Key Takeaways  The Ganges is one of the 10 most polluted rivers in the world. Pollutants come from human activity along the riverbanks, with three quarters of it coming from sewage and waste disposal. Cremation alongside the banks if incomplete, adds decomposing corpses and body parts to the water.India's great Ganges, the 1,569-mile holy river that rises in the Himalayas and traverses northern India before emptying into the Bay of Bengal, is now at the point of ultrapollution. As a lifeline to hundreds of millions of people, it supplies drinking, bathing and irrigation water that sustains life.However, Ganges river pollution puts both people and wildlife at risk of disease and toxic waste. In the same way that people are littering the world's highest peak, human pressure has made the Ganges one of the ten most polluted rivers in the world. River clean up is vital.River Ganges in Indian LifeThe River Ganges supports many areas of life in India. Hindus consider the river as holy, and as such, it supports ceremonial functions along its length. Not only is the water believed to be sacred and purifying, but the river itself forms an important part of the death ritual. Cremation alongside the Ganges and scattering ashes into the waters ensures passage into the afterlife for believers.For the living, bathing in the Ganges is purifying, both physically and through spiritually washing away sins. Each year, devotees gather along the river to worship and scatter offerings.The river and its many tributaries also support basic water needs for populations along its course. According to a BioMed Central article, around 400 million people draw water for bathing, cooking and agriculture from the river, often very close to where sanitation drains empty sewage and industrial effluent into the water course. As populations increase, pressure on the river rises, and Ganges river pollution hits critical levels.Sources of Ganges River PollutionPollutants come from human activity along the riverbanks, with more than one billion gallons of waste entering each day, according to The New Yorker. Alteration in water flow from dams and irrigation canals, where reduced flow causes stagnation and concentration, compounds the problem.Three-quarters of this is organic, coming from human sewage and waste disposal. A Reuters infographic notes the volume as around 4.8 billion liters (almost 1.3 billion gallons) of sewage every day, exceeding the treatment capacity of only one billion liters per day.Pipes discharge raw, untreated sewage directly into the Ganges. As a 2016 report showed, only 78% of India's sewage is treated. At heavily populated outflows, the levels of fecal coliforms — an indication of raw sewage contamination — are hundreds of times higher than safe limits. In 2016, 41 out of the 45 sampling stations along the river showed concentrations exceeding maximum levels. Often, sewage treatment also fails to effectively remove pathogens, so the risk of contracting diseases — such as amoebic dysentery, hepatitis A and typhoid — from bathing in the Ganges is high.Dumping household garbage into waste sites that are prone to flooding during monsoons washes trash into the river. Industry and agricultural run-off also pollute the water. Tanneries along the banks use heavy metals, such as chromium and arsenic, to treat water buffalo hides. Although legislation to promote effluent treatment is in place, discharge often results in river contamination.Cremation alongside the banks is commonn and this contributes to Ganges river pollution as well. Firewood needed to complete cremation is expensive, and for many, being interred in the river after death leads to religious salvation. Decomposing bodies and body parts are common among the floating garbage and toxic foam, according to a Pulitzer Center report.River Clean Up UrgencyAside from increased disease from waterborne pathogens and visible pollution from floating garbage and decomposing corpses, people using the river also risk developing cancer from toxins. Cleaning up the Ganges has thus been a priority since the 1980s.India's top environmental court, the National Green Tribunal, also imposed a ban on dumping within 1,640 feet (0.5 km) of a 310-mile heavily polluted stretch. A 2017 BBC report also mentions fines for waste disposal into the river and the movement of tanneries away from its banks.Governments have imposed limits on tannery wastewater, requiring treatment prior to discharge. They've also driven efforts to modernize sewage treatment in big cities. According to The Conversation, increased population density in big cities translates into worse fecal contamination. Although the intention to modernize is there, efforts are slow moving, partly due to failing infrastructure and the complexity of installing modern systems in ancient architecture. Ancient doesn't always mix well with modern and, as a result, a river is being poisoned.At Northrop Grumman we're designing, developing, building and supporting advanced products. This includes those used for environmental monitoring; learn more about our water solutions, for monitoring and cleaning waste.

