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NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day
June 12, 2024
Aurora over Karkonosze Mountains
It was the first time ever. At least, the first time this photographer had ever seen aurora from his home mountains. And what a spectacular aurora it was. The Karkonosze Mountains in Poland are usually too far south to see any auroras. But on the amazing night of May 10 - 11, purple and green colors lit up much of the night sky, a surprising spectacle that also appeared over many mid-latitude locations around the Earth. The featured image is a composite of six vertical exposures taken during the auroral peak. The futuristic buildings on the right are part of a meteorological observatory located on the highest peak of the Karkonosze Mountains. The purple color is primarily due to Sun-triggered, high-energy electrons impacting nitrogen molecules in Earth's atmosphere. Our Sun is reaching its maximum surface activity over the next two years, and although many more auroras are predicted, most will occur over regions closer to the Earth's poles.
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html?
Ed Stone, who led NASA's iconic Voyager project for 50 years, dies at 88
June 12, 2024
Humanity has lost an interstellar pioneer.
Ed Stone, who served as the project scientist for NASA's groundbreaking Voyager mission from 1972 to 2022, died on Sunday (June 9) at the age of 88.
"Ed Stone was a trailblazer who dared mighty things in space. He was a dear friend to all who knew him, and a cherished mentor to me personally," Nicola Fox, associate administrator for the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington, said in NASA's obituary for Stone, which the agency posted on Tuesday (June 11).
"Ed took humanity on a planetary tour of our solar system and beyond, sending NASA where no spacecraft had gone before," Fox added.
"His legacy has left a tremendous and profound impact on NASA, the scientific community, and the world. My condolences to his family and everyone who loved him. Thank you, Ed, for everything."
Voyager launched twin probes on a "grand tour" of the solar system's giant planets in 1977. The two spacecraft made many discoveries in our cosmic backyard — finding intense volcanism on the Jupiter moon Io and 10 new moons of Uranus, for example — and then kept on flying, into exciting and unexplored realms.
In 2012, Voyager 1 popped free of the heliosphere, the huge bubble of charged particles and magnetic fields that the sun blows around itself, becoming the first human-made object ever to reach interstellar space.
Voyager 2, which took a different path and is moving slightly more slowly than its partner, followed suit in late 2018.
Both Voyagers remain operational today, studying the exotic environment between our star and the next. Voyager 1 is currently more than 15 billion miles (24 billion kilometers) from home, and its twin is about 13 billion miles (21 billion km) into the void. That's about 162 and 136 Earth-sun distances (or astronomical units), respectively.
"It has been an honor and a joy to serve as the Voyager project scientist for 50 years," Stone said in a NASA statement in October 2022, when he announced his retirement from the role.
"The spacecraft have succeeded beyond expectation, and I have cherished the opportunity to work with so many talented and dedicated people on this mission," he added.
"It has been a remarkable journey, and I'm thankful to everyone around the world who has followed Voyager and joined us on this adventure."
Stone was born on Jan. 23, 1936, in Knoxville, Iowa, according to NASA's obituary. His father was a construction superintendent who loved showing his son how to take things apart and put them back together — and young Ed was an eager student.
"I was always interested in learning about why something is this way and not that way," Stone said in an interview in 2018, according to NASA's obituary. "I wanted to understand and measure and observe."
He studied physics in junior college, then went to the University of Chicago for graduate school, where he helped build science instruments for spacecraft — still a very young field at this stage.
"The first he designed rode aboard Discoverer 36, a since-declassified spy satellite that launched in 1961 and took photographs of Earth from space as part of the Corona program," NASA wrote in the obituary. "Stone's instrument, which measured the sun's energetic particles, helped scientists figure out why solar radiation was fogging the film and ultimately improved their understanding of the Van Allen belts, energetic particles trapped in Earth's magnetic field."
Stone became a post-doctoral fellow at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in 1964 and soon began working on NASA missions. Over the years, he served as the principal investigator or a science instrument lead on nine different agency missions and a co-investigator on five others, according to the agency.
Stone also served as director of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Southern California — the agency's lead center for robotic planetary exploration — from 1991 to 2001. That stretch saw some major milestones, including the landing of NASA's first-ever Mars rover, Sojourner, in 1996 with the Pathfinder mission and the launch of the Cassini-Huygens mission to Saturn (a joint effort with the European Space Agency) in 1997.
"Ed will be remembered as an energetic leader and scientist who expanded our knowledge about the universe — from the sun to the planets to distant stars — and sparked our collective imaginations about the mysteries and wonders of deep space," JPL Director Laurie Leshin, who's also the vice president of Caltech, said in NASA's obituary.
