The League to Save Lake Tahoe has been leading litter clean-up efforts for the area's beaches and water for years.

Volunteers can easily pick up large pieces of trash, but smaller pieces of plastic can eventually still find their way into the water after sinking into the sand.

That's a problem the league is looking to solve with help from a new robot.

It's called "BEBOT."

It's fully electric, solar-powered and remote-controlled by someone walking behind it.

BEBOT's job? Comb through the top few inches of sand to sift out otherwise unseen litter.

“This robot is really getting the plastics and the litter just out of our view that could end up in our lake and really cause some damage," said Jesse Patterson, Chief Strategy Officer for the League, which operates under the slogan "Keep Tahoe Blue."

Patterson said the robot has been compared to a giant Roomba or a Zamboni. But the rover-like machine is far smaller than that.

"It's very compact, no emissions, very light pressure on the ground so it's not going to disturb things like our native Tahoe Yellow Cress," Patterson said.

A company called Eco Clean Solutions, which is based in France, built BEBOT along with several other robots like it.

BEBOT made its U.S. debut in Florida. This week's test event at Lake Tahoe was the first run for the robot on the West Coast.

In ideal conditions, the robot can crawl along at 3,000 meters (just under 2 miles) per hour. As it moves along, it sweeps and sifts the top 1 to 4 inches of sand, removing pieces of trash.

"We really see the robot as the last line of defense for the lake for keeping small pollution and litter, plastics in particular from getting in the water in the first place," Patterson said.

After that, volunteers sort the trash and log what they've found.

BEBOT is in a pilot phase this year while the League determines the most effective way to utilize it.

Patterson said that Keep Tahoe Blue will still organize regular clean-up events. He also urges all visitors to prioritize being responsible stewards of the environment.

"Leave it better than you found it," Patterson said. "Come enjoy this place, but pack it in, pack it out. It sounds silly and simple but it really matters here in Tahoe."

The first of four supermoons to rise in 2023, July’s lunar display will appear to be brighter in the night sky than any other full moon event that has occurred this year.

The full moon will rise on Monday, July 3, and reach peak illumination below the horizon at 7:39 a.m. ET, according to The Old Farmer’s Almanac. Local weather conditions allowing, you can view the celestial event by looking to the southeast after the sun sets.

“A supermoon is when the moon appears a little bit bigger in our sky,” said Dr. Shannon Schmoll, director of the Abrams Planetarium at Michigan State University. “As the moon goes around the Earth, it’s not a perfect circle. So, there are points in its orbit where it’s a little bit closer or a little bit farther from the Earth.”

When the orb reaches its full moon phase at a point in its path where it is closer to the Earth, it appears to be slightly larger and a supermoon occurs, Schmoll explained. While the size difference between a supermoon and a typical full moon may not be immediately apparent to the naked eye, The Old Farmer’s Almanac says the first full moon of summer will be more luminous and 224,895.4 miles (361,934 kilometers) from Earth.

This month’s moon is also known as the buck moon. July is typically when male deer’s antlers grow during an annual cycle of shedding and regrowth, according to the almanac.

There are several other names for the buck moon that come from Native American peoples, according to Western Washington University. Names like hot moon refer to summer weather while terms like raspberry moon and ripe corn moon signify the best times for harvesting fruit and other crops.

Full moons and supermoons

While most years have 12 full moons, 2023 will have 13 of these lunar events. There will be two supermoons in August, including a blue moon, which will be the closest moon to Earth this year, according to The Old Farmer’s Almanac. The fourth and final supermoon in 2023 will rise on September 29.

Here are the full moons remaining in 2023, according to the Farmer’s Almanac:

● August 1: Sturgeon moon

● August 30: Blue moon

● September 29: Harvest moon

● October 28: Hunter’s moon

● November 27: Beaver moon

● December 26: Cold moon

Lunar and solar eclipses

People across North, Central and South America will be able to see an annular solar eclipse on October 14. During the solar eclipse, the moon will pass between the sun and Earth at or near its farthest point from Earth. The moon will appear smaller than the sun and encircled by a glowing halo.

To avoid damage to the eyes, viewers should wear eclipse glasses.

A partial lunar eclipse will also take place on October 28. Only part of the moon will pass into shadow as the sun, Earth and moon will not completely align. This partial eclipse will be viewable in Europe, Asia, Australia, parts of North America and much of South Africa.

Meteor showers

Each of the nine remaining meteor showers expected to peak this year will be most visible from late evening until dawn in areas without light pollution. Here are the events’ peak dates:

● Southern Delta Aquariids: July 30-31

● Alpha Capricornids: July 30-31

● Perseids: August 12-13

● Orionids: October 20-21

● Southern Taurids: November 4-5

● Northern Taurids: November 11-12

● Leonids: November 17-18

● Geminids: December 13-14

● Ursids: December 21-22

Fans of astronomy will be in for a treat as a special event is set to happen Monday night.

