Category: Behind The Black

Spotting dozens of Martian dust devils in one observation

10:50 am

Overview map

Dozens of active dust devils in one image
Click for source.

Using Europe’s Mars Express orbiter, scientists have found it is possible to identify multiple active dust devils at a time on the surface of Mars.

The circles on the image to the right shows dozens of such dust devils, at the outlet region of a valley on Mars dubbed Mamers Valles, located at the western end of the 2,000-mile-long mid-latitude strip I dub glacier country (as shown on the overview map above), because practically every image of this region shows glacial features. This location is where Mamer Valles drains into the northern lowland plains.

Mars Express is uniquely equipped to spot these mini whirlwinds. To form a single image using its High Resolution Stereo Camera – the instrument responsible for these new snapshots – the spacecraft combines sequential views from up to nine separate camera channels (which look at Mars in a different colour, from a different direction, or a mix of the two). If nothing changes on the martian surface while these are being taken, the multiple perspectives align – but if something is moving about, it stands out clearly from its surroundings.

In this new set of images, Mars Express captures not one but dozens of active dust devils.

The image to the right covers about a hundred miles from top to bottom. It is part of a long term project using Mars Express to map the dust devil activity on the entire Martian surface. Not surprisingly, dust devils do not occur everywhere in equal amounts. It appears they favor certain locations, with more generally found in the high latitudes of the cratered southern hemisphere.

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Tiawen-2 appears to be correctly approaching its target asteroid Kamo-oalewa

9:41 am

Though China has made no official update on the status of Tiawen-2, its first asteroid sample return mission, the spacecraft’s maneuvers that amateurs have been tracking suggest it is approaching its target asteroid Kamoʻoalewa as planned, with a rendezvous set for July.

Despite the lack of official updates, the observed maneuvers fit the approach sequence described in Tianwen-2’s mission design. According to a paper by Zhang Rongqiao and colleagues published in SCIENTIA SINICA Physica, Mechanica & Astronomica, the spacecraft’s approach to Kamo’oalewa follows a planned sequence of phases, including the June 7 rendezvous, concluding when the probe has closed to within 20 kilometers of the asteroid’s surface, marking the starting point for close-proximity science operations. This will include global mapping and surveying and sample site selection.

A mission engineer, delivering a presentation on behalf of Zhang He at the 35th Meeting of the NASA Small Bodies Assessment Group (SBAG) June 11, confirmed Tianwen-2 is scheduled to arrive at Kamo’oalewa in July, without providing details on current distance from the asteroid.

The mission is somewhat similar in concept to NASA’s OSIRIS-Rex and Japan’s Hayabusa-2 asteroid missions, both of which rendezvoused with an asteroid and grabbed samples to return to Earth. China however has posted little information about Tianwen-2, including few pictures. One can’t help wondering if this reticence is because the spacecraft’s design its stolen, and China doesn’t want to make this obvious. It is known that China hacked into the computer systems of JPL, NASA, and Japan’s space agency JAXA.

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The satellite repair startup Katalyst raises $12 million in private investment capital

9:23 am

Katalyst's proposed Swift rescue mission
Katalyst’s proposed Swift rescue mission.
Click for original image.

The startup Katalyst, which aims to become a major robotic satellite servicing company and is about to launch its first mission to rescue NASA’s Gehrels-Swift space telescope, has just completed a funding round where it raised $12 million in private investment capital.

Katalyst Space raised $12 million to develop Katalyst’s Nexus robotic spacecraft and expand satellite servicing to multi-orbit, multi-mission operations. … It’s a space robot that will reposition, repair, refuel, refit satellites post-launch, and build the next generation of space infrastructure.

The funding round was led by Geodesic Capital, with significant participation from Fortitude Ventures and other investors.

Nexus’ first mission in 2027 will be to geosynchronous orbit, though it is not yet determined what satellite the spacecraft will service. The company appears to be in negotiation with both the government and commercial satellite operators.

