Category: Behind The Black

October 31, 2024 Quick space links

3:14 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.

1 comment

Weird ring-mounds in one of Mars’ largest craters

3:03 pm

Weird ring mounds on Mars
Click for original image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on August 16, 2024 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). The science team labels these strange features “ring-mound landforms,” a term that has been used to describe [pdf] only vaguely similar features previously found in the Athabasca flood lava plain almost on the other side of Mars. That paper suggested that those ring mounds formed on the “thin, brittle crust of an active fluid flow” created by an explosive event. Since Athabasca is considered Mars’s most recent major flood lava event, the fluid was likely lava, which on Mars flows more quickly and thinly in the lower gravity.

Thus, in Athabasca the ring-mounds formed when a pimple of molten lava from below popped the surface.

But what about the ring mounds in the picture to the right?
» Read more

1 comment

Has there been a wave of fraudulent election ballots swamping PA? Let’s find out!

2:08 pm

What does the newly discovered election fraud in PA tell us?
What does the newly discovered election
fraud in PA tell us?

In the past week there have been a bunch of stories in the conservative press from three different counties in Pennsylvania, suggesting that each county has been swamped with thousands of fraudulent ballots, produced in bulk and then delivered in large numbers so as to make it difficult to trace or investigate them.

I decided to take a closer look, because this story could either be telling us how corrupt the upcoming election will be, or it might actually be telling us that it is going to be much more reliable than we have anticipated.

The three counties involved are Lancaster, York, and Monroe. All told, less than six thousand voter registration applications, all submitted apparently in bulk by a Arizona-based company called Field+Media Corps, were under review, the number from each county being 2,500, 3,087, and 30 respectively. Note that these do not appear to be actual ballots, but registration forms that would once approved would allow the individual to vote, either by mail or in person.

Of these applications, the reviews have already produced results. For example, York County has found that of the 3,087 submitted, 47% were verified and approved, 29% needed more information, and 24% were declined and are under further review. In Monroe County the investigation has apparently only flagged these 30 forms, with one coming from a deceased person and others flagged for different reasons that in the end might be legitimate.

In Lancaster County officials have not yet issued a report. Initially it announced:
» Read more

14 comments

Post-collision images of two galaxies

10:56 am

Post-collision imagery by Hubble and Webb
Click for original image.

Using both the Hubble and Webb space telescopes, astronomers have now produced multi-wavelength images of the galaxies NGC 2207and IC 2163, as shown to the right.

Millions of years ago the smaller galaxy, IC 2163, grazed against the larger, NGC 2207, resulting today in increased star formation in both galaxies, indicated by blue in the Hubble photo. From the caption of the combined images:

Combined, they are estimated to form the equivalent of two dozen new stars that are the size of the Sun annually. Our Milky Way galaxy forms the equivalent of two or three new Sun-like stars per year. Both galaxies have hosted seven known supernovae, each of which may have cleared space in their arms, rearranging gas and dust that later cooled, and allowed many new stars to form.

The two images to the left leaves the Hubble and Webb separate, making it easier to see the different features the different wavelengths reveal. From this caption:

In Hubble’s image, the star-filled spiral arms glow brightly in blue, and the galaxies’ cores in orange. Both galaxies are covered in dark brown dust lanes, which obscure the view of IC 2163’s core at left. In Webb’s image, cold dust takes centre stage, casting the galaxies’ arms in white. Areas where stars are still deeply embedded in the dust appear pink. Other pink dots may be objects that lie well behind these galaxies, including active supermassive black holes known as quasars.

The largest and brightest pink area in the Webb image, on the bottom right and a blue patch in the Hubble image, is where a strong cluster of star formation is presently occurring.

6 comments

Russia launches military satellite

9:38 am

Russia today (October 31st in Russia) successfully launched a classified military satellite, its Soyuz-2 rocket lifting off from its Plesetsk spaceport in northern Russia.

The flight path took the satellite over the Arctic, where the rocket’s lower stages crashed harmlessly.

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

107 SpaceX
49 China
12 Russia
11 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise still leads the rest of the world combined in successful launches 124 to 73, while SpaceX by itself still leads the entire world, including American companies, 107 to 90.

