Gunhild Carling – Jazz on a bagpipe
An evening pause: Hat tip Jim Mallamace.
Category: Behind The Black
Lightning and mushballs on Jupiter
Click for full illustration.
Using data from Juno, scientists now theorize that Jupiter produces what they dub “shallow lightning” as well as ammonia-water hailstones dubbed “mushballs.”
The image to the right, cropped and reduced to post here, is only an artist’s illustration of the lightning. Sadly Juno’s camera doesn’t have the resolution to capture such flashes.
An unexpected form of electrical discharge, shallow lightning originates from clouds containing an ammonia-water solution, whereas lightning on Earth originates from water clouds.
Other new findings suggest the violent thunderstorms for which the gas giant is known may form slushy ammonia-rich hailstones Juno’s science team calls “mushballs”; they theorize that mushballs essentially kidnap ammonia and water in the upper atmosphere and carry them into the depths of Jupiter’s atmosphere.
As with the InSight results below, there is much uncertainty with these results, especially the hypothesis of mushballs. These features fit their present data from Juno, but we must remember that the data is still somewhat superficial.
Scientists make first rough estimate of Mars’ internal structure
Artist’s cutaway of theorized Martian interior
Using data from InSight’s seismometer, scientists have made their first approximation of the internal structure of Mars.
The first boundary Deng and Levander measured is the divide between Mars’ crust and mantle almost 22 miles (35 kilometers) beneath the lander.
The second is a transition zone within the mantle where magnesium iron silicates undergo a geochemical change. Above the zone, the elements form a mineral called olivine, and beneath it, heat and pressure compress them into a new mineral called wadsleyite. Known as the olivine-wadsleyite transition, this zone was found 690-727 miles (1,110-1,170 kilometers) beneath InSight. “The temperature at the olivine-wadsleyite transition is an important key to building thermal models of Mars,” Deng said. “From the depth of the transition, we can easily calculate the pressure, and with that, we can derive the temperature.”
The third boundary he and Levander measured is the border between Mars’ mantle and its iron-rich core, which they found about 945-994 miles (1,520-1,600 kilometers) beneath the lander. Better understanding this boundary “can provide information about the planet’s development from both a chemical and thermal point of view,” Deng said.
Because they only have one seismometer on the planet, this approximation has a great deal of uncertainty. Only when we have multiple such seismic instruments, scattered across the entire Martian globe, will scientists be able to hone their models more accurate of the planet’s interior.
Update on China’s future and on-going interplanetary missions
Link here. The article focuses on China’s plans to land future rover missions near the Moon’s south pole, but it also notes that Tianwen-1 made its first course correction on its way to Mars and is operating as expected.
Out hiking
Posting will resume this afternoon. Diane wanted to do a mid-week hike and I needed desperately to get out. The gyms are closed, you can’t go anywhere without being accosted for not wearing a mask, and the news is just too depressing.
In the mountains you can at least make believe you can still breathe free in America.
We should be back by 2 pm (Pacific). I will begin posting then.
Government routinely warned against mask use — before it was political
Link here. The article gives numerous examples of state health departments noting the uselessness of masks as well as their potential harmful aspects. For example,
…the California Department of Health, which now obsesses about the use of masks, warned about the inherent harm in wearing masks, especially outdoors:
“Mask use may give the wearer a false sense of security, which might encourage too much physical activity and time spent outdoors. Also, wearing a mask may actually be harmful to some people with heart or lung disease because it can make the lungs work harder to breathe.”
How come nobody is raising any concern about universal masking given the obvious observation that covering one’s face makes the lungs work harder? [emphasis mine]
For anyone who does any research at all into this subject, and is willing to be even slightly honest about it, the data is pretty clear: Masks are likely to provide you no protection from COVID-19, while carrying health risks that are real.
What makes me depressed about all this is that I know I am wasting my breath. My readers might read this, but they mostly agree with me. For the general American populace, no one is interested in hearing anything negative about masks. They want them required by law, as shown by this poll, because it makes them feel safe.
And in our shallow society — plunging headlong into a dark age — feelings must always trump reality. Always. And don’t you dare say otherwise.
Never in my entire life have I ever lived in a culture that demanded such things of others. The country that once existed here was a country that respected the rights of others to live freely as they wished.
No more. Now people see it their right to demand that others agree with them, and follow orders, or else. And the criteria is always what makes them feel good, not what makes sense.
Carol Burnett, Tim Conway, Harvey Korman – Simba
An evening pause: Another classic skit from the Carol Burnett Show.
Hat tip Phill Oltmann.
Fifth Starship prototype flies!
Shortly after take-off.
Right after landing.
After the smoke has cleared.
Capitalism in space: SpaceX’s fifth Starship prototype today successfully completed a 150 meter hop at its Boca Chica facility in Texas, landing vertically.
I have embedded a video of the flight below the fold.