Meanwhile, Katalyst’s Link spacecraft is now integrated within Northrop Grumman’s Pegasus rocket, awaiting a planned launch later this month. That rescue mission, only awarded to Katalyst by NASA in November 2025, will attempt to capture Gehrels-Swift, which has no capture mechanism, and raise its orbit.

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Cargo Dragon splashes down in Pacific after spending a month at ISS

9:04 am

ISS today, after undocking of cargo Dragon
ISS today, after undocking of cargo Dragon.
Click for original.

SpaceX today successfully recovered a cargo Dragon from ISS, the capsule undocking and splashing down in the Pacific, bringing back a variety of experimental samples and hardware.

Research returning includes bioprinted organ and cartilage tissue, data on improving cryogenic fuel storage for future space missions, and DNA‑inspired materials to develop new cancer treatments. The returning hardware includes an ocular imaging device used to monitor crew members’ eye health, an absorbent bed that filters trace contaminants from cabin air, and a separator pump from the waste and hygiene compartment.

The Dragon had spent a month at ISS, just long enough for astronauts to unload its cargo from Earth and place this ISS material aboard.

The graphic to the right, cropped, reduced, and annotated to post here, shows the present spacecraft docked to ISS. It also shows the location of Russia’s leaking Zvezda module, with a Progress docked to its aft port. Note that a Progress and the permanent modulc are also docked to its bow docking hub. Zvezda is an essential part of the Russian half of ISS. Replacing it is impossible.

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Four launches, two by China, one by SpaceX, and one by Arianespace

8:01 am

The beat goes on. Since yesterday the global rocket industry completed four separate launches on three separate continents.

First, China’s Long March 3B rocket placed “an experimental satellite” into orbit, lifting off yesterday from its Xichang spaceport in southwest China. The state-run press provided no information as to where the rocket’s lower stages, using very toxic hypergolic fuels, crashed inside China.

China followed up with the launch of another nine satellites in the Guowang (Satnet) internet constellation, its Long March 12 rocket lifting off today from its coastal Wenchang spaceport. This was the 22nd launch for this constellation, bringing the total number of operational satellites in orbit to 175, according to the report at the link, which also added this:

This year, it is planned that 310 satellites will be deployed, followed by 900 in 2027, and 3,600 every year beginning in 2028 to sustain and grow the constellation. In the 2030s, up to 13,000 satellites could be in operational orbit.

Though launched over the ocean, the rocket’s lower stages fell within the territorial waters of the Philippines, requiring its space agency to issue a warning to local residents and boat owners.

Next SpaceX in the early morning hours successfully launched three Bluebird satellites for AST SpaceMobile’s cell-to-satellite constellation, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. AST now has 10 satellites in orbit. It needs to launch 45 to become operational, something it now hopes to achieve by early 2027.

The rocket’s two fairings completed their 16th and 33rd flights respectively. The first stage (B1077) completed its 29th flight (27 days after its previous flight), landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic. With this flight the stage moved past the space shuttle Columbia, putting it in seventh place in the rankings for the most reused launch vehicle:

39 Discovery space shuttle
35 Falcon 9 booster B1067
34 Falcon 9 booster B1071
33 Atlantis space shuttle
32 Falcon 9 booster B1063
31 Falcon 9 booster B1069
29 Falcon 9 booster B1077
28 Columbia space shuttle
28 Falcon 9 booster B1078

Sources here and here.

Finally, several hours later Arianespace launched 36 Leo satellites for Amazon, its Ariane-6 rocket lifting off from French Guiana. This launch was the most powerful configuration of Ariane-6 yet launched and the third in Arianespace’s 18-launch Amazon contract. With this launch, Amazon now has 367 satellites in orbit. It needs to get 3,232 in orbit by July 30, 2029 to meet its FCC license requirements.

This was Arianespace’s third launch this year. The leaders in the 2026 launch race:

72 SpaceX
39 China
8 Russia
8 Rocket Lab (plus two suborbital HASTE launches)

For the third straight year SpaceX leads the entire world combined in total launches, 72 to 67.

