Category: Points of Information

Very brief descriptions, with appropriate links, of current or recent news items.

SpaceX announces a mini-version of Starlink designed for backpackers

9:28 am

SpaceX today unveiled what it calls Starlink Mini, a smaller version of the Starlink antenna that can fit inside a backpack.

Early Starlink customers were invited to purchase the Starlink Mini kit for $599, according to an invitation sent to customers and viewed by TechCrunch. That’s $100 more than the standard Starlink kit. They were also given the option to bundle Mini Roam service with their existing service plan for an additional $30 per month, though the data is capped at 50 gigabytes per month.

That would mean a Starlink residential customer on the standard service plan would spent $150 month. SpaceX aims to reduce the price of the kit, it said in the invitation. As of now, there is no stand-alone Mini Roam plan.

The unit weighs only 2.5 pounds, with the first deliveries arriving in July. It is designed specifically for travelers who want a reliable internet connection wherever they go.

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Nova Scotia spaceport approved for new government grants

9:23 am

The proposed Nova Scotia spaceport run by the company Maritime Services has now been approved to apply for new government grants for its proposed satellite processing facility.

The Nova Scotia CITC is an annualized reimbursement program designed by the Government of Nova Scotia to drive economic growth and incentivize development within Nova Scotia. The program provides significant financial advantages to eligible corporations that invest in infrastructure and capital equipment for approved projects located in Nova Scotia.

Maritime Launch has received approval for an initial qualification of up to $7.5M in reimbursements under the CITC for the satellite processing facility project. Reimbursement is eligible to begin at the start of the construction of the satellite processing facility, planned for late 2024 and follows approval of a separate application in September 2023 for a project at Spaceport Nova Scotia.

Maritime Launch has been around since 2016 but as of this moment it is unclear when the first orbital launch from the spaceport will occur. Initially the plan had been to provide both spaceport and a Ukrainian rocket for satellite makers, but the Ukraine war ended that plan. Now the spaceport offers its facility to any rocket company, but so far no launch company has yet signed a launch deal.

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New debris from another Dragon service module discovered in North Carolina

9:11 am

NASA has now confirmed that debris discovered in scattered places in North Carolina several weeks ago came from the trunk section of a Dragon service module that was supposed to burn up in the atmosphere.

Between late May and early June, News 13 spoke with three mountain residents who stumbled upon what some believed to be debris from space. One piece found on a remote trail in Haywood County was three feet high and so heavy it had to be carried out using a lawn mower. Two smaller objects were found by residents in Franklin and Jackson County.

It is believed the material came from a Dragon cargo capsule that undocked and returned to Earth on April 30, 2024, its service module supposedly burning up in the atmosphere.

This is the second time in the past few months that debris from a Dragon service module trunk has been recovered on Earth. SpaceX nor NASA can no longer assume it will burn up completely, and are required to instead to de-orbit that service module more precisely over the ocean, not only because the Outer Space Treaty demands it but because crashing debris carries serious liabilities that SpaceX especially does not want to face.

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Japan’s space agency reveals it was hacked in 2023

9:02 am

Japan’s space agency JAXA today revealed that beginning in 2023 and periodically into this year it has been attacked repeatedly by hackers, with data from more than 10,000 files stolen.

Attacks occurred in June 2023 and multiple times a year, although investigations are ongoing regarding whether more information was stolen in this year’s attacks.

In addition to internal data, potentially compromised entities include NASA, Toyota Motor Corp., Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. and the Defense Ministry, with which JAXA has nondisclosure agreements. Information from numerous aerospace and defense-related organizations and companies was also exposed.

JAXA stated that no sensitive information related to national security or rocket technologies was stolen in last year’s breach. Personal data of approximately 5,000 JAXA personnel and employees from partner companies was used to access the Microsoft 365 accounts of JAXA executives.

It appears JAXA officials only found out about the attack when police told them about it months after the June 2023 attack. Agency officials now say no sensitive rocket or satellite data was stolen. Instead, it appears the attack targeted personal communications as well as research facilities.

