Category: Behind The Black

Spiders on the rim of a Martian crater

3:06 pm

Spiders on the rim of a Martian crater
Click for original image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped to post here, was taken on December 29, 2023 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows strange spidery formations on the rim of a 17-mile-wide crater about 500 miles from the south pole of Mars.

Scientists think these spider features are formed due to the seasonal cycle on Mars. In the winter at the poles the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere falls as snow in the polar regions, creating a thin dry ice mantle that covers everything. When spring arrives, sunlight goes through the clear mantle to heat its base, causing that dry ice to sublimate into gas that is trapped below the mantle. Eventually that mantle cracks at a weak point and the gas escapes, spewing dark dust on its top. By summer the mantle is entirely gone, and the black splotches disappear as they blend back into the same colored ground.

At the south pole the ground appears to be firmer and more structurally sound than at the north pole. The trapped gas appears to travel upward along the same tributary paths to the same escape points each year, thus carving these spidery features that are permanent features.
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Despite big bucks from the U.S., the stalemate in the Ukraine continues, with only minor Russian gains

1:32 pm

With the passage by the Senate yesterday of a major foreign aid bill that includes $60 billion in aid to the Ukraine war effort, despite strong public opposition and a House Republican leadership unwilling to approve it, it seems that this might be a good time to look at the actual situation on the ground in the Ukraine. Have the front lines changed in any major way since my last update on the Ukraine war in September, 2023? And will that aid make any difference, should House Republicans break their word and approve it in the end?

Based on what has happened in the past six months, the answer to these questions is “Not much”, and “No”. Note the map below, adapted from maps produced by the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), comparing the territory occupied by the Russians in November 2022 with what it presently occupies in February 2024.
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Orbital perturbations caused by passing stars might very well have caused past extinctions

11:21 am

According to new computer simulations, scientists now think that any calculations of the long term changes in the orbits of the planets in our solar system must include the orbital perturbations caused by passing stars, perturbations that might very well have caused past extinctions. From their paper’s introduction:

Simulations of the long-term orbital evolution of the Sun’s planets have nearly always modeled the solar system as an isolated system. For many purposes, this is a very good approximation, but the solar system is of course part of the Milky Way Galaxy. Consequently, it occasionally suffers close encounters with other field stars, and solar neighborhood kinematic studies predict an average of ∼20 stellar passages within 1 [parsec] of the Sun each [million years].

Because the solar system cross section scales with the square of heliocentric distance, the large majority of these encounters will be distant and inconsequential to the planets’ dynamics, but this is not guaranteed. In fact, there is a ∼0.5% chance that a field star passage will trigger the loss of one or more planets over the next 5 [billion years], and such passages may actually guarantee the disruption of the planets’ orbits many [billion years] after the Sun becomes a white dwarf. Yet, encounters need not trigger an instability for them to have dynamical consequences for the planets. For instance, it has been suggested that ∼one-third of Neptune’s modern eccentricity has been generated through past stellar encounters, but many of the long-term dynamical effects of stellar passages remain unknown.

Their simulations as well as other data suggest that for computer models to have any chance of accurately calculating the orbital evolution of the solar system’s planets, those models must include the passing of nearby stars.

Or to put it in more blunt terms, the uncertainties here are so great that it is unlikely any computer model will ever be able to reconstruct our solar system going back further than 50 million years.

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SpaceX announces plans to build $100 million office complex in Brownsville

10:13 am

According to a filing with the Texas Department of Regulations and Licensing, SpaceX is now planning a $100 million office complex in Brownsville, Texas, in addition to the extensive facilities it is building nearby at its launch site at Boca Chica.

Just a few miles away from its launch site, SpaceX will construct the multimillion-dollar office inside an industrial factory. It will be located at 52198 San Martin Blvd., Brownsville, TX 78521, according to the Texas Department of Regulations and Licensing filing.

Construction is slated to begin this month and is expected to have just under a year turnaround. An estimated start date is listed as February 23, with a completion date of January 1, 2025, according to the TDLR filing. All TDLR filings are subject to change.

It seems to me that the activist group Save RGV (Rio Grand Valley) that is suing SpaceX to shut down Boca Chica is acting to destroy this region, not save it. Before SpaceX showed up the economy of Brownsville and the Rio Grand Valley was very depressed and going nowhere. SpaceX has brought in billions in investment capital as well as tens of thousands of new jobs.