Human Pressure Drives Ganges River Pollution

Fossils are pieces of stone that preserve the shape and structures of once-living creatures that died and were buried, typically in muddy environments. Over time, their decaying tissues were transformed into rocky material that can preserve their form for many millions of years — making fossils the key evidence biologists use to reconstruct the history of life on earth.So, what are microfossils? As the name suggests, they are microscopic fossils, preserved by time and chance in the same way as the larger fossils we see in museums. As the University of California Museum of Paleontology notes, while microfossils represent a broad range of once-living forms, unlike larger fossils, they are studied as a single discipline because of the special techniques needed to extract them and the microscopes needed to observe them.Microfossils have long been recognized as an important field of study. Most recently, as SciTechDaily reports, microfossils found in Western Australia have shed new light on a linked pair of the most important episodes in the history of life on Earth: the appearance of oxygen as a major component of Earth's atmosphere and the emergence of complex lifeforms, such as plants and animals.The new findings not only shed new light on the history of life here on earth, but also have implications for the search for life on other planets.Living with OxygenOxygen is the second-largest component of Earth's atmosphere (after nitrogen), and we are accustomed to thinking of it as the stuff of life. It is also one of the most violently reactive substances known to science.In the presence of oxygen and a spark, anything that can burn, will burn. While not technically combustible, according to the National Center for Biotechnology Information, it will "actively support the burning of combustible materials. Some materials that will not burn in air will burn in oxygen. Materials that burn in air will burn more vigorously in oxygen."The same reactivity that makes oxygen a prime rocket propellant also makes it intensely corrosive: It can break down steel into a powder of rust. For this reason, most planetary atmospheres contain only trace amounts of it. Any free oxygen quickly reacts with other gases, or with surface material (as with Mars, where iron in surface rocks reacted with oxygen to produce its rusty color).Earth today is the great exception, with oxygen-rich air, but early Earth, like other planets, had almost no oxygen in its atmosphere. According to the American Society for Microbiology, life on Earth initially evolved in this nearly oxygen-free environment.Over time, however, terrestrial organisms called cyanobacteria evolved the ability to capture energy from sunlight by photosynthesis — a process that also caused them to release oxygen into the air. As these organisms thrived, they released oxygen faster than it could combine with other gases or be locked up in surface rocks. The amount of oxygen in Earth's atmosphere began to rise sharply, an episode that, per Earth.com, is dubbed the Great Oxidation Event.This affected life on Earth in two ways. On the one hand, oxygen is such reactive, corrosive stuff that it may have acted as a poison and wiped out much of anaerobic life, creating an extinction event. On the other hand, an atmosphere filled with rocket propellant in gaseous form provided an immensely powerful energy source that living forms might be able to harness. And so, they did.Revisiting EvolutionBiologists classify Earth's early life as prokaryotes, anaerobic lifeforms that do not use oxygen and are often poisoned by it. But as atmospheric oxygen levels crept up, a new class of organisms, eukaryotes, evolved that not only could resist the corrosive effects of oxygen but could also utilize it to gain energy. In turn, this powerful new energy source allowed more complex life to evolve, leading to multicellular lifeforms.Until now, however, scientists were only able to infer that this evolutionary sequence must have happened. The results are all around us, but the evidence has been too sparse to tell us when or how it happened.What are microfossils doing to change this impasse? The transition began when, per SciTechDaily, Erica Barlow, then an undergraduate at the University of New South Wales in Australia, discovered rocks that were rich in ancient, well-preserved microfossils.Barlow — now an affiliate research professor at Penn State and lead author of a study that's revisiting evolution — summarizes what she found. The microfossils "have a remarkable similarity" to modern algae. Most of us don't think of algae as "complex life," but they are far more complex than prokaryotes, such as bacteria.Says Barlow, this similarity "hints at the fossil being possibly an early eukaryotic fossil. That's a big claim and something that needs more work, but it raises an exciting question that the community can build on and test."Adds co-author Christopher House, a professor at Penn State, "These specific fossils are remarkably well-preserved, which allowed for the combined study of their morphology, composition and complexity. The results provide a great window into a changing biosphere billions of years ago."We are still in the first stages of studying and understanding the new finds, but they have already pushed back the beginnings of complex life by some 750 million years to 2.4 billion years ago in the midst of the Great Oxidation Event. For the first time, we are glimpsing this crucial stage of evolution as it happened — not just its aftermath.Atmospheric Oxygen and Worlds BeyondThe significance of the findings extends far beyond earth. NASA is developing a technique that will allow its orbiting James Webb Space Telescope to detect earthlike levels of oxygen in the atmospheres of exoplanets — worlds orbiting stars light-years beyond the sun.Scientists have long understood that atmospheric oxygen would be a powerful telltale signature that a planet may harbor life. This is precisely because it is so reactive that it must be constantly replenished to be present in significant amounts.As Science Alert cautions, this signal is not totally conclusive: there are chemical processes that might replenish atmospheric oxygen without life playing any role. On the flip side, an exoplanet might have a thriving ecosystem of life forms resembling prokaryotes, but unless it has undergone an oxygen catastrophe it will have no detectable atmospheric oxygen.Yet the detection of oxygen in an exoplanet atmosphere will surely get the attention of scientists since it's a strong indicator that the planet may be an abode of complex life. And, as Space.com reports, another research team recently noted that an earthlike atmosphere must contain at least 18% oxygen in order to support open flames.This matters because any civilization would need fire in order to produce metals or harness the local equivalent of fossil fuels for energy. Even if intelligent lifeforms can exist at lower oxygen levels, without fire they would find it very difficult to develop a technological civilization.We are still a few technological revolutions away from being able to search for microfossils (or any other fossils) on planets orbiting other suns. But microfossils and orbiting telescopes are both tools for growing our understanding of life, oxygen, and planetary atmospheres.Learn more about our people and life at Northrop Grumman, or check out our career opportunities to see how you can be a part of defining possible.

