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Fires Burn After Ships Collide off UK, Stoking Fears Over Environment 

The Stena Immaculate tanker that collided with Solong container vessel appear at a distance off the coast of Withernsea, east of England, on March 11, 2025. (AFP)
The Stena Immaculate tanker that collided with Solong container vessel appear at a distance off the coast of Withernsea, east of England, on March 11, 2025. (AFP)
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Fires Burn After Ships Collide off UK, Stoking Fears Over Environment 

The Stena Immaculate tanker that collided with Solong container vessel appear at a distance off the coast of Withernsea, east of England, on March 11, 2025. (AFP)
The Stena Immaculate tanker that collided with Solong container vessel appear at a distance off the coast of Withernsea, east of England, on March 11, 2025. (AFP)

Fires continued to burn on Tuesday after two ships collided off the coast of northeast England a day earlier, adding to concerns the jet fuel carried by one and toxic chemicals aboard the other could cause an environmental disaster.

Following the crash, both crews abandoned their ships and 36 people were brought ashore, the coastguard said. Rescue teams called off a search for a missing crew member from the Portuguese-flagged container ship Solong on Monday.

The tanker Stena Immaculate, which carries jet fuel for the US military, was at anchor when it was struck by the smaller Solong, releasing fuel into the sea.

Equipment to minimize pollution at sea, such as spray dispersants for oil spills and containment booms, were on standby, said the British government, as its agencies prepared for action to protect the North Sea environment and wildlife.

The potential environmental impact was being assessed, coordinated by the Maritime and Coastguard Agency and an East of England environmental group, and the situation was being monitored overhead by plane, the government said.

ENVIRONMENTAL HARM?

Two maritime security sources said there was no indication that malicious activity or actors were involved in the incident.

The Stena Immaculate was carrying 220,000 barrels of jet fuel in 16 segregated cargo tanks, but it was unclear how much of it was spilt after at least one tank was hit, Crowley, the US logistics group which operated the vessel, said on Monday.

Onboard the Solong were 15 containers of sodium cyanide, a toxic chemical used mainly in gold mining, and an unknown quantity of alcohol, according to a casualty report from maritime data provider Lloyd's List Intelligence.

Those cargoes could pollute the sea, harming large colonies of protected seabirds including puffins and gannets which live on the coast in the area, and the fish on which they feed.

The crash occurred on Monday morning in a busy waterway, prompting a significant rescue response from British teams who sent aircraft, lifeboats and other vessels.

While Britain's Marine Accident Investigation Branch will gather initial evidence, overall responsibility for investigating the crash lies with the US and Portuguese authorities, the flag states of the vessels.

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NASA's Lucy Spacecraft Is Speeding toward Another Close Encounter with an Asteroid

This image from video animation provided by NASA in October 2022 depicts the Lucy spacecraft. (NASA via AP)
This image from video animation provided by NASA in October 2022 depicts the Lucy spacecraft. (NASA via AP)
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NASA's Lucy Spacecraft Is Speeding toward Another Close Encounter with an Asteroid

This image from video animation provided by NASA in October 2022 depicts the Lucy spacecraft. (NASA via AP)
This image from video animation provided by NASA in October 2022 depicts the Lucy spacecraft. (NASA via AP)

NASA’s Lucy spacecraft will swoop past a small asteroid this weekend as it makes its way to an even bigger prize: the unexplored swarms of asteroids out near Jupiter.

It will be the second asteroid encounter for Lucy, launched in 2021 on a quest that will take it to 11 space rocks. The close approaches should help scientists better understand our early solar system when planets were forming; asteroids are the ancient leftovers.

The upcoming flyby is a dress rehearsal for 2027 when Lucy reaches its first so-called Trojan asteroid near Jupiter.

Cranking up its three science instruments, the spacecraft on Sunday will observe the harmless asteroid known as Donaldjohanson. The encounter will take place 139 million miles (223 million kilometers) from Earth in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, so far away it will take 12 minutes for each bit of data to reach flight controllers in Colorado.

The paleontologist for whom the asteroid is named plans to be at spacecraft builder and operator Lockheed Martin’s Mission Control for all the action. He discovered the fossil Lucy in Ethiopia 50 years ago; the spacecraft is named after the famous human ancestor.

NASA’s Lucy will venture as close as 596 miles (960 kilometers) to this asteroid, an estimated 2 ½ miles (4 kilometers) in length but much shorter in width. Scientists should have a better idea of its size and shape following the brief visit. The spacecraft will zoom by at more than 30,000 mph (48,000 kph).

The asteroid is among countless fragments believed to have resulted from a major collision 150 million years ago.

“It's not going to be a basic potato. We already know that,” said lead scientist Hal Levison of Southwest Research Institute.

Rather, Levison said the asteroid may resemble a bowling pin or even a snowman like Arrokoth, the Kuiper Belt object visited by NASA's New Horizon spacecraft in 2019. The other possibility is that there are two elongated but separate asteroids far apart.

“We don’t know what to expect. That’s what makes this so cool,” he said.

There will be no communications with Lucy during the flyby as the spacecraft turns its antenna away from Earth in order to track the asteroid. Levison expects to have most of the science data within a day.

Lucy’s next stop — “the main event,” as Levison calls it — will be the Trojan asteroids that share Jupiter’s orbit around the sun. Swarms of Trojans precede and follow the solar system’s largest planet as it circles the sun. Lucy will visit eight of them from 2027 through 2033, some of them in pairs of two.

Lucy’s first asteroid flyby was in 2023 when it swept past little Dinkinesh, also in the main asteroid belt. The spacecraft discovered a mini moon around it.