Delta Probe, NASA's Chandra, and the Most Elusive Bugs

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Netanyahu on the Hill

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will address Congress today at the request of House Speaker Mike Johnson (R, LA-4) to shore up support for Israel's war in Gaza. Netanyahu will meet President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris this week and former President Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, Friday. Protesters opposing the war are poised to descend on Capitol Hill today.

Meanwhile, Palestinian factions led by Hamas and its rival group Fatah signed a declaration of unity in Beijing to form a temporary government for the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. The Chinese-brokered deal, which includes 12 smaller factions, outlines how the two bigger rival groups could work together following the end of the Israel-Hamas war. Israel has said it opposes a government in Gaza run by Hamas or the Fatah-dominated Palestinian Authority. See an overview of the factions here.

Separately, the World Health Organization warned of a potential polio outbreak in Gaza after finding traces of the virus in groundwater. See war updates here. 

Delta Air Lines Probe

The US Department of Transportation has launched an investigation into Delta Air Lines' treatment of passengers following last week's CrowdStrike outage. The outage caused widespread disruptions to 8.5 million Microsoft Windows-based systems and led to the airline canceling over 7,000 flights since Friday. 

While the outage affected booking, check-in, and boarding pass processes across many airlines, most carriers have largely resumed normal operations. Delta, which uses Microsoft for more than half of its IT infrastructure, cites issues with its crew-tracking tool’s ability to process the high number of changes as the primary cause for its ongoing delays. The DOT has received numerous complaints about Delta's customer service, including long wait times and stranded passengers. Delta says it has offered travel waivers, meal vouchers, and compensation to affected travelers.

While airlines can determine their own compensation policies for flight delays, federal law mandates refunds for significant delays or flight cancellations. Southwest Airlines was fined a record $140M for a similar operational meltdown during the 2022 holiday season. 

Chandra Turns 25

NASA marked 25 years since it launched its X-ray observatory Chandra yesterday by publishing 25 previously unseen cosmic images the telescope has collected since its inception. See the photos and explainers here. 

Named after Indian American Nobel laureate and astrophysicist Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, Chandra is the most powerful X-ray observatory in operation. X-rays originate when matter is heated to millions of degrees, commonly in high-energy regions with extreme magnetic or gravitational forces. The telescope has helped reveal the nature of supernovas and galaxy clusters, and has detected X-rays from within 55 miles of a black hole's event horizon, among other discoveries. Trace its accomplishments here.

The 65-foot structure orbits Earth in an elliptical shape every 64 hours, swinging close to Earth before hurtling far beyond the Van Allen radiation belts—dense rings of magnetized solar particles around Earth. From there, it can capture X-ray data unobstructed for 55 hours every orbit. Explore the Chandra in 3D orbit here. 

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