Climate change has now become a problem for the entire solar system. On Friday, wildfires in Spain destroyed one of the three observatories used by the US National Space Administration to communicate with spacecraft, including. Traveler 1James Webb Space Telescope, and recently completed Mission of Artemis near the Moon.
Spain declared a wildfire emergency as dozens of fires burned out of control near Madrid, with an evacuation order in place for 60,000 people. The affected area includes Robledo de Chavela, a municipality near the Deep Space Communications Complex operated by NASA.
Dramatic images captured by news photographers showed the radio telescopes engulfed in smoke and flames. A NASA spokesperson said in an email to WIRED that the agency was able to evacuate all employees.
They added that while the fire has now passed through the investigation building, it is not yet clear what effect the fire may have had on the sensitive equipment inside. “Any potential damage will be assessed if it is safe to do so,” the spokesman said. They add that if conditions permit, the site assessment can be done as soon as Saturday.
For now, NASA said “it has transferred support for mission operations to the Goldstone Deep Space Communications Complex in California, ensuring continuity of service and uninterrupted support for spacecraft communications.”
What does the Spanish Center, along with others in Canberra, Australia, and Goldstone, California, do? NASA is calling “the largest and most sensitive scientific communication system in the world.” This network allows NASA to transmit information from Earth to spacecraft, including the most distant human-made probe in our solar system, Voyager 1. It is also used to transfer data from The James Webb Space Telescope and send commands to other spacecraft. Oh, and the site also contributes to radio astronomy. Suffice it to say, it is a very important collection of instruments for understanding the solar system.
Spain is far from the only country facing a wildfire crisis. Fires are also raging in France, where beachgoers saw orange skies and waves washing ash ashore as firefighters struggled to contain the blaze in the capital city known as the Bordeaux wine region.
“We learned in the middle of the afternoon that, following a change in the wind, it has become a large self-sustaining fire that is very difficult to control,” French interior minister Laurent Nunez said. he told the national television channel Tf1. “It is now heading east, towards the Bordeaux capital area. We will reorganize our response so that we can fight it from the ground and stop it from moving forward.”
Approx 200,000 people they have been told to move to the two countries.
Europe has seen record high temperatures this summer, driven by repeated heat waves concentrated over the continent and Britain, as well as climate change. Hot weather can dry out vegetation, causing forests to burn when struck by stray sparks. Similar stories have played out in other parts of the world recently, from Ontario, Canadafor the Pacific Northwest of the United States.
Cooler weather is expected to arrive in the Mediterranean by the end of the week, which should help firefighters get a handle on the blaze. But the respite will be short-lived: Temperatures are expected to rise again on Monday and continue to rise throughout the week, eventually reaching 10 degrees Celsius (18 degrees Fahrenheit) above normal. That could fuel wildfires in Spain or France that are still burning—or help start new ones.
