Category: Behind The Black

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.

1 comment

Botswana bans Starlink

9:36 am

On February 2, 2024 regulators in Botswana rejected SpaceX’s application to sell Starlink terminals in that country, “citing the company’s failure to meet all requirements.”

In an email statement, BOCRA [Botswana Communications Regulatory Authority] emphasized that Starlink has not authorized any entity to import or resell its Internet kits in Botswana. Offenders will be committing an offence, although the specific charges remain undisclosed.

Notably, some Starlink kit owners, who claim to have purchased the devices for personal use, find themselves stranded at the Kazungula border in Zambia, facing restrictions on bringing the kits into Botswana. Options provided at the border include returning the device to Zambia or seeking permission from Botswana’s telco regulator, with no successful requests reported thus far.

The article is unclear as to what government requirements SpaceX has so far failed to meet. The article however does describe how many individuals have purchased Starlink terminals elsewhere and then brought them into countries where the service is not yet approved and used the company’s “roaming option in Africa” to make them work. SpaceX has been shutting down such terminals, but apparently it has not been entirely successful.

The bottom line here remains an issue of freedom versus government control. Africans very clearly want the service, and in fact the article describes at length the benefits it brings to poor rural areas. Freedom demands they should get it, as its use does no one harm and everyone good. All that stands in the way is government regulation and intransigence.

5 comments

Musk: 3rd Starship/Superheavy test launch expected in early March

9:27 am

According to a tweet on X by Elon Musk, the third test flight of SpaceX’s heavy-lift Starship/Superheavy rocket is now expected in about three weeks, in early March.

The rocket is presently on the launchpad, undergoing final tests.

This confirms my December prediction that the launch would not happen earlier than March. SpaceX was ready to launch in January, but as I predicted red tape in the federal government have left the rocket sitting on the ground.

However, that prediction may have been too optimistic. First, SpaceX has still not gotten its launch license from the FAA, with no word from that agency when it will rubber-stamp SpaceX’s investigation into the second test launch in November. Second, the lawsuit by activists challenging the right of local authorities to close beaches at Boca Chica for launches remains active. It is very possible those activists will be successful in getting the court to issue an injunction preventing any beach closures (and thus launches) while the case is being litigated. If so, the next test launch could be months away.

7 comments

The core and upper stages of the first Ariane-6 rocket are now on the way to French Guiana

9:17 am

After almost a decade of development and delays of more than four years, the core and upper stages of Europe’s Ariane-6 rocket are now on board ship and on the way to French Guiana for that rocket’s inaugural launch.

The Canopée ship left the port of Le Havre, in France, carrying the core and upper stages of the Ariane 6 launcher which will be used on the inaugural flight. Arrival at the port of Pariacabo in Kourou, French Guiana, from where it will be transferred to Europe’s Spaceport, is scheduled for the end of February.

Once in French Guiana, the two stages will be assembled vertically and once on the launchpad, will then have attached two solid-fueled strap-on boosters. The launch window is presently from June 15th to July 31st.

0 comments

SpaceX has caused a 77% drop in price for transferring data by satellite

9:12 am

According to a new study, SpaceX’s lower launch costs and its Starlink satellite constellation has caused a 77% drop in the price for transfering data by satellite in the past five years.

The costs involved in providing capacity have also declined in recent years following satellite manufacturing advances — and greater availability of launches thanks primarily to SpaceX. The average cost base of supplying HTS capacity in North America has dropped from around $40 a month per megabit per second in 2019 to about $12 in 2023, according to Euroconsult.

However, Euroconsult expects costs to stabilize over the next two to three years in the Americas and Europe, potentially slowing down the decline in capacity prices.

I think Euroconsult might be wrong about that last conclusion. Increased competition in the launch industry as well as the launch of other satellite constellations will force further drops in prices. The only threat to this continuing drop will outside forces, such as an overall economic collapse, war, or increased regulation.