That's when Jupiter is set to make its closest approach to Earth since 1963, NASA said.

According to the space agency, the solar system's largest planet will be approximately 367 million miles in distance from Earth as opposed to its farthest distance of roughly 600 million miles.

NASA said the gas planet would appear bigger and brighter because of its opposition, which means that it'll be directly opposite the Sun in the sky as viewed from Earth.

“With good binoculars, the banding (at least the central band) and three or four of the Galilean satellites (moons) should be visible,” said NASA research astrophysicist Adam Kobelski in a blog post. “It’s important to remember that Galileo observed these moons with 17th-century optics. One of the key needs will be a stable mount for whatever system you use.”

Kobelski says the best place to view the unique event will be a high elevated spot in a dark and dry area.

NASA on Monday conducted the first ever mission to intentionally crash a spacecraft into an asteroid.

Watch the video above to see what Elizabeth Gabeler, who was on the team that helped design the Dart spacecraft, had to say about it

The mission was part of a long-term goal of being ready to handle the threat — while not imminent or likely — of a large asteroid hitting Earth. The $325 million mission was the first attempt to shift the position of an asteroid or any other natural object in space.

The galactic grand slam occurred at a harmless asteroid 7 million miles away, with the spacecraft named Dart plowing into the small space rock at 14,000 mph. Scientists expected the impact to carve out a crater, hurl streams of rocks and dirt into space and, most importantly, alter the asteroid’s orbit.

Monday’s target: a 525-foot asteroid named Dimorphos. It’s actually a moonlet of Didymos, Greek for twin, a fast-spinning asteroid five times bigger that flung off the material that formed the junior partner.

The pair have been orbiting the sun for eons without threatening Earth, making them ideal save-the-world test candidates.

Launched last November, the vending machine-size Dart — short for Double Asteroid Redirection Test — navigated to its target using new technology developed by Johns Hopkins University’s Applied Physics Laboratory, the spacecraft builder and mission manager.

Dart’s on-board camera, a key part of this smart navigation system, caught sight of Dimorphos barely an hour before impact.

Two far-off planets are likely made of water, according to research conducted using NASA's Hubble and Spitzer telescopes.

The so-called "water worlds" are orbiting a red dwarf star, the smallest and coolest kind of star, according to a news release from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

The aqueous planets are 218 light-years away in the constellation Lyra, says NASA. And they're "unlike any planets found in our solar system," the agency said.

The finding that the planets are likely composed of mostly water comes from a study published in the journal Nature Astronomy on Thursday. A research team led by Caroline Piaulet, a Ph.D. student at the University of Montreal's Institute for Research on Exoplanets, used NASA's Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes to observe the distant planetary system.

The planetary system they studied is called Kepler-138 because it's located within the field of vision of NASA's Kepler spacecraft. Researchers have known about the existence of three exoplanets — the term for planets outside our solar system — within the Kepler-138 system but have only just discovered two of them are likely made out of water.

They also discovered evidence for a fourth planet that hadn't been described before.

But the finding isn't as straightforward as it might seem. The scientists didn't directly detect water at exoplanets Kepler-138c and Kepler-138d. Instead, they compared the sizes and masses of the planets to models for comparison.

When they compared the planets to the models, they found "that a significant fraction of their volume — up to half of it — should be made of materials that are lighter than rock but heavier than hydrogen or helium."

Water is the likeliest candidate for a material that's lighter than rock but heavier than hydrogen or helium, says NASA.

"We previously thought that planets that were a bit larger than Earth were big balls of metal and rock, like scaled-up versions of Earth, and that's why we called them super-Earths," said Björn Benneke, the study's co-author and professor of astrophysics at the University of Montreal, in the release. "However, we have now shown that these two planets, Kepler-138c and d, are quite different in nature and that a big fraction of their entire volume is likely composed of water."

"It is the best evidence yet for water worlds, a type of planet that was theorized by astronomers to exist for a long time," Benneke went on.

The high temperatures on these planets mean they might be enveloped in an atmosphere of steam, according to NASA.

"The temperature in Kepler-138d's atmosphere is likely above the boiling point of water, and we expect a thick, dense atmosphere made of steam on this planet," Piaulet said in the release. "Only, under that steam atmosphere there could potentially be liquid water at high pressure, or even water in another phase that occurs at high pressures, called a supercritical fluid."

The "water worlds" are outside their star's habitable zone — the area in which temperatures allow liquid water on the surface of a rocky planet, potentially supporting life. But the new planet described by the researchers, Kepler 138-e, does fall into that just-right zone, according to the release.