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SpaceX demolishes SLC-6 launchpad at Vandenberg

3:16 pm

The SLC-6 launchpad during my 2015 tour of Vandenberg
The SLC-6 launchpad during my 2015 tour of Vandenberg

As part of its plan to launch both Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California, SpaceX today demolished the SLC-6 launchpad there that had been built in the 1980s for space shuttle launches (but never used) and then leased to ULA for its Delta rocket (now retired).

Below the fold is a video showing the controlled demolition. The quality is very poor, as it was taken on a smart phone looking at a live stream of the demolition, broadcast inside a nearby auditorium. Vandenberg officials did not allow anyone access to any nearby location to watch live.

SpaceX will now rebuild the pad for its own Falcon rockets. Once completed, it will have two launchpads at Vandenberg, allowing it to up its launch rate there to as much as 100 launches per year.

To get a sense of the size and scale of SLC-6 prior to today, see the photos from my 2015 tour of Vandenberg. The picture to the right attempts to capture it, with its mobile launch tower on left and larger assembly building on the right. As I wrote then when taken inside the rocket assembly building:

I can sum up the experience however in one word: Big! The interior space was incredibly large, so large they have repeated problems chasing birds and raccoons from within it. When we took the elevator to the 20th level, almost the highest point inside, the room echoed with the sounds of birds whistling away. I wonder how they react when a rocket takes off.

It is now gone. It will however be replaced by something better. The history of SLC-6 was that of a largely expensive and under-used facility. SpaceX intends to change that.

Hat tip BtB’s stringer Jay.
» Read more

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June 16, 2026 Quick space links

2:48 pm

Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay. This post is also an open thread. I welcome my readers to post any comments or additional links relating to any space issues, even if unrelated to the links below.

  • Upper stage of China’s Zhuque-2E rocket launched June 9th breaks apart
    The pieces pose only a temporary problem as they are low enough they will all burn up in a few months. The break-up however highlights China’s irresponsibility in this matter, as this is not the only Chinese upper stage to do this. Its Long March 6 did so four times in 2024. Moreover, China makes relatively little effort to bring these upper stages down quickly in a controlled manner.
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On the Space Show tonight

2:15 pm

After reading my essay June 13, 2026 about SpaceX’s IPO and how it lays the groundwork for the colonization of the solar system by private enterprise, David Livingston has scheduled a special Space Show tonight to allow his advisory board to discuss this possibility. I intend to join in.

The show starts at 6 pm (Pacific), aired live on Zoom. To join that Zoom meeting as a video participant you need to be a supporter of the Space Show by donating at least $100.

However, anyone can listen and participate by phone without donating. To do so you need to email David Livingston at drspace@thespaceshow.com prior to airtime for both the Zoom phone numbers and access permission. The name and the phone number you provide should agree with the same on your telephone number log in when you enter the Zoom waiting room. The Space Show is following Zoom security requirements in inviting public participation in this program.

Without the access codes, you will not be able to join.

You can also place a comment below saying you want to participate, and I will then put you in touch with David.

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Astronomers discover a third galaxy devoid of dark matter

12:22 pm

Galaxy DF9
Click for original image.

The uncertainty of science: Using the Keck telescope in Hawaii, astronomers have discovered a galaxy that apparently has no dark matter, the third such galaxy discovered.

The galaxy, dubbed DF9, is shown to the right. It is part of a region that includes the other two galaxies with no dark matter, suggesting all three were formed in linked circumstances.

The team used Keck Observatory’s Keck Cosmic Web Imager (KCWI) to measure the motions of stars inside DF9 by analyzing the light emitted across different wavelengths. Those measurements revealed that DF9 has a mass of only about 100 million Suns, consistent entirely with the galaxy’s visible matter. If the galaxy contained a typical amount of dark matter, astronomers would expect it to be about 100 times more massive.

Dark matter was invented by astronomers in the 1960s to explain the inexplicable fast rotation of stars in the outer fringes of every galaxy they looked at, much faster than accounted for by the visible mass of each galaxy. That fast rotation suggested there was a lot more matter there that could not be seen, as much as one quarter of all mass according to some models. This unseen matter was then labeled “dark matter”, though even three-quarters of a century later it still remains undetected directly.

