An evening pause: I posted a more recent version in 2015 when Scruggs was much older. This version is exhilarating because of the number of great players involved.
Hat tip Able Windsor.
Click for full image.
After four years of observations by Juno in orbit around Jupiter, scientists studying the storms at the gas giant’s poles have found that those storms are stable, long-lasting features. From the abstract of their paper:
These data have shown cyclones organized in snowflake-like structures. The Jupiter’s polar cyclones are long-lasting features, which did not disappear or merge during four years of observations.
The image to the right, posted by me earlier this week, shows several of these storms, or vortices, at Jupiter’s north pole. Previous work had documented the overall pattern, as described in the paper:
The observed vortices display geometrical symmetries around both poles: circumpolar cyclones (CPCs), organized in a regular pattern, surround a central one. At the north pole, eight circumpolar vortices form an octagonal structure, while at the south pole, five circumpolar vortices are arranged in a pentagonal pattern; both central polar vortices show some degree of displacements to the geometrical pole, about 0.5° for the Northern Polar Cyclone (NPC) and 1°-2° for the Southern Polar Cyclone (SPC).
While this research has found little change in these storms over four years, it is unknown what their long term evolution will be for an entire Jupiter year, twelve Earth years long.
Click for full figure.
According to a new paper published this week, scientists now posit that glaciation could have been much more extensive in the geological history of Mars than presently believed, despite the lack of the expected subsequent landforms as seen on Earth.
From the abstract:
The lack of evidence for large-scale glacial landscapes on Mars has led to the belief that ancient glaciations had to be frozen to the ground. Here we propose that the fingerprints of Martian wet-based glaciation should be the remnants of the ice sheet drainage system instead of landforms generally associated with terrestrial ice sheets. We use the terrestrial glacial hydrology framework to interrogate how the Martian surface gravity affects glacial hydrology, ice sliding, and glacial erosion. …[W]e compare the theoretical behavior of identical ice sheets on Mars and Earth and show that, whereas on Earth glacial drainage is predominantly inefficient, enhancing ice sliding and erosion, on Mars the lower gravity favors the formation of efficient subglacial drainage. The apparent lack of large-scale glacial fingerprints on Mars, such as drumlins or lineations, is to be expected. [emphasis mine]
In other words, on Earth the higher gravity causes glaciers and ice sheets to slide, with the liquid water at the base acting as a lubricant. On Mars, the lower gravity slows that slide, so that the water at the glacier’s base drains away instead, causing erosion and the formation of a drainage pattern in the ground beneath the glacier or ice sheet.
The image above, from figure 1 of the paper, shows on the left a graphic of the two types of drainage patterns expected, and on the right two examples found on Earth (D1: Devon Island; D2: Northwest Territories). Orbiter images of Mars have found variations of these types of drainage patterns in numerous places in Mars’ mid-latitude glacial bands, as shown below.
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Mark Aungst, murdered by the Biden Administration
Blacklists are back and the Democrats have got ’em: Mark Aungst, a Pennsylvania man who attended the January 6th 2021 election rally in Washington DC and had been prosecuted by the Biden administration for “demonstrating or parading in a restricted building,” committed suicide on July 20, 2022, shortly before his sentencing.
And what was Angst’s horrible crime of insurrection on January 6th for which he was forced to plead guilty and which he was to be sentenced in September to as much as six months in prison and as much as $5,000?
Assistant U.S. Attorney Mona Furst said the prosecution had evidence showing Aungst and Bronsburg entering the Capitol through the Senate fire door by the parliamentarian’s office approximately 2:45 p.m. and leaving 30 seconds later. Twenty minutes later they re-entered the building through the Senate wing door, and took photos and videos on their cell phones as they walked through the Capitol and into Senate Room 145.
Bronsburg later posted a video she took in the Capitol on Facebook and when Aungst returned to the bus he showed others his pictures, said Furst.
Neither assaulted a police officer nor stole or damaged government property, the prosecutor had said at a previous court proceeding.
My god, what horrors! This guy walked into the Capitol (the doors being opened by security), took some pictures, and had the temerity to show those pictures to others! Clearly he was part of a coup. That he could only be sentenced to six months in jail was certainly insufficient. Democrats nationwide can now celebrate that this evil insurrectionist is now dead.
Moreover, Democrats must be further heartened because this is the second January 6th protester to commit suicide because of their persecution.
I found these paragraphs from his obituary especially heart-breaking:
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We’re here to help you: In requesting public input into SpaceX’s plans to expand operations in Florida to accommodate launches of its Starship/Superheavy rocket, NASA is apparently withdrawing the permit it issued in 2019, allowing for such launches.
While a Final Environmental Assessment for Starship was issued in September 2019, NASA said that communication with SpaceX will be ongoing prior to a future first flight from Florida.
“NASA will review the risks to the area and programs at KSC [Kennedy Space Center] prior to any hazardous work,” Bob Holl told Spectrum News in a statement. “NASA will be involved in the lead-up of activities prior to the first loading and any static fire events of Starship and coordinate impacts across the spaceport.” Holl serves as the chief of the Spaceport Management and Integration Division in the Spaceport Integration and Services Directorate at KSC.
