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Japan’s Emperor and His Family Mourn Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Victims, Marking 80 Years Since Tragedy 

Japanese Emperor Naruhito, center left, Empress Masako center right, and Princess Aiko, right, listen to Nagasaki Mayor Shiro Suzuki, left, as they visit the cenotaph for the atomic bombing victims at the peace park in Nagasaki. western Japan, Friday, Sept. 12, 2025. (Kyodo News via AP)
Japanese Emperor Naruhito, center left, Empress Masako center right, and Princess Aiko, right, listen to Nagasaki Mayor Shiro Suzuki, left, as they visit the cenotaph for the atomic bombing victims at the peace park in Nagasaki. western Japan, Friday, Sept. 12, 2025. (Kyodo News via AP)
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Japan’s Emperor and His Family Mourn Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Victims, Marking 80 Years Since Tragedy 

Japanese Emperor Naruhito, center left, Empress Masako center right, and Princess Aiko, right, listen to Nagasaki Mayor Shiro Suzuki, left, as they visit the cenotaph for the atomic bombing victims at the peace park in Nagasaki. western Japan, Friday, Sept. 12, 2025. (Kyodo News via AP)
Japanese Emperor Naruhito, center left, Empress Masako center right, and Princess Aiko, right, listen to Nagasaki Mayor Shiro Suzuki, left, as they visit the cenotaph for the atomic bombing victims at the peace park in Nagasaki. western Japan, Friday, Sept. 12, 2025. (Kyodo News via AP)

Japanese Emperor Naruhito, accompanied by his wife and daughter, paid their respects Friday to atomic bombing victims in Nagasaki as he wrapped up a tour of some of the worst-hit places in World War II and Japan marked the 80th anniversary of the bombing.

Naruhito, his wife, Empress Masako, and their daughter, Princess Aiko, bowed deeply and offered bouquets of white flowers at the cenotaph for atomic bombing victims at the ground-zero site in the peace memorial park in Nagasaki.

The United States dropped a plutonium bomb on the southwestern city of Nagasaki at 11:02 a.m. on Aug. 9, 1945, killing more than 70,000 people by the end of that year. The attack came only three days after the US dropped a uranium bomb on Hiroshima, destroying the city and killing 140,000 others. Japan announced its surrender on Aug. 15, ending World War II and the country's nearly half-century of aggression in Asia.

Naruhito has repeatedly stressed the importance to remember and keep telling the tragedy of war to younger generations.

Marking the 80th anniversary of the end of WWII, Naruhito has visited places this year where some of the bloodiest battles and bombings occurred, including Iwo Jima, Okinawa and Hiroshima.

In July, Naruhito and Masako honored thousands of Japanese prisoners of World War II who were held under harsh conditions in Mongolia during their trip to that country. It’s part of his effort of atonement and remembrance of the tragedy of war fought in the name of his grandfather, Emperor Hirohito.

The royal couple and the princess were to visit the Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum to observe exhibits and meet with atomic bomb survivors. On Saturday, the Naruhito family plans to visit a nursing home for the atomic bomb survivors to meet more of them.

With their average age now exceeding 86, many survivors have expressed frustration over the growing nuclear threat in recent years despite their decades-long grassroots campaign to abolish nuclear weapons.

The visit to Nagasaki, Naruhito's first since ascending the Chrysanthemum Throne, and the first ever for Aiko, wraps up their tour of prayers and consolation this year. Hundreds of people holding small rising-sun flags waved and called their names as the royal motorcade headed to the peace park, while the Imperial couple and Aiko lowered their windows and waved to the cheering crowd on the roadside.

In the evening, thousands of Nagasaki residents were to welcome the Imperial couple and Aiko by holding up lanterns on a building rooftop visible from the royal family's hotel.

In April, the couple visited Iwo Jima to pay tribute to about 20,000 Japanese and nearly 7,000 US Marines killed in the Battle of Iwo Jima, fought from Feb. 19 to March 26, 1945.

In June, Naruhito visited Okinawa to mourn about 188,000 Japanese, half of them Okinawan civilians, and about 12,000 Americans, killed in the Battle of Okinawa. Aiko accompanied her parents, underscoring Naruhito’s wish that she would learn the hardships of the Okinawan people and share their stories with younger generations.

