Category: Points of Information

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

Gully erosion in a Martian dune field

2:26 pm

Overview map

Gully erosion in a Martian dune field
Click for original image.

Today’s cool image is another example of how little we really understand the geology of Mars. The picture to the right, rotated, cropped, reduced, and enhanced to post here, was taken on February 22, 2024 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO).

The focus of the image is the eastern end of a large and very distinct dune field inside 31-mile-wide Matera Crater, as shown by the white rectangle in the overview map above. The field fills an area 10 by 11 miles inside the floor of the crater. On that eastern end is a very pronounced drainage gully dropping downhill about 2,000 feet to the east.

Gullies on Martian slopes, especially on the interior rims of craters, are not unusual. Though their true cause is not yet confirmed, the theories behind their existence all relate to some form of water/ice process, mostly relating to the seasonal freeze-thaw cycle.

This picture was taken in the spring, exactly when seasonal changes might be spotted. In fact, scientists have been taking regular MRO images of this gully since 2007, when it was featured image. From that 2007 caption:
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Supreme Court votes 9-0 in favor of NRA’s 1st amendment rights

11:38 am

In a major decision today, the Supreme Court voted unanimously that the National Rifle Association (NRA) has the right to sue New York state officials for their campaign of intimidation by threatening private financial organizations if they did business with it.

“Six decades ago, this Court held that a government entity’s ‘threat of invoking legal sanctions and other means of coercion’ against a third party ‘to achieve the suppression’ of disfavored speech violates the First Amendment,” Justice Sonja Sotomayor wrote in the unanimous opinion. “Today, the Court reaffirms what it said then: Government officials cannot attempt to coerce private parties in order to punish or suppress views that the government disfavors. Petitioner National Rifle Association (NRA) plausibly alleges that respondent Maria Vullo did just that. As superintendent of the New York Department of Financial Services, Vullo allegedly pressured regulated entities to help her stifle the NRA’s pro-gun advocacy by threatening enforcement actions against those entities that refused to disassociate from the NRA and other gun-promotion advocacy groups. Those allegations, if true, state a First Amendment claim.” [emphasis mine]

The ruling allows the NRA lawsuit against Vullo to move forward.

I highlighted Sotomayor’s name because her position here, representing the entire court in favor of the NRA, proves that even the leftist justices at the court are increasingly tired of the abusive and illegal lawfare being waged by the Democratic Party against Republicans and conservatives. The court, from both the right and the left, is telling the Democrats they are exposing themselves to personal liability if they do not stop this misbehavior. The Supreme Court is not going to go along with it, and that includes the leftists on the bench.

This decision also provides us a strong indication of what the Supreme Court will do if and when the various lawfare cases against Donald Trump reach it. In those cases the abuse of the law has been even more clear. Partisan prosecutors like Fani Willis, Alvin Bragg, and Jack Smith, all of whom are misusing the law simply to get a political opponent, are likely not going to be treated nicely by the court.

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Astronomers find another record-setting most distant galaxy

9:42 am

The uncertainty of science: Using the Webb Space Telescope, astonomers have identified another record-setting most distant galaxy, believed to exist only 300 million years after the Big Bang and once again far more massive and developed than expected that early in the universe.

The galaxy was actually one of two very early galaxies identified that lie close to each other on the sky but are not linked in any way.

The two record-breaking galaxies are called JADES-GS-z14-0 and JADES-GS-z14-1, the former being the more distant of the two. In addition to being the new distance record holder, JADES-GS-z14-0 is remarkable for how big and bright it is. “The size of the galaxy clearly proves that most of the light is being produced by large numbers of young stars,” said Eisenstein, a Harvard professor and chair of the astronomy department, “rather than material falling onto a supermassive black hole in the galaxy’s center, which would appear much smaller.”

The combination of the extreme brightness and the fact that young stars are fueling this high luminosity makes JADES-GS-z14-0 the most striking evidence yet found for the rapid formation of large, massive galaxies in the early Universe.

All the early galaxies that Webb has found so far have been far more massive and developed than cosmologists had predicted. The expectation had been that there wouldn’t have been enough time after the Big Bang for such galaxies to develop. Yet they have, suggesting something is not right with our theories about the beginning of the universe.