One wonders how any court can rule in favor of Save RGV’s lawsuit that seeks to prevent any future temporary beach closures at Boca Chica and thus outlaw any further launches. Such a ruling would essentially shut down much of what SpaceX is doing in the Brownsville region, and would result in the destruction of this new economic growth.

Such a ruling seems insane, but we should not ignore its possibility. Stupider decisions by courts have been made many times in the past. And it does appear we live in very stupid times.

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Many launches in the next 24 hours, even with some having been scrubbed

10:01 am

The next 24 hours will be one of the most busy launch days in human history, and it will achieve this even though two launches have already been scrubbed and rescheduled.

First the scrubs. Last night SpaceX called off the launch of Intuitive Machiens Nova-C lunar lander, set for shortly after midnight, because of “off-nominal methane temperatures prior to stepping into methane load.” Since the Falcon 9 rocket doesn’t use methane as a fuel, I am puzzled by this. Nonetheless, the company has rescheduled this launch for tonight.

The second scrub was by Japan’s space agency JAXA, which cancelled the second test launch of its new H3 rocket due to weather issues (the first test launch was a failure). It has rescheduled the launch to February 17th.

Even with these scrubs, there are still four launches scheduled in the next 24 hours, listed below with the times all adjusted to Pacific time to give a sense of the pace. The links go to the live streams of each launch.

  • 2:30 pm: SpaceX Falcon 9 launch of two military satellites from Cape Canaveral
  • 4:30 pm: SpaceX Falcon 9 launch of 22 Starlink satellites from Vandenberg
  • 7:25 pm: Russian Soyuz-2 launch of Progress freighter to ISS from Kazakhstan
  • 9:57 pm: SpaceX launch of Intuitive Machines Nova-C lunar lander from Cape Canaveral

That’s four launches in less than eleven hours from three different spaceports. SpaceX by itself will attempt three launches in one day, something that is unprecedented for a private company.

I think four launches on a single day has been attempted previously, but not achieved. We shall see if SpaceX and Russia make it happen today.

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Update on SpaceX preparations for 3rd Superheavy/Starship orbital test launch

9:35 am

Link here. SpaceX is apparently now gearing up for a wet dress rehearsal countdown, whereby it performs a full countdown, including fueling both stages and taking everything to T-0. Such rehearsals are a standard procedure for all SpaceX launches.

Whether this launch will occur in early March, as Musk claimed yesterday, remains very uncertain, but not for technical reasons.

The FAA said that the mishap investigation for OFT-2 is still open, pending more information from SpaceX. The license modification requires all needed information to be submitted and reviewed, and the investigation needs to be closed before Starship returns to flight.

Apparently SpaceX has not yet completed its own investigation of the November second test launch. If so, this third launch might be delayed until April, since after the first test launch in April the FAA and Fish & Wildlife took three months after receiving SpaceX’s completed investigation report to approve it and issue a license. The FAA falsely claimed it was doing its own investigation, but the GAO has made it clear this is not so. All it does is rubber stamp the investigations of private companies.

We shall see. Some reports have said that no Fish & Wildlife approval will be required this time, which will speed things up. Others have indicated that the FAA is ready to move quicker. Even so, there remains the outstanding lawsuit by activists against the closing of nearby beaches for each launch. If those litigants demand a court injunction against such closures while the case is on-going, this launch could be delayed far longer.

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One instrument on Perseverance has a problem

9:16 am

One of the instruments on the Mars rover Perseverance appears to have a problem that is preventing it from using its laser to collect spectroscopic data of the nearby Martian surface.

Data and imagery from NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover indicate one of two covers that keep dust from accumulating on the optics of the SHERLOC instrument remains partially open. In this position, the cover interferes with science data collection operations. Mounted on the rover’s robotic arm, SHERLOC uses cameras, a spectrometer, and a laser to search for organic compounds and minerals that have been altered in watery environments and may be signs of past microbial life.

The mission determined on Jan. 6 that the cover was oriented in such a position that some of its operation modes could not successfully operate. An engineering team has been investigating to determine the root cause and possible solutions. Recently, the cover partially opened. To better understand the behavior of the cover’s motor, the team has been sending commands to the instrument that alter the amount of power being fed to it.

Should this troubleshooting fail to fix the dust cover, the rover’s other instruments can still compensate, gathering spectroscopy in other ways. Losing SHERLOC however will still reduce the data that Perseverance can obtain.

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February 13, 2024 Quick space links

3:20 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.