0 comments

Nearly four dozen anti-SpaceX activists organize to flood public meeting

9:29 am

At a public meeting of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) on October 17, 2024 nearly four dozen anti-SpaceX activists apparently arrived en masse in order to overwhelm the public comment period with negative opinions about the company and its operation at Boca Chica.

The report at the link, from the San Antonio Express-News, is (as usual for a propaganda press outlet) decidedly in favor of these activists, and makes it sound as if these forty-plus individuals, apparently led by the activist group SaveRGV that has mounted most of the legal challenges to SpaceX, represent the opinions of the public at large.

What really happened here is that the Brownsville public has better things to do, like building businesses and making money, much of which now only exists because of SpaceX and that operation at Boca Chica. Thus, the only ones with time or desire to organize to show up at these kinds of meetings are these kinds of activists.

It might pay however for some of the more business-oriented organizations in Brownsville to make sure they are in the game at the next public meeting, scheduled for November 14, 2024 [pdf]. This would not be hard to do, and it would certainly help balance the scales, which at present are decidedly been warped by this small minority of protesters.

3 comments

SpaceX: Only five more launches needed to complete Starlink direct-to-cell constellation

9:11 am

According to a tweet posted by SpaceX shortly after yesterday’s first launch from Vandenberg, the company needs only five more launches to complete its first constellation of Starlink direct-to-cell satellites.

More information here. At the moment the company has launched 260 of this version of its Starlink satellites. Since each launch places 13 more satellites in orbit, that means the first full iteration of the constellation will contain 325 satellites.

The satellites will allow cell phone users on the ground to use the constellations like a cell tower, thus providing service in areas where ground cell tower service does not exist. At the moment T-Mobile has a deal with SpaceX, so its subscribers will be able to use this service as soon as it is operational.

When when this be achieved? This story once again illustrates the speed in which SpaceX operates. The first launch of direct-to-cell Starlink satellites occurred on January 2, 2024, and in the last ten months the company has completed 23 launches to get the constellation where it is presently. At that pace the entire consellation might be complete before the end of this year.

The competition for this service is certainly fierce. The other satellite company offering this service, AST Mobile, has launched the first five satellites in its constellation, and has deals with AT&T and Verizon. Its design is different, and will only require 110 satellites to complete the constellation. At the moment five are about to become operational. It hopes to start regular launches next year to complete the constellation.

4 comments

October 30, 2024 Quick space links

3:32 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.

  • Chinese pseudo-company AZSpace plans first launch of its cargo capsule to Tiangong-3 in November
    It also has unveiled its own New Shepard copycat suborbital capsule. I will consider both real, when they fly.
3 comments

SpaceX launches another 23 Starlink satellites

3:13 pm

SpaceX this afternoon completed its second launch today, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral carrying 23 Starlink satellites.

The first stage completed its fourteenth flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic.

The earlier launch was from Vandenberg, also with a payload of Starlink satellites.

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

107 SpaceX
49 China
11 Russia
11 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise now leads the rest of the world combined in successful launches 124 to 72, while SpaceX by itself still leads the entire world, including American companies, 107 to 89.

1 comment

“What the heck?” lava on Mars

1:47 pm


Click for original image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on August 19, 2024 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). Labeled merely as a “terrain sample,” it was likely snapped not for any specific research project, but to fill a gap in the camera schedule in order to maintain its proper temperature.

When the science team does this they try to pick interesting locations. Sometimes the picture is relatively boring. Sometimes, like the picture to the right, it reveals weird geology that is somewhat difficult to explain. The picture covers the transition from the smooth featureless plain to the north, and the twisting and complex ridges to the south, all of which are less than a few feet high.

Note the gaps. The downgrade here is to the west, and the gaps appear to vaguely indicate places where flows had occurred.
» Read more

0 comments

SpaceX launches 20 more Starlink satellites

9:38 am

SpaceX early this morning successfully launched another 20 Starlink satellites, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Vandenberg in California.

The first stage completed its fourteenth flight, landing on a drone ship in the Pacific.

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

106 SpaceX
49 China
11 Russia
11 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise now leads the rest of the world combined in successful launches 123 to 72, while SpaceX by itself still leads the entire world, including American companies, 106 to 89.

2 comments
1 … 285 286 287 288 289 … 2,916