The report provided no indication about the source of these attacks, but noted that a 2016 attack is known to have come from China.

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SpaceX launches commercial geosynchronous satellite for SES

4:59 pm

SpaceX today successfully launched a commercial geosynchronous satellite for the Luxembourg company SES, its Falcon 9 lifting off from Cape Canaveral.

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

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

64 SpaceX
27 China
8 Russia
8 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise now leads the world combined in successful launches, 75 to 41, while SpaceX by itself still leads the entire world, including other American companies, 64 to 52.

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June 20, 2024 Quick space links

3:16 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.

 

 

 

 

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The intellectual dishonesty of Democrats proven once again

12:43 pm

Democrat Neil Baron, either very lazy or a enthused slanderer
Democrat Neil Baron, either very lazy
or a enthused slanderer

The Cleveland Plain Dealer was forced on June 18, 2024 to retract entirely a June 9th op-ed written by Democrat lawyer and political consultant Neil Baron when it was threatened with slander and libel lawsuits from three FBI whistleblowers because of the blatent false accusations Baron included in this op-ed.

Baron’s op-ed, which can still read here, was mostly a partisan attack on Congressman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and his effort to expose the FBI’s non-stop abuse of power. In doing so, however, Baron accused three FBI whistle-blowers of doing things they did not do.

George Hill, advocated dismantling the FBI, claiming it’s better to “die than to have domestic intelligence.” Another, Garret O’Boyle, said Jan. 6 was a “set up” by Democrats and the FBI. He posted a video of himself at the Capitol sporting body armor, a gas mask and an AR-15 rifle. A third, Marcus Allen, assaulted several Capitol Police on Jan. 6, and claimed the insurrection was a government scheme.

As noted in the newspaper’s apology and retraction it admitted Baron’s accusations were simply false.

Allen was not a participant in the Jan. 6 insurrection in Washington D.C. and has never been accused of assaulting Capitol Police officers during the insurrection. O’Boyle did not claim the insurrection was set up by Democrats or post video of himself at the Capitol wearing body armor, a gas mask and an AR-15 rifle. While George Hill has been critical of his former employer, he did not make a quote attributed to him in the column or advocate for dismantling the FBI.

In other words, Baron was making these accusations up, and the newspaper did no fact-checking prior to publication, accepting those bald-faced lies without question. » Read more

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Rocket Lab launches five smallsats for French commercial constellation

11:24 am

Rocket Lab today successfully launched the first five smallsats of a 25-satellite “Internet-of-Things” commercial constellation of the French company Kinéis.

This was Rocket Lab’s 50th launch, putting this company among a very small club of private companies, which includes SpaceX and ULA. Governments and government-owned entities (such as Arianespace) have done more, but that is going to change in the coming years as private enterprise takes over.

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

63 SpaceX (with another launch scheduled for later today)
27 China
8 Russia
8 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise now leads the world combined in successful launches, 74 to 41, while SpaceX by itself still leads the entire world, including other American companies, 63 to 52.

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June 20, 2024 Zimmerman/Pratt on Texas podcast

10:04 am

Robert Pratt has now posted the second 30-minute part of an hour-long interview with me last week, as part of his Pratt on Texas podcast, discussing a whole range of recent blacklist stories, and their larger context within our sadly presently debased culture.

The first part of the interview can be found here.

Part 2 of that podcast is embedded below. It can also be listened to here.
» Read more

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2,000-year-old wine found in Roman tomb

9:47 am

According to tests done on a liquid found in an urn in a Roman tomb discovered in Spain in 2019, that liquid is an ancient white wine that likely came from that region.

As part of that ritual, the skeletal remains of one of the men were immersed in a liquid inside a glass funerary urn. This liquid, which over time has acquired a reddish hue, has been preserved since the first century AD, and a team with the Department of Organic Chemistry at the University of Cordoba, led by Professor José Rafael Ruiz Arrebola, in collaboration with the City of Carmona, has identified it as the oldest wine ever discovered, thus topping the Speyer wine bottle discovered in 1867 and dated to the fourth century AD, preserved in the Historical Museum of Pfalz (Germany).

