Hawaii’s Mauna Loa Observatory has reported that worldwide carbon dioxide levels reached a new record high in April, hitting 410.31 parts per million (ppm). This is the highest concentration of this greenhouse gas seen over the course of human history–and prehistory, for that matter–as the Earth’s atmosphere hasn’t seen CO2 levels this high in well over 800,000 years, and possibly as long as 20 million years.
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On April 15, 2018, asteroid 2018 GE3 set a record as the largest-known asteroid of its size to make a close pass to the Earth–and at less than half the distance between the Earth and the Moon, that’s a fairly close shave. The 48 to 110 meter (157 to 361-foot) object is between three to six times the size of the object that exploded over Chelyabinsk, Russia in 2013.

2018 GE3 was only spotted by the Catalina Sky Survey the day before its close, 193,000-kilometre (120,000-mile) pass, moving at 29.5 km/s, or 66,000 mph. As it whizzed away from us it passed even closer to the Moon, only one-third the distance between La Luna and Terra Firma.
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We at Unknowncountry.com are close to a deployment date for our new website. We expect this date to be in the next two weeks and will keep our users informed both here and in our newsletter. All the great features you’re used to will remain, and our entire archive will stay intact, including all news stories and all programming. It will not be possible to subscribe to the site again until after the new site is deployed. Current subscriber access is unaffected.

The new site will provide a much richer user experience. The free public message board and subscriber chat rooms will both return, and we will be expanding Dreamland and our podcast offering over the next few months.
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