New research reveals that New York City is sinking, primarily due to the weight of its tall buildings, exacerbating the threat of flooding from rising sea levels. The Guardian reports: The Big Apple may be the city that never sleeps but it is a city that certainly sinks, subsiding by approximately 1-2mm each year on average, with some areas of New York City plunging at double this rate, according to researchers. This sinking is exacerbating the impact of sea level rise which is accelerating at around twice the global average as the world's glaciers melt away and seawater expands due to global heating. The water that flanks New York City has risen by about 9in, or 22cm, since 1950 and major flooding events from storms could be up to four times more frequent than now by the end of the century due to the combination of sea level rise and hurricanes strengthened by climate change.

This trend is being magnified by the sheer bulk of New York City's built infrastructure. The researchers calculated that the city's structures, which include the famous Empire State Building and Chrysler Building, weigh a total of 1.68tn lbs, which is roughly equivalent to the weight of 140 million elephants. This enormous heft is pushing down on a jumble of different materials found in New York City's ground. While many of the largest buildings are placed upon solid bedrock, such as schist, there is a mixture of other sands and clays that have been build over, adding to a sinking effect that is naturally occurring anyway along much of the US east coast as the land reacts to the retreat of huge glaciers following the end of the last ice age. The research has been published in the journal Earth's Future.

NASA has selected Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin to create a lunar lander for an upcoming Artemis mission, with a $3.4 billion contract including an uncrewed "demonstration mission" followed by a human-crewed demo in 2029 for the Artemis V mission. The Verge reports: Currently, the plan for the Artemis V mission is for four astronauts to first fly to the Gateway space station on NASA's Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and the Orion spacecraft. Then, two astronauts will go to the Moon on Blue Origin's Blue Moon lander for "about a weeklong trip to the Moon's South Pole region," NASA said. Blue Origin is the second company to land a contract with NASA for a lunar lander for Artemis. SpaceX was the first, winning the sole contract in 2021, and Blue Origin lost a lawsuit against NASA over the decision later that year. However, NASA announced in 2022 that it would develop a second human lunar lander, inviting space companies to make proposals. "Adding another human landing system partner to NASA's Artemis program will increase competition, reduce costs to taxpayers, support a regular cadence of lunar landings, further invest in the lunar economy, and help NASA achieve its goals on and around the Moon in preparation for future astronaut missions to Mars," NASA said.