Category: Points of Information

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

August 16, 2022 Quick space links

2:06 pm

Tiangong-3 in orbit
Click to see full image.

Some quickie stories worth noting, most provided by stringer Jay:

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Jury awards Roy Moore $8.2 million, declares he was defamed by Democrats

1:03 pm

Roy Moore
Roy More, former Republican candidate
for the Senate in Alabama

Pushback: A jury on August 12, 2022 awarded $8.2 million in damages to Roy Moore, who had been the Republican Alabama senate candidate in 2017, declaring that he had been defamed by false accusations of sexual misconduct by a Democratic Party political action committee (PAC).

Jurors found the Senate Majority PAC made false and defamatory statements against Moore in one ad that attempted to highlight the accusations against Moore. The verdict, returned by a jury after a brief trial in Anniston, Alabama, was a victory for Moore, who has lost other defamation lawsuits, including one against comedian Sacha Baron Cohen.

When the accusations were made during the campaign, a close look at the facts made it very clear that they were either false or unreasonably exaggerated. Yet, the leftist press pushed them hard, making no effort to outline their very clear uncertainties. The Democrats then followed up with an aggressive smear campaign.
» Read more

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Jupiter’s internal structure, based on Juno data

12:05 pm

Jupiter's internal structure
Click for original figure.

Scientists using Juno data of Jupiter’s magnetic field, combined with computer modeling, have now produced a rough map of the gas giant’s internal structure.

The image to the right, figure 2, of their paper, shows that structure. I have annotated the figure to provide some sense of scale. The bold violet line indicates their conclusions about the size of the dynamo that drives Jupiter’s powerful magnetic field, comprising more than 80 percent of the planet’s internal diameter. From the caption:

The gray area depicts the core (0.2 RJ) and the possible dilute core region. The violet area between the dotted lines (0.68 and 0.84 RJ) depicts the [hydrogen-helium] phase separated layer. The top dotted line at 0.95 RJ depicts the depth where the jets decay down to the minimum. The arrows represent possible convection area with unknown origin depth.

While this is a good first hypothesis based on the available data, that data remains quite sparse and uncertain. Thus, the conclusions here must be taken with a great deal of skepticism.

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More evidence of recent active volcanism on Venus

11:37 am

In a just published paper, scientists using archive data from the Magellan radar orbiter that circled Venus from 1990 to 1994, combined with data from Europe’s Venus Express that orbited from 2006 to 2015, have detected more evidence of recent volcanic activity in a canyon dubbed Ganis Chasma located in a rift zone called Atla Regio.

From the paper’s conclusion:

The pattern of the radar emissivity in these regions is consistent with relatively young and unweathered materials. The transient IR-bright spots in these regions detected 20 years after Magellan, provide independent corroboration of active volcanism in Ganis Chasma since the 1990’s.

As a possible site of current tectonic and volcanic activity, Atla Regio represents one important science target for the upcoming missions to Venus.

There are presently four missions planned for Venus, Europe’s EnVision orbiter, NASA’s VERITAS and DAVINCI+ probes, and Russia’s Venera-D missoin. All will certainly take a closer look at this region to see if there is active volcanism going on there now.

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Dust and clouds in the Martian atmosphere, as seen by UAE’s Al-Amal orbiter

11:18 am

Two new science papers have just been released detailing results from the Al-Amal (Hope) Mars orbiter that was designed and built by American universities for the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

Both papers used data obtained from the orbiter’s infrared spectrometer, dubbed the Emirates Mars Infrared Spectrometer (EMIRS).

Daily cloud cover changes on Mars
Figure 1 from paper. Click for full image.

First, the instrument tracked the daily changes in the planet’s cloud cover.

A prominent region of clouds that is commonly observed near the equator during Mars’ cold season—known as the aphelion cloud belt—was observed to reach a minimum near midday, with more clouds typically observed in both the morning and afternoon. Distinct differences were found in clouds observed near volcanoes, which tended to reach a minimum before local noon and increase throughout the afternoon.

The figure to the right shows this. In the morning and afternoon (LTST’s 7 and 17), there is a high concentration of clouds in the equatorial region above the Tharsis Bulge where the highest Martian volcanoes are located. During the middle of the day (LTSTs 11 and 13) this cloud cover largely dissipates, with a corresponding increase in cloud cover in Hellas Basin, in the southern hemisphere.

The second paper took a more general look at the data, including the change in temperature depending on elevation as well as dust and water content during the Martian northern spring and summer. From the abstract:
» Read more

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China’s radar ship finally docks in Sri Lanka

9:00 am

Despite objections by India and an initial refusal by the Sri Lanka government to allow a Chinese military communications/radar ship to dock at one of Sri Lanka’s ports, the ship was finally allowed to dock yesterday.

Sri Lanka, which needs the support of both India and China as it struggles with its worst economic crisis in decades, initially granted the ship permission for a five-day replenishment stay in Hambantota, from Aug. 11.

It later asked China to delay the vessel’s arrival, citing the need for more consultations.

Yuan Wang 5 will now berth for only three days to stock up on fuel, food and other essentials, said an official at the port who declined to be identified as he is not authorised to speak to the media.

The ship is used by China to track satellites, rockets, and missiles, both its own and other nations.

Sri Lanka is caught between a rock and a hard place. The country is bankrupt, its citizens facing starvation due to the previous government’s imposition of numerous green environmental policies that destroyed its agriculture industry. It has also taken aid from both India (providing military hardware) and China (which built the port and holds a 99-year lease to operate it), and neither looks kindly at the other.