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A second Indian rocket startup completes suborbital launch

9:34 am

Agnikul's first suborbital test launch
Yesterday’s launch. Click for original image.

The Indian rocket startup Agnikul Cosmos yesterday successfully completed a suborbital test launch, flying a prototype stage using a single 3-D printed engine that lifted off from India’s Sriharikota spaceport on its eastern coast. From the first link:

All the mission objectives of this controlled vertical ascent flight were met and performance was nominal. The vehicle was completely designed in-house and was powered by the world’s first single piece 3d printed engine and also happens to be India’s first flight with a semi cryo engine.

The company claims this launch took place at its privately built launchpad, but that pad is located south of ISRO’s Sriharikota spaceport. Did it shift the launch back to Sriharikota, or are the reports incorrect? It is not clear.

Another Indian rocket startup, Skyroot, completed a similar suborbital test launch in November 2022, and has since followed this up with static fire tests of the upper stage of its Vikram-1 rocket.

Both companies hope to complete their first orbital launches before the end of 2025.

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Launches by China and Russia

9:16 am

Earlier today both China and Russia successfully completed launches.

First, China launched a Chinese-built Pakistani communications satellite into orbit, its Long March 3B rocket lifting off from its Xichang spaceport from the southwest of China.

No real information was released about the satellite, or the fate of the rocket’s lower stages and four strap-on boosters, all of which use toxic hypergolic fuels and certainly crashed somewhere in China.

Next, Russia successfully launched a new Progress cargo ship to ISS, its Soyuz-2 rocket lifting off from Baikonur in Kazakhstan. The freighter will dock with ISS tomorrow. I have embedded video of the launch below, cued to T-30 seconds.

The rocket’s flight path took it over Kazakstan, Russia, and China, with drop zones for the lower stages in the first two. No word on whether the lower stages and four strap-on boosters crashed near habitable areas.

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

57 SpaceX
25 China
8 Russia
6 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise still leads the world combined in successful launches, 65 to 39, while SpaceX by itself leads the entire world, including other American companies, 57 to 47.

» Read more

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The wind-carved north edge of Mars’ largest volcanic ash field

3:37 pm

The wind-carved north edge of Mars' largest volcanic ash field
Click for original image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on February 26, 2024 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows what the scientists label as the “relation between flutes and flows”.

The flood lava plain in the northern part of this picture represents the flows. At some point in the distant past some event, either a volcanic eruption, or a large impact, caused lava to spew out across this terrain, leaving behind a smooth plain that has only partly been marked by later crater impacts.

The many parallel ridges pointing to the northeast in the southern part of the picture represent the flutes.

One other very important flow is not directly visible. The prevailing winds that blow to the southwest are what carved these flutes, slowly pushing the material southward while carving out the many gaps between the ridges.
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Scientists propose three scenarios for the creation of Dinkinesh’s contact-binary moon Selam

10:23 am

Three scenarios for creating Dinkinesh and Salem
Click for original graphic.

Dinkinesh's contact binary moon
Click for original image.

Scientists have now used the data obtained during Lucy’s close fly-by of the asteroid Dinkinesh in November 2023 to propose three scenarios to explain the existence of its contact-binary moon Selam, as well as the trough and equatorial ridge on Dinkinesh.

The image to the right shows Selam to the right of Dinkenesh. The graphic above shows the three scenarios proposed for Selam’s creation. This is figure 4 from the paper published today. From the caption:

Asteroids with diameters less than approximately 10 km are subject to spin-up by the YORP effect [changes to rotation and motion due to solar radiation impacting the asteroid’s surface]. Rapid spin of the primary and the associated centrifugal force eventually trigger a structural failure that leads to sudden mass shedding. This event might also have created the trough seen on Dinkinesh through the mass movement of a portion of the body. The shed material forms a ring, with some material coalescing into a satellite(s) and closer material eventually falling back to the surface at the equator to form the ridge. The formation of the contact binary may be the result of a merger of two satellites formed either in a single mass-shedding event (a) or in two separate events (b). An alternative scenario (c) is that Selam formed as a single object that subsequently underwent fission owing to spin–orbit coupling.

Of course, none of this is confirmed, though these hypotheses fit the available facts.