What Are Microfossils, and What Can They Tell Us About Evolution?

Could the end of the world be closer than we think? Earth is predicted to move out of the sun's habitable zone in a few billion years; however, computer modeling by a team of scientists published in Nature Geoscience brings forward mass mammalian extinction to only 250 million years away. Their estimates show that the formation of the supercontinent, Pangea Ultima, will render life on Earth inhospitable to mammals simply due to its size.Earth's Surface on the MoveThe surface of our planet and its landmasses are on the move. They always have been, and our current configuration of continents is not only temporary but also evolving. Plate tectonics are making the Atlantic Ocean wider, the Pacific is shrinking and, eventually, the Americas, Africa, Europe and Asia will be next-door neighbors. Walking across them or taking a road trip will be easy — if we're still around.This continual movement is because the land is only a thin crust on top of a molten core. Currents form underneath the crust, caused by convection and temperature changes in the molten rock, which are making the continents drift a few centimeters (around an inch) each year.Pangea UltimaAs described in The Conversation, the last supercontinent to exist was Pangea, which formed around 310 million years ago. Using computer modeling, it's possible to speculate what the next configurations will be. These vary from single masses straddling the equator or the North Pole to land masses where existing continents encircle ocean remnants as huge inland lakes.The most likely configurations to settle next are Novopangea, a consolidation of all current landmasses, or Pangea Ultima, where a much smaller Atlantic Ocean exists as an inland sea. It's the latter that researchers have used as their model to explore what life might be like on Earth 250 million years in the future.Climate ImpactThe impact on climate by the continental cluster will be extreme, according to the supercomputer simulation model. This will be due to the sheer size of the landmass itself as well as how it is formed.As plate tectonics push the continents together over the crust, a lot of energy will be released as increased volcanic activity. According to CNN, volcanic eruptions will release even more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, thus increasing the greenhouse effect we're already seeing due to burning fossil fuels.This accelerated greenhouse gassing will combine with a brighter sun, which will be sending more energy our way 250 million years in the future. As temperatures rise, the new aggregation will impact the climate due to its sheer size alone — the landmass will alter ocean currents and the circulation of warm air and water, which will, in turn, alter weather patterns. The Guardian describes how an increase in humidity at the coastal zones will be matched by increasingly arid environments in the interior of the landmass.Mass Extinction EventThe last mass extinction event happened around 66 million years ago with an asteroid crashing into the planet. The research team predicts that Pangea Ultima will cause another mass extinction, this time for mammals as less landmass remains inhabitable. Despite its enormous size, only around 8% to 16% of the new landmass will be okay for mammals to live on.Predictions show the average temperatures rising to between 40 °C and 50 °C (~104 °F and 122 °F). At these temperatures over prolonged periods, mammals cannot survive. Combined with increased humidity, they simply cannot sweat enough to regulate body temperature and will die from heat stroke. Furthermore, at these temperatures, it's not only mammals that suffer — plants don't cope well in extreme heat. Above 40°C, they do not thrive, and above 60 °C, they suffer irreparable damage.Without viable plants, the mammal food chain is disrupted at the source. Mammal mass extinction is the result.What Comes After Pangea Ultima?Climate change due to the supercontinent wouldn't be the first time that humans have been forced into extinction; it may be the reason why modern humans survived, while other species of hominids perished. Will our own species be able to adapt and survive the dramatic increase in climate extremes?On a brighter note, the information gleaned from the computer simulation will help us look for a new planet to live on. It's already identified clues to the influence of tectonic events on mass extinctions and climate change that might make it easier for researchers to sift through data in the search for habitable exoplanets.Learn more about our people and life at Northrop Grumman, or check out our career opportunities to see how you can be a part of defining possible.