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Varieties

‘Fingerprints’ of Black Hole’s Event Horizon Detected for First Time

An actual image of the black hole where scientists looked for a ring of light, which is matter and radiation circling at extreme speeds around a region of darkness representing the black hole. (Event Horizon Telescope collaboration)
An actual image of the black hole where scientists looked for a ring of light, which is matter and radiation circling at extreme speeds around a region of darkness representing the black hole. (Event Horizon Telescope collaboration)
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‘Fingerprints’ of Black Hole’s Event Horizon Detected for First Time

An actual image of the black hole where scientists looked for a ring of light, which is matter and radiation circling at extreme speeds around a region of darkness representing the black hole. (Event Horizon Telescope collaboration)
An actual image of the black hole where scientists looked for a ring of light, which is matter and radiation circling at extreme speeds around a region of darkness representing the black hole. (Event Horizon Telescope collaboration)

Scientists have detected the "fingerprints" of a black hole's event horizon -- the boundary from which nothing can escape -- for the first time, according to research published on Wednesday.

The discovery was made by studying ripples in space-time called gravitational waves that were created when two black holes violently smashed into each other.

A black hole's event horizon is known as the "point of no return" because not even light can avoid being swallowed into its darkness.

This has made them incredibly difficult to learn anything about.

However, there is one event of such cataclysmic violence that it could offer a chance to glimpse this extreme phenomenon -- when two black holes merge into one.

When this cosmic death spiral occurs, it shoots gravitational waves across the universe which scientists have been detecting for the last decade.

For the new research published in Nature, an international team of researchers analyzed data from the strongest gravitational wave ever recorded, known as GW250114, detected by the LIGO observatory in January 2025.

By isolating the last burst of waves -- known as "direct waves" -- from this black hole merger, the scientists said they were able to extract information from closer to an event horizon than ever before.

"This black hole horizon concept normally appears in science fiction," lead study author Sizheng Ma of the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Canada told AFP.

"But now we are really able to touch the region around the horizon with gravitational data," he added.

"Sometimes I cannot believe this is really happening."

- Causing a stir -

The last stage of two black holes merging is like a spoon stirring a glass of water, Sizheng Ma explained.

The resulting swirl in space creates the ripple of gravitational waves that travel at the speed of light in all directions.

If the metaphorical spoon is stirring close enough to the black hole's event horizon, "this offers us a chance to decode the physics around that region", Sizheng Ma said.

By supporting the theory of general relativity, the results "proved that Einstein was correct again," he added.

The scientists emphasized that more research was needed to decipher what can be gleaned about event horizons using this method.

But they did detect information about how black holes twist space around themselves as they rotate -- a phenomenon known as "frame dragging".

"This is similar to pushing a glass into a table and twisting it, so that the tablecloth winds up around it," Maximiliano Isi, a gravitational wave astrophysicist at Columbia University, told AFP.

In the future, the team of scientists hope to find signs of tiny changes known as quantum fluctuation.

"In this way, we can really probe this near horizon region to look for a new physics," including searching for a deviation from general relativity, Sizheng Ma said.

- Reaction mixed -

Experts not involved in the study urged caution.

Francesco Sannino, an Italian theoretical physicist who studies black holes, told AFP it was "compelling analysis" but needed to be checked by other researchers.

Still, it was "striking" that the scientists were able to show that gravitational waves carried the event horizon's "fingerprints," he said.

The astrophysicist Isi described the work as "tantalizing".

"More generally, understanding the physics of black holes and their mergers is important as it might shed light on how space and time are woven together at a more fundamental level," he told AFP.

Sean McWilliams, an astrophysicist at West Virginia University, was skeptical that the gravitational wave frequency analyzed by the scientists was actually "dictated" by the event horizon.

For this reason, "the actual observed signal doesn't really tell us anything about the horizon or the other properties directly related to it", he told AFP.

Sizheng Ma said McWilliams's statement was "not correct," suggesting he had conflated two different aspects in the paper.

"There is often considerable resistance and criticism in the early stages of promoting a new concept," he said, adding he is working on another paper to "clarify these confusions and possible misinterpretations".

