Category: Behind The Black

A hint at Mars’ past climate cycles

11:16 am

Terraced glaciers in Martian crater
Click for full image.

Cool image time! The photo to the right, cropped to post here, was taken on October 28, 2022 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows what the scientists label as a “layered feature” inside a small 4,500-foot-wide crater.

Located at 36 degrees north latitude, we are likely looking at glacial ice layers inside this crater, with each layer probably marking a different Martian climate cycle. The terraces suggest that during each growth cycle the glaciers grew less, meaning that less snow fell with each subsequent cycle. This in turn suggests a total loss of global water over time on Mars.

The overview map below gives us the wider context.
» Read more

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China to build giant ground-based optical telescope

9:45 am

China has announced its plan to build ground-based multi-segmented optical telescope, similar in design to the 10-meter Keck Telescope in Hawaii.

Peking University wants to build the largest optical telescope in Asia and close the gap in astronomy capabilities with the rest of the world.

The project aims to create an initial telescope with an aperture of 19.7 feet (6 meters) by 2024; the mirror will be expanded to 26.2 feet (8 m) by 2030. The project, which in English is called the Expanding Aperture Segmented Telescope (EAST), is being led by Peking University.

Like Keck, the primary mirror would be made of smaller segments, fitted together to create the larger mirror. While not as large as Keck, EAST would be among the largest in the world.

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Royal Astronomical Society ends blacklisting of James Webb

9:30 am

That’s nice of them: The Royal Astronomical Society in Britain last week announced that it has ended its blacklisting of James Webb, the man who headed NASA during the 1960s space race, by once again permitting writers of science papers for its Monthly Notices journal to use the full name of the James Webb Space Telescope.

The Royal Astronomical Society (RAS) previously criticized NASA for not immediately addressing concerns that Webb persecuted queer employees; the NASA-led James Webb Space Telescope (JWST or Webb) that launched in December 2021 is named after him. But with new information to hand suggesting Webb played no direct role in these issues, Webb’s name can now reappear in scientific papers, the RAS stated Dec. 22.

“The RAS will now allow authors submitting scientific papers to its journals to use either ‘James Webb Space Telescope’ or the acronym ‘JWST’ to refer to the observatory,” RAS officials wrote. The major journals of the RAS include the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (MNRAS), one of the top astronomical journals worldwide.

The society backed off from its position after NASA published a long detailed report documenting the utter falsehood of the claim. Too bad this so-called science organization didn’t consider the evidence itself before issuing its blacklist order. One would think scientists above all would consider evidence, not undocumented slanders, as essential before condemning a person.

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China’s Long March 3B rocket launches “experimental satellite”

9:20 am

China today successfully used its Long March 3B rocket to launch from an interior spaceport what its state-run press labeled an “experimental satellite.”

No word on where the rocket’s strap-on side boosters or first stage crashed within China.

The leaders in the 2022 launch race:

62 China
60 SpaceX
21 Russia
9 Rocket Lab
8 ULA

The U.S. still leads China 84 to 62 in the national rankings, but trails the entire world combined 94 to 84.

This launch cements for China the top spot in launches over SpaceX, since SpaceX only has one more launch planned in 2022, scheduled for just before midnight tonight.

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Lex Fridman – Playing Guitar in a Self-Driving Car

6:01 pm

An evening pause: The guitar playing is great, but if this is supposed to be a demonstration of the abilities of self-driving cars, to me it is a utter failure. The drive was on a test track, with no other cars. The car itself was probably never going faster than 25 miles per hour.

In fact, if anything this proves the impracticality of self-driving cars. Such technology might work in a completely controlled environment, but as soon as you add any random human element, it can’t work. Thus our options: we continue to drive ourselves, or we give up our freedom to drive so that all vehicles can be autonomous.

But as I say, the guitar playing is great.

Hat tip Wayne Devette.

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A “What the heck?” glacier image on Mars

5:36 pm

Glacial material on Mars
Click for full image.

Sometimes a cool image goes from bafflement to obvious as you zoom into it. The cool image to the right, cropped to post here, does the opposite. It was taken on October 11, 2022 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). I have purposely cropped it at full resolution, so that its eroded glacier nature is most obvious.

The cracks and hollows are likely caused by the sublimation of the near surface underground ice, breaking upward so that the protective surface layer of debris and dust collapses at some points, and cracks at others.

The overview map below further confirms the likelihood that we are looking at glacial features, but when we also zoom out from this close-up we discover things are not so easily explained.
» Read more

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December 28, 2022 Quick space links

2:46 pm

Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay.

