Author: Robert Zimmerman

Universe’s most massive star is found to be less massive than previously believed

2:18 pm

The uncertainty of science: Using data from the Gemini South telescope in Chile, astronomers have determined that the universe’s most massive star, dubbed R136a1, is actually less massive than previously believed.

By pushing the capabilities of the Zorro instrument on the Gemini South telescope of the International Gemini Observatory, operated by NSF’s NOIRLab, astronomers have obtained the sharpest-ever image of R136a1 — the most massive known star. This colossal star is a member of the R136 star cluster, which lies about 160,000 light-years from Earth in the center of the Tarantula Nebula in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a dwarf companion galaxy of the Milky Way.

Previous observations suggested that R136a1 had a mass somewhere between 250 to 320 times the mass of the Sun. The new Zorro observations, however, indicate that this giant star may be only 170 to 230 times the mass of the Sun. Even with this lower estimate, R136a1 still qualifies as the most massive known star.

What astronomers are trying to figure out is the highest possible mass a star can possibly have. This new data suggests that this upper limit is smaller than previously believed.

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Today’s blacklisted American: UC-San Diego to hold segregated events, excluding whites and Asians

11:59 am

University of California-San Diego's segregated Welcome Week
Click for original.

“Segregation today, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever!” In its upcoming welcoming program in September for new students, the University of California-San Diego plans to hold racially segregated events that specifically excludes whites and Asian students and families from attending.

The flyer ad to the right, announcing the program dubbed Triton Weeks of Welcome, specifically includes two such events, as indicated in red. Both are exclusively for specific minorities, and those minorities only.

The group running the Black Surf week, Black Like Water, explains the purpose of its racially-segregated event as follows:

Through our research and practice, Black Like Water seeks to promote healing, restoration, and sovereignty in ways that do the liberatory work of combating anti-blackness and interrupting structural racism, but in manners that celebrate the Black diaspora, acknowledge ancestral practices and knowledge, and imagine Black futures.

» Read more

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August 18, 2022 Quick space links

10:50 am

As stringer Jay correctly noted to me in an email today, “Slow news day.” None of the stories below merit a full post, even though they are pretty much all of today’s space news.

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Russian spacewalk ends earlier due to spacesuit power problem

9:34 am

A Russian spacewalk yesterday to continue the configuration of Europe’s robot arm for the Russian half of ISS was cut short after four hours when the power system in Oleg Artemyev’s spacesuit begin producing unexpected “voltage fluctuations.”

“I have a message, voltage low,” Artemyev radioed Russian ground controllers around 12 p.m. EDT (1600 GMT). An engineer at Russia’s mission control center near Moscow warned Artemyev he would lose communications if his suit ran out of power.

Russian flight director Vladimir Solovyov then jumped on the line to tell Artemyev to head back to the safety of the airlock. “Oleg, this is Solovyov,” he said. “Drop everything and start going back (to the airlock) right away. Oleg, go back and connect to station power.”

This problem occurred about two hours into the spacewalk. The second astronaut, Denis Matveev, continued working at the robot arm for another two hours before mission control ordered him to end the walk early.

According to Russian officials, Artemyev was never in any danger, though the urgency in which he was ordered to come inside suggests otherwise. According to another news report, a power loss could have also shut down the spacesuit’s “pumps and the fan.”

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Get above 30 degrees latitude on Mars and you can find ice everywhere

1:23 pm

Global overview of Mars' ice features

Glacial features inside a Mars crater
Click for full image.

Today’s cool image provides further proof that there is ample near surface ice almost anywhere on Mars once you get above 30 degrees latitude, in either the northern or southern hemispheres. The photo to the right, rotated, cropped, reduced, and annotated to post here, was taken on May 26, 2022 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows the interior slope of an unnamed 15-mile-wide crater that sits inside the much larger 185-mile-wide Newton crater, located in the cratered southern highlands of Mars.

The black cross on the global map of Mars above marks the location of this crater.

The photo was taken as part of the routine monitoring planetary scientists are doing of the gullies that flow down this crater’s interior rim, a monitoring program that goes back to 2007. It is thought that those gullies might be created by seasonal frost, either water ice or dry ice, that causes erosion.