"Ed’s discoveries have fueled exploration of previously unseen corners of our solar system and will inspire future generations to reach new frontiers," Leshin added.
https://www.space.com/ed-stone-nasa-voyager-mission-project-scientist-obituary
Fifth helium leak detected on Starliner
June 11, 2024
NASA confirmed that Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner spacecraft has suffered a fifth, although minor, helium leak in its propulsion system as engineers work to prepare the vehicle for its return to Earth next week.
In a June 10 statement, NASA mentioned that spacecraft teams were examining “what impacts, if any, five small leaks in the service module helium manifolds would have on the remainder of the mission.”
That was the first reference to there being five leaks in the spacecraft; NASA had mentioned there were four in a briefing hours after the spacecraft’s June 6 docking with the International Space Station.
In a June 11 statement to SpaceNews, NASA spokesperson Josh Finch said the fifth leak was detected around the time of that post-docking briefing.
“The leak is considerably smaller than the others and has been recorded at 1.7 psi [pounds per square inch] per minute,” he said.
NASA was aware of one leak at the time of Starliner’s June 5 launch, having been detected shortly after a scrubbed launch attempt May 6. At the time of launch, NASA and Boeing officials considered that a one-off problem, likely caused by a defect in a seal. However, hours after launch controllers said they had detected two more leaks, one of which was relatively large at 395 psi per minute, said Steve Stich, NASA commercial crew program manager, at the briefing.
A fourth leak was found after docking, although it was much smaller at 7.5 psi per minute. “What we need to do over the next few days is take a look at the leak rate there and figure out what we go do relative to the rest of the mission,” Stich said at the briefing.
NASA closed the helium manifolds in the propulsion system after docking to stop the leaks, although they will have to be opened to use the spacecraft’s thrusters for undocking and deorbit maneuvers. NASA said June 10 that engineers estimate that Starliner has enough helium to support 70 hours of flight operations, while only seven hours is needed for Starliner to return to Earth.
In addition to the helium leaks, engineers are studying one reaction control system (RCS) thruster that shut down during the spacecraft’s flight to the ISS.
Four other thrusters were turned off by flight software but later reenabled. An RCS oxidizer isolation valve in Starliner’s service module is also not properly closed.
“We have the commercial crew program, Boeing, ISS teams all integrated, working very well together in order to come up with a forward plan for getting us in the best posture for that undock and reentry,”
Dina Contella, NASA ISS deputy program manager, said at a June 11 briefing about a series of upcoming spacewalks at the ISS. “The teams are still working through what are the best ways to go about testing and preparing for undock and reentry.”
Those teams have some time to complete that work. NASA had initially scheduled a June 14 undocking for Starliner, but NASA said June 9 it was delaying the undocking to no earlier than June 18.
That delay was to avoid a conflict with a June 13 ISS spacewalk, or EVA, by NASA astronauts Tracy Dyson and Matt Dominick.
“To have it back to back, were we had an EVA followed by undock, was not the most convenient,” Contella said.
There are undocking opportunities every few days, governed by the orbital mechanics that set up a landing in the southwestern United States.
The two NASA astronauts who flew Starliner to the ISS, Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams, have been busy both conducting tests of Starliner while at the station while also performing other work, such as science experiments. “Butch and Suni are an extra set of hands,” she said, particularly as other ISS crewmembers prepare for the upcoming spacewalks. “Having Butch and Suni available to perform some key critical science has been outstanding.”
Wilmore and Williams have publicly praised the performance of the spacecraft.
“The spacecraft was precise, more so than I would have expected. We could stop on a dime, so to speak,” said Wilmore during a June 10 call with NASA leadership, discussing how the spacecraft maneuvered.
“Our experienced test pilots have been overwhelmingly positive of their flight on Starliner, and we can’t wait to learn more from them and the flight data to continue improving the vehicle,”
Mark Nappi, Boeing vice president and commercial crew program manager, said of the astronauts in a June 11 statement.
https://spacenews.com/fifth-helium-leak-detected-on-starliner/
SpaceX retrieves space junk from Sask. farmer
Jun 11, 2024 3:57 PM PDT
SpaceX has retrieved pieces of debris that fell to earth and were found on Saskatchewan farmland in April.
Barry Sawchuk made headlines earlier this year when he said a giant piece of space debris had slammed into his field. On Tuesday, SpaceX employees came to his farm near Ituna, Sask., northeast of Regina, to collect the space junk.
Sawchuk said the American space manufacturer had reached out to him and asked him to return the debris.
"They're trying to figure out why it's not burning up [in the atmosphere] coming down," he said in an interview.
Sawchuk would not disclose how much money he received for the junk, but said he was satisfied with the compensation, which will go toward helping build a new rink in the community.
