Category: Points of Information

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

A giant elliptical galaxy

3:14 pm

A giant elliptical galaxy
Click for full image.

Cool image time! The image to the right, reduced to post here, was taken by the Hubble Space Telescope of the giant elliptical galaxy NGC 474.

Located some 100 million light-years from Earth, NGC 474 spans about 250,000 light-years across – that’s 2.5 times larger than our own Milky Way galaxy! Along with its enormous size, NGC 474 has a series of complex layered shells that surround its spherical-shaped core. The cause of these shells is unknown, but astronomers theorize that they may be the aftereffects of the giant galaxy absorbing one or more smaller galaxies. In the same way a pebble creates ripples on a pond when dropped into the water, the absorbed galaxy creates waves that form the shells.

About 10% of elliptical galaxies have shell structures, but unlike the majority of elliptical galaxies, which are associated with galaxy clusters, shelled ellipticals usually lie in relatively empty space. It may be that they’ve cannibalized their neighbors.

NGC 474 is no exception, also located in a relatively empty region of space.

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Today’s blacklisted American: Student expelled for not getting COVID booster, despite proof the booster for her was medically risky

1:06 pm

Diamond
Diamond “Ellie” Puentes, blacklisted because she believes
in “her body, her choice!”

They’re coming for you next: A student at Union College in New York, Diamond “Ellie” Puentes, was expelled from school because she refused to get a COVID booster because of the serious adverse effects she experienced after getting her second COVID shot.

More information here.

Worse, the school refused to accept her doctor’s note requesting she be exempt, or her hospital records describing the health issues she had experienced. From the first link above:

Union College’s Director of Health Services Angela Stefanatos asked her, “Are you here because you don’t want to get the booster or because you’re truly sick?”

Dr. Thomas Nelson, Puentes’ primary care physician, wrote a letter addressed to the college on April 11 regarding his patient’s concerns with the booster shot. He stated that Puentes was “in an unfavorable state of health, presumably caused by the vaccine itself.”
» Read more

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Pro-abortion advocates threaten to storm the Supreme Court, burn it down, and murder justices

12:33 pm

Real insurrection: According to a Homeland Security memo, pro-abortion protesters have been organizing to storm the Supreme Court, burn it down, and murder justices in protest should the court decide to overturn Roe v. Wade.

The threats also included attacking places of worship as well as anti-abortion clinics.

As is typical nowadays, Homeland Security tried to de-emphasize the seriousness of these threats of violence from the left by first hinting it was really a response to white supremacy and thus possibly justified, and then claiming such violence is really nothing more than constitutional protected speech. These two quotes from the memo from this Axios story illustrate this:

“Some racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists’ embrace of pro-life narratives may be linked to the perception of wanting to ‘save white children’ and ‘fight white genocide,'” the memo … says.

But the memo warns that this time, extremist acts could come from abortion-rights proponents as well. [However] “The mere advocacy of political or social positions, political activism, use of strong rhetoric, or generalized philosophic embrace of violent tactics does not constitute domestic violent extremism or illegal activity and is constitutionally protected.”

As always, our leftist government uses the premises of the left to excuse leftist violence. To them, the violence of the left is merely speech, while the speech of the right is violence, and must be silenced.

Should the Supreme Court overturn Roe v. Wade, we should all be prepared for riots as bad or worse as those that occurred after George Floyd’s death. This memo is merely stating the obvious. Since the election of Donald Trump in 2016 the left has decided that the only democracy and law it accepts is one in which it gets its way, every single time.

We should also be prepared for our government to do nothing to stop it, and if any rioters are captured to arrange their release as quickly as possible. These protests are certainly intended as a weapon to warp the results of November’s election, in favor of Democrats. Remember, the violent leftist protesters are merely the storm-troopers of the Democratic Party, used to promote violence in order to make possible the reelection of its politicians, by hook or by crook.

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The tuffy ground in the foothills of Mount Sharp

11:50 am

Shelfstone on Mars?
Click for original image.

Cool image time! The photo to the right, reduced and enhanced to post here, was taken on May 13, 2022 by the high resolution camera on the rover Curiosity, looking down at some of the unusual features on the ground near the rover.

The lighter circular feature in the center is not natural, but created by Curiosity’s Dust Removal Tool (DRT). As explained on May 16th on the science team’s blog:

When that dust settles on rocks, it can partially mask the chemistry and surface texture of these rocks from APXS and MAHLI in particular [two other Curiosity instruments]. Brushing rock surfaces with the DRT is not always possible, but it does improve scientific assessments of these surfaces.