It is unclear from the report whether anyone has actually tasted the wine, which even if drinkable is tainted by the bones and the cremated ashes of that one individual.

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Update on SpaceX activities leading to the next Superheavy/Starship orbital test flight

9:36 am

Link here. Lots happening, including fueling and static fire tests of Starship prototype #26 (which will not fly) and major changes on Starship prototype #30, which is slated to make that fifth test flight:

Ship 30 continues to receive upgrades, preparing it for Flight Five. Now, with most of the older tiles removed [18,000 total], new similar-sized tiles are being attached to Ship 30. These tiles could potentially have a different formula, which would make them more resistant to heat while holding a similar size.

Also, an ablative pyron layer is being added to the hot spots where Ship 30 is most likely infiltrated by plasma during entry. Pyron is used in the Falcon 9’s engine bay and is a material that SpaceX knows and trusts.

SpaceX has said it is targeting July for the flight, and the FAA has said the company’s launch license will allow it to launch whenever it is ready, with no FAA red tape to stand in the way.

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Blue Origin signs deal to fly Nigerian on New Shepard suborbital flight

9:29 am

As part of what is now a general pattern of using New Shepard suborbital flights for feel-good public relations stunts, Blue Origin has now signed a deal to fly a Nigerian into space sometime this year or next.

A lot of government and charitable entities appear involved in this deal.

The Space Exploration & Research Agency (SERA) [private charity] and the National Space Research and Development Agency (NASRDA) [Nigeria’s space agency] have signed a partnership agreement to execute an exploration project that will send the first Nigerian citizen into space. This collaboration marks a significant milestone in Nigeria’s space exploration journey and opens new opportunities for scientific research and technological advancement.

Under this partnership, SERA, a global space agency dedicated to increasing access to space for all nations, will reserve a seat on an upcoming Blue Origin New Shepard suborbital spaceflight for a Nigerian citizen.

According to a statement shared with Technext, this is part of a broader SERA-led initiative, in partnership with Blue Origin, to send six individuals from nations historically underrepresented in space exploration.

In addition, a Nigerian non-profit, Learnspace, appears to have played a part in working out this deal. As for SERA, I suspect its funding mostly comes from Jeff Bezos or Blue Origin.

Either way, the deal appears to open the competition to any Nigerian citizen, with the final decision partly influenced by public voting.

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German rocket startup Isar raises another €65 million in investment capital

9:09 am

The German rocket startup Isar Aerospace has now raised an additional €65 million in investment capital, bringing the total invested in the company to €400 million ($428 million).

Interestingly, a major backer appears to be a governmental entity.

The funding round extension received significant involvement from the NATO Innovation Fund (NIF), a venture capital fund backed by 24 NATO allies focused on addressing challenges in defence, security, and resilience.

…In addition to NIF, the funding round included contributions from G3T, 10x Group, Besant Capital, Finadvice Med HOLDINGS, LP&E, and existing investors Lakestar, Earlybird, Airbus Ventures, Bayern Kapital, and UVC Partners.

Isar has deals to launch its proposed Spectrum orbital rocket from French Guiana and from the new commercial spaceport in Andoya, Norway. The company however initially promised in 2021 that its first launch from Andoya would take place in 2022, with no launch occurring. In fact, of the three German rocket startups, Isar is the only one to so far not do a test launch of any kind, and it is presently unclear when that first orbital test launch of Spectrum will occur.

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Pro-Hamas lefty arrested for several arson attacks on UC-Berkeley campus

1:35 pm

Casey Goonan, a pro-Hamas activist arrested for arson
Casey Goonan, a pro-Hamas activist
arrested for arson

If you want to know the mentality of the pro-Hamas movement across America and largely centered on many “elite” campuses, you need only look at the story of Casey Goonan. Goonan is a 34-year-old long time leftist activist who was previously arrested in September 2023 for “felony vandalism & resisting arrest” (he had used a hammer to destroy the sign of a hotel at the protest site).