Pangea Ultima — the Supercontinent Marking the End of Humanity

When the time comes to send interstellar probes to Earth-like planets orbiting distant stars, a prime target of investigation will be planet water cycles — described by the U.S. Geological Survey as the endless sequence of water vapor in the atmosphere condensing as rainfall, then flowing to the sea where it evaporates back into the atmosphere.We're a few tech revolutions away from developing the tools to observe other planets' water cycles, but when that time comes, we will already have experience observing Earth's water cycle thanks to the Aqua satellite, a NASA satellite built and still managed today by Northrop Grumman. For more than 20 years, it's been orbiting Earth, giving us a view from space of the water cycle in action, as well as demonstrating the application of Earth observation satellites.The Cycle of LifeNature has many flow cycles of sequential phase changes, but hardly any are so richly evocative as the phases of the water cycle: rainfall (and snowfall), flowing streams and rivers, the expanse of lakes and seas and a sky of billowing clouds. These powerful images are no accident, because life on Earth follows the water cycle and is deeply dependent on it.The water cycle is a prime driver of Earth's active climate, transferring heat from the relatively sunbaked tropics to the relatively sun-starved polar latitudes. The ocean-atmosphere system somewhat resembles a steam engine. Seawater evaporates from the tropical seas, absorbing enormous heat in the process. Winds then carry some of that water vapor to higher latitudes, where it condenses out and falls as rain or snow, releasing heat in the process. (A snowstorm hardly seems "warm," but it may be many degrees milder than a dry Arctic wind.)In short, the water cycle is deeply implicated in both the causes and effects of global change, not only in climate but in ocean temperature and currents and, over time, even in geology, as flowing water cuts canyons through one region while depositing sediment in another.Aqua has been used to study Earth's water cycle in detail. For example, the satellite's data was used to detect and measure the extent and magnitude of dust deposition in the oceans globally. Dust deposited in the ocean provides vital nutrients for phytoplankton, but estimating dust-mediated effects on surface ocean ecosystems has been difficult. Aqua's ability to capture ocean color has been key to measuring dust deposition and has shown that climate-driven changes will alter the importance of this nutrient source.When exoplanet researchers speak of the search for Earth-like planets, the term is more or less a shorthand for a planet with surface conditions that would allow the water cycle to operate.An Extended Ride on the A-Train"Aqua" is the Latin word for water, and the Aqua satellite was launched on May 4, 2002, carrying six instruments designed to investigate Earth's water cycle. For this reason, it was launched into a sun-synchronous polar orbit, timed so that, on each orbit, it crosses the equator northbound at about 1:30 p.m. (local time for the slice of Earth it is passing over).In the years that followed, according to NASA, the Aqua satellite was joined by another, Aura, in nearly the same orbit, and then by several others. Because of their shared timing, they came to be called the Afternoon Constellation. Then, because they all passed overhead one after another along the same orbital "track," they were dubbed the A-Train, after the famed New York subway line.The Aqua satellite's designed mission endurance was to be six years. A quick glance at the calendar thus confirms that Aqua is now in its fifteenth year of bonus time. Four of its six instruments are still in service: observing water vapor in infrared and microwave frequencies, cloud brightness observations and an imaging spectrometer.However, Aqua, Aura and Terra (another Earth-observing satellite) are no longer part of the A-Train orbit. Now, they are below the previous A-Train orbit in preparation for decommissioning in the next few years.Aqua's Mission in Observing EarthThe overall mission of the Aqua satellite is to gather a wealth of data to enrich our understanding of Earth's water cycle. In the course of its operation over the years, it has shared in many dramatic "Earth moments" in the application of Earth observation satellites.For example, in 2017, when Hurricane Harvey pelted the Houston region with torrential rainfall, NASA relied on Aqua satellite data to aid emergency preparations at its own space flight center. More recently, Aqua data was used to identify the burn area of a major California wildfire in 2020, while in the summer of 2021, observations from Aqua helped scientists track the development of the "heat dome" that brought roasting heat to the Pacific Northwest (Portland, Oregon, hit 116 degrees Fahrenheit — breaking all previous record-high temperatures in the area).As NASA scientists develop plans for the next generation of technology for investigating Earth's and potentially other planets' water cycles, Aqua will continue to be a source of supplemental information until it is fully decommissioned. It's certainly made its mark on history by recording many Earth moments over its long career.Interested in all things in outer space and exploration? We are, too. Explore what life's like at Northrop Grumman and take a look at open positions at Northrop Grumman.

