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A28 SCIENCE
Thursday 17 OcTOber 2019
NASA moves up 1st all-female spacewalk to fix power unit

By MARCIA DUNN spring, but had to cancel
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. it because of a shortage of
(AP) — NASA is moving up readily available medium-
the first all-female space- size suits. Koch helped as-
walk to this week because semble an extra medium
of a power system failure suit over the summer.
at the International Space "Very good that we have
Station. 4 expert spacewalkers
Astronauts Christina Koch on board to shoulder this
and Jessica Meir will now tough task. They are the A-
venture out Thursday or team!" tweeted astronaut
Friday, instead of next Anne McClain, who would
Monday, to deal with the have gone spacewalking
problem. It will be the first with Koch in March if not for
spacewalk by only women the suit-sizing issue.
in more than a half-century While all four — two men
of spacewalking. and two women — are
A critical battery charger equally trained for the re-
failed over the weekend, pair job, Koch and Meir are
prompting the change, the right choices given the
NASA officials said Monday. future spacewalking work-
The women will replace the load, officials noted.
broken component, rather Since the first spacewalk in
than install new batteries, 1965, there have been 227
which was their original job. In this image released Friday, Oct. 4, 2019, by NASA, astronauts Christina Koch, right, and, Jessica spacewalkers, only 14 of
Meir pose for a photo on the International Space Station. NASA has moved up the first all-female
Last week, astronauts con- spacewalk to Thursday, Oct. 17, 2019, or Friday because of a power system failure at the Interna- them women. Meir will be
ducted the first two of five tional Space Station. making her first spacewalk
spacewalks to replace old Associated Press and become No. 15. All but
batteries that make up the one of these women has
station's solar power net- amount of charge going "It's absolutely a concern at its six occupants are safe, been American.
work. The remaining space- to and from each battery. this point when you don't according to NASA, and The upcoming spacewalk
walks — originally sched- One didn't kick in Friday know what's going on," science operations are un- will be "absolutely ... an ex-
uled for this week and next night, preventing one of said Kenny Todd, a space affected. The current situ- citing event," said Megan
— have been delayed for the three newly installed station manager. "We're still ation is "manageable, but McArthur, deputy chief of
at least another few weeks lithium-ion batteries from scratching our heads look- again not something that NASA's astronaut corps.
so engineers can deter- working. The balky char- ing at the data. Hopefully, we would want to live with "The fact that it will be two
mine why the battery char- ger is 19 years old; the one we can clear that up in rel- in the long term," Todd told women just is a reflection
ger failed. It's the second that failed in the spring was atively short order." reporters. of the fact that we have so
such failure this year. almost as old. Only three Despite the slight loss of NASA originally planned an many capable, qualified
The devices regulate the spares remain available. power, the orbiting lab and all-female spacewalk last women in the office."q

Scientists discover big storms

can create 'stormquakes'

BY SETH BORENSTEIN one is standing on the sea there's a large continental
AP Science Writer floor during a hurricane, shelf and shallow flat land.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Sci- said Wenyuan Fan, a Flori- Fan's team found 14,077
entists have discovered a da State University seismol- stormquakes between Sep-
mash-up of two feared di- ogist who was the study's tember 2006 and February
sasters — hurricanes and lead author. 2015 in the Gulf of Mexico
earthquakes — and they're The combination of two and off Florida, New Eng-
calling them "stormquakes." frightening natural phe- land, Nova Scotia, New-
The shaking of the sea nomena might bring to foundland, Labrador and
This Wednesday, Aug. 24, 2011 NOAA satellite image shows Hur- floor during hurricanes and mind "Sharknado ," but stor- British Columbia. A special
ricane Irene, a category 2 storm with winds up to 100 mph and
located about 400 miles southeast of Nassau. nor'easters can rumble like mquakes are real and not type of military sensor is
Associated Press a magnitude 3.5 earth- dangerous. needed to spot them, Fan
quake and can last for "This is the last thing you said.
days, according to a study need to worry about," Fan Hurricane Ike in 2008 and
in this week's journal Geo- told The Associated Press. Hurricane Irene in 2011 set
physical Research Letters. Storms trigger giant waves off lots of stormquakes, the
The quakes are fairly com- in the sea, which cause an- study said.
mon, but they weren't no- other type of wave. These The shaking is a type that
ticed before because they secondary waves then in- creates a wave that seis-
were considered seismic teract with the seafloor — mologists don't normally
background noise. but only in certain places look for when monitoring
A stormquake is more an — and that causes the earthquakes, so that's why
oddity than something that shaking, Fan said. It only these have gone unno-
can hurt you, because no happens in places where ticed until now, Fan said.q