This story was first published on CNN.com, "‘Unlike any planets found in our solar system:’ These two planets are probably made of water, study finds"

Three years on since the COVID-19 outbreak turned into a global pandemic and another new coronavirus variant has surfaced.

The omicron subvariant named XBB.1.5 has caused just over 40% of new coronavirus infections in the United States, the CDC says.

About 75% of new coronavirus cases in the Northeastern U.S. are from the XBB.1.5 strain.

Dr. Barbara Mahon, director of the CDC's proposed Coronavirus and Other Respiratory Viruses Division, said, "We're projecting that it's going to be the dominant variant in the Northeast region of the country and that it's going to increase in all regions of the country," CBS News reported.

Dr. Michael Osterholm, an infectious disease expert at the University of Minnesota, said, "Probably the worst variant that the world is facing right now is actually XBB," according to Reuters.

Dr. Jay Varma of Cornell Medicine said this is a very "precarious" time for the U.S. health care system and public health experts worry about a possible surge in infections.

Varma also said that Americans shouldn't be overly alarmed as the variant is expected to cause similar issues seen earlier this year, he told PBS.

Experts urge the public to take similar precautions as people were asked to do earlier in the year and last year to slow the spread, including wearing a mask whenever possible, such as when traveling.

The CDC said that at this point, there isn't the belief that "XBB.1.5 is more severe" compared to COVID-19.

Public health officials also haven't reported additional symptoms tied to the XBB.1.5 strain outside of symptoms listed with previous variants and COVID-19.

Axios reported that in October, health officials deemed the XBB.1.5 variant as well suited to evade COVID-19 immunity.

A Wall Street Journal report pointed to health experts who have highlighted studies suggesting that this new variant can evade existing vaccines, antibodies from prior infections along with existing monoclonal antibody treatments.

A study in the journal Nature said, “Such rapid and simultaneous emergence of multiple variants with enormous growth advantages is unprecedented.”

Whether it's wildfires that sweep across the West Coast, storms rolling in from the Pacific Ocean, or dense fog that blankets the Pacific Northwest, a new weather satellite will be able to track them all.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration will launch GOES-T, the third in its series of advanced geostationary weather satellites, on March 1 from Cape Canaveral, Florida. Once the satellite is in orbit, it will be renamed GOES-18 and monitor weather that impacts the western United States, Alaska, Hawaii, Mexico, Central America and the Pacific Ocean.

The satellite will provide our most sophisticated and sharpest look yet at what Earth's Western Hemisphere looks like from 22,236 miles (35,785 kilometers) above the planet.

GOES-T is equipped with a suite of instruments that can provide measurements of the atmosphere, map lightning in real-time and send back stunning ultra high-definition images. Its continuous collection of data will improve weather forecasting on Earth.

Together with the GOES-16 satellite, which launched in 2016, the two will actively monitor more than half the globe, spanning from the west coast of Africa to New Zealand.

"The observations from these satellites are even more critical now, when the U.S. is experiencing a record number of billion-dollar disasters," said Pam Sullivan, director of NOAA's GOES-R program, during a press conference. "Compared to the previous generation, GOES-R satellites deliver 60 times more imagery, and they have a new lightning camera to track severe storms that spawn tornadoes and damaging winds."

The northeastern part of the Pacific Ocean is where many of the storms that impact the U.S. begin.

"Since many of the weather systems of the United States move from west to east, GOES-T will improve model forecasts for the entire country," said James Yoe, chief administrative officer for the Joint Center for Satellite Data Assimilation, during a press conference on Tuesday.

And it's not just reporting back weather on Earth -- GOES-18 will also keep an eye on solar storms and space weather, providing early warnings ahead of any possible disruptions to our power grid on Earth.

Tracking dangerous conditions

Flooding and mudslides in coastal areas can often be traced to a type of weather phenomena called atmospheric rivers. These "rivers in the sky" deliver columns of water vapor from the tropics and release rain or snow when they make landfall, according to NOAA. Hurricanes that form in the Pacific can spin toward Hawaii or Mexico.

The GOES-T satellite will provide better monitoring of both types of weather events.

Warm ocean surface temperatures can contribute to the formation of hurricanes, so the satellite's monitoring of these increases could provide early warning about hurricane formation.

The satellite's capabilities will also help weather forecasters track and monitor tropical storms and hurricanes practically in real time, sharing data about the storm's structure and features, wind speeds, and lightning. All of these factors can be used to calculate the intensity of a storm.

Tracking rising ocean temperatures can also allow for better monitoring of marine heat waves that cause coral bleaching events en masse and alter entire marine ecosystems.

Wildfires are another hazard for those living in much of the western U.S., and GOES-18 is armed with a multitude of ways to spot and peer inside the destructive nature of these extreme events.