Lucy is presently heading to a fly-by of Earth in December 2024. It will then zip past another main belt asteroid in April 2025 before arriving in August 2027 among the Trojan asteroids in Jupter’s orbit. Once there it will visit at least eight different asteroids.

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The “Vulcan” exoplanet discovered in 2018 now refuted

9:52 am

In 2018 astronomers had thought they had detected an exoplanet orbiting the star 40 Eridani A — which is where in Star Trek the home world Mr. Spock was supposed to be located.

That discovery has now been refuted by much more precise observations.

[T]he planet signal is really the flickering of something on the star’s surface that coincides with a 42-day rotation – perhaps the roiling of hotter and cooler layers beneath the star’s surface, called convection, combined with stellar surface features such as spots and “plages,” which are bright, active regions.

In other words, this exoplanet does not exist. For once at least life did not imitate art.

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Chang’e-6 to attempt landing on Moon’s far side on June 1st

9:42 am

Chang'e-6 landing zone

After spending almost a month in lunar orbit, the lander on China’s Chang’e-6 sample return mission will attempt a soft touchdown on Moon’s far side on June 1, 2024 at 8:00 pm (Eastern).

If successful, the lander will go through initial checks and setup. It will then begin drilling and scooping up materials from the surface. These samples, expected to weigh up to 2,000 grams, will be loaded into an ascent vehicle. The ascender will then launch the precious cargo back into lunar orbit for rendezvous and docking with the orbiter. Surface operations will last about 48 hours.

The map to the right indicates the landing zone by the red box, on the southern edge of Apollo Crater, indicated by the wavy white circle. The black circle marks the perimeter of South Aitken Basin, the largest impact basin on the Moon.

Once the ascender docks with the orbiter, the sample will be transferred into the sample return capsule, which will bring that sample back to Earth in late June.

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Botswana approves Starlink

9:32 am

After first denying SpaceX the right to sell Starlink in Botswana in February, government officials have now done a sudden about-face and approved Starlink.

During a business summit in the United States earlier in May, President Mokgweetsi Masisi met with Ben MacWilliams, the Director of Starlink’s Global Licensing and Activation, who expressed interest in obtaining a license to operate in Botswana. Following this meeting, President Masisi decided to approve Starlink’s licensing and instructed the regulator to expedite the application process within two weeks.

I could speculate on what caused the president to change his mind after this meeting, but I’ll leave that to my readers.

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OSIRIS-APEX survives closest fly-by of the Sun on its way to the asteroid Apophis

9:27 am

The asteroid probe OSIRIS-APEX has successfully survived a much closer fly-by of the Sun then it was ever designed to endure, paving the way for its rendezvous with the potentially-dangerous asteroid Apophis in 2029.

The spacecraft’s clean bill of health was due to creative engineering. Engineers placed OSIRIS-APEX in a fixed orientation with respect to the Sun and repositioned one of its two solar arrays to shade the spacecraft’s most sensitive components during the pass.

The spacecraft is in an elliptical orbit around the Sun that brings it to a point closest to the Sun, called a perihelion, about every nine months. To get on a path that will allow it to meet up with its new target Apophis in 2029, the spacecraft’s trajectory includes several perihelions that are closer to the Sun than the spacecraft’s components were originally designed to withstand.

It appears this first fly-by actually improved the spacecraft’s condition. The maneuvers appear to have dislodged a pebble — picked up during the sample grab at the asteroid Bennu — that was interfering with the spacecraft’s spectrometer. The heat from the Sun also apparently fixed about 70% of the hot pixels on one of the spacecraft’s cameras.

“We think the heat from the Sun reset the pixels through annealing,” said Amy Simon, OSIRIS-APEX project scientist, based at NASA Goddard. Annealing is a heat process that can restore function of instruments and is often done intentionally through built-in heaters on some spacecraft.

The next solar fly-by will occur on September 1, 2024.

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SLIM goes dark

9:14 am

SLIM's landing zone
Map showing SLIM landing zone on the Moon.
Click for interactive map.

The Japanese lunar lander SLIM has failed to respond to ground commands sent soon after dawn, ending the lander’s fourth night on the Moon.

SLIM was never expected to survive the harsh conditions of even a single 14-day-long lunar night after landing on the Moon in January 2024. Its primary mission had been to test precision autonomous landings, which it did successfully (though it landed on its side when one nozzle fell off just before touchdown). Yet, it then survived three lunar nights, resuming communications at dawn.