That these galaxies have no dark matter poses a difficult problem. At present the scientists are trying to come up with scenarios for creating these galaxies without it, but I suspect they will be hard-pressed to come up with any theory that convinces anyone.

I can’t help wondering if the problem isn’t the fast rotation of the stars, but the observations themselves. Maybe there is something we are missing or are unable to detect, because of the vast distances and faint nature of the light. Either way, dark matter, there or not, remains one of the big fundamental mysteries of cosmology.

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Curiosity sees smooth ground for the first time in years

11:01 am

June 12, 2026 Curiosity panorama
Click for full resolution version. Click here, here, and here for original images.

Overview mapd
Click for interactive map.

Cool image time! The panorama above was created from three pictures taken on June 12, 2026 by the left navigation camera on the Mars rover Curiosity (see here, here, and here). It shows the immediate ground uphill in front of the rover, which appears to be the smoothest ground that Curiosity has seen in about five years, since it entered the foothills at the base of Mount Sharp in 2021.

Since then the terrain has been routinely boulder strewn. In one case, the ground was so rocky and rough that the science team had to back off from their original plans and find a different route.

The panorama above shows something wholly different, a patch of relatively smooth ground with only a scattering of sharp rocks protruding periodically from below. This ground is likely the rover’s first taste of what the science team calls the “yardang unit”, the light colored hills in the lower right of the overview map to the right. For years that team has looked at those hills, wondering what it would be like to drive Curiosity on them. Their geology suggests a much softer terrain, sand shaped into dunes (yardangs) by the wind. The unknown was always whether the ground was structurally strong enough for the rover to traverse it.

It looks like they are about to get their first clue. Based on the panorama above, the ground appears very promising.

On the overview map, the blue dot marks Curiosity’s present position, with the red-dotted line is planned route and white-dotted line its actual travels. The yellow lines indicate approximately the area covered by the panorama.

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SpaceX gets an additional $10 billion from its IPO, bringing total raised to $85.7 billion

9:05 am

SpaceX logo

SpaceX yesterday announced that it has raised an additional $10 billion from its initial public offering (IPO) because its original private investors have decided to exercise their option to purchase stock, bringing the total raised to $85.7 billion.

Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (“SpaceX”) today announced the closing of its initial public offering of an aggregate 638,888,888 shares of its Class A common stock, including the full exercise by the underwriters of their overallotment option to purchase an additional 83,333,333 shares of Class A common stock from SpaceX. The issuance of all shares closed on June 15, 2026, bringing the gross proceeds from the initial public offering to SpaceX to approximately $85.7 billion. The shares of Class A common stock began trading on the Nasdaq Global Select Market and Nasdaq Texas on June 12, 2026, under the ticker symbol “SPCX.”

Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC, Morgan Stanley, BofA Securities, Citigroup, J.P. Morgan, Barclays, Deutsche Bank Securities, RBC Capital Markets, UBS Investment Bank, and Wells Fargo Securities acted as book-running managers for the offering. Cantor, Needham & Company, Raymond James, Societe Generale, Stifel, William Blair, BTG Pactual, ING, Macquarie Capital (USA) Inc., Mirae Asset Securities, Mizuho, and Santander acted as co-managers.

The actual cash raised for the company is less than $85.7 billion, as the various financial institutions listed in the second paragraph above get a cut for managing the IPO, which is only 0.75%, the lowest percentage for an IPO since 2010. Thus, SpaceX raised more than $85 billion for its own use.

As I noted a few days ago, this nest egg of cash is only part of the company’s resources. It presently earns about $31 billion in revenue yearly from Starlink and its computer hardware divisions. That number is also certain to rise in the coming years.

Meanwhile, subsequent trading of the company’s stock on Wall Street remains brisk, with the price continuing to rise. It is presently trading at over $200 per share. Though this higher price doesn’t mean more money to SpaceX (as it only represents resales of the stock), it does tell us that the market considers the stock more valuable than its initial price. Thus, the predictions of many financial experts that the IPO was over-valued are so far turning out to be wrong.

