Category: Points of Information

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

An update on the new virus outbreak originating from China

9:51 pm

Link here. The numbers of people so far infected is hardly gigantic, less than 450 worldwide, with almost all confined to one province in China.

You can also find out some general information about this particular virus as well as other related viruses, such as SARS and MERS, in this separate article. All are far less threatening that press reports make them appear. For example, SARS only infected 8,000 people total, killing a little less than 10% of those infected.

This new virus appears so far to be even less deadly, with nine deaths total, about 5%.

While under no condition should this outbreak be ignored or poo-pooed, it is very important to recognize that, at least so far, it is hardly an epidemic that will wipe out civilization. This could change with time, but I doubt it.

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Animal life thriving in Fukushima radioactive zone

9:27 pm

The uncertainty of science: Despite fears that the radioactivity released from the Fukushima nuclear accident would make life difficult if not impossible within the 80-mile radius exclusion zone surrounding the reactor, animals are thriving there, in large unexpected numbers.

Now, nearly a decade after the nuclear accident, the wildlife populations appear to be thriving. Animals are most abundant in areas still devoid of humans, with more than 20 species captured in the UGA’s camera study.

Particular species that often find themselves in conflict with humans, especially Fukushima’s wild boar, were most often photographed in human-evacuated areas. Without the threat of humankind, wildlife is flourishing. In the years since the nuclear accident, Japan’s wild boar seems to have taken over abandoned farmland — even moving into abandoned homes. The government hired boar hunters to cull the population prior to re-opening parts of the original exclusion zone in 2017.

This phenomenon has happened before. Life inside the Chernobyl exclusion zone in Ukraine became an accidental wildlife preserve after humans left following the nuclear disaster there in April 1986. [emphasis mine]

This story, and that of Chernobyl, does not prove that radioactivity is harmless. Not at all. What it shows is that we know diddly-squat about its effects on life. For example, one study has shown changes in the weight and size of one species of monkey at Fukushima has shrunk, but have flourished nonetheless.

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The oldest known meteorite strike?

9:09 pm

The uncertainty of science: Scientists think they have identified the oldest meteorite strike known on Earth, dated at 2.33 billion years ago, located in a known impact site in Yarrabubba, Western Australia.

Lead author Dr Timmons Erickson, from Curtin’s School of Earth and Planetary Sciences and NASA’s Johnson Space Center, together with a team including Professor Chris Kirkland, Associate Professor Nicholas Timms and Senior Research Fellow Dr Aaron Cavosie, all from Curtin’s School of Earth and Planetary Sciences, analysed the minerals zircon and monazite that were ‘shock recrystallized’ by the asteroid strike, at the base of the eroded crater to determine the exact age of Yarrabubba.

The team inferred that the impact may have occurred into an ice-covered landscape, vaporised a large volume of ice into the atmosphere, and produced a 70km diameter crater in the rocks beneath.

Professor Kirkland said the timing raised the possibility that the Earth’s oldest asteroid impact may have helped lift the planet out of a deep freeze. “Yarrabubba, which sits between Sandstone and Meekatharra in central WA, had been recognised as an impact structure for many years, but its age wasn’t well determined,” Professor Kirkland said. “Now we know the Yarrabubba crater was made right at the end of what’s commonly referred to as the early Snowball Earth – a time when the atmosphere and oceans were evolving and becoming more oxygenated and when rocks deposited on many continents recorded glacial conditions”.

Associate Professor Nicholas Timms noted the precise coincidence between the Yarrabubba impact and the disappearance of glacial deposits. “The age of the Yarrabubba impact matches the demise of a series of ancient glaciations. After the impact, glacial deposits are absent in the rock record for 400 million years. This twist of fate suggests that the large meteorite impact may have influenced global climate,” Associate Professor Timms said. [emphasis mine]

I truly believe they have determined the approximate age of this impact, making it one of the oldest known impacts. Implying however a “precise” linkage to other only vaguely known climate events, and inferring that the former was the cause of the latter seems to me to be a very large overstatement. Their data might suggest this conclusion, but the uncertainties here demand a bit less certitude..

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Nine finalists in Mars 2020 rover naming contest

1:17 pm

The nine finalists in the Mars 2020 rover naming contest have been chosen, out of 28,000 entries from schools across the United States.

The nine candidate names were made possible by the “Name the Rover” essay contest, which invited students in kindergarten through 12th grade from across the United States to come up with a fitting name for NASA’s Mars 2020 rover and write a short essay about it.

More than 28,000 essays were submitted after the contest began on Aug. 28 last year. A diverse panel of nearly 4,700 judge volunteers, composed of educators, professionals and space enthusiasts from all around the country, narrowed the pool down to 155 deserving semifinalists from every state and territory in the country.

The public now gets to vote for their favorite, the choices of which are: Endurance, Tenacity, Promise, Perseverance, Vision, Clarity, Ingenuity, Fortitude, Courage. For the next week you can vote here. NASA will then take the poll results into consideration before making its final choice.

My personal favorite is Endurance. Vote for your own.

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Undulations on Mars

1:07 pm

Undulations in Dokka Crater
Click for full image.