Varieties

Asteroid Zooming Past Earth on Saturday Visible to Stargazers

FILE PHOTO: A nighttime view of Earth, derived from satellite images taken daily over the past decade, capturing human activity on the planet through the emissions of artificial light, is seen in this image released on April 8, 2026. Michala Garrison/NASA Earth Observatory/Handout via REUTERS
FILE PHOTO: A nighttime view of Earth, derived from satellite images taken daily over the past decade, capturing human activity on the planet through the emissions of artificial light, is seen in this image released on April 8, 2026. Michala Garrison/NASA Earth Observatory/Handout via REUTERS
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Asteroid Zooming Past Earth on Saturday Visible to Stargazers

FILE PHOTO: A nighttime view of Earth, derived from satellite images taken daily over the past decade, capturing human activity on the planet through the emissions of artificial light, is seen in this image released on April 8, 2026. Michala Garrison/NASA Earth Observatory/Handout via REUTERS
FILE PHOTO: A nighttime view of Earth, derived from satellite images taken daily over the past decade, capturing human activity on the planet through the emissions of artificial light, is seen in this image released on April 8, 2026. Michala Garrison/NASA Earth Observatory/Handout via REUTERS

A large asteroid that will zoom harmlessly past Earth on Saturday will be visible to stargazers using a small telescope or large binoculars, the European Space Agency announced Wednesday.

The asteroid will come within 2,560,000 kilometers of Earth at 1114 GMT on Saturday, which is more than six times the distance between the Earth and the Moon.

Called (152637) 1997 NC1, the asteroid will be speeding along at nearly nine kilometers a second, posing no threat to Earth as any chance of an impact has been ruled out.

Discovered in 1997, the asteroid is estimated to be between 750 and 1,650 meters wide, according to calculations based on how much sunlight it reflects.

However other estimates suggest it could be smaller, AFP quoted the ESA as saying in a statement.

"A close approach to Earth by an object this size only occurs every few years, although this time the bright nearby Moon might impede its observability at closest approach," Juan Luis Cano of the ESA's Planetary Defense Office said in a statement.

For stargazers with telescopes or binoculars, the asteroid will be visible in parts of the Northern Hemisphere as it approaches, almost everywhere as it speeds past Earth, and only from the Southern Hemisphere as it departs.

But this depends if people are in areas of the world where the sky is dark enough as it passes.

Varieties

Think Tank: Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei Face High Risk of Severe Haze this Year

People stop by a cafe with murals painted on its facade in the Arab Street district of Singapore on June 16, 2026. (Photo by Roslan RAHMAN / AFP)
People stop by a cafe with murals painted on its facade in the Arab Street district of Singapore on June 16, 2026. (Photo by Roslan RAHMAN / AFP)
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Think Tank: Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei Face High Risk of Severe Haze this Year

People stop by a cafe with murals painted on its facade in the Arab Street district of Singapore on June 16, 2026. (Photo by Roslan RAHMAN / AFP)
People stop by a cafe with murals painted on its facade in the Arab Street district of Singapore on June 16, 2026. (Photo by Roslan RAHMAN / AFP)

Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei face a high risk of severe haze this year due to hot and dry weather conditions, biofuel demand and economic pressures, a research institute said Wednesday.

The Singapore Institute of International Affairs said it was the second time it had issued a red risk rating since launching its Haze Outlook report in 2019. The previous red risk rating was in ⁠2023, Reuters reported.

Here are some ⁠details:

August to September is the peak danger period for haze in the Southeast Asian region, driven by the El Niño and Indian Ocean Dipole weather phenomena, the report said.

The ⁠return of El Niño is expected to create a longer and stronger dry season at a time when fire preparedness could be adversely affected by economic uncertainty and cost pressures.

The SIIA said rising costs of fertilizer and fuel as a result of the Iran war could lead to unsustainable activity such as the use ⁠of ⁠fire rather than machinery to clear land and dispose of waste.

Land use could also intensify as demand for biofuels rises due to energy supply disruptions.

"This trend will continue even if the US-Iran agreement holds, as countries now want energy independence," said SIIA associate director Khor Yu-Leng.

ASEAN cooperation and sustainable land management will be critical to reducing risks, the report said.