1 comment

Abraham Lincoln – an annual tribute to celebrate his birthday

6:01 pm

An evening pause: The memory of this man and what he stood for and accomplished must not be forgotten, which is why I try to celebrate his memory each year with a tribute on his birthday. As I wrote in 2021,

[T]hough he freed the slaves, I think Lincoln’s most enduring contribution to American history, a contribution that now has sadly been lost, was his limitless good will for everyone, even to those who hated him and wished to kill him. Had he not been assassinated, American history might have been far better because Lincoln would have had the clout to ease the worst elements of Reconstruction, while forcing through reforms in the former southern slave states.

Those reforms did not happen until the civil rights movement of the 1960s, and are now being abandoned in the 2020s by black supremacists in the academic community who are imposing new racist Jim Crow laws nationwide, designed to favor blacks and other minorities.

Listen to the words of the first song, which was a Lincoln campaign song. He stood for freedom for all, and put his life on the line for that principle. From the pictures you can see the evolution of this kind-hearted but determined man from youth to mid-age, with all the troubles of the Civil War reflected in his face and mouth.

11 comments

February 12, 2024 Quick space links

3:27 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

Martian dunes with strange splotches

2:00 pm

Martian dunes with splotches

Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped to post here, was taken on December 20, 2023 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows what the science team labels as “Dunes with Blotches.”

The blotches, or as I call them splotches, are the round dark patches on dunes themselves. Though their darkness is reminiscent of the dark patches that appear as spider features in the south polar regions of Mars, there are problems linking the two. The spiders form when the winter mantle of dry ice that falls as snow begins to weaken when the Sun reappears in the spring. Sunlight travels through the clear dry ice to warm the base of the mantle, causing it to sublimate into carbon dioxide gas. That gas however is trapped at the base, and only escapes when the thin mantle cracks at weak points. As the gas puffs out it carries with it dust, which leaves dark patches on the surface that disappear when the mantle disappears entirely by summer.

In the southern hemisphere at the poles the ground is somewhat stable, so the trapped gas appears to travel along the same paths each year to the same weak spots. This in turn causes it to carve spidery patterns in the ground, like river tributaries, except here the tributaries of gas flow uphill to their escape point. At the north pole the ground is not as stable. Instead we have many dunes, so that the dry ice mantle sublimates away at different places each year. There is no chance to form such spider patterns over time.

Making these splotches more puzzling is the season. This picture was taken in the winter, at a time one would think no dry ice is sublimating away.
» Read more

0 comments

Pushback: 9-year-old slandered by left goes to Super Bowl wearing face paint

12:13 pm

Holden Armenta on his way to the Superbowl
Holden Armenta in face-paint and headdress,
on his way to the Superbowl. Click for video.

Bring a gun to a knife fight: Though this will the third time in less than a week I have devoted my column to this story, this update today is absolutely essential, because it might be the happiest and most hopeful story I have reported in years.

The screen capture to the right was taken from a short X video posted by one of the two podcasters who had started a GiveSendGo campaign to send Holden Armenta to the Super Bowl. Armenta had been slandered falsely by Deadspin senior writer Carron Phillips, who claimed the boy was a racist because he attended a Kansas City Chiefs game in blackface, when all the boy did was put on facepaint of the team’s colors to cheer them on, like any ordinary 9-year-old boy. Worse, both that news outlet and Phillips compounded the false slander by refusing to correct their error when it was clearly documented it was false. That defiance was made even more disgusting when it was revealed that Armenta and his family are actually American Indians themselves.

Even though the fund-raising campaign fell short of its $22,000 goal, raising about half that, it appears that the podcasters decided to take Holden and his family to the game anyway. Kudos to them!

The video of Holden is joyous in numerous ways. » Read more

3 comments

The volcanic world of Io, as seen by Juno in all its fly-bys

9:16 am

Map of Io
Click for full resolution image.