What struck me about the photo however was the glacial features on the floor of the crater. Near the bottom of the interior slope those features look broken up, as if the pressure from above pushed the ice sheets apart. Farther from the interior slope the features more resemble a typical glacial flow, slowly inching downward toward the crater’s low spot. All these glacial features also lend weight to the theory that water ice somehow caused or contributed to the formation of those gullies.

The global map above shows that this crater, while well within the 30 to 60 degrees mid-latitude band where many Martian glaciers are found, is also far from the many regions on Mars that scientists have mapped as having high concentrations of glaciers. And yet, the glacial features are here as well.

Near surface ice will not be found at every spot on Mars. However, once you get above 30 degrees latitude, the evidence increasingly suggests that you won’t have to go far or dig down deep to find it.

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Pushback: Doctor files $25 million defamation lawsuit against Houston Methodist for its COVID slanders

12:36 pm

Dr. Mary Bowden, refusing to bow to the authorities
Dr. Mary Bowden, refusing to bow to the authorities

Bring a gun to a knife fight: Blacklisted Dr. Mary Bowden has now upped her game and filed a $25 million defamation lawsuit against Houston Methodist Hospital in Texas and its CEO, Marc Boom, for the slanders both published against her for her opposition to the COVID jab mandates.

You can read her lawsuit here [pdf].

Bowden had been suspended by Houston Methodist Hospital in November 2021 and was subsequently forced to resign because she publicly opposed COVID shot mandates and used ivermectin in treating her Wuhan flu patients. Both the hospital and Boom had accused her of “spreading dangerous misinformation which is not based on science” because she had successfully treated about 2,000 COVID patients, none of which ever needed hospitalization, with both ivermectin and monoclonal antibodies.

In February 2022 Bowden began her pushback when she sued Houston Methodist to get its own data on the success or failure of its own CDC-endorsed treatment of COVID, as well as its financial records to find out how much it had earned from that treatment.
» Read more

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A detailed description of Rocket Lab’s private Venus mission

10:00 am

Planned insertion of Rocket Lab's probe into Venus's atmosphere
Click for full figure.

Capitalism in space: In partnership with scientists at MIT, the Planetary Science Institute, and others, Rocket Lab engineers this week published a detailed description of the company’s planned privately funded mission to Venus, presently targeting a launch in May 2023.

From the paper’s abstract:

The Rocket Lab mission to Venus is a small direct entry probe planned for baseline launch in May 2023 with accommodation for a single ~1 kg instrument. A backup launch window is available in January 2025. The probe mission will spend about 5 min in the Venus cloud layers at 48–60 km altitude above the surface and collect in situ measurements. We have chosen a low-mass, low-cost autofluorescing nephelometer to search for organic molecules in the cloud particles and constrain the particle composition.

The figure above is figure 6 from the paper. It shows the probe’s planned path through Venus’s atmosphere. If the mission launches in May ’23 the probe would enter the atmosphere in October ’23.

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Redwire to launch first commercial and private greenhouse in space

9:36 am

Capitalism in space: The in-space 3D printing company Redwire announced yesterday that it will launch to ISS the first privately-built greenhouse, scheduled for a ’23 liftoff.

Redwire is developing this greenhouse for agricultural company Dewey Scientific.

During the inaugural flight, Dewey Scientific will grow industrial hemp in the Greenhouse for a gene expression study. The company collaborated with Redwire, contributing technical details about the 60-day experiment and describing its potential to demonstrate the capabilities of the facility, while advancing biomedical and biofuels research.

The long term goal is to prove that this technology can produce products of value on future space stations, products that can then be sold on Earth. That both companies appear willing to invest some of their own research and development capital in this project suggests they both believe there will be a strong viable market for these products.

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Samples from Ryugu prove the truly delicate and long-lived nature of the rubble-pile asteroid

9:27 am

Two new studies of samples brought back from the rubble-pile asteroid Ryugu by the Japanese probe Hayabusa-2 have found that the asteroid not only was never heated above 86 degrees Fahrenheit, it also contained dust grains older than the solar system itself.