 

  • NASA’s contract to Collins for space station spacesuit was sole source

    • This story seems to be trying to make a tempest in a teapot. NASA awarded two contracts to two different companies, one to Collins for station suits and a second to Axiom for lunar suits. In the end, both will be competing against each other, as both will clearly work to adapt their suits for other uses.

 

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Today’s blacklisted American: Computer maker Raspberry Pi boycotted because it hired a former policeman

2:02 pm

Toby Roberts: Targeted for blacklisting
Toby Roberts: blacklisted because he once was
a policeman

They’re coming for you next: The mini-computer maker Raspberry Pi has found itself being boycotted because it hired a former policeman.

Toby Roberts, the former policeman, had spent years using Raspberry Pi’s in his policework building covert surveillance devices. As he wrote about his new job, “While I enjoyed my time in the police, it was tough at times, so it’s really pleasant now to be in such a joyful environment.”

The Buzzfeed article at the first link above quotes a small handful of people outraged at this hire. These two comments are typical:

Matt Lewis, a Denver-based site reliability engineer, echoed those sentiments. “I am disgusted that [Raspberry Pi’s] official post on Toby Roberts’ hiring promotes his use of their products to surveil individuals without their consent,” he wrote via Twitter DM. “In my eyes, this behavior is completely unethical and the work Toby has done for 15 years is indefensible. I’m also upset that they have chosen to double down on this position against the community outrage.”

Wikipedia consultant Pete Forsyth, who is from Oregon, also had strong words for Raspberry Pi. “I think this event will mark a turning point in the organization’s reputation,” he wrote via Twitter DM. “It’s hard to see how they can recover the trust they seem to have almost willfully dismantled today.”

» Read more

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Using reflected light from Jupiter to photograph Ganymede’s night side

12:15 pm

Ganymede as seen in the reflected light of Jupiter
Click for full image.

During Juno’s June 7, 2021 close fly-by of Ganymede, scientists used its instruments to obtain the first good image of a part of this Jupiter moon. What made the achievement especially amazing was that the area photographed was only lit by the reflected light from Jupiter, the equivalent of its “earthshine.” From the paper’s abstract:

On 7 June 2021, the Juno spacecraft flew within about 1,000 km of the surface of Jupiter’s largest moon, Ganymede. The Mission used their sensitive navigation camera to photograph the moon’s dark side where it was lit only by scattered sunlight from Jupiter. This new imaging approach revealed multiple surface features, including a patchwork of different surface textures (such as grooved terrain), several craters, and ejecta deposits. These features had not been visible in images collected by previous spacecraft.

The picture to the right is from figure 2 of the paper, cropped and reduced to post here. It shows a region on Ganymede that in the earlier images had shown few details because the lighting was poor and thus features were not easily discerned (as can be seen by the inset in the lower right). In the new picture, the only light was reflected from Jupiter, and its low angle brings out the surface topography.

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Russian investigators conclude leak on Soyuz caused by external impact

9:20 am

ISS as of November 28, 2022
ISS after November 28, 2022 docking of unmanned Dragon freighter.
MS-22 is the Soyuz capsule that is leaking.

The Russian investigators yesterday concluded that the coolant leak on the Soyuz capsule docked to ISS was caused by an external impact, either by a meteroid or a small piece of space junk.

A decision on whether this capsule is still usable for manned flight will be made sometime in January. If not, Russia will move up the launch of the next Soyuz to ISS one month from March to February, but launch it empty. If so, managers will leave the schedule as is.

If the engineers determine the capsule is not flightworthy, it will mean however that until February, ISS is short one lifeboat. At present there are two Dragon capsules docked to ISS, one manned and one cargo. Both return to Earth with a habitable interior, but the cargo capsule is not intended for manned flight. In an emergency however it might be possible to use it.

This situation suggests that NASA should pay to get SpaceX to upgrade the cargo Dragons so that they could always be used as an emergency lifeboat.

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SpaceX launches 54 more Starlink satellites

9:04 am

SpaceX early today completed its 60th successful launch in 2022, putting 54 Starlink satellites into orbit using its Falcon 9 rocket.

This achievement matches a prediction Elon Musk made early in 2022. More significant, except for two years (1965 and 1966), SpaceX completed more launches in 2022 than the United States achieved each year since Sputnik. And it did it not as a nation, but as a private company, for profit.

SpaceX’s achievement this year also allowed the U.S. to smash its own record for annual launches.

The first stage successfully completed its 11th flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic.

The leaders in the 2022 space race:

61 China
60 SpaceX
21 Russia
9 Rocket Lab
8 ULA

The U.S. now leads China 84 to 61 in the national rankings, but trails the entire world combined 93 to 84.

Only one more launch, by SpaceX, is publicly scheduled for 2022.

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