Its failure now is therefore no surprise, and actually marks a magnificent engineering success. The spacecraft’s hardware was proven robust enough to survive the very cold temperatures during lunar night, and suggests that future Japanese lunar landers using SLIM designs will function as well.

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Avio completes static fire test of the upper stage of its grounded Vega-C rocket

9:03 am

The Italian company Avio yesterday completed a full static fire test of the solid-fueled upper stage of its grounded Vega-C rocket, proving that the second redesign of its nozzle now works.

The initial post-test review indicates that the new nozzle assembly performed as expected throughout the scheduled 94 seconds burning time of the test, simulating a nominal in-flight performance.

The Zefiro-40 is a 7.6 m tall rocket motor, loaded with over 36 tonnes of solid propellant. For this test the motor was installed on its horizontal test bench. Zefiro-40 is developed and manufactured by Avio in their Colleferro factory near Rome, Italy.

A second firing-test will be conducted after the summer to confirm the data collected today. Avio engineers will review the data from the first test to prepare for a second test in October that will then qualify the second stage Zefiro-40 solid rocket motor for a return-to-flight by end 2024 from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana.

The nozzle — originally built in the Ukraine — had failed during a launch in December 2022. Then Avio’s first redesign failed in a ground test in July 2023.

With this launch, the Vega-C is poised to resume operations by the end of the year. Those operations will be different however in one major respect. While previously the rocket was built by Avio but owned and controlled by the European Space Agency’s commercial arm, Arianespace, its ownership has been transferred back to Avio. Arianespace is now merely a “launch service provider” according to the press release. I suspect this means that Arianespace handles the launch in French Guiana, something that will also soon be taken from it because control of that spaceport is also being returned to the French space agency CNES.

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China launches four satellites from sea platform

8:45 am

China's spaceports

The Chinese pseudo-company Galactic Energy today launched four satellites, its Ceres-1 rocket lifting off from its sea platform stationed off the coast of Shandong province, as shown on the map to the right.

As is usual now for China’s state-run press, the news report made no mention of the company, though unlike previous reports it did mention that the rocket was “commercial.” Since it does nothing without the full permission of the Chinese government, however, this is not a real independent company, with full ownership of its rocket. At any time the communists who run China can grab it for their own uses.

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

57 SpaceX
24 China
7 Russia
6 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise still leads the world combined in successful launches, 65 to 37, while SpaceX by itself leads the entire world, including other American companies, 57 to 45.

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SpaceX launches European/Japanese climate satellite

11:44 pm

SpaceX today successfully launched a joint European/Japanese satellite designed to study the climate, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Vandenberg in California.

The first stage completed its seventh flight, landing safely back at Vandenberg. This was also SpaceX’s second launch today, from opposite coasts.

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

57 SpaceX
23 China
7 Russia
6 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise now leads the world combined in successful launches, 65 to 36, while SpaceX by itself leads the entire world, including other American companies, 57 to 44.

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A Martian lava flow so strong it eats mountains

1:34 pm

A Martian lava flow so strong it eats mountains
Click for original image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right, rotated, cropped, reduced, sharpened, and annotated to post here, was taken on March 19, 2024 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows a crater that appears to sit on top of a plateau that was created by a flow of material coming from the northeast that — as the flow divided to get around that crater — it wore away the ground to leave the crater sitting high and dry.

What was the material in that flow? The location is at 9 degrees north latitude, in Mars’ dry tropics, so it is highly unlikely that the flows here are glaciers, even though they have some glacier-like features.

Instead, this is frozen lava, but Martian in nature in that its ability to push the ground out of its way suggests it was moving very fast, far faster than lava on Earth.
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Need a kidney transplant? You better be poor according to new DEI proposed rules

12:39 pm

The Biden administration: still dedicated to segregation!
The Biden administration: still dedicated to segregation!

“Segregation today, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever!” According to new rules proposed by the Biden administration “to root our racial bias,” a pilot program will favor low-income patients in providing them kidney transplants.