What attracted me to this photo was the tuff-like look of that uplifted flat rock. It looks just like many surfaces one sees in a cave, where the surface gets covered with calcite flowstone or popcorn, due to either water flow or condensation and then evaporation of calcite-saturated water on the surface. In this case the cave formation this flat rock most resembles visually is shelfstone, though the formation process and chemistry was certainly different. It does suggest strongly however that some form of water process occurred here.

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NASA announces new possible launch dates for first SLS launch

10:13 am

NASA on May 16th announced the new possible launch dates for first SLS launch, outlining potential launch windows through the first half of 2023, with the first at the end of July 2022.

The calendar of launch windows through June of ’23 can be viewed here [pdf].

The July 26th to August 10th window is the one the agency is clearly targeting for that first launch, but it will not confirm this until after SLS successfully completes the next dress rehearsal countdown attempt in June. That the agency is now showing us potential launch dates in ’23 also suggests it is anticipating the possibility the launch could be delayed that much, especially if it determines it must replace the SLS’s two solid rocket boosters because they have been stacked unused for too long.

SLS was initially planned for a launch in 2015. It is now seven-plus years behind schedule, which is how long it took SpaceX to go from a blank sheet of paper to launching its Falcon Heavy for the first time.

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NASA bans American spacewalks on ISS because of chronic spacesuit issues

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NASA's failed spacesuit
NASA’s failed Moon spacesuits

Because of repeated water leaks in the helmets of NASA’s complex spacesuits and the agency’s inability to fix the problem, agency managers have to decided to cease all American spacewalks on ISS until engineers can definitively solve the problem.

The problem first occurred during a 2013 spacewalk, causing a major investigation. Though engineers managed to gain some control over the problem, it was never truly solved. In the most recent spacewalk on March 23rd, astronauts found water inside one helmet after the walk was over. That suit will now be returned to Earth for inspection and engineering work.

This suspension of spacewalks likely delays four spacewalks planned this year to complete the upgrade to the station’s power system.

Meanwhile, NASA’s own program to build new spacesuits for its lunar missions has been an utter failure — costing more than a billion dollars over fourteen years and producing nothing — thus forcing the agency to turn to the private sector to get new suits.

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ABL completes and ships new upper stage only 4 months after test explosion

9:46 am

Capitalism in space: The smallsat rocket startup ABL has successfully completed construction and testing of a new upper stage for the first launch of its RS1 rocket, shipping it to the launch site in Alaska only four months after an explosion during testing destroyed an earlier stage.

Before the January accident, the company had planned a first launch of the RS1 rocket, capable of placing up to 1,350 kilograms into low Earth orbit for a list price of $12 million, early in the year. Shortly after the accident, the company estimated a three-month delay in its plans. Piemont said after the recent acceptance tests that the company was now targeting “early summer” for its first launch, pending completion of acceptance tests of the first stage.

Though the company’s goal had been to lose only three months and the actual delay was four months, the overall speed in which it recovered is impressive. Right now ABL is one of four smallsat rocket companies (ABL, Firefly, Aevum, and Relativity) attempting to complete its first launch this year. This success suggests ABL has a good chance of succeeding.

Below is a video of a successful static fire test of this new stage, released by the company. It is a pleasant change from most such PR videos, in that the company simply shows us the test, with some minor editing, but includes no dramatic but fake background music. Life isn’t a movie.
» Read more

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InSight likely to shut down by the end of summer

9:33 am

Martian quake map as seen by InSight
Martian quake map as seen by InSight, adapted from this 2021
presentation [pdf]

According to the InSight science team, the Mars lander and its seismometer will likely shut down operations by the end of the summer due to lack of power.

“Towards the end of summer of ’22, we anticipate our seismometer will be turned off, not because we want to turn it off but unfortunately, we don’t have the energy to run it,” Garcia said. She said the team will use it intermittently after that as long as power is available, but by the end of the year the spacecraft is expected to fall silent.

The intermittent readings of the seismometer will be of extremely limited use, as it will then be pure luck whether it detects a quake, and any detection will not provide the true rate of quakes on Mars.

The loss of power is due to dust on the solar panels. The team had hoped a dust devil would come by periodically to blow the panels clean, as happened routinely with the Spirit and Opportunity rovers, but InSight has not been so lucky.

