Jupiter’s Cyclones, Amazon’s Satellites and T. rex Collagen
Climate studies are paused, new satellites join the crowded skies, the Juno spacecraft studies Jupiter, and biotech companies will create T. rex leather (or will they?).
Anaissa Ruiz Tejada/Scientific American
Rachel Feltman: Happy Monday, listeners! And happy May. I hope the weather is pleasantly springy wherever you’re listening from. For Scientific American’s Science Quickly, I’m Rachel Feltman. Let’s kick off the month with a quick roundup of some science news you may have missed last week.
First, a crucial report on climate change is under threat. The National Climate Assessment, published by the federal government every few years since 2000, provides the most comprehensive look at how climate change is impacting the U.S. It looks at things like sea-level rise and wildfire smoke mitigation, as well as analyzes climate change’s impacts on areas including health, farming and the economy. Private companies, nonprofits, and state and local governments use the information in the assessment to help navigate the effects of climate change.
According to the Los Angeles Times, about 400 people were already at work on the next edition of the report, which is due in 2027 or 2028. Last Monday all of those volunteer authors were dismissed via an email that said “the scope of the [Sixth National Climate Assessment] is currently being reevaluated.” This comes several weeks after the Trump administration cut funding and staffing for the U.S. Global Change Research Program, which oversees the creation of the assessment.
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The release of the National Climate Assessment every four years is actually mandated by Congress. Under George W. Bush the report that should have come out in 2004 was released a few years late but it did come out. And that was thanks to a lawsuit led by environmental advocacy groups that forced the administration’s hand. So it’s probably not a bad idea to call up your representatives and ask them to make sure this congressionally mandated report isn’t stymied, but it’s also possible some of the entities that rely on the assessment will take legal action to save it.
In space news Amazon launched its first round of Internet satellites into orbit last Monday. The 27 Project Kuiper satellites are intended to circle about 400 miles [about 630 kilometers] above the Earth’s surface to provide broadband Internet coverage. Amazon reportedly plans to launch more than 3,200 of the small satellites into orbit, where they’ll join the more than 7,000 SpaceX Starlink satellites already in the sky. Reports indicate that SpaceX aims to have as many as 42,000 satellites in orbit in the future.
Back in late 2024 more than 100 astronomers signed an open letter asking the U.S. Federal Communications Commission to halt the launch of further satellites of this kind, which collectively form networks often referred to as mega constellations. The scientists called for more investigation into how these mega constellations will impact the environment. In addition to creating more and more space debris—which can damage other satellites and even spacecraft like the International Space Station—mega constellations have the potential to interfere with astronomical observations. The satellites that make up these networks can also damage the ozone layer and pollute the planet when they fall back down to Earth, which happens after a few years of operation.
Speaking of satellites, here’s a riddle for you: how do you go about weighing a few trillion trees? With a giant space umbrella, apparently. Last Tuesday the European Space Agency launched its Biomass satellite, nicknamed the “space brolly,” to study our planet’s forests. An estimated 1.5 trillion trees in Earth’s forests absorb around eight billion metric tons of carbon dioxide each year, but it’s difficult to estimate exactly how much carbon is getting stored—especially as forests are damaged and destroyed by human activities. The Biomass satellite will use a special type of radar to see through forest canopies and measure the woody material that stores most of the carbon.
Farther out in space, new data from NASA’s Juno spacecraft offers insights into the extreme environment of Jupiter and its moon Io. One of the most exciting findings focuses on Jupiter’s giant cyclones. While hurricanes on our planet typically pop up one by one—and tend to stay at lower latitudes—Jupiter has a consistent cluster of cyclones around its poles. One is quite close to the north pole itself, and another eight circle around it. After years of observing these cyclones scientists say they’ve seen the storms slowly drift toward the pole—but then bounce off one another when they get close. That could help explain why this set of storms is so stable.
Juno also provided an update on Io’s volcanic activity. This Jovian moon is constantly squeezed by the massive planet’s gravitational pull, which creates enough friction to melt parts of Io’s interior. That means Io has pretty much constant volcanic activity.
In December Juno spotted a massive new volcanic hotspot in Io’s southern hemisphere. Scientists estimated that the hotspot was nearly a third larger than Lake Superior and was spewing six times as much energy as all of Earth’s power plants combined.
According to the latest Juno data, that eruption was still spitting out ash and lava as of March 2. Scientists hope to observe it again during another close flyby on May 6.
We’ll end with a fun story—or maybe kind of a bummer of a debunking, depending on your perspective.
You may have seen some news stories last week claiming that lab-grown Tyrannosaurus rex leather could soon be used to craft wallets and purses. Those headlines stemmed from a press release issued by VML, a communications and marketing agency, in partnership with biotech companies Lab-Grown Leather Ltd. and the Organoid Company. The press release claims that together these companies will use fossilized T. rex collagen to engineer cells with synthetic DNA that mimic those found in dinosaur skin.
Can you guess where this is going? I bet you can. Two different experts told Live Science that the notion is misleading at best. Thomas Carr, director of the Carthage Institute of Paleontology in Wisconsin, told Live Science that scientists have an incomplete understanding of T. rex collagen because all the fossilized evidence we have of its amino acids are fragmented. He also pointed out that collagen is a pretty generic molecule across species, so even having a good sense of what T. rex collagen looked like at the cellular level wouldn’t necessarily help you create distinctly T. rex-esque skin. So yeah, whether you’re reading about mammoth mice, dire wolf puppies or dinosaur wallets, if you see someone promising to resurrect a prehistoric creature using the powers of genetic engineering, you should probably be pretty skeptical. And I promise if that changes, you will hear it here first.
That’s all for this week’s news roundup. We’ll be back on Wednesday to explore the benefits of strength training.
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Science Quickly is produced by me, Rachel Feltman, along with Fonda Mwangi, Kelso Harper, Naeem Amarsy and Jeff DelViscio. This episode was edited by Alex Sugiura. Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck fact-check our show. Our theme music was composed by Dominic Smith. Subscribe to Scientific American for more up-to-date and in-depth science news.
For Scientific American, this is Rachel Feltman. Have a great week!