The proposal, which Becerra’s agency announced on May 8, would place 90 of the nation’s 257 transplant hospitals into a pilot program that uses an annual point system to grade participants. Under the system, a successful kidney transplant counts as one point. A transplant furnished to a low-income patient, however, counts as 1.2 points thanks to a “health equity performance adjustment,” thus incentivizing the hospitals to prioritize such patients. At the end of each year, those points are applied to a transplant quota. Hospitals that meet their quota receive as much as $8,000 per transplant; those that don’t may have to pay up to $2,000 per transplant.

While the proposal uses income to categorize patients rather than race, Becerra made clear that the scoring system is meant to address racial concerns. In his statement announcing the proposal, he touted the Biden administration’s “concrete steps to remove racial bias … in the transplant process.”

» Read more

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Chinese pseudo-company files plans for 10,000 satellite constellation

9:39 am

A Chinese pseudo-company has now filed plans for launching a 10,000 satellite constellation, the third such Chinese constellation planned.

A Chinese firm linked to commercial rocket maker Landspace has filed a notification with the ITU for a constellation comprising 10,000 satellites. Shanghai Lanjian Hongqing Technology Company, also known as Hongqing Technology, filed an Advance Publication Information (API) with the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) May 24. The filing outlines plans for a constellation named Honghu-3. It is to total 10,000 satellites across 160 orbital planes.

…The Honghu constellation plan appears to be the third 10,000-plus satellite megaconstellation planned by Chinese entities. It follows the national Guowang plan and the Shanghai-backed G60 Starlink proposal, both of which have been approved by China’s National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC). First batches of satellites for the pair are expected to launch in the coming months.

This new plan will likely not start launching satellites before 2025. Nonetheless, with these three large Chinese constellations plus both Starlink and Amazon’s Kuiper constellation, low Earth orbit is going to begin to get very crowded.

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Dry ice and carbon monoxide detected on asteroids beyond Neptune

9:31 am

Based on new infrared observations by the Webb Space Telescope, scientists have detected for the first time carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide on asteroids beyond Neptune. From the abstract of their paper:

Out of 59 [trans-Neptunian objects] and centaur [asteriods] observed by the James Webb Space Telescope and the NIRSpec Integral Field Unit as part of the DiSCo-TNOs project, we report the widespread detection of CO2 ice in 95% of the sample and CO ice in 47% of the sample.

It appears dry ice is ubiquitous in the outer solar system. Since it is believed these asteroids are very primitive, this data suggests there was a lot of it in the early solar system when the planets were forming.

The discovery of so much carbon monoxide is however more puzzling, as it is expected to sublimate away even in the very cold environment so far from the Sun and is therefore likely not from the early solar system. The scientists posit that it might have been produced when radiation transformed the other carbon-bearing ices.

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Scientists confirm 2023 data that suggested active volcanism on Venus

9:20 am

Active lava flows on Venus
Click for original video

Scientists have now confirmed a 2023 paper that had found evidence in archival data from the Magellan orbiter that there was active volcanism on Venus. From the abstract of the new paper:

To investigate more widespread alterations that have occurred over time in the planet’s surface morphology, we compared radar images of the same regions observed from 1990 to 1992 with the Magellan spacecraft. We found variations in the radar backscatter from different volcanic-related flow features on the western flank of Sif Mons and in western Niobe Planitia. We suggest that these changes are most reasonably explained as evidence of new lava flows related to volcanic activities that took place during the Magellan spacecraft’s mapping mission with its synthetic-aperture radar.

The image to the right is a screen capture, annotated to post here, from a video computer animation created by the science team based on that Magellan data. The red areas are where the scientists detected lava flow changes on the flanks of the volcano Sif Mons. From the press release:

Using flows on Earth as a comparison, the researchers estimate new rock that was emplaced in both locations to be between 10 and 66 feet (3 and 20 meters) deep, on average. They also estimate that the Sif Mons eruption produced about 12 square miles (30 square kilometers) of rock — enough to fill at least 36,000 Olympic-size swimming pools. The Niobe Planitia eruption produced about 17 square miles (45 square kilometers) of rock, which would fill 54,000 Olympic swimming pools. As a comparison, the 2022 eruption of Mauna Loa in Hawaii, Earth’s largest active volcano, produced a lava flow with enough material to fill 100,000 Olympic pools.