He has now been arrested again as the prime suspect in a series of four arson attacks on the UC-Berkeley campus in the past three weeks.

On Monday evening [June 17], Cal Fire announced the arrest of 34-year-old Casey Robert Goonan “in connection with the firebombing attack of a UC Berkeley Police Department vehicle and three other arson attacks on UC Berkeley campus during the month of June.”

Goonan was arrested Monday “following a comprehensive investigation” by Cal Fire’s Office of the State Fire Marshal Arson and Bomb Unit, UC Berkeley police, the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Goonan is now facing multiple felony charges, authorities said, including “the possession and use of destructive devices and multiple counts of arson.” He is in custody at Santa Rita Jail with a bail of $1 million, according to Monday’s statement.

In all these arson attacks, the firebomber (allegedly Goonan) released anonymous statements claiming credit. The first such statement, proudly admitted to firebombing a UC-Berkeley police vehicle and concluded as follows:
» Read more

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June 18, 2024 Zimmerman/Space Show podcast

10:12 am

David Livingston has now posted my two-hour appearance on the Space Show last night, with the podcast available for download here.

The show was especially enlivened by the many phone calls and excellent questions from listeners. Thank you.

I must also thank Charles Lurio (of the Lurio Report) for phoning me personally after the show to clue me into some centrifuge research on ISS that I was unaware of. Thank you Charles!

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Astronomers see a quiet galaxy become active for the first time

9:46 am

Using a number of space- and ground-based telescopes, astronomers have for the first time seen in real time what had previously been a very inactive and quiet galaxy become active and energetic, suggesting a major event at the galaxy’s center had taken place to change its behavior.

From the abstract of the paper [pdf]:

We conclude that the variations observed in SDSS1335+0728 could be either explained by a ∼ 10 6 M ⊙ AGN [a one million solar mass black hole] that is just turning on or by an exotic tidal disruption event (TDE). If the former is true, SDSS1335+0728 is one of the strongest cases of an AGN observed in the process of activating. If the latter were found to be the case, it would correspond to the longest and faintest TDE ever observed (or another class of still unknown nuclear transient). Future observations of SDSS1335+0728 are crucial to further understand its behaviour.

As noted in the press release:

Some phenomena, like supernova explosions or tidal disruption events — when a star gets too close to a black hole and is torn apart — can make galaxies suddenly light up. But these brightness variations typically last only a few dozen or, at most, a few hundreds of days. SDSS1335+0728 is still growing brighter today, more than four years after it was first seen to ‘switch on’. Moreover, the variations detected in the galaxy, which is located 300 million light-years away in the constellation Virgo, are unlike any seen before.

If the central black hole is switching from being quiet to active, this galaxy is providing astronomers critical information for understanding such changes. This is particularly important to us here in the Milky Way, which has a very inactive central supermassive black hole weighing about 4 million solar masses. It would be very useful to understand what would cause it to become active, especially because such an event might even have an impact — possibly negative — throughout our entire galaxy.

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Scientists release first image from Hubble in one-gyro mode

9:29 am

First Hubble image in one-gyro mode
Click for original image.

The Hubble science team today released the first image from the Hubble Space Telescope produced in its new one-gyro mode.

That image it so the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, and shows NGC 1546, a nearby galaxy in the constellation Dorado about 52 million light years away. The inset shows at full resolution the small red galaxy near the top, to give some sense of the telescope’s capabilities in this one-gyro mode.

The details astonish me, and prove my pessimism about this new mode to have been wrong. I expected future images to be more fuzzy, with Hubble’s ability to take sharp images largely limited. The resolution here is excellent, and bodes well for future science observations.

Nonetheless, the telescope is still working under major limitations:

Although one-gyro mode is an excellent way to keep Hubble science operations going, it does have limitations, which include a small decrease in efficiency (roughly 12 percent) due to the added time required to slew and lock the telescope onto a science target.

