NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day
Dec 28, 2023
Jupiter and the Geminid
For a brief moment, this brilliant fireball meteor outshone Jupiter in planet Earth's night. The serendipitous image was captured while hunting meteors under cold Canadian skies with a camera in timelapse mode on December 14, near the peak of the Geminid meteor shower. The Geminid meteor shower, asteroid 3200 Phaethon's annual gift, always arrives in December. Dust shed along the orbit of the mysterious asteroid causes the meteor streaks, as the vaporizing grains plow through our fair planet's upper atmosphere at 22 kilometers per second. Of course Geminid shower meteors appear to radiate from a point in the constellation of the Twins. That's below and left of this frame. With bright Jupiter on the right, also in the December night skyview are the Pleiades and Hyades star clusters.
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html?
with liberty and justice (and debt free currency and no taxes) for all.
Iron oxide baked into Mesopotamian bricks confirms ancient magnetic field anomaly
Dec 27, 2023
Ancient bricks from Mesopotamia have helped confirm a mysterious anomaly in Earth's magnetic field that occurred 3,000 years ago, a new study finds.
Brickmakers baked the bricks, which were imprinted with the names of Mesopotamian kings, between the third and first millennia B.C. Iron oxide grains within the clay recorded changes in Earth's magnetic field when the bricks were heated, enabling scientists to reconstruct changes in the magnetic field over time, the team reported in a study published in the journal PNAS on Monday (Dec. 18).
The finding may also help scientists date artifacts in the future, the team said.
"We often depend on dating methods such as radiocarbon dates to get a sense of chronology in ancient Mesopotamia," study co-author Mark Altaweel, a professor of Near East archaeology and archaeological data science at University College London, said in a statement. "However, some of the most common cultural remains, such as bricks and ceramics, cannot typically be easily dated because they don't contain organic material. This work now helps create an important dating baseline."
To investigate Earth's magnetic field — which waxes, wanes and even flips over time — the researchers looked at grains of the mineral iron oxide in 32 clay bricks from ancient Mesopotamia, located largely in what is now Iraq. These minerals are sensitive to the magnetic field, and when they are heated — for example when they are fired during brickmaking — they retain a distinct signature from Earth's magnetic field, the researchers said in the statement.
Each brick was inscribed with the name of one of 12 Mesopotamian kings during each ruler's reign, which archaeologists already had dates for based on earlier findings. The team measured the magnetic strength of the iron oxide grains in each brick by chipping tiny fragments off the bricks' broken faces and using a magnetometer to measure the magnetic field strength of the minerals within. By combining the dates of the kings' reigns with the measured field strength, the researchers created a timeline showing the ups and downs of Earth's magnetic field over time in Mesopotamia.
Their research supported evidence for the "Levantine Iron Age geomagnetic Anomaly," a time when the planet's magnetic field was surprisingly strong around what is now Iraq between 1050 and 550 B.C. It's unclear why this anomaly existed during that period, but evidence for it has been detected as far away as China, Bulgaria and the Azores in the North Atlantic. Until now, evidence in the Middle East for the anomaly had been sparse, the researchers said.
In five of the samples, dating to the reign of Nebuchadnezzar II (circa 604 to 562 B.C.), the grains indicated that Earth's magnetic field shifted dramatically over the period.
"The geomagnetic field is one of the most enigmatic phenomena in earth sciences," study co-author Lisa Tauxe, a professor of geophysics at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in California, said in the statement. "The well-dated archaeological remains of the rich Mesopotamian cultures, especially bricks inscribed with names of specific kings, provide an unprecedented opportunity to study changes in the field strength in high time resolution, tracking changes that occurred over several decades or even less."
https://www.space.com/iron-oxide-mesopotamian-bricks-ancient-magnetic-field-anomaly
That was a cool video. Dude has balls, and a kayak
Pentagon agencies team up in upcoming launch of hypersonic tracking satellites
December 28, 2023
The Missile Defense Agency confirmed that a national security space mission that had been projected to launch in December 2023 is being delayed until the second quarter of 2024 due to technical issues with one of the spacecraft.
“One vendor’s space vehicle was ready to support a December 2023 launch; however, the launch was delayed to no earlier than the second quarter of fiscal year 2024 due to technical issues encountered by the other vendor during final integration testing,” MDA spokesman Mark Wright said in a statement.