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June 15, 2026 Quick space links

3:02 pm

Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay. This post is also an open thread. I welcome my readers to post any comments or additional links relating to any space issues, even if unrelated to the links below.

  • On June 14, 1967 Mariner 5 was launched to fly past Venus
    On October 19, 1967 it passed 2,585 above the surface, providing the first measurement of Venus’ 800 degree Fahrenheit atmosphere with pressures 100 times that of Earth. It also found no evidence of water, predicted incorrectly by some scientists and sci-fi authors as the main component of Venus’s cloudy atmosphere.
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Are the Russians no longer going to dock to its leaking Zvezda module on ISS?

10:15 am

Zvezda module of ISS
The Zvezda module, with aft PrK section indicated
where the cracks have been found.

In a report today at Ars Technica, Eric Berger cites two anonymous NASA officials as saying that the Russians have decided to decommission the aft PrK section of its Zvezda module where it has found numerous cracks and air leaks in the hull, apparently caused by the stress of the many dockings to Zvezda since it was launched almost thirty years ago.

Berger’s report was aimed at providing more information about the kerfuffle between NASA and Roscosmos on June 5, 2026,, when NASA had the astronauts on its half of the station shelter inside their Dragon capsule because Roscosmos was going to have its Russian astronauts cut off a structural bracket in Zvezda as part of the first phase of a new leak patch effort. NASA objected strongly to this action, fearing justifiably that the work could cause a catastrophic failure in Zvezda.

The Russians eventually backed off, merely doing measurements of the module’s new crack, which appearantly appeared after a Progress docking in April

Berger doesn’t really add any significant new details to this June 5 story, but he ends his report with this tidbit:

In the days since, there has been some additional back-and-forth, but Russia has now told NASA it will decommission the PrK module. Effectively, this means cosmonauts will no longer enter the PrK module or attempt to pressurize it. Progress vehicles will still be able to use the docking port to transfer fluids or perform other functions, but Russia will need to use other ports to move supplies on board the space station. [emphasis mine]

This quote however doesn’t tell us anything, and actually raises more questions. The Russians have already been keeping the hatch to Zvezda closed as much as possible, opening it only to unload Progress cargo. And if Progress freighters are still going to dock to Zvezda to “transfer fluids or perform other functions”, the module isn’t decommissioned. Nor is the risk reduced. One of the reasons Zvezda has been stressed over the years is that this port is along the station’s main axis, which makes it ideal for engine burns to raise the station’s orbit. Progresses have been doing this repeatedly from Zvezda for three decades. If they intend to dock with Zvezda to “transfer” fluids”, that also suggests they also plan to continue to use that port for those burns.

It also makes no sense to say other ports will be used to “move supplies” from freighters. Russia isn’t going to dock to Zvezda to transfer fluids, do engine burns, and then move Progress to a different port to transfer cargo.

Thus, we really at this moment do not know what the Russians intend. Nor do we know if they plan to continue to dock with Zvezda. And it appears that each time they do, the chances of a catastrophic failure of Zvezda increases.

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Two launches so far today, with a third only hours away

9:29 am

Since last night there were two launches globally, by China and SpaceX, with a third launch scheduled several hours hence by the rocket startup Isar Aerospace.

First, China’s launched eight classified “high-resolution optical remote sensing” satellites, its solid-fueled Kinetica-1 rocket (also called Lijian-1) lifting off from its Jiuquan spaceport in northwest China. Such satellites are almost certainly for military reconnaissance. China’s state-run press provided no other information, nor did it mention where the rocket’s lower stages crashed inside China. Kinetica-1 is also built by the pseudo-company CAS-Space, which happens to be wholly owned by a government agency.

Next, SpaceX launched 24 more Starlink satellites into orbit, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California. The first stage completed its 14th flight (45 days after its previous flight), landing on a drone ship in the Pacific.