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Merger deal between Italian orbital tug company D-Orbit and Breeze canceled

8:52 am

Capitalism in space: The merger deal between the Italian orbital tug company D-Orbit and the special purpose acquisition investment company (SPAC) Breeze has been canceled.

The Italian company had hoped to raise $185 million from the deal to expand staff and accelerate investments in ION Satellite Carrier, its orbital transfer vehicle (OTV) that completed its first commercial mission in late 2020.

However, “financial markets have changed substantially” since the deal was announced Jan. 27, Breeze CEO Douglas Ramsey said, amid rising interest rates, soaring inflation, and an ongoing war in Ukraine. “As we look ahead, we remain focused on identifying another value creating opportunity for Breeze shareholders,” Ramsey added.

A SPAC is a shell company designed solely to gather investment capital that is then used to either buy or merge with another company. In the process the company that is taken over goes public, its stock available on the stock market for trade. There have been a number of such takeovers in the space sector in the past few years, but most have turned out poorly for the investors in those SPACs, as noted in the article:

Of the nine space companies that went public through SPAC mergers in 2021, only Rocket Lab’s shares finished the year trading above their price when the merger closed. [Ed: both Virgin Galactic and Astra are examples of these failures.]

Demand for new SPAC deals has also been waning amid declining investor appetite for risk and increasing regulatory scrutiny over how these blank check firms operate. More than 40 SPAC mergers have been canceled so far this year, reported Bloomberg.

To put it more bluntly, investors have found these SPACs to be poor investments, and are bailing from them. This is likely what happened at Breeze, thus forcing the cancellation of the deal with D-Orbit.

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Cones south of Starship’s prime landing sites on Mars

3:55 pm

Cones near Phlegra Mountains
Click for full image.

Cool image time! The photo to the right, cropped and reduced to post here, was taken on May 7, 2022 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissnace Orbiter (MRO). It shows what the scientists have labeled as “Cones in Phlegra.”

Cones such as these are one of the prime geological mysteries of Mars’ northern lowland plains. Scientists do not know yet whether they are either mud or lava volcanoes, or even if they are sedimentary mesas that resisted subsequent erosion. In fact, it was hoped by some American scientists that the Chinese would send its Zhurong rover north towards a nearby cone to find out, but alas, the Chinese decided to head south instead.

Zhurong however was on the other side of Mars. The overview map below shows us where these cones are located.
» Read more

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August 15, 2022 Quick space links

12:43 pm

From Jay, BtB’s stringer:

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Today’s blacklisted American: White teachers blacklisted by union contract in Minnesota

11:53 am

Academia: dedicated to segregation!
Minnesota public schools and teachers unions:
dedicated to the new segregation!

“Segregation today, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever!” According to clauses in a new union contract in Minneeapolis, white teachers must be laid off or reassigned first should a layoff be required, and that “educators of color” will be exempt from such layoffs.

“Starting with the Spring 2023 Budget Tie-Out Cycle, if excessing a teacher who is a member of a population underrepresented among licensed teachers in the site, the District shall excess the next least senior teacher, who is not a member of an underrepresented population,” the agreement reads.

According to the United Federation of Teachers, “excessing” means “reducing staff in a particular school when there is a reduction in the number of available positions in a title or license area in that school.”

The agreement adds that non-white teachers, as well as those working in various programs, “may be exempted from district-wide layoff[s] outside seniority order.” The agreement also prioritizes the reinstatement of teachers from “underrepresented populations” over white teachers.

» Read more

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A distant cliff and a rocky path forward

11:11 am

Mosaic of Gediz Vallis
Click for full image.

Close-up of distant cliff face
Click for full image.

Two cool images arrived today from Curiosity, as it is about to enter the Martian canyon of Gediz Vallis. The mosaic above, cropped, reduced, and annotated to post here, was assembled from photos taken by the rover’s right navigation camera on August 15, 2022. The photo to the right, cropped and reduced to post here, was taken the same day by the rover’s Chemistry camera, normally designed to take very close-up pictures of nearby features. In this case the science team aimed it at a distant cliff face, marked by the arrow in the panorama above, to get a preview of some of the many layers in that mesa.

And has become quite expected from Mars, the number and types and variety of layers is astonishing. The layer that forms the flat bright area at the center of this image is what scientists have dubbed “the marker layer”, since they have found it at similar elevations in many places on the flanks of Mount Sharp. (See the annotated overview map from a post last week.)

Curiosity’s planned route is to head to the right of this mesa, circling around it to get into the upper reaches of Gediz Vallis. First however engineers are going to have to figure out how to get the rover past the somewhat large scattered rocks on the ground directly ahead, without further damaging Curiosity’s already tattered wheels. At first glance there does not appear to be any clear path.

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Russia to launch Tunisian astronaut to ISS

9:38 am

As part of an agreement between the two nations, Russia yesterday announced that it will fly a Tunisian woman to ISS in 2024.

On August 13, Women’s Day in Tunisia, eight women candidates for a space flight were presented. They are currently undergoing medical examination. Six of them will go to Russia for the final stage of pre-qualification to choose two best candidates: one will be a member of the main crew, the other one – of the standby crew.

No longer able to make money selling the spare seats on Soyuz to NASA, and apparently not getting much interest from the private sector inside or outside of Russia to buy these seats, the Putin government is now using them for international diplomacy, just as it did during the Soviet era.

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