MDA’s national security mission, designated USSF-124, includes six satellites designed to track hypersonic missiles. Four of the satellites are missile-tracking sensors made by L3Harris for the Space Development Agency’s Tracking Layer constellation. The other two satellites — one made by L3Harris and the other by Northrop Grumman — are part of MDA’s Hypersonic and Ballistic Tracking Space Sensor (HBTSS) program.
The Tracking Layer is envisioned as a global network of sensors to provide a defense shield against Russian and Chinese ballistic and hypersonic missiles. While SDA’s satellites are for tracking hypersonic threats, the HBTSS has sensors designed to maintain high-fidelity tracks of the threats, and to hand off the data to interceptor missiles that would attempt to shoot them down.
Both the Tracking Layer and HBTSS are pieces of a planned multi-layered missile-defense architecture. The fire control technology that HBTSS is seeking to demonstrate is required to be able to intercept hypersonic weapons.
SDA and MDA decided to combine their payloads for efficiency. The four L3Harris Transport Layer satellites were originally scheduled to launch in September with other SDA satellites but were taken off the manifest due to production delays.
MDA did not disclose which of the two HBTSS payloads is having technical issues. A source close to SDA said “any delay at this point is not related to the L3Harris” Tracking Layer satellites.
USSF-124 will launch to a low orbit on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral Space Force Base, Fla.
Congressional scrutiny
The joint MDA-SDA launch comes as congressional defense committees continue to pressure the Pentagon to clarify the responsibilities of each agency when it comes to missile tracking.
“Hypersonic defense is critical to our national security, and bureaucracy should not get in the way,” said Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-Colo.), chairman of the House Armed Services’ strategic forces subcommittee. “I look forward to continuing to work with MDA and SDA to ensure HBTSS is fielded expeditiously,” he said in a social media post.
Some lawmakers have suggested SDA, which was established in 2019 to rapidly develop and launch next-generation space capabilities, should take over the mission entirely from MDA. Others argue MDA needs to retain that authority due to its decades of experience tracking ballistic missiles.
Kelley Sayler, a defense analyst at the Congressional Research Service, noted in a report earlier this year that one of the issues to watch is how MDA and SDA work together even though they report to different bosses. MDA is part of the office of the undersecretary of defense for research and engineering, whereas SDA reports to the U.S. Space Force chief of space operations, and to the Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Acquisition and Integration.
“Congress may monitor the implications of this reporting structure for efficiency and efficacy,” Sayler wrote.
https://spacenews.com/pentagon-agencies-team-up-in-upcoming-launch-of-hypersonic-tracking-satellites/
Former NASA employee, her husband charged for taking out loans, attempting to dispute debts with identity theft claims
Updated: December 28, 2023 at 7:39 AM
A Missouri City couple has been indicted for orchestrating a fraudulent financing and refinancing mortgage loan scheme, the United States Department of Justice announced.
Noreen Khan-Mayberry, 50, and her husband, 51-year-old Christopher Mayberry, surrendered to federal authorities Wednesday morning.
According to the indictment, both are charged with one count of conspiracy to make false statements to mortgage loan businesses.
Beginning in 2016 while Noreen was still employed at NASA, the couple allegedly took out significant personal loans to fund the purchase of their luxury home before quickly defaulting on those loans.
According to the charges, the couple reportedly attempted to eliminate and dispute the debts, claiming to be victims of identity theft. Khan filed a false police report, submitted it to the Federal Trade Commission and sent letters to the credit bureaus in order to have the loans removed from her credit, investigators said.
As part of the scheme, U.S. Attorney Alamdar S. Hamdani said the couple signed three separate loan agreements with mortgage lenders related to the financing of their home from 2017 to 2021.
As part of the loan application process, the couple allegedly provided false employment information and fake documents, which included pay stubs, tax forms and account statements to lenders, according to the charges.
If convicted, they face up to five years in federal prison and a possible $250,000 maximum fine in addition to the possible forfeiture of their luxury home.
https://www.click2houston.com/news/local/2023/12/28/former-nasa-employee-her-husband-charged-for-taking-out-loans-attempting-to-dispute-debts-with-identity-theft-claims/