There is uncertainty of course with this result, due to the difficulty of analyzing radar data properly. Nonetheless, this result reinforces last year’s results, which saw evidence of changes between the two Magellan data sets in a different region near the volcanoes Ozza Mons and Maat Mons. It also reinforces previous work going back decades that has repeatedly suggested Venus was volcanically active.

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SpaceX launches more Starlink satellites

8:42 am

The bunny never stops. SpaceX this morning successfully placed another 23 Starlink satellites into orbit, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral.

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

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

56 SpaceX
23 China
7 Russia
6 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise now leads the world combined in successful launches, 64 to 36, while SpaceX by itself leads the entire world, including other American companies, 56 to 44.

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North Korea’s orbital Chollima-1 rocket explodes shortly after launch

2:48 pm

North Korea’s third launch of its orbital Chollima-1 rocket, supposedly carrying a spy satellite, failed today when the first stage exploded shortly after launch.

North Korea’s official state news agency said it launched a spy satellite aboard a new rocket from its main space centre tonight. But it added that the rocket blew up during a first-stage flight soon after liftoff due to a suspected engine problem.

Video of the explosion showed up on social media almost immediately. I have embedded that video below.

Based on when the explosion occurred — early in the flight — and the planned flight path east from North Korea’s west coast Sohai spaceport, the rocket debris very likely crashed inside North Korea, its toxic hypergolic fuels pouring down possibly in habitable areas.
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Pressure from free-speech law firm forces Chase to eliminate language that allowed it debank conservatives

11:57 am

JP Morgan Chase: eager to blacklist you for your opinions
Maybe slightly less eager, but only slightly less

Bring a gun to a knife fight: For reasons that appear related to pressure from the conservative free-speech law firm the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), JPMorgan Chase has eliminated language in its payment services policy statement that allowed it to cancel conservative clients merely because it disliked those clients’ politics.

JPMorgan Chase, the largest bank in the U.S., rolled back its WePay service that required merchants to refrain from accepting payments or using the service for activities related to “social risk issues,” which the bank defined as anything “subject to allegation and impacts related to hate groups, systemic racism, sexual harassment and corporate culture.”

The language was removed from the company’s WePay terms of service, the Alliance for Defending Freedom (ADF) discovered this month.

For the past three years ADF has issued what it calls its Viewpoint Diversity Score Business Index, designed to “measure corporate respect for free speech and religious freedom across 43 performance indicators.” Each year it consults with the 85 corporations on its list in an attempt to get them to eliminate policies that encourage the debanking of conservative individuals or organizations. In the case of Chase, a sustained effort over two years eventually caused the company to remove that language.
» Read more

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Today’s Blacklisted American: To celebrate Memorial Day, a federal official bans the American flag

11:09 am

Brooke Merrell:
Brooke Merrell: Proud to ban the American flag

In another example of the fundamental hostility that federal officials feel for their country, officials at Alaska’s Denali National Park recently told contractors working in the park they were forbidden from flying Old Glory on their trucks and equipment, as construction workers have done for more than a century.

According to the contractor, Denali National Park Superintendent Brooke Merrell contacted the man overseeing the federal highways project, claiming there had been complaints about the U.S. flags, and notifying him that bridge workers must stop flying the stars and stripes from their vehicles because it detracts from the “park experience.”
Denali National Park Superintendent Brooke Merrell

“The trucks are flying these American flags, about a foot atop the trucks, about three-foot by four-foot flags, and they said they don’t want this,” the contractor explained. “They’re saying it isn’t conducive and it doesn’t fit the park experience.”

Up until this week, however, the flags were displayed without incident. It was only when the park began running tour buses that the order was given to take down the flags, he added.

» Read more

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Visiting a galactic bar

9:27 am

Visiting a galactic bar
Click for original image.

Cool image time! The picture to the right, reduced and sharpened to post here, was taken by the Hubble Space Telescope as part of a research project studying the flow of gases inside barred galaxies. It shows a spiral galaxy, NGC 4731, edge on, located about 43 million light years away. From the caption:

Barred spiral galaxies outnumber both regular spirals and elliptical galaxies put together, numbering around 60% of all galaxies. The visible bar structure is a result of orbits of stars and gas in the galaxy lining up, forming a dense region that individual stars move in and out of over time. This is the same process that maintains a galaxy’s spiral arms, but it is somewhat more mysterious for bars: spiral galaxies seem to form bars in their centres as they mature, accounting for the large number of bars we see today, but can also lose them later on as the accumulated mass along the bar grows unstable. The orbital patterns and the gravitational interactions within a galaxy that sustain the bar also transport matter and energy into it, fuelling star formation.