It appears NASA and the federal bureaucracy have decided that a new environmental assessment is necessary for SpaceX’s proposed new operation in Florida. After a 30-day period for public input, ending on July 29th, NASA will issue a new draft environmental assessment by September, which will then be subject to another public comment period. Then, the agency will issue a final decision in November, either declaring the new work causes no further impact or that a new environmental impact statement is required.
If the latter, expect Starship launches at Kennedy to be delayed several years.
This action continues the increased regulatory oversight on new space activities being imposed since the arrival of the Biden administration. The federal government is now apparently trying to set a new policy whereby any new work by a private company on or even near federal land will require its full approval, and even if given that approval will carry with it strict and endless governmental demands, all designed to slow things down.
The political timing of this new action however is significant, since this decision will occur after the November midterms. If control of Congress shifts significantly into Republican hands, as expected, the Biden administration’s new heavy-handed regulatory approach might face some pushback.
Russia has apparently backed off its earlier announcement this week that it is leaving ISS by ’24, instead informing NASA officially that it will stay with the partnership through at least ’28, until it gets its own independent space station in orbit.
All this still remains unclear, and still suggests the Russians are playing a negotiating game in public. Nonetheless, it will be no surprise at all if the Russians remain on the station until its lifespan ends, since it is highly unlikely that it will get its own space station launched in ’28, ’30, or even ’50, based on its past history.
Capitalism in space: Space Perspective yesterday unveiled the final design of its Neptune balloon capsule that it hopes to fly tourists to altitudes of almost 20 miles.
The graphic to the right reveals the biggest takeaway from this design: The “splash cone” at the bottom of the capsule tells us that the company intends to land its Florida-launched missions in the ocean, not on land.
An enhanced patent pending splash cone, refined from hundreds of digital iterations, to attenuate splashdown for a gentle and safe landing that improves customer experience and hydrodynamics. With water landings considered by NASA as the low risk way of returning a capsule from space, following the gradual, two-hour descent to Earth and a gentle splash down in the ocean, a Space Perspective crew will retrieve passengers, the capsule, and the SpaceBalloon™ by ship.
The company is presently targeting the end of ’24 for the start of commercial flights. It says it has sold about 900 $125K tickets.
The U.S. now has two balloon companies planning similar near-space missions. World View is planning flights from a variety of locations worldwide for a ticket price of $50K, with the first flights occurring no earlier than ’24.
Capitalism in space: Boeing officials revealed yesterday that they have been forced to add another $93 million charge against earnings for its much delayed Starliner manned capsule the company is building.
This is on top of $410 million in the fourth quarter of 2019 and another $185 million in the third quarter of 2021. All together, Boeing has had to cover $688 million in cost growth.
At the moment the first manned launch is tentatively scheduled to occur before the end of this year, with NASA supposedly announcing a firm date before the end of July. This new charge however suggests that the manned launch will not happen until ’23.
Boeing has not simply lost $688 million. It also has lost potential business because of the delays, both from NASA and private citizens. Instead, that business went to SpaceX.
NASA and ESA yesterday announced that the agencies have revised their plan to recover Perseverance core samples from Mars, dropping the launch of a rover to pick up the samples.
Instead, they have decided to use Perseverance to bring the samples to the return vehicle, which will also carry two small helicopters.
In 2030, if all goes as planned, the NASA lander will touch down near where Perseverance is working. The rover will drive over to the lander, and an ESA-built robot arm will extract the tubes one by one and place them inside a spherical container the size of a basketball. In early 2031, a rocket on the lander will loft the container into Mars orbit, where a return craft built by ESA will snare it, enclose it in several layers of shielding for safety, and then head for home. In 2033, a saucer-shaped descent pod will carry the samples down to the Utah desert.
If Perseverance gets into difficulties during its 9-year wait for company, controllers can instruct it to drop its cargo of sample tubes onto the ground, creating a second depot. If that happens, the helicopters come into play: they can fly up to 700 meters, land next to a sample tube—each weighs up to 150 grams—and, with wheels on the bottom their feet, roll over the tube and pick it up with a grabber. On returning to the lander, they will drop the tubes on the ground for the arm to pick up.
The change means that the rover the United Kingdom was planning to build will either be abandoned, or repurposed as a lunar rover.
The Aerospace Corporation today adjusted its prediction for the uncontrolled crash of the core stage from the Long March 5B rocket that China launched on July 24th.
According to the new prediction, the core stage will return to Earth during a 32 hour period centered on the early morning hours of July 31st above the Middle East.
The map to the right shows this. As you can see, at present the uncertainty of the prediction means the core stage could still crash almost anywhere.
That China has still done nothing to adjust the stage’s orbit now almost certainly confirms it can do nothing. This further confirms that in the year-plus since its last Long March 5B launch in May ’21, it did nothing to fix this fundamental problem. Moreover, this is the rocket’s third launch, all of which involved a core stage crashing uncontrollably. Each launch was thus a direct violation of the Outer Space Treaty, of which China is a signatory.
Another Long March 5B launch is scheduled for later this summer, to launch the last planned module to China’s Tiangong space station. Expect another violation of the treaty then as well.
Embedded below the fold in two parts.
To listen to all of John Batchelor’s podcasts, well worth your time, go here.
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An evening pause: Intensely done.
Hat tip Dan Morris.