 

 

 

  • Progress undocks from ISS

    • This undocking today clears the Zvezda port for a new Progress launching on February 15, 2024. Note the use of Zvezda. When stress fractures were found in that module, Russia had said it would no longer dock there. Apparently the Russians are now satisfied that the repairs done by their astronauts are sufficient to prevent further fractures and leaks. Or maybe the Russians are willing to deal with the risk for the few years left before ISS is retired.

 

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Are decent ordinary Democrats finally recognizing the terrible power-hungry corruption of their political party?

2:32 pm

The Democratic Party: Fostering election tampering everywhere
The Democratic Party

I have been hoping and praying for more than three decades for ordinary and decent Democratic Party supporters to recognize the rot that has permeated that party since the 1990s, all to no avail. Beginning with Bill Clinton, a Democratic Party politician could commit perjury, accept campaign donations illegally from hostile foreign powers, lie, cheat, and do all sorts of criminal acts, and ordinary Democrats would routinely and nonchalantly look the other way. “That can’t be true!” they would insist if you tried to point out any of these facts. Others would be even more closed-minded. “Democrats stand for equal rights and the poor! Republicans are fascists!”

In recent days however some anecdotal evidence, along with more firm survey data, suggests that ordinary Democrats (and some not so ordinary) might finally be opening their minds to other possibilities. Maybe Republicans (and Donald Trump) aren’t so bad after all. Maybe there is real corruption and bad policy coming from Democratic Party politicans.

For example, on the afternoon after the Supreme Court had listened to Colorado’s case trying to ban Donald Trump from the November presidential ballot, Justice Elena Kagan participated in a public event at the Library of Congress. During the morning court session it had appeared that all of the judges (including the judges appointed by Democrats) were very skeptical of Colorado’s case, with many legal analysts thinking their questions and comments suggesting they would rule against Colorado by a large majority, possibly unanimously.

At that afternoon public event, Kagan expressed these thoughts:
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German-built mini-rover for Japanese Phobos mission shipped to Japan

10:05 am

A German-built mini-rover, dubbed Idefix, has now been shipped to Japan to intergrate it as a secondary payload on that country’s MMX mission to the Martian moon Phobos.

The rover itself weighs 25 kilograms (55 pounds), is 51 centimeters long (20 inches), and is designed to explore up to 100 meters of Phobos’ surface. During one of MMX’s closest approaches to Phobos, the rover will be released at an altitude between 40 and 100 meters above the surface and touch down on Phobos. The drop utilizes the low gravity of Phobos, which will allow IDEFIX to just fall onto the surface, roll, and then raise itself to prepare for the roughly three-month-long mission. The gravity of Phobos is only roughly 1/1000th of the gravity of Earth, which can be attributed to the moon’s small size. Phobos only has a diameter of approximately 27 kilometers.

“Thanks to the low gravity, IDEFIX will need between 60 to 80 seconds from release to the touchdown on Phobos. The impact will be with less than one meter per second,” explained Professor Markus Grebenstein, who is DLR’s project lead for IDEFIX, in an interview with NSF.

If all goes right, the rover’s mission will last at least 100 days. MMX itself it scheduled to reach Phobos in 2029.

Meanwhile, scientists used one of the Perseverance’s high resolution cameras to capture another partial eclipse of the Sun by Phobos. This is not the first such Phobos eclipse that Perseverance has photographed (see for example here and here), but it is neat nonetheless.

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Water found on two main-belt asteroids?

9:44 am

Using data from the now-retired SOFIA airplane telescope, scientists think they have detected evidence of water molecules on Iris and Massalia, two well-known asteroids in the main asteroid belt.

“We detected a feature that is unambiguously attributed to molecular water on the asteroids Iris and Massalia,” Arredondo said. “We based our research on the success of the team that found molecular water on the sunlit surface of the Moon. We thought we could use SOFIA to find this spectral signature on other bodies.”

SOFIA detected water molecules in one of the largest craters in the Moon’s southern hemisphere. Previous observations of both the Moon and asteroids had detected some form of hydrogen but could not distinguish between water and its close chemical relative, hydroxyl. Scientists detected roughly equivalent to a 12-ounce bottle of water trapped in a cubic meter of soil spread across the lunar surface, chemically bound in minerals.

“Based on the band strength of the spectral features, the abundance of water on the asteroid is consistent with that of the sunlit Moon,” Arredondo said. “Similarly, on asteroids, water can also be bound to minerals as well as adsorbed to silicate and trapped or dissolved in silicate impact glass.”

You can read their paper here.

There remains uncertainty with this result, but there is also no reason for water not to be found on these main belt asteroids. They are far enough away from the Sun so that conditions are likely cold enough for that water to remain frozen or locked in the ground.

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