MonaLisa Twins – Please Mr. Postman/Wipe Out
An evening pause: Performed live in 2016.
Hat tip Alton Blevins.
Category: Behind The Black
DART’s impact shortened Dimorphus’s orbit around Didymos by 32 minutes
LICIACube Explorer image just after the DART
impact. Dimorphus is the blob near the top.
After two weeks of analyzing the orbit of Dimorphus around its parent asteroid Didymos, astronomers have determined that the impact of DART on Dimorphus shortened its orbit by 32 minutes.
Prior to DART’s impact, it took Dimorphos 11 hours and 55 minutes to orbit its larger parent asteroid, Didymos. Since DART’s intentional collision with Dimorphos on Sept. 26, astronomers have been using telescopes on Earth to measure how much that time has changed. Now, the investigation team has confirmed the spacecraft’s impact altered Dimorphos’ orbit around Didymos by 32 minutes, shortening the 11 hour and 55-minute orbit to 11 hours and 23 minutes. This measurement has a margin of uncertainty of approximately plus or minus 2 minutes.
Before its encounter, NASA had defined a minimum successful orbit period change of Dimorphos as change of 73 seconds or more. This early data show DART surpassed this minimum benchmark by more than 25 times.
It also appears the ejecta from the impact — much greater than expected — helped propel Dimorphus, a result that I think was also not expected.
Researchers are now shifting to studying the debris and asteroid itself, to better understand what happened as well as the nature of Dimorphus itself. This will also include a European probe dubbed Hera that will launch in 2024 an dvisit both asteroids in 2026.
October 11, 2022 Quick space links
Courtesy of Jay, BtB’s stringer.
- Astra wins engine contract with Maxar
These are small orbital thrusters used on satellites. Whether this deal will save the stock remains unclear.
- Virgin Orbit about to fly its airplane and rocket to Cornwall for launch
The company says the flight across the Atlantic will occur this week. When the launch will occur still depends on the UK government’s approval of permits.
- Pseudo Chinese company DeepBlue tests rocket engine
The company also claimed the test attempted to simulate engine firings needed for a first stage landing.
- Upcoming schedule of launches to Tiangong-3
Mengtian on a Long March 5B on October 31st, Tianzhou-5 freighter on a Long March 7 on November 6th, and the next manned mission on Shenzhou-15 on a Long March 2F on November 26th.
- Russia claims it used lazer to take out several Starlink satellites
We have had no confirmation.
Voting in Arizona in 2022
The citizen is sovereign, and your vote demonstrates that power
Below are my election choices in Arizona when I vote on November 8, 2022. Though early voting begins tomorrow in Arizona, on October 12, 2022, I think it utterly foolish to commit my vote even ten seconds early. Too much can happen in the next few weeks. As a citizen it is my responsibility to make these choices with the most information possible, and voting early for no reason but convenience is a dereliction of duty.
Nonetheless, many Arizonians will be voting early by mail — which has been somewhat customary here for more than a decade — so I am posting my preferences now, including my reasoning, to give my readers some help in making their decisions.
Though I am not partisan, and have always distrusted Republicans as much as Democrats, this year my choices are very partisan. The Democratic Party has become very very corrupt. The best thing Americans can do to clean up that party is to throw out as many of its elected officials as possible. At that point the party will be faced with a stark choice: shift gears, change leadership, or die (allowing a new party to replace it). With any of these options, the voters would be provided with a new choice in future elections, coming from a different direction.
I am also making recommendations in connection with statewide and local propositions, several of which are hidden mines designed to eliminate what little election security we presently have. Voters must know this.
Thus, my choices:
» Read more
Webb gets first direct infrared image of exoplanet
Using the Webb Space Telescope, scientists have obtained that telescope’s first direct infrared image of an exoplanet, covering four different wavelengths.
The image to the right is from the wavelength image with the least distortion (formed by Webb’s own optics and the shape of its mirror and indicated by the faint ring surrounding the planet). The star indicates the masked location of the star itself.