Observing "Earth Moments" with the Aqua Satellite

As rising global temperatures melt polar ice and open new sea routes, the Arctic is more physically accessible than ever before. But delivering a reliable communications capability to the High North, as the Northern polar region is called, has remained elusive — until now.
On Aug. 11, 2024, the Arctic Satellite Broadband Mission (ASBM) — a combined effort between Space Norway, the U.S. Space Force and Northrop Grumman — launched. Its payloads, hosted on Northrop Grumman's GEOStar-3 satellite bus, will establish full broadband coverage above 65°N for commercial and military end users.
But this first-of-its-kind achievement required scientists and engineers to look outside their orbit, literally.
Tapping In
As the name implies, GEOStar-3 satellites — like most communications satellites — have traditionally flown in geostationary orbit (GEO), explained Carlos Niederstrasser, mission architect, Northrop Grumman. Spacecraft in GEO fly 36,786 kilometers in altitude above the equator and move at the same speed as the Earth rotates, completing a full orbit every 24 hours.
However, due to Earth's curvature, GEO satellites cannot provide coverage to the poles from their vantage point. It's the satellite equivalent of something being just outside your line of sight.
To address this challenge, the Northrop Grumman and Space Norway teams turned to a rarely-used type of highly elliptical orbit (HEO) called a Three Apogee (TAP) orbit. Instead of a circular path around the equator — like GEO — a TAP orbit is elongated into an ellipse and tilted relative to the globe, giving satellites in TAP orbit visibility to the High North during a large percentage of the orbit.
"What results is that one side of the orbit is pretty close to the Earth, and the other side is pretty far away," said Carlos.
Seeing Double
Due to Earth's gravitational pull, a spacecraft in a TAP orbit travels slowly along its path when it is furthest away from the Earth (known as apogee), then moves more quickly through the portion of its orbit that's closest to the Earth (known as perigee). For ASBM, the orbit's apogee is at a high northern latitude, which means that the satellite moves slowly over the Arctic for 10 hours of its 16-hour orbit and, and during that time, can provide coverage to the High North.
"The satellite appears to hang right in the same place in the sky," said Carlos. "It gives you something that almost behaves like a GEO but has the benefit of being very well-visible from all of the Arctic region."
But to achieve continuous communications coverage, one satellite wouldn't cut it, according to Richard Macheske, chief engineer, ASBM, Northrop Grumman.
The solution? A two-satellite constellation.
The ASBM satellites are twins — each GEOStar-3 satellite hosts Northrop Grumman-built payloads for the Norwegian Armed Forces, Viasat and the U.S. Space Force — and travel on opposite sides of the TAP orbit. This mirrored approach ensures that one of the two satellites is always on deck to deliver assured communications in the High North.

From GEO to HEO
Flying the GEOStar-3 in HEO may seem counterintuitive. But, according to Richard, the GEOStar-3 is more than up to the task of flying in different orbits.
"Overall, GEOStar-3 is perfectly suited for this and many other orbits, even though it's called a GEOStar," said Richard. "It should operate more or less like a GEO, which was the whole intent: doing the minimum amount of changes to work in this different orbit."
The ASBM satellites leveraged Northrop Grumman-produced solar arrays, propellant tanks, heat pipe panels and satellite bus structures with very few modifications. Tweaks for operating in HEO included structural changes to account for different radiation levels, changes to the attitude control system, solar array system and star tracker as well as adaptations for surface charging. The satellite's command and control system is also operated differently, explained Carlos, because — unlike in GEO — ground stations do not have constant contact with HEO satellites.
In addition to its communication mission, ASBM offers a unique opportunity to study the nuances of HEO. The mission includes a radiation monitor, owned by the European Commission, and designed and built by a Norwegian company called IDEAS. This monitor which will collect radiation data providing engineers and scientists with insights into this little-flown orbit, charting the course for future missions in the Northern polar region.
Learn more about Northrop Grumman connecting the Arctic with Cutting-Edge Satellite Communications. 

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