The evidence from the first study, completed by Japanese scientists, suggested that:

  • 1.Asteroid Ryugu accreted some components that originated in the outer Solar System and contained abundant water and organics. The asteroid then traveled to the inner Solar System.
  • 2.Organics associated with coarse-grained phyllosilicates may serve as one of the potential sources of water and organics to the Earth.

The second study, using samples provided to American scientists, found two tiny dust grains that must have come from the material that existed before the formation of our solar system.

The team detected all the previously known types of presolar grains—including one surprise, a silicate that is easily destroyed by chemical processing that is expected to have occurred on the asteroid’s parent body. It was found in a less-chemically-altered fragment that likely shielded it from such activity.

This is not the first discovery of presolar grains, but their delicate existence in Ryugu confirms the conclusions of the first study, that Ryugu had to have formed in the outer solar system and then migrated inward over eons.

The second study also reviewed the make-up of the sample and concluded that Ryugu appears to most closely match the family of carbonaceous Ivuna-type (CI) chondrites, thought to be among the most primitive asteroids known, of which very few have been studied because of they rarely survive the journey through the Earth’s atmosphere.

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Astrobotic makes bid to buy assets of bankrupt Masten

9:02 am

Capitalism in space: Astrobotic, a startup focused on building lunar and planetary unmanned landers, has now made a formal bid to buy the remaining assets of Masten Space Systems, which had also been a startup focused on planetary missions but recently went bankrupt.

In a filing with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for Delaware Aug. 14, Masten said it received a “stalking horse” bid of $4.2 million for Masten’s assets, including a SpaceX launch credit worth $14 million, from Astrobotic. The agreement, in effect, sets a minimum price for the sale of those assets but does not prevent Masten from seeking higher bids through an auction process that runs through early September.

The agreement appears to supersede an earlier agreement between Masten and a third lunar lander company, Intuitive Machines, included in Masten’s Chapter 11 filing July 28. That agreement covered the SpaceX launch credits alone and Masten did not disclose the value of it in its original filing.

Masten’s long term specialty has been vertical take-off and landing, something it has successfully done for the last several years on suborbital flights. This technology would be of great value to both Astrobotic and Intuitive Machines in developing their own first lunar landers.

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SLS arrives at launchpad

8:44 am

The Space Launch System rocket (SLS) that will fly on NASA’s first test launch of this rocket on August 29, 2022 has finally arrived at its launchpad, seven years late and about $20 billion overbudget.

In the coming days, engineers and technicians will configure systems at the pad for launch, which is currently targeted for no earlier than Aug. 29 at 8:33 a.m. (two hour launch window). Teams have worked to refine operations and procedures and have incorporated lessons learned from the wet dress rehearsal test campaign and have updated the launch timeline accordingly.

The rollout from the Vehicle Assembly Building took ten hours.

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InSight’s power status continues to hold steady on Mars

11:21 pm

InSight power status through August 14, 2022

According to a new status update posted today by the science team, the power status for the Mars InSight lander continues to hold steady.

The graph to the right adds the new data, showing that the daily watt hours of power produced each day continues to hold at 400, while the dust in the atmosphere continues to drop towards its normal level of between 0.6 and 0.7 tau during the non-dust seasons.

These new numbers appear to be generally good news. Even though the dust continues to settle out of the atmosphere, it does not appear to be adding dust on the solar panels that would reduce their capability to generate power. Though the science team had predicted that the power levels would cause the mission to end sometime in August, at 400 watts per hour InSight has apparently continued to generate enough electricity to keep its seismometer running for at least another week.

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August 16, 2022 Quick space links

2:06 pm

Tiangong-3 in orbit
Click to see full image.

Some quickie stories worth noting, most provided by stringer Jay:

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Jury awards Roy Moore $8.2 million, declares he was defamed by Democrats

1:03 pm

Roy Moore
Roy More, former Republican candidate
for the Senate in Alabama

Pushback: A jury on August 12, 2022 awarded $8.2 million in damages to Roy Moore, who had been the Republican Alabama senate candidate in 2017, declaring that he had been defamed by false accusations of sexual misconduct by a Democratic Party political action committee (PAC).

