May 18, 2013 – NORTH KOREA – A 4.8 magnitude earthquake struck in the Yellow Sea, 76km WSW of Ongjin, North Korea. The earthquake struck under the sea at a depth of 13.50 km (8.39 mi). Many residents, living along coastal regions in South Korea, reported they felt the shaking inland. -TEP  

May 18, 2013

contribution Irene

May 18, 2013 – JAPAN - An earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 5.9 jolted northeastern Japan on Saturday, but no tsunami warning was issued, the Japan Meteorological Agency said. The earthquake was later upgraded by the USGS to a 6.0 magnitude. Tokyo Electric Power Co’s (9501.T) two nuclear plants in Fukushima reported no new irregularities after the quake, Kyodo news agency said. Onagawa nuclear plant in Miyagi prefecture further north also detected no irregularities, operator Tohoku Electric Power Co (9506.T) said. In Miyagi prefecture, where the shaking was the strongest, there were no information on injuries, Kyodo added. The United States Geological Survey recorded the quake at 6.1, with a depth of 20.5 miles. The epicenter of the quake was off the coast of Fukushima prefecture, more than 200 km (125 miles) northeast of Tokyo, where buildings also shook. A magnitude 9 earthquake in March 2011 in the northeast triggered a tsunami which killed about 16,000 people, with a further 3,000 still missing. The disaster caused meltdowns and crippled the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant. –Reuters India

May 18, 2013 – NORTH KOREA – North Korea has launched three short-range missiles into the Sea of Japan, apparently as part of a military drill, South Korea’s defense ministry said. US and South Korean forces had been on heightened alert for a medium-range ballistic missile test in recent weeks amid tensions triggered by North Korea’s nuclear test in February. “North Korea launched two guided missiles in the morning and another one in the afternoon,” a defense ministry spokesman said. “The missiles landed in the East Sea (Sea of Japan),” he said. South Korea was maintaining intense surveillance of the North and keeping a high-level of readiness to deal with any risky developments, he added. North Korea sometimes launches short-range missiles for tests or as part of military drills. “A more detailed analysis will be needed but the missiles launched may be a modified anti-ship missile or the KN-02 surface-to-surface missile derived from the Soviet era SS-21 that has a range of about 120 kilometers,” a Seoul official told Yonhap news agency. The launches followed a joint South Korea-US naval exercise this week, slammed by North Korea as a “wanton” provocation and rehearsal for war. A US defence official said last week that two North Korean Musudan medium-range missiles that had been primed for firing, as tensions flared in the run-up to the North’s national celebrations on April 15 had been moved from their launch site. Musudan missiles have an estimated range of 2,500 to 4,000 kilometres (1,500 to 2,500 miles), enough to reach South Korea and Japan and potentially US military bases on the Pacific island of Guam. US and South Korean officials had been worried that any test of the medium-range missiles would trigger a fresh surge in tensions, which escalated after the North carried out a nuclear test in February. UN sanctions imposed after the test triggered a cycle of escalating military tensions on the Korean peninsula that are only now beginning to subside. An aide to the Japanese prime minister returned home from a controversial trip to North Korea today, fuelling speculation that Pyongyang may be trying to thaw icy relations with Japan. At the height of the tensions, Pyongyang threatened pre-emptive nuclear strikes on the United States and South Korea. –Australian

May 18, 2013 – SPACE – It’s 1.7 miles long. Its surface is covered in a sticky black substance similar to the gunk at the bottom of a barbecue. If it impacted Earth, it would probably result in global extinction. Good thing it is just making a flyby. Asteroid 1998 QE2 will make its closest pass to Earth on May 31 at 1:59 p.m. PDT. Scientists are not sure where this unusually large space rock, which was discovered 15 years ago, originated from. But the mysterious sooty substance on its surface could indicate it may be the result of a comet that flew too close to the sun, said Amy Mainzer, who tracks near-Earth objects at Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La Cañada Flintridge. It might also have leaked out of the asteroid belt between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, she said. We will know more after the asteroid zips closer to Earth and scientists using the Deep Space Network antenna in Goldstone, Calif., and the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico can get a better look at it. Astronomers at both observatories plan to track it closely from May 30 to June 9, according to a JPL release. At its closest approach the asteroid will still be 3.6 million miles from our planet (about 15 times the distance between the Earth and the moon), but it will be close enough for these powerful radar antennas to see features as small as 12 feet across. “With radar we can transform an object from a point of light into a small world with its own characteristics,” Lance Benner, JPL’s principal investigator for Goldstone radar observations, said in a statement. There is no chance that asteroid 1998 QE2 could collide with Earth this go-around, and its next close approach won’t be until 2119. Still, Mainzer said the size of the asteroid, and its potential for mass destruction, should remind us that there are some scary things flying around in space. –LA Times

May 18, 2013 – SPACE – A massive explosion from a meteor which crashed into the Moon was visible to the naked eye on Earth, NASA says. A boulder-sized meteor slammed into the moon in March, causing an explosion so bright anyone looking up at the right moment would have spotted it, NASA said. NASA’s Meteoroid Environment Office is reporting the discovery of the brightest impact seen on the Moon in the eight years the monitoring program has run the National Geographic reports. About 300 lunar impacts have been logged over the years but this latest impact, from March 17, is considered much, much brighter than anything else observed. It is understood the space rock left a 20m-wide crater after it slammed into the Moon’s surface at 90,000km/h. “We have seen a couple of others in the ‘wow’ category but not this bright,” said Robert Suggs, manager of NASA’s Lunar Impact Monitoring Program at Marshall Spaceflight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. The blast lasted only about a single second and shone like a 4th magnitude star—making it bright enough to see with just the unaided eye. –Herald Sun

May 17, 2013 – WASHINGTON - Events takes a tragic and unprecedented turn in the latest film about the ultimate terror attack on Washington. White House Down is directed by action mastermind Roland Emmerich (Independence Day, Godzilla, The Patriot, The Day After Tomorrow, 2012, Anonymous) from a screenplay written by James Vanderbilt (The Amazing Spider-Man, The Losers, Zodiac). In the film, a Secret Service agent (Channing Tatum) is tasked with saving the life of the President of the United States of America (Jamie Foxx) after the White House is overtaken by a paramilitary group. It’s said to be an action-thriller to rival the likes of Die Hard. Maggie Gyllenhaal, James Woods, Richard Jenkins and Jason Clarke also star in the film. Columbia Pictures will be bringing Emmerich’s new action movie White House Down to theaters on June 28th, 2013 this summer. –First Showing

May 17, 2013 – OTTAWA, CAN – Earthquakes Canada is reporting a 5.1-magnitude earthquake just west of Ottawa that was felt as far away as Toronto. The federal agency that monitors earthquakes revised its original report, saying it registered a 5.1-magnitude temblor with an epicenter located about 21 kilometers (13 miles) northeast of Shawville, Quebec, about an hour’s drive outside Ottawa. It was felt as far west as Toronto, Canada’s largest city, but no damage was immediately reported. Twitter erupted with reports of buildings shaking in Ottawa for several seconds. Ontario’s premier, who lives in Toronto, tweeted that her house was shaking. Ontario Provincial Police in Arnprior, Ontario, not far from the epicenter, say they have received no reports of damage. The original report said a 4.8-magnitude quake was centered near the town of Braeside, Ontario. –HP