As previously noted, prior to the use of the fine guidance sensors, fixed head star trackers position Hubble’s pointing closer to the target. If Earth or the moon block two of the fixed head star trackers’ fields of view, Hubble must move further along in its orbit until the star trackers can see the sky and its stars again. This process encroaches upon science observation time. Second, the additional time the fine guidance sensors take to further search for the guide stars adds to the total time the sensors use to complete the acquisition.

Third, in one-gyro mode Hubble has some restrictions on the science it can do. For example, Hubble cannot track moving objects that are closer to Earth than the orbit of Mars. Their motion is too fast to track without the full complement of gyros. Additionally, the reduced area of sky that Hubble can point to at any given time also reduces its flexibility to see transient events or targets of opportunity like an exploding star or an impact on Jupiter.

When combined, these factors may yield a decrease in productivity of roughly 20 to 25 percent from the typical observing program conducted in the past using all three gyros.

It really is time for the astronomical community to get its act together and begin work on developing and launching more large optical telescopes into space. Hubble has shown us the potential of in-space optical astronomy. That astronomers have not flocked in the last three decades to build more such telescopes is puzzling beyond belief.

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Slovenia becomes 23rd member nation of the European Space Agency

9:05 am

Formerly part of Yugoslavia and largely aligned with the communist bloc during the Cold War, Slovenia has now signed on to become the 23rd member nation of the European Space Agency (ESA).

Slovenia has been working with ESA since 2008, when it signed a first Cooperation Agreement, followed by a European Cooperation Agreement. This cooperation was strengthened with its accession to associate membership in 2016, which it upgraded in 2020 with a new Agreement for an enhanced Association. This included a provision that after its expiration in 2025, Slovenia can apply for ESA membership.

Slovenia’s membership still needs to be ratified, but that is expected.

Increasingly Putin’s invasion of the Ukraine has proven to be incredibly stupid. It has not only trapped Russia in a quagmire that it can’t easily escape, with victory nowhere in sight, it has caused all of its other neighbors to look west, away from Russia, out of fear of getting invaded themselves. Slovenia is just the most recent example.

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SpaceX launches 20 Starlink satellites

8:43 am

After a ten day pause in launches, which included one launch abort at T-0, SpaceX yesterday successfully launched 20 Starlink satellites, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Vandenberg in California.

The pause is noteworthy because it is possibly SpaceX’s longest pause in launches this year (I haven’t gone back and checked). Consider this fact: A ten day pause between launches would have once been considered a fast launch pace. Now it seems like something is wrong.

The rocket’s first stage completed its fifth flight, landing on a drone ship in the Pacific.

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

63 SpaceX (with another launch scheduled for later today)
27 China
8 Russia
7 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise now leads the world combined in successful launches, 73 to 41, while SpaceX by itself leads the entire world, including other American companies, 63 to 51.

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June 18, 2024 Quick space links

3:43 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.

 

 

 

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Massive Martian landslides

3:09 pm

Massive Martian landslides
For original images go here and here.

Overview map

Today’s two cool images above provide a nice sense of the massive nature of many Martian landslides. Scientists often call this kind of slide “mass wasting,” because rather than it occurring because a single rock propagates a larger flow of rocks as it starts rolling downhill, this slide occurs because a large section of the hillside suddenly breaks free and moves downward as a unit, carving a path as it goes.

Mars has a lot of these kinds of slides, likely caused partly by its lower gravity, 39% that of Earth’s.

The overview map to the right marks the location of both slides by their numbers. Number one took place on the eastern interior rim of a 56-mile-wide and 7,000-foot-deep unnamed crater the dry tropics of Mars. The slide dropped about 3,000 feet, beginning about halfway down from the top of the rim and not quite reaching the crater floor. The picture was taken by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) on March 31, 2024.

Number two occurred on the western interior rim of a 32-mile-wide and 6,500-foot-deep unnamed crater in the mid-latitudes where near-surface ice and glacial features are often found. In this case the slide fell downward about 3,500 feet. The picture was taken by MRO’s high resolution camera on March 14, 2024.