The satellite will be able to find wildfire hotspots, detect changes in the behavior of the fire, and predict its motion, as well as estimate the intensity, smoke output and air quality. It will also have the accuracy to identify the lightning strikes most likely to cause these fires and detect the pyrocumulonimbus clouds that form over wildfires.

These massive clouds can stretch for miles. A dangerous combination of their size and heat allows the clouds to create their own weather and threaten firefighters trapped beneath them.

"The Advanced Baseline Imager, or ABI, is ideal for detecting the thermal signature, or the hot spots, from the fires," said Dan Lindsey, NOAA's GOES-R program scientist, during the press conference. "Sometimes, it's even able to detect the fires before they're reported from the public. This is really critical information to get to firefighters so that they can take care of the fires before they can become out of control."

The satellite's ABI can scan our planet five times faster with four times the resolution of previous geostationary satellites. And the instrument recently surprised NOAA scientists with another previously unknown capability: detecting pressure waves from volcanic eruptions, which they were able to do after the recent Tonga eruption.

And the GOES satellites don't just monitor Earth. They have specialized instruments that image the sun and spot solar flares and monitor incoming space radiation particles. Without proper tracking or early warnings, this space weather can damage satellites that provide the basis for our communications and GPS, as well as spacecraft like the International Space Station.

Once GOES-18 is operational, it will replace the current GOES-17 satellite, which will remain in orbit as a spare. Post-launch testing of GOES-17 in 2018 revealed an issue with the cooling system on the satellite's imager, leading to a loss of imagery from time to time. This issue was corrected in the ABI for GOES-18, which will effectively replace GOES-17's monitoring of the western hemisphere.

The agency anticipates that the first imagery and data from GOES-18 will be available in the summer of 2023.

An enormous asteroid that is nearly as large as two Empire State Buildings passed safely by Earth on Tuesday astronomers said.

NASA classifies the object as "potentially hazardous," yet the asteroid was always expected to move past our planet safely at 43,754 mph at a distance of 1.2 million miles away from Earth, according to NASA.

While the distance from Earth sounds safe, astronomers still consider it close for an object of its size. Scientists say there is no danger of a collision with Earth but that the object is still classified as having the potential to be hazardous.

NASA JPL

The Virtual Telescope Project, based in Italy's capital city Rome, live-streamed the asteroid, called 7482 (1994 PC1), as it was set to pass Earth. Streaming began live at 3 p.m. EST on Tuesday just before the object was at its closest approach to Earth.

Virtual Telescope Project's founder Gianluca Masi wrote on their livestream page that the "Virtual Telescope Project will show it live online, just at the fly-by time, when it will peak in brightness."

According to Live Science, 7482 (1994 PC1) would make its closest approach to our planet Tuesday at 4:51 p.m. EST.

Watch here:
https://youtu.be/xLrj1xa43pw

Humans were not the only ones who wanted 2020 to be over faster. The Earth spun faster than normal last year, according to scientists.

Last year, the Earth broke the previous record for shortest astronomical day, set in 2005. In fact, the Earth broke the record 28 times in 2020. And it's still spinning faster.

While Earth is, on average, pretty reliable and takes 86,400 seconds to rotate around its axis, it’s not perfect.

"When highly accurate atomic clocks were developed in the 1960s, they showed that the length of a mean solar day can vary by milliseconds (1 millisecond equals 0.001 seconds),” write Graham Jones and Konstantin Bikos on TimeandDate.com.

How fast or slow the Earth spins can be impacted by various factors.

"Changes in the atmosphere, specifically atmospheric pressure around the world, and the motions of the winds that may be related to such climate signals as El Niño are strong enough that their effect is observed in the Earth’s rotation signal," David A. Salstein, an atmospheric scientist from Atmospheric and Environmental Research, said in 2003.

These variations can add up. LiveScience reports the Earth has actually been slowing down for the last several decades. When the time it takes earth to make a full rotation deviates from the Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) by more than .4 seconds, the UTC is adjusted.

Scientists have been adding a “leap second” every year-and-a-half on average. The last one was added on December 31, 2016.

Since the Earth has sped up, scientists believe each astronomical day in 2021 will be 0.05 milliseconds shorter, and over the course of the year, it adds up to a 19 millisecond difference.

"It's quite possible that a negative leap second will be needed if the Earth's rotation rate increases further, but it's too early to say if this is likely to happen," physicist Peter Whibberley of the National Physics Laboratory in the U.K., told The Telegraph. "There are also international discussions taking place about the future of leap seconds, and it's also possible that the need for a negative leap second might push the decision towards ending leap seconds for good."

The average person may not notice a leap second being taken away or the ones that have been added, but they will impact things like navigation, spaceflight, computer networks and astronomers.

The last time every day of a calendar year was shorter than 86,400 seconds was in 1937, according to TimeandDate.com.