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Today’s scientific bulletin titles: – A partial solar eclipse from Iceland to the Middle East – The largest collection of Einstein documents will be the pillar of treasures in a future museum in Israel – Plastic recycling is still an “illusion”, according to Greenpeace
Large areas of the northern hemisphere will witness a partial solar eclipse this Tuesday.
In a phenomenon that lasts two hours and will not lead to complete darkness in broad daylight, a partial solar eclipse will occur between this morning and noon this Tuesday, affecting Iceland and India, passing through Europe and the Middle East.
Residents of the concerned areas will be able to see the eclipse provided the weather is good, but they must be careful by looking at the sun with appropriate and new glasses, to avoid eye burns.
The difference between a total solar eclipse and a partial eclipse is that a total eclipse occurs when the sun, the moon and the earth are aligned in a straight line and the alignment is perfect so that the cone of the moon’s shadow touches the surface of the earth and obstructs the entire solar disk, blocking the sun’s rays from the earth. As for the partial solar eclipse that many Arab countries will experience this Tuesday, it is the sixteenth in the twenty-first century, and the second this year.
But this time, the moon’s shadow will not touch the Earth and it will not be possible to witness the complete disappearance of the sun’s disk anywhere in the world. We only have to wait until August 12, 2026, to experience the phenomenon of the total eclipse of the sun, which will witness a blackout of 92%, according to the French Institute of Celestial Mechanics and the calculation of the ephemeris of the Paris Observatory.
The Israeli government will allocate millions of dollars to create a museum of Einstein documents.
On the Hebrew University’s Givat Ram campus in Jerusalem, a museum will be established that will house the largest collection of documents by German physicist Albert Einstein. The Israeli government had pledged to pay about six million dollars, while the university had to raise an additional 12 million dollars to start building the museum.
Albert Einstein, considered among the greatest theoretical physicists in history, was one of the founding fathers of the Hebrew University. He left his archives for the university when he died in 1955 at the age of 76.
The archive represents the world’s largest collection of Einstein’s documents, with 85,000 items and the future museum will serve as an “innovative space for science and technology education”, according to the Hebrew University.
The museum will display Einstein’s contributions to science, the impact of his discoveries on our lives today, his public activism, and his participation in key historical moments.
Note that Einstein’s theories of relativity revolutionized physics by introducing new ways of looking at the motion of things in space and time.
Einstein also made major contributions to the theory of quantum mechanics and was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1921.
The circular economy of plastics has been described by Greenpeace as an “illusion” since plastic recycling rates are low compared to production.
American homes generated 51 million tons of plastic waste in 2021, while only 2.4 million tons were recycled. This came in the context of a special report by Greenpeace on plastic, which pointed out that plastic recycling rates have been declining since China specifically stopped accepting plastic waste from the West in 2018.
The Greenpeace report cited five reasons for the decline in plastic recycling.
The first is that the amount of plastic waste is difficult to collect all, and even if it were, it would be “virtually impossible to sort out trillions of products”, because it is not possible to recycle all of the waste together.
In addition, plastic recycling processes are considered harmful to the environment because they produce microplastics, and workers in recycling plants are exposed to inhaling toxic chemicals.
The fourth reason that prevents recycling a lot is the difficulty of using recycled plastics as food packaging because it can lead to poisoning.
On the other hand, recycling is very expensive, according to Greenpeace. The organization’s report emphasized that “new plastic is in direct competition with that of recycled”, because “new plastic production is much cheaper and its quality is better.”
For all these reasons, Greenpeace has called for priority to be given to non-plastic containers that can be reused, and urged companies to support an international treaty to combat plastic pollution that the United Nations launched negotiations this year.