Palestine Applauds Decision to Inscribe 'Tell es-Sultan' on World Heritage List

The “Tell es-Sultan/Old Jericho” site. (shutterstock)
The “Tell es-Sultan/Old Jericho” site. (shutterstock)
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Palestine Applauds Decision to Inscribe 'Tell es-Sultan' on World Heritage List

The “Tell es-Sultan/Old Jericho” site. (shutterstock)
The “Tell es-Sultan/Old Jericho” site. (shutterstock)

Palestinians applauded the UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee’s decision to inscribe the pre-historic site of “Tell es-Sultan/Old Jericho” on the World Heritage List.

Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas said the decision to inscribe Tell es-Sultan is “a matter of great importance and evidence of the authenticity and history of the Palestinian people,” assuring that the Palestinian authorities would “continue to preserve this unique site for all humanity.”

Abbas, on behalf of the Palestinian state and people, thanked Saudi Arabia led by Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, king Salman bin Abdulaziz, and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, for hosting the committee, as well as the committee members, the UNESCO’s executive board, and all the member states that made the enlisting happen.

The UNESCO took the decision to inscribe “Tell es-Sultan/formerly Jericho” as a World Heritage at its 45th world heritage committee meeting held in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

Minister of Tourism and Antiquities, Rula Maayah stated that Palestine has now five sites on the UNESCOS’s World Heritage list including “Tell es-Sultan”: Jerusalem (the old city and its walls), Bethlehem (the birthplace of Jesus including the Church of the Nativity and the pilgrimage route), the old town of Hebron, and the “cultural landscape” of the village of Battir south of Jerusalem.

The minister said the significance of this decision stems from acknowledging that the site is an authentic part of the diverse Palestinian heritage, and enjoys an exceptional human value as the oldest fortified city in the world.

“Tell es-Sultan represents the first successful example of permanent human settlements, and the oldest agricultural town in the world that was built in the modern Stone Age, 10,000 years ago, in the lowest spot on Earth (250 meters below sea level), near the Ein Sultan spring. It encouraged humans to move to a stable life that relied on the domestication of plants and animals, construction, pottery making, and developed social, economic, and religious systems, she noted.

The site is one of the most important archaeological sites in Palestine, it was the cornerstone of Jericho, and the beginning of human life during the Natufian period before the emergence of plants, about 10,500 years ago.

“Tell es-Sultan” is located in the lower part of the Jordan Valley, 10 kilometers north of the Dead Sea, two kilometers north of Jericho’s center, and 250 meters below sea level, making old Jericho the lowest and oldest city in the world.

It features 29 layers of ancient civilizations and prominent constructions, including the circular building known as “The Jericho Tower”, a unique architectural design boasting an internal stone staircase and a three-meter-wide corridor. The city is surrounded by a wall and a three-meter-deep trench.

Palestinians in Jericho celebrated the decision with sports events, cavalry marches, musical performances, and a laser show at “Tell es-Sultan”.

“It’s a historic day and a political and cultural triumph for the Palestinians that comes after a campaign of falsifications led by the Israeli government to hinder the site’s addition to the World Heritage List,” said Mayor of Jericho, Abdul Karim Sedir.

Minister of Agriculture Riad Attari said this historical moment highlights the victory of the Palestinian right.



Alien Planet Lashed by Huge Flares from its 'Angry Beast' Star

File Photo: An imagined view of the three planets orbiting an ultracool dwarf star just 40 light-years from Earth discovered using a specialist telescope at ESO's La Silla Observatoryin Chile. ESO/M. Kornmesser/N. Risinger
File Photo: An imagined view of the three planets orbiting an ultracool dwarf star just 40 light-years from Earth discovered using a specialist telescope at ESO's La Silla Observatoryin Chile. ESO/M. Kornmesser/N. Risinger
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Alien Planet Lashed by Huge Flares from its 'Angry Beast' Star

File Photo: An imagined view of the three planets orbiting an ultracool dwarf star just 40 light-years from Earth discovered using a specialist telescope at ESO's La Silla Observatoryin Chile. ESO/M. Kornmesser/N. Risinger
File Photo: An imagined view of the three planets orbiting an ultracool dwarf star just 40 light-years from Earth discovered using a specialist telescope at ESO's La Silla Observatoryin Chile. ESO/M. Kornmesser/N. Risinger

Scientists are tracking a large gas planet experiencing quite a quandary as it orbits extremely close to a young star - a predicament never previously observed.

This exoplanet, as planets beyond our solar system are called, orbits its star so tightly that it appears to trigger flares from the stellar surface - larger than any observed from the sun - reaching several million miles (km) into space that over time may strip much of this unlucky world's atmosphere, Reuters reported.

The phenomenon appears to be caused by the planet's interaction with the star's magnetic field, according to the researchers. And this star is a kind known to flare, especially when young.

"A young star of this type is an angry beast, especially if you're sitting as close up as this planet does," said Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy astrophysicist Ekaterina Ilin, lead author of the study published in the journal Nature.

The star, called HIP 67522, is slightly more massive than the sun and is located about 407 light-years from Earth in the constellation Centaurus. A light-year is the distance light travels in a year, 5.9 trillion miles (9.5 trillion km).

This star and planet, as well as a second smaller gas planet also detected in this planetary system, are practically newborns. Whereas the sun and our solar system's planets are roughly 4.5 billion years old, this star is about 17 million years old, with its planets slightly younger.

The planet, named HIP 67522 b, has a diameter almost the size of Jupiter, our solar system's largest planet, but with only 5% of Jupiter's mass. That makes it one of the puffiest exoplanets known, with a consistency reminiscent of cotton candy (candy floss).

It orbits five times closer to its star than our solar system's innermost planet Mercury orbits the sun, needing only seven days to complete an orbit.

A flare is an intense eruption of electromagnetic radiation emanating from the outermost part of a star's atmosphere, called the corona. So how does HIP 67522 b elicit huge flares from the star? As it orbits, it apparently interacts with the star's magnetic field - either through its own magnetic field or perhaps through the presence of conducting material such as iron in the planet's composition.

"We don't know for sure what the mechanism is. We think it is plausible that the planet moves within the star's magnetic field and whips up a wave that travels along magnetic field lines to the star. When the wave reaches the stellar corona, it triggers flares in large magnetic field loops that store energy, which is released by the wave," Ilin said.

"As it moves through the field like a boat on a lake, it creates waves in its wake," Ilin added. "The flares these waves trigger when they crash into the star are a new phenomenon. This is important because it had never been observed before, especially at the intensity detected."

The researchers believe it is a specific type of wave called an Alfvén wave, named for 20th century Swedish physicist and Nobel Prize laureate Hannes Alfvén, that propagates due to the interaction of magnetic fields.

The flares may heat up and inflate the planet's atmosphere, which is dominated by hydrogen and helium. Being lashed by these flares could blast away lighter elements from the atmosphere and reduce the planet's mass over perhaps hundreds of millions of years.

"At that time, it will have lost most if not all the light elements, and become what's called a sub-Neptune - a gas planet smaller than Neptune," Ilin said, referring to the smallest of our solar system's gas planets.

The researchers used observations by two space telescopes: NASA's TESS, short for Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, and the European Space Agency's CHEOPS, short for CHaracterising ExOPlanet Satellite.

The plight of HIP 67522 b illustrates the many circumstances under which exoplanets exist.

"It is certainly no sheltered youth for this planet. But I am not sad about it. I enjoy diversity in all things nature, and what this planet will eventually become - perhaps a sub-Neptune rich in heavy elements that did not evaporate - is no less fascinating than what we observe today."