Astronomers don’t really understand why these barred structures develop, since you would expect the overall gravity of the galaxy would promote a spiral or spherical shape. There must are factors not yet understood or completely identified (such as the magnetic fields of such galaxies).

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South Korea establishes its own version of NASA

9:08 am

The South Korean government today announced the establishment of its own version of NASA, dubbed the Korea AeroSpace Administration (KASA), with what appears to be a focus on establishing a long term space program and using this to foster an aerospace commercial sector.

KASA was established under a special law passed by the National Assembly in January to unify government organizations in charge of space policy and projects. Based in Sacheon, South Gyeongsang Province, KASA has an annual budget of 758.9 billion won ($556 million) this year. The agency currently has around 110 employees and will eventually have a total of 293.

In March, the government established the 2024 Space Development Promotion Action Plan and set five major missions — including space exploration, space transportation, space industry, space security and space science.

In line with the government’s policy, KASA will establish a roadmap for Korea’s space exploration and plans to promote reusable launch vehicles, development of the country’s own global positioning system (GPS) and a lunar lander program. In particular, it plans to develop a lunar lander with a goal of landing on the moon in 2032, and to design and develop engines to enter the commercial launch service market.

A second South Korea news report quotes the head of this new agency as follows:

“Until now, the country’s space development projects have been led by the government,” Yoon Young-bin, KASA’s inaugural chief, said earlier. “The most important role of the space agency will be supporting the private sector to lead space development.”

He pointed out that the world’s space industry is moving toward the so-called “new space” era, where private companies are actively leading innovation in space technologies with more economic feasibility. “The global paradigm is shifting,” Yoon said, noting that top space companies, such as SpaceX, have developed reusable space rockets and launched a group of small satellites with capabilities similar to medium- and large-sized satellites.

If KASA maintains this approach, then South Korea’s future as a space power is bright. If instead KASA moves to control all space development, including the design and ownership of its rockets and spacecraft, then that program will be stifled, as America’s was by NASA for forty years after the 1960s space race.

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China’s X-37B releases object in orbit

8:55 am

China’s copy of the U.S.’s military’s X-37B reusable mini-shuttle, dubbed Shenlong apparently released an object during its ongoing third orbital mission.

A new object (59884/2023-195G) has been cataloged associated with the Chinese CSSHQ spaceplane in a 602 x 608 km x 50.0 deg orbit. It seems to have been ejected about 1900 UTC May 24.

It is possibly this object is to test recapture maneuvers, as was done by during the mini-shuttle’s previous flight. It is also possible this release is preliminary to the end of the mission and the return of Shenlong to Earth. It is also possible it has a completely different purpose, since China has released practically no information about this spaceplane or any of its missions.

The present mission began a little more than seven months ago, releasing six small satellites a few days after launch. The previous two lasted two days and 276 days respectively. As with everything else, we have no idea how much longer it will remain in orbit.

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North Korea notifies Japan of planned orbital launch

8:40 am

North Korea

North Korea today notified Japan that it plans a new orbital launch sometime between today and June 3, 2024, indicating several potential drop zones for the rocket’s lower stages.

It designated three areas where debris will fall — two west of the Korean Peninsula and the other east of the Philippines’ island of Luzon, according to the news outlet.

Pyongyang has made public a plan to launch three more satellites this year following its first military reconnaissance satellite launch in November.

The launch will apparently take place from North Korea’s Sohai spaceport on its west coast, and will fly over the country heading east. The payload will also likely be a reconnaissance satellite of some kind, similar to what the country launched in November 2023.

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Rocket Lab launches NASA climate satellite

10:41 pm

Rocket Lab today successfully launched the first of two NASA PREFIRE climate satellites, its Electron rocket lifting off from its launchpad in New Zealand.

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

55 SpaceX
23 China
7 Russia
6 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise now leads the world combined in successful launches, 63 to 36, while SpaceX by itself leads the entire world, including other American companies, 55 to 44.

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