Year: 2022

NASA & ESA pick site for Perseverance to deposit its samples for pickup

9:31 am

Overview map
Click for interactive map.

Engineers at NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) have now chosen the site in Jezero Crater where Perseverance will deposit its first set of core samples for later pickup by a mission to bring them back to Earth.

The location, at the base of the delta that flows into the crater and indicated by the white cross on the map to the right, will contain all the core samples collected from the floor of the crater. This area, in the middle of the flat region the science team has dubbed Three Forks, provides a good landing place for the sample return helicopter that will fly from point to point to pick these samples up. The blue dot on the map indicates Perseverance’s present position. The green dot where the helicopter Ingenuity presently sits.

Once the rover has finished collecting samples and doing its research at the base of the delta, it will deposit those samples at this point and then move up onto the delta, where it will collect more samples that will be placed at a different spot for pickup.

0 comments

NASA sets new launch date for Psyche asteroid mission

9:01 am

NASA yesterday announced that the delayed Psyche mission, to the asteroid Psyche, now has a new launch date of October 10, 2023, with a planned arrival in 2029.

The spacecraft missed its original launch date in 2022 because of the late delivery of its flight software combined with problems with the equipment needed to test that software.

The new launch date, though only one year later than planned, will cause the spacecraft to arrive two years late because of orbital mechanics.

1 comment

China launches classified technology test satellite

8:56 am

China today successfully launched a classified technology test satellite using its Long March 2D rocket lifting off from its Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in northwest China.

No word on where the expendable first stage crashed within China.

The leaders in the 2022 launch race:

49 SpaceX
46 China
18 Russia
8 Rocket Lab
7 ULA

American private enterprise still leads China 69 to 46 in the national rankings, though it trails the rest of the world combined 73 to 69.

1 comment

Paypal losing customers at an alarming rate, even as it blacklists Hong Kong pro-democracy group

12:47 pm

Paypal: hostile to freedom

In the past few days there have been some unconfirmed Twitter posts claiming Paypal has reinstated its proposed policy to confiscate $2,500 from any account that spreads “misinformation.”

These reports are not quite accurate. Paypal leaves itself the option to confiscate money from customers, but it has not directly reinstated its policy of doing so for spreading “misinformation.” Instead it makes that justification harder to find and difficult to pin down, though it apparently still exists.

While Paypal’s current Acceptable Use Policy contains no mention of “misinformation,” its user agreement essentially does—and has since at least February 12, 2022. The agreement reads that PayPal users may not “provide false, inaccurate or misleading information,” in connection with PayPal, its website, services, or “third parties.” Those who do so may see their accounts suspended, limited, or closed, and PayPal may take legal action.

In short, no surprise changes have been made to PayPal’s policy this week. While the company does levy punishments toward users for certain forms of “misleading statements” under its user agreement (and has for months), a $2,500 fine is not explicitly one of them.

And yet, should anyone trust Paypal with their savings? Its reputation for blacklisting conservatives and pro-liberty organizations says otherwise, and that reputation was confirmed last month when Paypal terminated without explanation the account of a pro-democracy group in Hong Kong.
» Read more

20 comments

InSight detects and dates large impact on Mars

11:14 am

InSight's Christmas Eve impact
Click for full image.

Using the data from InSight’s seismometer of a 4 magnitude earthquake on Mars on December 24, 2021, scientists were able to use the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) to find the meteorite impact that produced that quake, the largest detected since spacecraft have been visiting Mars. The picture to the right, cropped and reduced to post here and unveiled at yesterday’s press conference, shows the new crater.

The meteoroid is estimated to have spanned 16 to 39 feet (5 to 12 meters) – small enough that it would have burned up in Earth’s atmosphere, but not in Mars’ thin atmosphere, which is just 1% as dense as our planet’s. The impact, in a region called Amazonis Planitia, blasted a crater roughly 492 feet (150 meters) across and 70 feet (21 meters) deep. Some of the ejecta thrown by the impact flew as far as 23 miles (37 kilometers) away.

With images and seismic data documenting the event, this is believed to be one of the largest craters ever witnessed forming any place in the solar system.

This is not the first such impact identified from InSight seismic data, but it is the largest. The white streaks surrounding the crater are thought to be near-surface ice ejected at impact.

The overview map below provides further context, as well as showing us the proximity of this impact to the proposed Starship landing sites on Mars.
» Read more

2 comments

Past tree ring spikes in carbon-14 were likely not caused by solar flares

9:41 am

The uncertainty of science: According to researchers, past tree ring spikes in carbon-14 found in found at five different times going back seven thousand years were likely not caused by solar flares, as previously thought.

The team behind the new research created software to analyse every available piece of data on tree rings, producing the most comprehensive research on Miyake events to date. They found that the events didn’t show a consistent relationship to the 11-year solar cycle, which is the cycle that the Sun’s magnetic field goes through. (Currently we’re heading towards the solar maximum which means more sunspots and solar flares.)

This lack of relationship to the solar cycle means that Miyake events probably aren’t due to a solar flare, as flares occur more during the solar maximum.

The scientists also found that the events lasted years, not days as one would expect by a solar flare.

You can read their paper here. The bottom line is that the cause of these spikes remains unknown.

0 comments

ULA breaks ground on new facility in Alabama

9:29 am

ULA yesterday broke ground on the construction of a new facility in Alabama, where it will store its Vulcan rockets and build the fairings for that rocket.

The factory is scheduled to begin operations in 2024. According to ULA’S CEO, Tori Bruno, the facility will double the production rate for making Vulcan rockets, necessary to provide the launches that Amazon wants for its Kuiper internet constellation.

1 comment

SpaceX successfully launches another 53 Starlink satellites

6:24 pm

SpaceX tonight successfully used its Falcon 9 rocket to launch another 53 Starlink satellites into orbit, lifting off from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.

The first stage completed its eighth flight, landing successfully on a drone ship in the Pacific. As of this writing, the satellites have not yet deployed, though they are in their planned orbit.

The leaders in the 2022 launch race:

49 SpaceX
45 China
18 Russia
8 Rocket Lab
7 ULA

American private enterprise now leads China 69 to 45 in the national rankings, though it trails the rest of the world combined 72 to 69. At 69 successful launches, the U.S. is now just one launch behind its national record of 70 set in 1966.

5 comments

A glacier sea on Mars

6:12 pm

A glacier sea on Mars
Click for full image.

Cool image time! The photo to the right, rotated, cropped, and reduced to post here, should at first glance be one of my “What the heck!?” images. However, a little detective work quickly provides us some understanding of the inexplicable geology seen at this particular location on Mars.

The picture was taken on August 29, 2022 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) and was labeled by the science team a “Lobate Debris Apron in Deuteronilus Mensae.” This mensae region is the western part of the 2,000-mile-long strip in the northern mid-latitudes of Mars that I label glacier country, since almost every high resolution picture taken in this strip shows extensive glacial features.

This picture is no different, showing what appears to be glaciers, but by itself it is still difficult to make sense of it. Glaciers flow downhill, like rivers. In this high resolution image the direction of flow is somewhat unclear.

As always, a wider view clarifies the picture.
» Read more

0 comments
1 … 35 36 37 38 39 … 192