Time for a cool image that makes no sense. The photo on the right, cropped to post here, was taken by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) on November 15, 2019 of the floor of a crater, dubbed Dokka Crater, located in the high latitudes of the Martian northern lowlands. Uncaptioned but labeled “Undulations on Dokka Crater Ice Dome,” it shows a region of weird complex wave features, reminiscent of another weird Martian geological feature called brain terrain.

The problem is that brain terrain is generally found in the mid-latitudes, not the high latitudes. Both this feature and brain terrain however appear to associated with ice. In this case, these undulations are occurring on the ice dome that apparently sits inside Dokka crater, which is also likely to be related to the islands of ice found in many high latitude craters on Mars in the southern hemisphere..

In the case of the southern hemisphere ice-filled craters, scientists have found evidence suggesting that global wind patterns might affect their shape and placement within the craters. One wonders if this same factor is a part cause for these undulations in this northern hemisphere crater.

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Boeing looking to borrow up to $10 billion because of 737-Max problems

9:20 am

Boeing apparently is in discussions with several banks in an effort to secure a $10 billion loan to help it deal with the costs related to the suspension of production of the 737-Max airplane after two fatal crashes.

Boeing is in talks with banks to secure a loan of $10 billion or more, according to people familiar with the matter, as the company faces rising costs stemming from two fatal crashes of its 737 Max planes. The company has secured at least $6 billion from banks so far, the people said, and is talking to other lenders for more contributions. The total amount could rise if there is additional demand from banks, one person familiar with the matter said.

Liquidity isn’t an immediate concern, analysts have said, but the new debt shows Boeing is shoring up its finances amid the cash-sapping fallout of the two crashes — one in Indonesia in October 2018 and another in Ethiopia in March last year — that killed all 346 people aboard the two flights.

The amount Boeing is seeking to borrow is more than what some analysts were expecting. For example, Jefferies earlier this month forecast Boeing would issue $5 billion in debt this quarter.

I must emphasize that this story relies on anonymous sources, and is reported by CNBC, a division of NBC, one of today’s least reliable news sources.

More trustworthy information should become available on January 29, when Boeing makes its next earnings report.

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Prototypes of China’s core space station module and new manned spacecraft arrive at launch site

9:06 am

The new colonial movement: Prototypes of China’s core space station module and its new upgraded manned capsule have been delivered to the Long March 5B launch site.

The space station module will be used to test the installation and launch procedures for launching the actual module on the Long March 5B rocket. The manned capsule will be sent into orbit unmanned this spring on the Long March 5B to test both the rocket and the capsule, prior to human operations. This detail from the short article however is worth noting:

The new-generation manned spacecraft is 8.8 meters long and has a takeoff weight of 21.6 tonnes. It will be used for transporting crew to the space station and to conduct China’s future manned lunar missions.

Apparently in upgrading its Shenzhou manned spacecraft China has made it 0.3 meters longer and about four tons heavier. In fact, this manned ferry for getting to and from its space station is as heavy as a standard module used on both Mir and ISS. I could be wrong, but if this is the case they will require the Long March 5 or 5B for every manned flight. Since this rocket is large and expensive, it will be difficult to use it for maintaining a frequent launch pace, thus limiting the number of manned missions.

As I said, I could be wrong. Up until now I had assumed that a variant of the Long March 5 would be used to launch the station modules, and the smaller Long March 2F rocket used to ferry astronauts to it (as was done on all previous Chinese manned missions). This could still be the case.

If not, however, China’s space engineers have either put a limit on what they can achieve by overbuilding that manned capsule, or their government has made a major commitment to put a lot of tonnage into orbit. If the latter China’s space program is going to be quite competitive indeed.

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Six Martian summers at a polar impact crater

1:28 pm

Crater on Martian north polar ice cap
Click for full image.

Cool image time! The science team for the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) last week released a very neat short movie compiled from images taken of an impact crater located on top of the northern polar ice cap of Mars. As noted by planetary scientist Alfred McEwen of the Lunar & Planetary Laboratory in Arizona in the image caption,

Shown here is an impact crater on the north polar ice cap, which contains an icy deposit on the crater floor. These inter-crater ice deposits shrink and expand or change shape or surface texture from year to year,

The image on the right, cropped and reduced to post here, is the most recent of these six images. The crater, which is about 200 feet in diameter, is the black speck in the center. The white streaks to the south of the crater, similar on all six photos, indicate that the prevailing winds come from the pole.

The animation zooms in on the crater so that you can see the details on its crater floor. And though the animation is fun, below the fold is a collage of all six photos, which I think makes it easier to see how the inter-crater ice deposits changed from summer to summer.
» Read more

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Crew Dragon unmanned launch abort a success

8:45 am

Crew Dragon's parachutes deployed

Capitalism in space: SpaceX has successfully completed an unmanned launch abort test of its crew Dragon spacecraft.

Everything took place exactly as planned. The image to the right is a screen capture shortly after the main chutes had become fully deployed. The recovery of the capsule is still ongoing, and will take a bit more than an hour. A press conference has been scheduled at 11:30 eastern, viewable on NASA-TV.

Based on what was seen, it appears that SpaceX is ready to put astronauts on this capsule. It is time to do so.

I have embedded a replay of the entire test, below the fold.
» Read more

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