TYB
Sam Brown
@captainsambrown
Yes, you can call my face weird. It won't be the first or last time I've heard it. But my message is not to you.
My message is to anyone else who has been put down or called "weird" because of their experiences or who they are…
I say to you: do not allow others to define you.
I'm proud of my scars. They might look a little different, but it gives me an opportunity to encourage others.
I encourage every one of you to lean into the things that make you unique and that others may call "weird" and realize that your experience, whether it is suffering or something else, gives you an opportunity to connect with others and give them hope.
You are loved. You are appreciated. The things that make you unique can also be your greatest strength.
Jul 30, 2024, 9:00 PM
https://truthsocial.com/@captainsambrown/posts/112879103612032286
NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day
July 30, 2024
Leopard Spots on Martian Rocks
What is creating these unusual spots? Light-colored spots on Martian rocks, each surrounded by a dark border, were discovered earlier this month by NASA's Perseverance Rover currently exploring Mars. Dubbed leopard spots because of their seemingly similarity to markings on famous Earth-bound predators, these curious patterns are being studied with the possibility they were created by ancient Martian life. The pictured spots measure only millimeters across and were discovered on a larger rock named Cheyava Falls. The exciting but unproven speculation is that long ago, microbes generated energy with chemical reactions that turned rock from red to white while leaving a dark ring, like some similarly appearing spots on Earth rocks. Although other non-biological explanations may ultimately prevail, speculation focusing on this potential biological origin is causing much intrigue.
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html?
<July 31!
Repair Kit for NASA’s NICER Mission Heading to Space Station
Jul 30, 2024
NASA will deliver a patch kit for NICER (Neutron star Interior Composition Explorer), an X-ray telescope on the International Space Station, on the agency’s Northrop Grumman 21st commercial resupply mission.
Astronauts will conduct a spacewalk to complete the repair.
Located near the space station’s starboard solar array, NICER was damaged in May 2023.
The mission team delivered the patch kit to NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston in May 2024 so it could be prepped and packed for the upcoming resupply mission.
“It’s incredible that in just one year, we were able to diagnose the problem and then design, build, test, and deliver a solution,” said Steve Kenyon, NICER’s mechanical lead at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.
“We’re so excited to see the patches installed during a future spacewalk, return to a more regular operating schedule, and keep doing groundbreaking science.”
From its perch on the station, the washing machine-sized NICER studies the X-ray sky.
It has precisely measured superdense stellar remnants called neutron stars, which contain the densest matter scientists can directly observe.
It has also investigated mysterious fast radio bursts, observed comets in our solar system, and collected data about Earth’s upper atmosphere.
But in May 2023, NICER developed a “light leak,” where unwanted sunlight began entering the telescope.
Photos taken aboard the station revealed several areas of damage to NICER’s thermal shields.
The shields are 500 times thinner than a human hair and filter out infrared, ultraviolet, and visible light while allowing X-rays to pass through.
They cover each of NICER’s 56 X-ray concentrators, sets of 24 nested circular mirrors designed to skip X-rays into corresponding detectors.
A sunshade tops each concentrator and shield assembly, with a slight gap in between. The sunshades are segmented by six internal struts, resembling a sliced pie.
The largest damage to the shields is around the size of a typical U.S. postage stamp. The other areas are closer in size to pinheads.
During the station’s daytime, the damage allows sunlight to reach the detectors, saturating sensors and interfering with NICER’s measurements.
The mission team altered their daytime observing strategy to mitigate the effect. The damage does not impact nighttime observations.
“NICER wasn’t designed to be serviced or repaired,” said Keith Gendreau, the mission’s principal investigator at Goddard. “It was installed robotically, and we operate it remotely.
When we decided to investigate the possibility of patching the largest damaged areas on the thermal shields, we had to come up with a method that would use the existing parts of the telescope and station toolkits.
We couldn’t have done it without all the support and collaboration from our colleagues at Johnson and throughout the space station program.”