"We got something for the skating rink in Ituna and that's what it was always about," he said.
The two SpaceX employees who arrived at the farm in a U-Haul and loaded up the junk would not give their names or speak with media.
The debris was part of a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft that returned to Earth in February with four passengers from the International Space Station.
Sawchuk said five farmers have found at least eight pieces of space junk in the surrounding area.
CBC has reached out to SpaceX multiple times but no one from company has responded.
Samantha Lawler, a University of Regina astronomy professor, was at the farm when SpaceX employees arrived on Tuesday.
She said SpaceX needs to be transparent about how its operations are affecting the atmosphere, and how incidents like this are dealt with.
"I was hoping they would tell us a little bit more about just why they're here and what they're going to do with the pieces," Lawler said.
"SpaceX is doing nothing to educate the general public about how they're changing the sky for everyone in the world," she said.
Lawler said there is likely going to be more space junk falling from the sky because of the high density of satellites in the atmosphere.
"It just shows how common this is becoming that that there will be a lot more space junk falling like this. It will cause damage. It will cause deaths. It needs to be better regulated," she said.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatoon/spacex-cbc-debris-space-junk-sask-1.7231571
Chinese moon researchers gearing up for June 25 arrival of far side samples
June 11, 2024
Excitement is mounting for the first-ever return of samples from the far side of the moon.
China's ongoing Chang'e 6 mission is nearing its departure from lunar orbit, after which it will deliver a mother lode of moon materials to Earth.
Earlier this month, more than 200 Chinese scientists from 31 domestic universities and research institutes gathered in Beijing at the Institute of Geology and Geophysics, participating in a "Chang'e 6 Landing Area Geological Background Seminar."
James Head, a leading lunar expert at Brown University, described the event in a posting:
"This seminar/workshop was designed to highlight the geological setting of the sample return landing site in the Apollo basin, and the types of scientific problems that can potentially be addressed by analysis of the Chang'e 6 return samples, both themes designed to assist scientists across China in preparing proposals for analysis of the Chang'e 6 samples."
Step by step
The Chang'e 6 multi-component craft launched from south China's Hainan Province on May 3. Its lander-ascender combination safely touched down in the South Pole-Aitken (SPA) Basin on the far side of the moon on June 1, then gathered samples on that day and the next.
The probe's ascender segment launched from the lunar surface with that precious cargo on June 3, then reunited with the orbiter on June 5.
The samples continue to orbit the moon in Chang'e 6's return module, awaiting the time to initiate the journey back to Earth.
The return capsule, toting its cache of lunar collectibles, will parachute into a pre-picked landing zone at Siziwang Banner in north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.
That reentry is expected to take place on June 25 (Beijing time), according to informed sources. Upon capsule touchdown, Chang'e 6 will wrap up its 53-day space mission.
European ground stations are providing support to Chang'e 6, according to the European Space Agency (ESA). Shortly after the May 3 launch, for example, ESA's Kourou station in French Guiana tracked the spacecraft for several hours to confirm its orbit.
Around June 25, ESA will catch signals from the Chang'e 6 return module via the agency's Maspalomas station, operated by the Instituto Nacional de Técnica Aerospacial (INTA) in Gran Canaria, Spain.
International partnership
James Carpenter, lead for moon and Mars science for ESA's Directorate of Human and Robotic Exploration, stressed that the Chang'e 6 samples could help broaden humanity's understanding of the moon's formation.
"China has presented a very exciting plan for lunar exploration. After Chang'e 6, we have the Chang'e 7 mission and Chang'e 8.
They're talking about having humans on the surface of the moon and an international lunar research station," Carpenter said, speaking to China Media Group from Noordwijk, the Netherlands.
"These are things that China has set out as elements of their plan. I think it's a very exciting plan.
I think the scientific outcomes that could come from this would be fantastic.
And I think internationally we're all interested to see how this progresses and where are the opportunities for international partnership," Carpenter said.
https://www.space.com/china-scientists-excited-far-side-moon-samples
Multiple UFO Amendments on Disclosure Submitted for 2025 NDAA
June 11, 2024
Legislation related to UFOs is being introduced by various members of Congress, with the hope that at least some of these amendments will make it into the 2025 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA.) One of these is a reintroduction of the UAP Disclosure Act (UAPDA) that Sen. Schumer and Sen. Rounds submitted for the 2024 NDAA (along with Sen. Rubio and Sen. Gillibrand), which was subsequently changed quite a bit in its final approved form.
Here’s a quick rundown of the legislation introduced so far. It’s worth noting that these may not be the last UAP amendments submitted for inclusion in the 2025 NDAA, and it remains to be seen if any of them will make it into the final piece of legislation approved by both the House and the Senate.