Despite the different latitudes and thus different climates and geological settings, both landslides look similar. It is possible they occurred under similar conditions, but at very different times. Or it is also possible that the Mars gravity and general environment promotes these mass wasting events everywhere.

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Kansas sues Pfizer for lying about the safety and effectiveness of its COVID jab

1:13 pm

Apparently a company of liars
Apparently a company of liars

The state of Kansas yesterday filed a detailed suit against the pharmaceutical company Pfizer over the many lies and misrepresentations it pushed as it rolled out its COVID jab, such as hiding the actual documented “adverse events”, including many deaths, that occurred after people got jabbed.

You can read the complaint here [pdf]. It opens as follows;

Pfizer misled the public that it had a “safe and effective” COVID-19 vaccine.

  • Pfizer said its COVID-19 vaccine was safe even though it knew its COVID-19 vaccine was connected to serious adverse events, including myocarditis and pericarditis, failed pregnancies, and deaths. Pfizer concealed this critical safety information from the public.
  • Pfizer said its COVID-19 vaccine was effective even though it knew its COVID-19 vaccine waned over time and did not protect against COVID-19 variants. Pfizer concealed this critical effectiveness information from the public.
  • Pfizer said its COVID-19 vaccine would prevent transmission of COVID-19 even though it knew it never studied the effect of its vaccine on transmission of COVID-19.
  • To keep the public from learning the truth, Pfizer worked to censor speech on social media that questioned Pfizer’s claims about its COVID-19 vaccine.

The lawsuit has lots of juicy factoids. For example, Pfizer kept its own database of adverse events after people took its jab, and lied about that data to the public.
» Read more

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Starliner return delayed again to June 26th

10:23 am

In a press briefing today, Boeing and NASA announced that they have decided to delay the return of Boeing’s Starliner capsule, carrying two astronauts, another four days to June 26, 2024. The landing would take place just before dawn, landing at White Sands in New Mexico.

The decision to delay is related to the results from the hot fire tests of the aft thrusters of Starliner on June 15, 2024. Engineers want to review the data, which included finding that one of the eight thrusters is producing unacceptable results and will not be used for the rest of the flight. The other seven thrusters however produced acceptable results, “good thrust” as noted by one official.

The extra time to review the data is also because these thrusters are on the service module, which will not return to Earth. They want to make sure they understand the issues entirely. The longer time docked to ISS is also giving them better data for future longer missions.

As for the helium leaks, the level of leaking appears to be dropping, and in fact dropped after the hot fire burns, and “appears to be somehow related to the thrusters.” Either way, the safety margins remain sufficient so that the return is not threatened in any way by these leaks.

The valve issue also seems under control, with all the valves now working as expected.

Overvall, engineers have decided they have a safe vehicle that can not only be used to return to Earth as scheduled, they are confident that they could also use Starliner as a lifeboat in a sudden emergency.

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Surprise! Scientists discover that eating cheese makes you happier in old age!

9:52 am

Science discovers the obvious: A computer analysis of 2.3 million people in Europe has found that eating cheese helped make them healthier and happier as they aged.

A mediation analysis identified 33 factors that mediate “between the well-being spectrum and the aging-GIP” – essentially, statistically, the disease, behaviors and lifestyle choices that significantly reduce the healthy aging score. Key ones included TV watching, smoking, medication use, heart failure, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), stroke, coronary atherosclerosis and ischemic heart disease.

Cheese, on the other hand, swung the pendulum the other way in both its impact on the well-being spectrum and aging-GIP. One of five key lifestyle mediators the data testing identified, it had a 3.67% positive impact on those healthy aging factors (whereas, for example, higher fruit intake had a 1.96% positive result and too much TV time, an indication of a more sedentary lifestyle, had a 7.39% negative impact on the score for both indicators).

While interesting, this research is generally junk. The number of uncertainties and assumptions are so large that no one should take any of these positive and negative scores very seriously. Furthermore, the study basically discovers something that is patently obvious from the beginning: If you are active and eat well, you will be healthier in old age. If you are a couch potato who smokes, you will likely be sicker in old age.