The planet is about seven times the mass of Jupiter and lies more than 100 times farther from its star than Earth sits from the sun, direct observations of exoplanet HIP 65426 b show. It’s also young, about 10 million or 20 million years old, compared with the more than 4-billion-year-old Earth.
You can download the full research paper here.
Volcano on the Moon
Click for full image.
Cool image time! The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) science team today released the oblique image above and in close-up to the right, showing what they call a “silicic volcano.” From the release:
The Mairan T dome is a large silicic volcanic structure with a pronounced summit depression. Remote sensing indicates that the composition of the volcanic material (lava) making up the dome is enriched in silica (SiO2). This rock type would be classified as either rhyolite or dacite on Earth, and the composition starkly contrasts with the dark, iron-rich mare basalts that embay the Mairan T dome. Most of the volcanism on the Moon is basaltic or iron-rich. Still, silicic volcanism also occurred on the Moon. Indeed, bits and pieces of similar materials were found in the Apollo samples; however, all are small fragments delivered to the Apollo sites as material ejected from distant impact events.
One of the great questions for lunar science is how the silicic materials formed. On Earth, specific tectonic settings and higher water contents in the rocks favor the formation of such lavas; however, the Moon lacks plate tectonics and water-rich sediments. NASA is planning a Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) lander mission to another, larger silicic volcano, one of the Gruithuisen domes, to address this question.
The scientists also note that this volcano formed first, and then was partly covered by the dark flood lava that surrounds it.
Engineers test fly prototype balloon for Venus
JPL engineers have successfully completed two test flights of a smaller-scale prototype balloon intended to fly in the atmosphere of Venus.
The shimmering silver balloon ascended more than 4,000 feet (1 kilometer) over Nevada’s Black Rock Desert to a region of Earth’s atmosphere that approximates the temperature and density the aerobot would experience about 180,000 feet (55 kilometers) above Venus. Coordinated by Near Space, these tests represent a milestone in proving the concept’s suitability for accessing a region of Venus’ atmosphere too low for orbiters to reach, but where a balloon mission could operate for weeks or even months.
“We’re extremely happy with the performance of the prototype. It was launched, demonstrated controlled-altitude maneuvers, and was recovered in good condition after both flights,” said robotics technologist Jacob Izraelevitz, who leads the balloon development as the JPL principal investigator of the flight tests. “We’ve recorded a mountain of data from these flights and are looking forward to using it to improve our simulation models before exploring our sister planet.”
The idea is an upgrade of two French-built balloons that flew on two Soviet-era missions to Venus in the 1980s and operated in the Venusian atmosphere for almost two days, flying 33 miles in altitude and traversing almost 100 degrees in longitude in that short time due to Venus’s high winds.
This project wants its balloon to survive more than 100 days. As it is presently in very early development, no launch date is even proposed.
New rocket startup focusing on new concepts to make upper stage reusable
Capitalism in space: Another new rocket startup, Stoke Space, is working to develop a new innovative reusable design for its upper stages.
Most commonly, a traditional rocket has an upper stage with a single engine. This second-stage rocket engine has a larger nozzle—often bell-shaped—to optimize the flow of engine exhaust in a vacuum. Because all parts of a rocket are designed to be as light as possible, such extended nozzles are often fairly fragile because they’re only exposed above Earth’s atmosphere. So one problem with getting an upper stage back from Earth, especially if you want to use the engine to control and slow its descent, is protecting this large nozzle.
One way to do that is to bury the engine nozzle in a large heat shield, but that would require more structure and mass, and it may not be dynamically stable. Stoke’s answer was using a ring of 30 smaller thrusters. (The tests last month only employed 15 of the 30 thrusters). In a vacuum, the plumes from these nozzles are designed to merge and act as one. And during reentry, with a smaller number of smaller thrusters firing, it’s easier to protect the nozzles.