The House Rules Committee began meeting on June 11, but the UAP amendments have not yet been discussed. You can keep track of discussions and revisions here.
https://www.postapocalypticmedia.com/ufo-uap-disclosure-2025-ndaa/
https://rules.house.gov/bill/118/hr-8070
Rep. Luna Introduces Bills to Ban Food Dyes and High-Fructose Corn Syrup
Jun 11, 2024
WASHINGTON, D.C.—Today, Congresswoman Anna Paulina Luna (FL-13) introduced a legislative package that aims to make Americans’ diets healthier by banning certain color additives and high-fructose corn syrup. The Do or Dye Act and the Stop Spoonfuls of Fake Sugar Act seek to restrict toxic food dyes like Red No. 40 and Yellow Nos. 5 and 6 and the use of high-fructose corn syrup in foods produced in the United States. These bills amend the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act to classify foods containing these ingredients as adulterated.
“It is time that we stop allowing unaccountable corporations and the complicit Food and Drug Administration to poison our families. Far too many Americans are suffering needlessly from type 2 diabetes, pre-diabetes, and mental health conditions as a result of artificial and harmful ingredients that are in nearly every refrigerator and pantry in our country,” said Congresswoman Luna. “Not only are we consuming spoonfuls of high-fructose corn syrup every day, but many of the foods and snacks we consume have dyes linked to an alarming number of health conditions.”
Congresswoman Luna continues her fight to ensure that our government is no longer complicit in the poisoning of Americans.
You can read the bill text for the Do or Dye Act here: https://luna.house.gov/Do-or-Dye-Act/
You can read the bill text for the Stop Spoonfuls of Fake Sugar Act here: https://luna.house.gov/Stop-Spoonfuls-of-Fake-Sugar-Act/
https://luna.house.gov/posts/breaking-rep-luna-introduces-bills-to-ban-food-dyes-and-high-fructose-corn-syrup
VA updates home loan benefits, helping Veterans remain competitive in the housing market
June 11, 2024
In March, the National Association of REALTORS® (NAR) reached a settlement in a class-action lawsuit that requires NAR to change its brokerage fee rules. This could result in changes to the real estate market. Before that settlement takes effect, VA has announced an update to help ensure that Veterans using the VA-guaranteed home loan benefit remain competitive buyers. Specifically, eligible Veterans, active duty service members and surviving spouses who use their VA home loan benefits can pay for certain real estate buyer-broker fees when purchasing a home beginning Aug. 10, 2024. This update is intended to ensure VA’s programs continue to promote access to homeownership for Veterans.
What is the impact of this settlement?
The full impact of the settlement is not yet certain because the real estate market is still adjusting, but there may be an increased expectation that home buyers will pay for their own buyer-broker fees. In VA’s program, it has been common practice for sellers to pay for the Veteran’s buyer-broker fees.
Why does this potential change matter for Veterans using the VA-guaranteed home loan benefit?
Previously, Veterans could not pay buyer-broker fees when purchasing a home with a VA home loan. In light of the settlement, Veterans could be at a disadvantage in the evolving homebuying market, so VA released this update to make sure that Veterans remain competitive buyers.
What does this mean for you?
Simply put: Veterans using VA home loan benefits can still negotiate and may pay for their real estate professional’s commission (i.e., the buyer-broker fee), beginning Aug. 10, 2024, subject to certain safeguards. VA encourages Veterans to seek out the services of mortgage lending and real estate professionals who have experience with the VA home loan program to ensure they are familiar with the specifics of compensation negotiations and the impact of the settlement on home purchase contracts.
Should you negotiate these fees?
VA encourages Veterans to negotiate buyer-broker fees with their real estate professional. Veterans can also still ask sellers to cover the buyer-broker fees at closing. In addition to other safeguards, all buyer-broker fees charged to Veterans using the home loan benefit must be reasonable and customary within local markets.
Will there be future updates?
The full impact of the settlement on the real estate market is yet to be determined. The temporary measures announced today will help ensure that Veterans are not negatively impacted by the class-action settlement. VA will continue to monitor how the settlement affects the brokerage market, as well as new models of realtor commissions that may emerge, and do what it can to help lower costs, boost competition and increase avenues to home ownership. VA looks forward to pursuing a rulemaking. Rest assured: VA will do everything in its power to make sure Veterans are not disadvantaged in the homebuying process.
For additional information about this update, please visit Circulars: Calendar Years 2021 to Present – VA Home Loans https://www.benefits.va.gov/HOMELOANS/resources_circulars.asp
https://news.va.gov/132094/va-updates-home-loan-competitive-housing-market/