Why cheese (and fruit) should improve these scores is intriguing, but simply suggests that the study is not very useful. The intriguing (and amusing) nature of these results guarantees however that it will blasted by every mainstream news source in the coming days, with little mention of the weakness of the research.

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Once again, the first known binary of two supermassive black holes flares as predicted

9:37 am

The predicted orbit of OJ287

Using a variety of space telescopes astronomers have successfully predicted and then observed a major flare that occurred on November 12, 2021 from OJ287, the first known binary of two supermassive black holes located 3.5 billion light years away at the center of a very active galaxy dubbed a blazar.

On Nov. 12, 2021, TESS detected OJ 287 brightening by about two magnitudes for about 12 hours, as it released as much energy in that short burst as 100 average galaxies would release in the same time. This flare was attributed to a jet from the second black hole; observations from the other telescopes supported that result as well, with Fermi in particular detecting a significant outburst of gamma rays.

The figure to the right comes from the published paper [pdf], and shows the orbit of the smaller supermassive black hole — weighing 150 million solar masses — as it circled the larger central supermassive black hole — weighing 18 billion solar masses — from 2000 to 2021.

This was not the first time such a flare from OJ287 had been predicted and observed. Astronomers also did it in 2019. These observations now strongly confirm the predicted orbit of the small black hole, as shown in the figure.

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Rocket Lab gets a new 10-launch contract from Japanese satellite company

9:08 am

Rocket Lab yesterday signed a new 10-launch contract with the Japanese satellite company Synspective, with the launches scheduled for the 2025-2027 timeframe.

Rocket Lab has been Synspective’s sole launch provider since 2020, having already launched four of its satellites, with two other launches already under contract. Thus, the satellite company has bought sixteen total launches from Rocket Lab. Its constellation is designed to provide surface data in any weather condition, using radar.

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On the radio

9:47 pm

I will be doing a long appearance tomorrow (Tuesday) with David Livingston of The Space Show, beginning at 7 pm (Pacific). You can access the live broadcast here. This was the rescheduled show we had had to cancel in May due to technical problems.

I hope my readers will consider calling in. It is always more fun to have a give-and-take with someone live, rather than simpl answering emailed questions.

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June 17, 2024 Quick space links

3:53 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.

 

  • Webb observes the most distant Type 1a supernova yet discovered

    • Type 1a supernovae were used to discover dark energy, based on the assumption that their brightness is always the same. Thus, the dimmer they are, the farther away they are. The data from this supernovae doesn’t break that assumption, according to the abstract, but it uncovered some pecularities that need explaining.

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The insane mountain slopes of Mars’ deep canyons

3:40 pm

Overview map

The insane mountain slopes of Mars' deep canyons
Click for original image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right, rotated, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on April 25, 2024 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO).

The scientists label this layered deposits, but that hardly describes what we are looking at. This slope, as shown in the overview map above, is the north flank of the central ridgeline inside the giant enclosed canyon depression dubbed Hebes Chasma, located just north of the main canyon of Valles Marineris, the largest known canyon in the solar system.

From floor to peak the ridge is around 16,000 feet high. Yet, its peak sits more than 6,000 feet below the plateau that surrounds Hebes. In this one picture the drop from high to low is only 5,700 feet, with thousands of feet of cliff unseen below and above.

Yet every single foot of these gigantic cliffs is layered. Based on close-up data obtained by Curiosity on the slopes of Mount Sharp in Gale Crater on the other side of the planet, the layers we can see here only represent the most coarse sedimentary boundaries. Within these layers are likely thousands upon thousands of thin additional layers, each likely representing some cyclical climate proces on Mars, even down to individual years.

Note too that the lower slopes in this picture (near the top) suggest some form of erosion flowing downhill. What caused that erosion process however remains unknown. It could have been liquid water, or glaciers, or some other process unique to Mars that we still haven’t uncovered.

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