Will this company succeed? Who knows? It is presently very early in development. However, that its founders are former engineers from SpaceX and Blue Origin is encouraging, especially based on this comment about why the Blue Origin guy, Andy Lapsa, left that company:
“I love Jeff [Bezos]’s vision for space,” Lapsa said in an interview with Ars. “I worked closely with him for a while on different projects, and I’m basically 100 percent on board with the vision. Beyond that, I think I would just say that I will let their history of execution speak for itself, and I thought we could move faster.”
Lapsa apparently was part of the exodus of high level managers and engineers that occurred at Blue Origin after Bezos hired Bob Smith as CEO. All complained of the company’s far-too-cautious management style under Smith.
Deadly climate change on Mars!
Junk science! A new computer simulation by scientists now proposes that there was microscopic life on Mars billions of years ago, but its existence served to destroy the climate and kill all life!
The press appears to be eating this story up, with enthusiasm. From the New Atlas story above:
Humans might not be the first lifeforms in the solar system to face the threat of their own activity changing the climate of their home planet. A new model suggests that ancient Mars was once habitable enough to support methane-producing microbes, and they may have wiped themselves out by causing irreparable damage to the Red Planet’s atmosphere. [emphasis mine]
A Space.com story is written better, but it still jumps on the bandwagon:
» Read more
Alternatives to PayPal for supporting Behind the Black
In the past two days a large number of my subscribers have suddenly canceled their PayPal subscriptions to Behind the Black. I am certain this sudden activity is because these subscribers have also canceled all of their business with PayPal, because of its announcement that if it doesn’t like what someone says or writes, it will literally steal up to $2,500 from that person’s PayPal account. See this article describing the sudden exodus from Paypal due to this unethical policy.
For the past two years I have been steadily adding additional payment options so that neither I nor my supporters will have to depend on PayPal. These have included Patreon, Zelle, and mailing a check to me directly.
I have now added one more, Gabpay. This payment service has been formed by the same people who created Gab as a free speech alternative to Twitter. Gabpay appears to work almost identical to PayPal, but its fees are less and it has no intention of stealing anyone’s money because it doesn’t like what someone says or writes.
Thus, regular readers can now support Behind The Black in one of five ways:
- Send me a check payable to Robert Zimmerman c/o Behind The Black, P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652 . With this method every dime you contribute goes to me. - Subscribe or donate through Zelle, using my email address zimmerman @ nasw dot org. This method also charges no fees. Every dime you spend goes only to me.
- NEW! Donate through Gabpay, using my email address zimmerman @ nasw dot org. Gabpay takes a cut of about 2%.
- Subscribe or donate at my Patreon website, which takes a cut of about 12%.
- Subscribe or donate through Paypal using the buttons in the tip jar elsewhere on this page. PayPal also takes a cut of about 12%.
I encourage my regular subscribers on both Paypal and Patreon to consider switching to Zelle. Several subscribers have done so, and have found the process simple and easy, while also guaranteeing all of your donation reaches me. If you use Zelle to either newly subscribe or switch your old subscription, please use my email address to send me a separate email telling me the monthly amount of your subscription and your chosen payment date. Zelle does not send notifications for such things.
Regardless, I celebrate my readers who are quitting PayPal. It has proven itself as unethical as companies like Google, Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter, all of which I avoid at all costs. Rather than sit back like sheep, these readers are proving that they are free citizens willing to fight. Kudos to you all!
InSight’s power levels rise very slightly
In a status report issued today, the science team for the InSight lander on Mars noted a slight increase in the amount of power produced daily by its solar panels. The graph to the right indicates that increase.
On October 8, 2022, InSight was generating an average of 300 watt-hours of energy per Martian day, or sol – an increase after a sharp decline last week from 430 watt-hours per sol to a low of 275 watt-hours per sol.
It appears that the atmosphere has begun to clear from the very large dust storm that occurred more than two thousand miles away. Despite that distance, the storm apparently reduced the available light above InSight significantly, and could take months to clear.
Paul Harvey’s The Rest of the Story
An evening pause: An example of undaunted courage.