
Developed by CAS Space, a Guangzhou-headquartered commercial spinoff of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Lijian-1 can also send a 1,500 kg payload to a 500-km sun-synchronous orbit.
Other commercial companies in the Chinese vehicle launch sector includes Galactic Energy, whose Ceres-1 rocket made its debut flight in November 2020.
Ceres-1 is capable of delivering a 300 kg payload to a 500 km sun-synchronous orbit.
Beijing-based Galactic Energy made at least seven Ceres-1 launches in 2023, up from four in 2020-2022.
Also in the fray is Landspace, whose launch of the Zhuque-2 in 2023 marked the world's first successful payload delivery by a liquid oxygen-methane rocket and a breakthrough in China's use of low-cost liquid propellants.
In the realm of larger rockets, Orienspace in January launched Gravity-1 from a ship off the coast of eastern Shandong province.
The rocket is capable of sending a payload of up to 6,500 kg into low-earth orbit, making it the most powerful launch vehicle developed by a private Chinese enterprise.
A small-lift rocket carries payloads of up to 2,000 kg, while medium ones deliver up to 20,000 kg and heavy rockets can easily carry in excess of 20,000 kg. SpaceX's Falcon Heavy can lift up to 64,000 kg into orbit.

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NASA Scan Discovers New, 'Once in a Century' Moon Crater

TOPSHOT - This handout picture published on September 16, 2026 by NASA, shows a new crater on the Moon's surface, taken by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera. (Photo by Handout / NASA / AFP)
TOPSHOT - This handout picture published on September 16, 2026 by NASA, shows a new crater on the Moon's surface, taken by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera. (Photo by Handout / NASA / AFP)
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NASA Scan Discovers New, 'Once in a Century' Moon Crater

TOPSHOT - This handout picture published on September 16, 2026 by NASA, shows a new crater on the Moon's surface, taken by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera. (Photo by Handout / NASA / AFP)
TOPSHOT - This handout picture published on September 16, 2026 by NASA, shows a new crater on the Moon's surface, taken by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera. (Photo by Handout / NASA / AFP)

A researcher at NASA has found a massive, recently-formed crater on the Moon, a rare occurrence that only happens "once in a century or even longer," according to scientists.
The crater, dubbed "McGetchin," measures 730 feet (222 meters) wide, NASA said in a blog post.
It is believed to have been created in the spring of 2024 from a comet or asteroid colliding with the Moon, with researchers describing the object that caused it to be the size of a building three-to-six stories high, reported AFP.
"Scientists estimate that an impact of this magnitude happens on the Moon about once in a century or even longer," NASA said in the blog post.
Although the crater had been there for years, it was not discovered until Robert Wagner, a researcher with NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), noticed it in a new scan of the Moon's surface.
The crater appeared as a "large bright spot circled by a dark halo" by the LRO probe, which has been studying the Moon since 2009.
A study published Wednesday in the journal Science Advances determined it was the largest new crater ever discovered in the solar system.
While the Moon has numerous craters, many of which are far bigger than McGetchin, researching a crater's formation in real time can help build understanding of the Moon's geology.
This in turn could better prepare future crewed missions to the Moon, which are currently planned by both the United States and China.
Unlike Earth, the Moon has virtually no atmospheric layer, so space debris does not slow down or burn up before colliding with the surface.

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Satellites Show Earth Lost More Than 12 Trillion Tons of Ice from Greenland, Antarctica in 47 Years

Two groups from the Poseidon Expeditions tour company look at a glacier in the Scoresby Sund, Sept. 7, 2023, in Greenland. (AP)
Two groups from the Poseidon Expeditions tour company look at a glacier in the Scoresby Sund, Sept. 7, 2023, in Greenland. (AP)
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Satellites Show Earth Lost More Than 12 Trillion Tons of Ice from Greenland, Antarctica in 47 Years

Two groups from the Poseidon Expeditions tour company look at a glacier in the Scoresby Sund, Sept. 7, 2023, in Greenland. (AP)
Two groups from the Poseidon Expeditions tour company look at a glacier in the Scoresby Sund, Sept. 7, 2023, in Greenland. (AP)

About 12.5 trillion tons (11.3 trillion metric tons) of ice from glaciers in Greenland and Antarctica have melted since 1979, which is enough frozen water to stack ice five feet deep across the continental United States, according to a major scientific report.

A warming Earth is accelerating the melting of the planet's two major ice sheets, with five-sixths of the melt not coming from hotter air, but from warmer waters eating away at the ice sheets from below and the sides, with glaciers flowing into the oceans, according to a study in Wednesday's journal Scientific Data. That's bad news for future sea level rise, the study's authors said.

“The ice sheets are melting away fast,” said study co-author Eric Rignot, an ice scientist at University of California, Irvine. “We are melting the polar regions, sea level is rising worldwide and will exacerbate the vulnerability of coastal regions.”

Huge numbers for ice melt, people flooded

The numbers behind the melt are both mind-bogglingly huge and deceptively small.

All that melted ice turned into nearly 3 quadrillion gallons of water (11.3 quadrillion liters), which pushed global sea levels up about an inch (3.1 centimeters) since 1979, on top of other climate factors raising ocean heights, the report said.