The screen capture to the right shows it in flight. It is canted slightly because its one Raptor engine was not centered at its base but offset.
The next image shows the prototype standing vertical on the ground to the left of Starhopper, which flew one year ago. All told the flight lasted only about a minute.
The final image shows a close-up of the prototype after the smoke has cleared. Why it is canted on the ground is not clear. Its legs are not visible (they apparently are relatively small), so it is hard to say whether one buckled or not.
The launch platform might have sustained damage but they have another ready to go. It is even conceivable that they could fly this prototype again, though they already have prototype #8 waiting in the wings.
Regardless, expect SpaceX to keep its fast development pace going. I would not be surprised if they attempt another test flight in less than two weeks.
Screen captures courtesy of the LabPadre live stream.
» Read more
The dry barren plains of Tyrrhena Terra
Click for full image.
In a sense today’s cool image is a replay of one I posted in March, showing the dry barren terrain in the vast rough cratered highlands of Tyrrhena Terra, located along the equator of Mars between the giant basins of Isidis and Hellas.
Today’s image on the right, cropped to post here, was taken by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter on March 26, 2020, and shows well the barrenness of this region. The surface appears quite solid, like bedrock, rather than the squishy soft surface of the northern lowland plains. Moreover, there is a lot of dust trapped in the low areas between the ridges, forming ripples that new data suggest move slowly across the surface. If you click on the full image, you will see that this terrain is far from local, and goes on in this manner for quite a distance in all directions.
This is a dry and forbidding place, about the size of the American southwest, from Texas to California.
The overview map below provides some context of Tyrrhena Terra’s location on Mars.
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Virgin Galactic again delays first commercial flight
Capitalism in space: Virgin Galactic, which has been repeatedly delaying its first commercial flight for more than a decade, has done so again, stating that it will not occur until 2021.
The company, in its fiscal second quarter financial results released Aug. 3, said it expected to perform two more test flights of SpaceShipTwo from Spaceport America in New Mexico, both of which will be powered flights. The vehicle has made two glide flights since moving to the spaceport early this year.
The first of those powered flights, scheduled for the fall, will have two pilots on board. It will also carry payloads for NASA’s Flight Opportunities program that arranges flights of experiments on suborbital vehicles, said George Whitesides, chief space officer and former chief executive of Virgin Galactic, in a company earnings call.
If that flight goes as expected, Virgin Galactic will then perform a second flight, this time with four mission specialists on board along with the two pilots. Those mission specialists “will evaluate the performance of our full customer cabin and associated hardware,” he said. The company unveiled the design of the cabin July 28, although Whitesides said they were still completing the installation of the cabin on the company’s current SpaceShipTwo vehicle, VSS Unity.
“Presuming things go as expected on this fully-crewed flight, we would then plan to fly Sir Richard Branson on the third powered flight from New Mexico,” he said. That flight would take place in the first quarter of 2021 and mark the beginning of commercial service, although Whitesides said it will also be a test flight of sorts. “Sir Richard is in a unique position to provide the ultimate cabin and spaceflight experience evaluation, as a visionary of the Virgin customer experience.”
The company also announced that it intends to sell stock shares to raise more capital. Right now the stock is selling for about $20.
I am no expert on the stock market, but to my mind this company’s chances of making big profits from suborbital flights is slim to none. They might make some money, but hardly enough ever to repay their investors. Virgin Galactic’s window for making big money in suborbital tourism closed forever with the success of SpaceX’s manned Dragon flight to ISS. The space tourism market is shifting to orbital space, something Virgin Galactic cannot provide. Worse, the cost for getting to orbit continues to drop, while this company can’t reduce its prices much.
Virgin Galactic provides a weak product in the present market, one that can only become weaker when compared to its competitors.
Starship hop today?
UPDATE: They are close to trying again. If you refresh your screen, you will now have two iterations of the live stream. This will allow you to have two cameras visible at the same time, You can show the main “nerdie” camera on one, with their commentary, and show the wider “sapphire” camera on the second. You pick cameras by clicking on the camera icon in the menu bar at the bottom of the screen.
UPDATE: First attempt apparently aborted. No word yet if they will attempt again today.
UPDATE: Scrubbed on August 3rd, attempting again on August 4th.
Capitalism in space: SpaceX’s Starship team has scheduled the first 500 foot hop of the fifth Starship prototype today, after canceling yesterday’s attempt.
The window for Starship SN5’s 150m hop debut now stretches from 8am to 8pm CDT (13:00-01:00 UTC) on Monday, August 3rd. It’s currently unknown if SpaceX will offer its own live coverage of the test flight but several unofficial streams will likely be available from NASASpaceflight.com, LabPadre, SPadre, and more. Stay tuned for updates!
I have embedded LabPadre’s live stream below the fold, if you wish to run it in the background. They will have commentary when they note a “pad clear” signal.
» Read more
The Cleverlys – Born To Be With You
An evening pause: Hat tip Jim Mallamace.