It appears the safe mode that occurred shortly after InSight detected its largest Mars quake yet on May 10th was very temporary, though right now the seismometer is essentially the only instrument they have power to run.

Overall, this mission has a very spotty history. Its launch was delayed two years when the French attempt to build the seismometer failed. The delay cost NASA’s planetary program $150 million, at a minimum.

Then lander’s second of two main instruments, a German experiment to dig down 16 feet to insert a heat sensor into the ground, failed when its digging tool, dubbed the mole, was unable to penetrate the alien Martian soil.

Fortunately, InSight’s prime instrument, the seismometer (finally completed by JPL) worked, giving us a first look into the structure of Mars’ interior as well as where earthquakes are found on its surface.

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SpaceX successfully launches 53 Starlink satellites

8:54 am

Capitalism in space: SpaceX this morning successfully used its Falcon 9 rocket to send another 53 Starlink satellites into orbit.

The first stage completed its fifth mission, landing on the drone ship.

The leaders in the 2022 launch race:

21 SpaceX
15 China
6 Russia
3 Rocket Lab
2 ULA

The U.S. now leads China 29 to 15 in the national rankings, and the entire world combined 29 to 24.

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Pushback: Parents & teachers sue to prevent California schools from teaching anti-Semitism

3:14 pm

What really needs to happen
The time has come to clean house, without mercy.

Bring a gun to a knife fight: A group of concerned parents and teachers in California filed a lawsuit on May 12, 2022 to prevent a bigoted and anti-Semitic ethnic studies program from being adopted “under the radar” in Los Angeles schools.

You can read the full complaint here [pdf]. From the link above:

Advocates, including teachers union officials, public-school teachers and other ideologues, have formed the Liberated Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum Consortium, through which they hope to influence the teaching of ethnic studies in the state. The consortium, which disseminates teaching materials lifted directly from radical anti-Israel websites, rejects the idea that all cultures should be studied. It asserts that ethnic studies is about only four groups: Native Americans, black Americans, Chicanos/Latinos, and Asian-Americans/Pacific Islanders. That last group includes Arabs from the Middle East, but not Jews, who’ve lived in that same region for millennia.

The consortium’s materials, many of which have been taken offline in recent months, are filled with attacks on Jews and the Jewish state. They deny that Jews are indigenous to the Middle East and teach that Israel is a “colonialist” and “settler state” founded through “genocide,” “ethnic cleansing” and “apartheid.” They falsely define Judaism, teaching that “Zionism is distinct from Judaism” and that Zionism isn’t a Jewish religious belief but an invention of the “late 19th century.”

Apparently, this “liberated” ethnic studies program — which is merely another example of leftist critical race theory — is an attempt to bypass state law, which rejected it and demanded by law that all schools teach students at least one ethnic studies class by 2030, but provide a wide balanced look at all issues. Because this “liberated” program violates this standard, instead considering the only valid ethnic groups who have been oppressed (by whites and Jews) to be Native Americans, black Americans, Chicanos/Latinos, and Asian-Americans/Pacific Islanders, it advises teachers to hide from parents the teaching of this material. From the complaint’s description of this program’s teaching materials:
» Read more

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Pointy rocks on Mars

11:45 am

Pointy rocks as seen by Curiosity
Click for full image.

Pointy rocks as seen by Perseverance
Click for full image.

We have two cool images today from both of America’s rovers on Mars, each of which illustrates the alien nature of the red planet.

First on the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, is a close-up taken by Curiosity’s high resolution camera on May 14, 2022 of the rightmost jagged boulder in yesterday’s navigation panorama. The number of layers is astonishing, though hardly a unique phenomenon as seen by Curiosity in its travels. Each likely marks one of many climate and geological cycles, each laying down another unique stratum for a relatively short period of geological time. Some might be volcanic ash or lava layers. Some might be layers caused by climatic changes.

The ability of these thin layers to extend outward so much, almost like they were floating, illustrates the weak Martian gravity, as well as the thinness of its atmosphere. On Earth, if the wind and weather didn’t cause these flakes to break, the gravity would.

Second on the right, cropped and sharpened to post here, is a high resolution photo taken by Perseverance on May 15, 2022 of one of the cliff faces seen by the rover looking up into the delta in Jezero Crater. Here again we see many layers and jagged, pointy rocks, illustrating again the many cycles in the past that formed the delta as it flowed into the crater.

The smoothness on the surface of the leftmost pointy rock suggests that it has stood in this position for a long very time, allowing the wind of Mars’ very thin atmosphere to erode its rough surface.

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