Jurors found the Senate Majority PAC made false and defamatory statements against Moore in one ad that attempted to highlight the accusations against Moore. The verdict, returned by a jury after a brief trial in Anniston, Alabama, was a victory for Moore, who has lost other defamation lawsuits, including one against comedian Sacha Baron Cohen.

When the accusations were made during the campaign, a close look at the facts made it very clear that they were either false or unreasonably exaggerated. Yet, the leftist press pushed them hard, making no effort to outline their very clear uncertainties. The Democrats then followed up with an aggressive smear campaign.
» Read more

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Jupiter’s internal structure, based on Juno data

12:05 pm

Jupiter's internal structure
Click for original figure.

Scientists using Juno data of Jupiter’s magnetic field, combined with computer modeling, have now produced a rough map of the gas giant’s internal structure.

The image to the right, figure 2, of their paper, shows that structure. I have annotated the figure to provide some sense of scale. The bold violet line indicates their conclusions about the size of the dynamo that drives Jupiter’s powerful magnetic field, comprising more than 80 percent of the planet’s internal diameter. From the caption:

The gray area depicts the core (0.2 RJ) and the possible dilute core region. The violet area between the dotted lines (0.68 and 0.84 RJ) depicts the [hydrogen-helium] phase separated layer. The top dotted line at 0.95 RJ depicts the depth where the jets decay down to the minimum. The arrows represent possible convection area with unknown origin depth.

While this is a good first hypothesis based on the available data, that data remains quite sparse and uncertain. Thus, the conclusions here must be taken with a great deal of skepticism.

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More evidence of recent active volcanism on Venus

11:37 am

In a just published paper, scientists using archive data from the Magellan radar orbiter that circled Venus from 1990 to 1994, combined with data from Europe’s Venus Express that orbited from 2006 to 2015, have detected more evidence of recent volcanic activity in a canyon dubbed Ganis Chasma located in a rift zone called Atla Regio.

From the paper’s conclusion:

The pattern of the radar emissivity in these regions is consistent with relatively young and unweathered materials. The transient IR-bright spots in these regions detected 20 years after Magellan, provide independent corroboration of active volcanism in Ganis Chasma since the 1990’s.

As a possible site of current tectonic and volcanic activity, Atla Regio represents one important science target for the upcoming missions to Venus.

There are presently four missions planned for Venus, Europe’s EnVision orbiter, NASA’s VERITAS and DAVINCI+ probes, and Russia’s Venera-D missoin. All will certainly take a closer look at this region to see if there is active volcanism going on there now.

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Dust and clouds in the Martian atmosphere, as seen by UAE’s Al-Amal orbiter

11:18 am

Two new science papers have just been released detailing results from the Al-Amal (Hope) Mars orbiter that was designed and built by American universities for the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

Both papers used data obtained from the orbiter’s infrared spectrometer, dubbed the Emirates Mars Infrared Spectrometer (EMIRS).

Daily cloud cover changes on Mars
Figure 1 from paper. Click for full image.

First, the instrument tracked the daily changes in the planet’s cloud cover.

A prominent region of clouds that is commonly observed near the equator during Mars’ cold season—known as the aphelion cloud belt—was observed to reach a minimum near midday, with more clouds typically observed in both the morning and afternoon. Distinct differences were found in clouds observed near volcanoes, which tended to reach a minimum before local noon and increase throughout the afternoon.

The figure to the right shows this. In the morning and afternoon (LTST’s 7 and 17), there is a high concentration of clouds in the equatorial region above the Tharsis Bulge where the highest Martian volcanoes are located. During the middle of the day (LTSTs 11 and 13) this cloud cover largely dissipates, with a corresponding increase in cloud cover in Hellas Basin, in the southern hemisphere.

The second paper took a more general look at the data, including the change in temperature depending on elevation as well as dust and water content during the Martian northern spring and summer. From the abstract:
» Read more

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China’s radar ship finally docks in Sri Lanka

9:00 am

Despite objections by India and an initial refusal by the Sri Lanka government to allow a Chinese military communications/radar ship to dock at one of Sri Lanka’s ports, the ship was finally allowed to dock yesterday.

