Anne-Sophie Mutter – J.S. Bach’s Partita in D minor
An evening pause: Intense.
Hat tip Judd Clark.
Category: Behind The Black
Today’s blacklisted American: Black scientist blacklisted for doing good research
Hakeem Oluseyi, Space Science Education Lead
for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate
They’re coming for you next: Today’s blacklist column describes an effort to not only cancel from history the man who led NASA for almost the entire 1960s space race, but to also blackball a scientist for doing good research that proved the campaign was not based on any facts.
Shortly before the launch of the James Webb Space Telescope last year, a petition was instigated to get it renamed because of accusations that Webb had persecuted homosexuals during his term as NASA administrator in the 1960s. As is now typical of our modern bankrupt intellectual class, as soon as this petition was issued more than 1,700 people signed it, all accepting at face value its accusations against Webb without any further research.
One scientist, who happened to be black, took a more detailed look at those accusations however and found them to be spurious. As Hakeem Oluseyi wrote:
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Finding Martian glaciers from orbit
Click for full image.
Today’s cool image is a great example of the surprises one can find by exploring the archive of the high resolution pictures that Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) has produced since it arrived in Mars orbit back in 2006. The picture to the right, rotated, cropped, and reduced to post here, was taken by MRO’s high resolution camera back on May 4, 2017. I only found it because I had picked out a October 24, 2022 high resolution image that covered a different area of this same flow feature just to the north east. In trying to understand that 2022 picture I dug to see other images had been taken around it, and found the earlier 2017 photo that was even more interesting.
Neither however really covered the entire feature, making it difficult to understand its full nature. I therefore searched the archive of MRO’s context camera, which has imaged the entire planet with less resolution but covering a much wider area per picture. The context camera picture below captures the full nature of this feature.
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SpaceX has about 100 Starlink terminals working in Iran
Though the Iranian government opposes their use, according to a tweet by Elon Musk SpaceX now has almost 100 Starlink terminals working in Iran.
Elon Musk announced that SpaceX has almost 100 Starlink terminals active in Iran. SpaceX activated Starlink services in Iran in September, supporting the United States’ stance on providing internet freedom and free flow of information to Iranians.
Unlike Ukraine, SpaceX does not have the cooperation of the Iranian government to expand Starlink services in the country. In Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zlenskyy and the Minister of digital transformation Mykhailo Feorov have actively supports Starlink connection during the war with Russia.
In contrast, the Iranian government is actively trying to limit its citizens’ internet access. The United States government has taken a stance against the Iranian government’s decision regarding internet access for its people.
SpaceX has routinely cooperated with foreign governments before selling terminals, likely because to do otherwise would get it in trouble with the U.S. State Department. In this case however the State Department appears to have approved this action, and SpaceX then made it happen.
China launches Earth observation satellite
China today successfully launched a classified Earth observation satellite using its Long March 4B rocket.
As the launch was from an interior spaceport, the rocket’s lower stages landed somewhere in the interior of China.
The leaders in the 2022 launch race:
61 China
59 SpaceX
21 Russia
9 Rocket Lab
8 ULA
The U.S. still leads China 83 to 61 in the national rankings, but trails the entire world combined 93 to 83.
At the moment, the only known remaining launches in 2022 are two SpaceX Falcon 9 launches. However, China routinely launches a lot in the November/December timeframe, so we should not be surprised if they complete one or two launches as well in the next few days.
Sinéad O’Connor – All apologies
An evening pause: A truly talented singer who has sometimes been her own worst enemy.
Hat tip Wayne Devette.
December 26, 2022 Quick space links
Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay.
- Japan targets February for first launch of new H3 rocket
The rocket’s development has had problems, delaying it about two years.
- Russians to delay final decision on whether to replace leaking Soyuz capsule with empty new Soyuz
Previously the Russians had said they’d make a decision by tomorrow, but now say they will hold off until after January 1, once they have finished analyzing the situation.
- Russian relations with Kazakhstan souring
Kazakhstan has “renounced concessions for Russian logistics companies that transport goods for import to Russia,” even as a Russian official threatened Kazakhstan with invasion. For the Russian space program these tensions could be disastrous, as the Baikonur spaceport in Kazakhstan is presently the only place it can launch humans.
- No word from China when Zhurong will resume operations following Martian winter
China officials had said it resume operations in December, but with the month about to end there has been no word on its status for quite awhile.
Cones, mounds, and layers of Martian ice?
Click for full image.
Cool image time! The photo to the right, rotated, cropped, and reduced to post here, was taken on September 10, 2022 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO).
The location is at 38 degrees north latitude, in the Martian northern lowland plains. At this latitude in these plains the geological features seen in high resolution pictures almost always invoke near surface ice, including processes that disturb that underground ice layer.
This picture is no different. Not only does it appear that a glacier is flowing down from the top of east-west ridge, the middle mound includes a crater with its southeast rim gone and appears filled with material that suggests ice.
The greater geographic context of this location can be seen in the overview map below.
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Today’s blacklisted American: Violence against churches and religious institutions skyrockets since 2018
The modern dark age: According to a recently published 84-page report [pdf] by the Family Research Council, vandalism, violence, and arson against churches and religious institutions has nearly tripled since 2018.
From the report:
Family Research Council identified a total of 420 documented acts of hostility that targeted 397
individual churches. These incidents occurred between January 2018 and September 2022 across 45 U.S. states and Washington, D.C. To conduct this research, we analyzed open-source documents, reports, and media outlets to assess the number of acts of hostility against churches over a five-year span.
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A long-armed galaxy
Click for full image.
Cool image time! The photo to the right, cropped, enhanced, and reduced to post here, was taken by the Hubble Space Telescope as part of a survey of peculiar looking galaxies.
The peculiar spiral galaxy ESO 415-19, which lies around 450 million light-years away, stretches lazily across this image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. While the centre of this object resembles a regular spiral galaxy, long streams of stars stretch out from the galactic core like bizarrely elongated spiral arms. These are tidal streams caused by some chance interaction in the galaxy’s past, and give ESO 415-19 a distinctly peculiar appearance.
ESO 415-19’s peculiarity made it a great target for Hubble. This observation comes from an ongoing campaign to explore the Arp Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies, a menagerie of some of the weirdest and most wonderful galaxies that the Universe has to offer. These galaxies range from bizarre lonesome galaxies to spectacularly interacting galaxy pairs, triplets, and even quintets. These space oddities are spread throughout the night sky, which means that Hubble can spare a moment to observe them as it moves between other observational targets.
I have intentionally brightened the galaxy to make the two faint two tidal streams more obvious. That they are so faint compared to the galaxy itself is in itself a mystery.
Voces8: J.S Bach’s Jesus bleibet meine Freude
An evening pause: In English this is better known as “Jesu joy of man’s desiring.” Nick Deutsch is on the oboe and Alexander Hamilton is on the organ.
Hat tip Judd Clark.
The Monkees – Riu Chiu
An evening pause: From their 1967 Christmas show. More information here.