An inch may not sound like much, but for every third of an inch (or centimeter) of sea level rise, another 2 to 3 million people get flooded at least once a year, said lead study author Ines Otosaka, an ice scientist at Northumbria University in England.

The Jakobshavn glacier in Greenland is now retreating up to 164 feet (50 meters) a day, Otosaka said.

The international collaboration of polar scientists, headed by the European Space Agency, had in the past only looked at ice sheet melt since the 1990s based on European satellite data. But by incorporating NASA satellites, the scientists were able to chart ice sheet volumes in Antarctica back to 1979 and in Greenland back to 1972.

The melting is accelerating

“There is a clear trend that the ice sheets are losing more mass and it has been increasing from decade to decade, especially if you look at the ice being discharged to the ocean," Otosaka said. "And that’s quite clear that there’s a link to climate change.”

It showed that in the 1970s, 1980s and into the 1990s, the ice sheets were relatively stable, but then melt started happening and it really kicked in during the 2010s, Otosaka said.

“That’s something to be concerned about as it shows that the changes are tracking decades behind global warming, which means we can expect them to continue for decades more — even if we are able to stop heating the planet,” said study co-author Andrew Shepherd, also of Northumbria.

The accelerating numbers seemed to pause from 2020 to 2023, but the study's authors said it more reflected short-term weather variations not long-term trends. Otosaka said the study stopped with 2023 data, but she's looked at measurements since and found the accelerating trend has picked back up.

A lot of the stability in Antarctica was because East Antarctica had record snowfall, which compensated for the rapid melting in the less stable West Antarctic Ice Sheet, the authors said.

The three-year hiatus was “just a bump in the record,” Rignot said. “The long rise is climate and the threat is crystal clear.”

Worrying about a collapse scenario

The biggest changes scientists saw are in what they call dynamic processes, which are more abrupt and active than the slow steady melting from the air, and that's something prone to trigger runaway “tipping points,” Otosaka said.

New York University ice scientist David Holland, said that's what concerns him “because most of the ice loss is dynamical and that is exactly what you would expect in an ice sheet instability collapse scenario.”

The international team used 45 independent surveys and 27 different satellites. “The use of relatively independent methods gives me greater confidence in the result,” said Holland, who wasn't part of the study. “The upward trend is real.”

“The ‘wild cards’ of Antarctic mass loss continue to pose a challenge for human management of the planet — a clear and present danger, but many decades in the future,” said University of Colorado ice scientist Ted Scambos, who wasn't part of the study. “We are now as a society smart enough to know the future, but not prudent enough to act upon the knowledge.”

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Centenarians Living in Japan Exceed 100,000 for the First Time

Elderly people rest under the shade of a tree in Tokyo, Sunday, Sept. 14, 2014. (AP)
Elderly people rest under the shade of a tree in Tokyo, Sunday, Sept. 14, 2014. (AP)
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Centenarians Living in Japan Exceed 100,000 for the First Time

Elderly people rest under the shade of a tree in Tokyo, Sunday, Sept. 14, 2014. (AP)
Elderly people rest under the shade of a tree in Tokyo, Sunday, Sept. 14, 2014. (AP)

The number of people aged 100 or older in Japan surpassed a record 100,000 this year, the latest government figures show, underscoring the country's rapidly aging and declining population.

The Health and Welfare Ministry statistics released Tuesday show Japan now has 107,677 centenarians, up 7,914 from the previous year and exceeding the 100,000 mark for the first time. Nearly 88% of them are women.

Kyoto resident Fuyo Kishimoto was recently recognized as the oldest Japanese woman at age 114. Japan's oldest male is 112-year-old Hikaru Kato from Kumamoto in southern Japan.

The figures were released to mark this year’s Sept. 15 Respect the Aged day, when healthy and active centenarians are honored by the government with a letter from Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi.

“I'm very pleased that many people are living a long, healthy and active lives,” Health Minister Kenichiro Ueno told reporters Tuesday, citing progress in medical technology, healthy lifestyle and diet as contributing factors.

Ueno noted the importance of maintaining a sustainable social security system as the population continues to age and decline.

Many younger people, however, are not optimistic about their future.

The National Institute of Population and Social Security Research last week released the results of a survey indicating more than 20% of both men and women who are single and aged between 18 and 34 have no intention of ever marrying, with nearly half saying they see no benefit in marriage.

Ueno acknowledged the reasons for marriage reluctance among young people include the high costs of raising and educating children and the mental and physical burden on working parents. He said the government will continue addressing their concerns and attempt to turn around problems related to Japan's aging population and dwindling births.

Japan’s drastic population decline is inevitable, experts say, noting the country's total fertility rate dropped to a record low 1.14 in 2025, far below the 2.1 children needed to be born to each Japanese woman to maintain the current population.

Japan’s total population during the 2020 census stood at 126 million, almost 30% of which were 65 or older. Experts estimate there will be a decline to 87 million by 2070 with nearly 40% aged 65 or older, according to the national institute.

There were 153 people aged 100 or older in Japan when centenarian surveys began in 1963. They exceeded 1,000 in 1981 and surpassed 10,000 in 1998, according to the Health and Welfare Ministry.