Finally, a third launch is scheduled for 1 pm (Pacific) by the rocket startup Isar Aerospace. It will be making its second attempt from Norway’s Andoya spaceport to launch its Spectrum rocket, the first having failed seconds after launch in March 2025. I have embedded the live stream below, and will post a separate report after the launch. UPDATE: Scrubbed due to ground issues.

The leaders in the 2026 launch race (prior to Isar’s launch attempt):

71 SpaceX
37 China
8 Russia
8 Rocket Lab (plus two suborbital HASTE launches)

For the third straight year SpaceX leads the entire world combined in total launches, 71 to 64.
» Read more

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India won’t reveal the cause of its two PSLV rocket failures

10:19 am

India's space agency ISRO, as transparent as mud
India’s space agency ISRO,
as transparent as mud

Though one of India’s high government officials yesterday announced that its space agency ISRO had “resolved” the third stage issue that caused two consecutive failures of its PSLV rocket, that official also refused to provide any details.

Union Minister of State for Science and Technology Jitendra Singh on Saturday said that the anomaly in the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) has been resolved. Dr. Singh said on the sidelines of the Research, Industry, Start-up and Entrepreneurship (RISE) Conclave 2026 in Bengaluru, that the national level expert committee constituted to review the reason for anomaly in PSLV Vehicle has submitted its report and the anomaly has been detected.

“The report has come out and the anomaly has been detected. However we cannot share that (reason for the anomaly) on a public platform. But experts are working on it, which has been resolved and very soon we will be back on the track,” Dr. Singh said replying to a query by The Hindu.

Note that after the first third stage failure in 2025, ISRO was also reticent about revealing the problem and how it fixed it. Then the third stage failed again at almost the exact same moment during the next launch in January 2026.

A month later this same official announced ISRO knew what the problem was and had fixed it — once again giving no details — and said the next launch was scheduled for June 2026. It is now June, and despite Singh’s promise no PSLV launch is being prepared.

This lack of transparancy speaks very badly for ISRO. It will make it extremely difficult for it to attract any commercial customers. In fact, that is basically what has happened. Before the Covid panic ISRO had a decent share of the commercial satellite market. Now, even with that satellite market growing in leaps and bounds, it has almost no commercial customers.

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SpaceX’s IPO sets the stage for the colonization of the solar system — by private enterprise

1:01 pm

Elon Musk during the IPO
Elon Musk at the IPO opening.

While most news reports have focused trivially on Elon Musk’s status as the first trillionaire resulting from SpaceX’s successful initial public offering (IPO) last week, the real story of that IPO has to do with SpaceX itself and how that company’s extremely bright future is going to change human history.

Let me run some numbers.

The day’s earnings

First, the IPO was designed to raise capital for SpaceX by selling about 555 million shares of stock, with an opening price of $135. Once IPO opened however that price immediately jumped to $150, rising as high as $176 during the day, and by closing time settled at $160.95.

If we pick a conservative average sale price of $155 per share, this means SpaceX raised more than $86 billion in investment capital on this one day. The actual number will be less, because the brokerage houses that ran the IPO get a cut, but I would guess SpaceX will walk away with at least $75 billion once all accounts are settled.

To give this some context, NASA’s annual budget for the past two decades has been around $24 billion. NASA however cannot use that cash very efficiently, because it is required by Congress to have a huge unneeded labor force in many centers scattered around the country, to create jobs in specific congressional districts and states.

SpaceX doesn’t have that problem. For the company, this is real money. It can focus its use very precisely and efficiently for what needs to be done, and thus get a lot more bang out of the buck.

Annual earnings

SpaceX however is not limited to just the capital raised in the IPO.
» Read more

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Arquivo Curioso – 125 years of woman’s fashion

6:01 pm

An evening pause: If you notice, beginning in 1970 the styles exhibit variety, but no longer appear unique to any time period. Before, you could look at the clothes and pin down the decade pretty closely. After, you’d be hard pressed to identify if it was 1980 or 2025. (Except for that idiotic mask in 2020).

Enjoy the weekend!

Hat tip Mike Nelson.

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