The mosaic of images above, reduced and sharpened to post here, was compiled by citizen scientists Gerald Eichstädt, Jason Perry, and John Rogers from images taken of the Jupiter moon Io during the three close fly-bys by the orbiter Juno that occurred during its 55th, 57th, and 58th orbits. From the caption:

Global map of Io by JunoCam, combining maps from PJ55, PJ57 and PJ58. Both the sunlit side and the Jupiter-lit-dark side are included. PJ55 map by Gerald Eichstädt; PJ57 map by Jason Perry; PJ58 map by Gerald Eichstädt and John Rogers. Some scaling and shifting was performed in order to align the maps with each other and with the USGS Voyager/Galileo map. Colours were adjusted for better compatability. –John Rogers.

A labeled version, showing the names of many volcanoes but only of the areas photographed during the most recent 58th orbit fly-by on February 3, 2024, can be seen here.

As Juno’s later fly-bys will be progressively farther away, we will no longer get better views of Io until another spacecraft arrives in a Jupiter orbit capable to returning to Io, possibly decades from now. Though Europa Clipper will arrive in Jupiter orbit April 2030, that orbit is designed to repeatedly fly close past Europa, and will likely never get close to Io.

Thus, this map provides a baseline for determing any changes that occur on Io in the coming years.

0 comments

Ukraine: Russia using Starlink; Musk: No we don’t allow it

8:40 am

Over the weekend Ukrainain officials reiterated the claim from last week that Russia soldiers are using Starlink terminals illegally in occupied territories.

Earlier on Sunday, Ukrainian military intelligence said Russia is using Musk’s satellites to facilitate communications on the battlefield. The intelligence agency posted audio of an exchange between two Russian soldiers from the 83rd Assault Brigade in the Donetsk region, claiming that the Russians were speaking over Starlink.

Ukraine intelligence did not specify how many terminals it believed Russia had or how they might have been obtained. Still, Ukrainian Military Intelligence Spokesperson Andriy Yusov said that the use of Starlink by Russians was becoming “systemic.”

Musk soon responded on X, stating that SpaceX does not sell any of its terminals in Russia, and it immediately blocks use of stolen terminals in Russia once detected.

Musk however was very careful to say nothing about what happens in the occupied territories of the Ukraine where Russia troops operate. In the recent slow gains of territory that the Russians have achieved it could have captured terminals and begun using them, in their correct location. SpaceX would have no way to knowing who the user is.

I expect SpaceX will now take actions to deal with this issue, using information provided by the Ukrainians.

5 comments

Greece signs Artemis Accords

10:00 am

Greece yesterday became the 35th nation to sign the Artemis Accords, joining the American alliance established by these bi-laterial individual agreements between the U.S. and each nation.

The full list of signatories to the Accords is now as follows: Angola, Argentina, Australia, Bahrain, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Columbia, Czech Republic, Ecuador, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, India, Israel, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Nigeria, Poland, Romania, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Korea, Spain, the United Kingdom, the United Arab Emirates, the Ukraine, and the United States.

The original goal of the Artemis Accords, established during the Trump administration, was to create an alliance focused on allowing property rights in space that would also act to establish legal rules to protect those rights, something that the Outer Space Treaty forbids. It appears that under the Biden administration those goals have increasingly been pushed aside for the globalist goals of the UN. The language of NASA’s press release illustrates this:

“As humanity embarks on a great adventure, returning to the Moon and preparing for traveling beyond the Moon, the Artemis Accords serve as a beacon of collaboration and cooperation among nations, paving the way for a sustainable and peaceful exploration of space,” said [Giorgos Gerapetritis, Greek’s foreign minister].

The Artemis Accords reinforce and implement key obligations in the 1967 Outer Space Treaty. They also strengthen the commitment by the United States and signatory nations to the Registration Convention, the Rescue and Return Agreement, as well as best practices NASA and its partners support, including the public release of scientific data. [emphasis mine]

The highlighted word is one of the many buzzwords used by globalists to signal their priorities, similar to the use of the term ” equitable access” by Belgium officials when it signed the accords in January. Rather than focus on allowing private enterprise and freedom, the focus now is to establish rules to control what people do.

The right leadership from the United States could change this shift in focus, but right now the U.S. does not have such leadership.

6 comments
1 … 423 424 425 426 427 … 2,915