Sri Lanka, which needs the support of both India and China as it struggles with its worst economic crisis in decades, initially granted the ship permission for a five-day replenishment stay in Hambantota, from Aug. 11.

It later asked China to delay the vessel’s arrival, citing the need for more consultations.

Yuan Wang 5 will now berth for only three days to stock up on fuel, food and other essentials, said an official at the port who declined to be identified as he is not authorised to speak to the media.

The ship is used by China to track satellites, rockets, and missiles, both its own and other nations.

Sri Lanka is caught between a rock and a hard place. The country is bankrupt, its citizens facing starvation due to the previous government’s imposition of numerous green environmental policies that destroyed its agriculture industry. It has also taken aid from both India (providing military hardware) and China (which built the port and holds a 99-year lease to operate it), and neither looks kindly at the other.

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Merger deal between Italian orbital tug company D-Orbit and Breeze canceled

8:52 am

Capitalism in space: The merger deal between the Italian orbital tug company D-Orbit and the special purpose acquisition investment company (SPAC) Breeze has been canceled.

The Italian company had hoped to raise $185 million from the deal to expand staff and accelerate investments in ION Satellite Carrier, its orbital transfer vehicle (OTV) that completed its first commercial mission in late 2020.

However, “financial markets have changed substantially” since the deal was announced Jan. 27, Breeze CEO Douglas Ramsey said, amid rising interest rates, soaring inflation, and an ongoing war in Ukraine. “As we look ahead, we remain focused on identifying another value creating opportunity for Breeze shareholders,” Ramsey added.

A SPAC is a shell company designed solely to gather investment capital that is then used to either buy or merge with another company. In the process the company that is taken over goes public, its stock available on the stock market for trade. There have been a number of such takeovers in the space sector in the past few years, but most have turned out poorly for the investors in those SPACs, as noted in the article:

Of the nine space companies that went public through SPAC mergers in 2021, only Rocket Lab’s shares finished the year trading above their price when the merger closed. [Ed: both Virgin Galactic and Astra are examples of these failures.]

Demand for new SPAC deals has also been waning amid declining investor appetite for risk and increasing regulatory scrutiny over how these blank check firms operate. More than 40 SPAC mergers have been canceled so far this year, reported Bloomberg.

To put it more bluntly, investors have found these SPACs to be poor investments, and are bailing from them. This is likely what happened at Breeze, thus forcing the cancellation of the deal with D-Orbit.

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Cones south of Starship’s prime landing sites on Mars

3:55 pm

Cones near Phlegra Mountains
Click for full image.

Cool image time! The photo to the right, cropped and reduced to post here, was taken on May 7, 2022 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissnace Orbiter (MRO). It shows what the scientists have labeled as “Cones in Phlegra.”

Cones such as these are one of the prime geological mysteries of Mars’ northern lowland plains. Scientists do not know yet whether they are either mud or lava volcanoes, or even if they are sedimentary mesas that resisted subsequent erosion. In fact, it was hoped by some American scientists that the Chinese would send its Zhurong rover north towards a nearby cone to find out, but alas, the Chinese decided to head south instead.

Zhurong however was on the other side of Mars. The overview map below shows us where these cones are located.
» Read more

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August 15, 2022 Quick space links

12:43 pm

From Jay, BtB’s stringer:

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Today’s blacklisted American: White teachers blacklisted by union contract in Minnesota

11:53 am

Academia: dedicated to segregation!
Minnesota public schools and teachers unions:
dedicated to the new segregation!

“Segregation today, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever!” According to clauses in a new union contract in Minneeapolis, white teachers must be laid off or reassigned first should a layoff be required, and that “educators of color” will be exempt from such layoffs.

“Starting with the Spring 2023 Budget Tie-Out Cycle, if excessing a teacher who is a member of a population underrepresented among licensed teachers in the site, the District shall excess the next least senior teacher, who is not a member of an underrepresented population,” the agreement reads.

According to the United Federation of Teachers, “excessing” means “reducing staff in a particular school when there is a reduction in the number of available positions in a title or license area in that school.”

The agreement adds that non-white teachers, as well as those working in various programs, “may be exempted from district-wide layoff[s] outside seniority order.” The agreement also prioritizes the reinstatement of teachers from “underrepresented populations” over white teachers.

» Read more

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A distant cliff and a rocky path forward

11:11 am

Mosaic of Gediz Vallis
Click for full image.

Close-up of distant cliff face
Click for full image.

Two cool images arrived today from Curiosity, as it is about to enter the Martian canyon of Gediz Vallis. The mosaic above, cropped, reduced, and annotated to post here, was assembled from photos taken by the rover’s right navigation camera on August 15, 2022. The photo to the right, cropped and reduced to post here, was taken the same day by the rover’s Chemistry camera, normally designed to take very close-up pictures of nearby features. In this case the science team aimed it at a distant cliff face, marked by the arrow in the panorama above, to get a preview of some of the many layers in that mesa.

And has become quite expected from Mars, the number and types and variety of layers is astonishing. The layer that forms the flat bright area at the center of this image is what scientists have dubbed “the marker layer”, since they have found it at similar elevations in many places on the flanks of Mount Sharp. (See the annotated overview map from a post last week.)

Curiosity’s planned route is to head to the right of this mesa, circling around it to get into the upper reaches of Gediz Vallis. First however engineers are going to have to figure out how to get the rover past the somewhat large scattered rocks on the ground directly ahead, without further damaging Curiosity’s already tattered wheels. At first glance there does not appear to be any clear path.

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Russia to launch Tunisian astronaut to ISS

9:38 am

As part of an agreement between the two nations, Russia yesterday announced that it will fly a Tunisian woman to ISS in 2024.

On August 13, Women’s Day in Tunisia, eight women candidates for a space flight were presented. They are currently undergoing medical examination. Six of them will go to Russia for the final stage of pre-qualification to choose two best candidates: one will be a member of the main crew, the other one – of the standby crew.

No longer able to make money selling the spare seats on Soyuz to NASA, and apparently not getting much interest from the private sector inside or outside of Russia to buy these seats, the Putin government is now using them for international diplomacy, just as it did during the Soviet era.

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Russia unveils small model of its proposed space station

9:32 am

Tabletop Model of Russian Space Station

The Russian space agency Roscosmos today unveiled a small tabletop model of the independent Russian space station it proposes to build that will replace its portion on ISS.

The picture to the right shows that model. It shows four large modules, a second docking hub, and a Russian manned Federatsiya (“Federation” in English) capsule (intended to replace Soyuz) docked to the nearest port.

Roskosmos said in a statement that the new space station would be launched in two phases, without giving dates. The first phase would see a four-module space station start operating. That would later be followed by a further two modules and a service platform, it said. That would be enough, when completed, to accommodate up to four cosmonauts as well as scientific equipment.

Roskosmos has said the new station would afford Russian cosmonauts a much wider view of the Earth for monitoring purposes than they enjoy in their current segment. Although designs for some of the new station already exist, design work is still underway on other segments.

Russian state media have suggested that the launch of the first stage is planned for 2025-26 and no later than 2030. Launch of the second and final stage is planned for 2030-35, they have reported.

Russia officials have also said that it will stick with its partnership at ISS until this new station has begun operations.

It will be very revealing how successful Russia is at meeting this timetable. For the past thirty years, since the fall of the Soviet Union and the advent of international cooperation at ISS, its aerospace sector has routinely failed to meet any schedule at all, promising a lot but never delivering, or delivering literally decades late. (For example, Federatsiya has been under development for almost a decade, with no apparent progress.) Forced to go it alone, and in competition with the rest of the world, that sector, now controlled and owned by the government (like the Soviet days), might finally have some incentive to produce.

Or not. The corruption that permeates Russia’s government is deep and widespread. It is entirely possible that a large percentage of the money budgeted for this project ends up in the pockets of its managers instead of used to build anything.

We shall have to wait and see.

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August 14, 2022 Quick space links

1:06 pm

Some weekend news from BtB’s top stringer, Jay.

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