The solution, in the end, was simple. The team designed patches, each shaped like a piece of pie, that will slide into the sunshades. A tab at the bottom of each patch will turn into the space between the bottom of the sunshade and the top of the thermal shield, keeping it in place.
Astronauts will install five patches during the spacewalk. They’ll cover the most significant areas of damage and block the sunlight affecting NICER’s X-ray measurements.
The repair kit contains 12 patches in total, allowing for spares if needed. Astronauts will carry the patches in a caddy, a rectangular frame containing two spare sunshades with the patches held inside.
“NICER will be the first X-ray telescope in orbit to be serviced by astronauts and only the fourth science observatory to be repaired overall — joining the ranks of missions like NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope,” said Charles Baker, the NICER project systems engineer at Goddard.
“It’s been amazing to watch the patch kit come together over the last year. NICER has taught us so many wonderful things about the cosmos, and we’re really looking forward to this next step of its journey.”
The NICER telescope is an Astrophysics Mission of Opportunity within NASA’s Explorers Program, which provides frequent flight opportunities for world-class scientific investigations from space utilizing innovative, streamlined, and efficient management approaches within the heliophysics and astrophysics science areas.
NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate supported the SEXTANT component of the mission, demonstrating pulsar-based spacecraft navigation.
https://science.nasa.gov/missions/station/iss-research/nicer/repair-kit-for-nasas-nicer-mission-heading-to-space-station/
NASA’s First-Ever Quantum Memory Made at Glenn Research Center
Jul 31, 2024
Bringing bright minds together has once again proven to be the key to unlocking the mysteries of the universe. Researchers developed technology that will store information within a cloud of atoms.
Together with Infleqtion Inc., researchers at NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland produced NASA’s first-ever quantum memory.
This technology is NASA’s first step in creating a large-scale quantum network, which could lead to more secure space communications and, eventually, new scientific discoveries.
Quantum memory stores information encoded in matter or on photons — which are single particles of light — for a certain amount of time.
The memory developed in partnership with Glenn stores information in a cloud of laser-cooled atoms and later releases it as photons.
On Earth, many quantum networks use fiber optic infrastructure. However, quantum information degrades after just a few dozen miles, greatly limiting the size of any future network.
Quantum memory will help enable the expansion of quantum networks to send information over longer distances.
“If we’re able to put quantum memory into space, then we could use free space transmission and further those distances to spanning the country,” said Dr. Adam Fallon, quantum scientist at NASA Glenn.
A large-scale quantum network would process information faster, provide better information security, and improve the accuracy of how we explore the world compared to a traditional computer network.
“So, quantum may provide NASA the ability to explore or sense things in space that we could not do otherwise classically,” said Evan Katz, quantum scientist at NASA Glenn.
“While quantum networks are a little further down the road, in the here-and-now, we are excited to have received this memory through an SBIR effort with Infleqtion Inc. so that we can understand more about how quantum memory impacts quantum networks.”
Glenn’s quantum team intends to study and refine the new technology and then plug what they’ve learned into models to simulate how it would work in a large-scale quantum network.
From there, they plan to provide feedback to NASA, academia, and industry so all parties can come closer to their goal of developing a quantum network.
Infleqtion Inc. created the quantum memory through the NASA Small Business Innovation Research/Small Business Technology Transfer (SBIR/STTR) Program, which provides funding for research, development, and demonstration of innovative technologies that fulfill the needs of NASA and the commercial marketplace.
https://www.nasa.gov/general/nasas-first-ever-quantum-memory-made-at-glenn-research-center/
NASA’s DART Mission Sheds New Light on Target Binary Asteroid System
Jul 30, 2024
In studying data collected from NASA’s DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test) mission, which in 2022 sent a spacecraft to intentionally collide with the asteroid moonlet Dimorphos, the mission’s science team has discovered new information on the origins of the target binary asteroid system and why the DART spacecraft was so effective in shifting Dimorphos’ orbit.
In five recently published papers in Nature Communications, the team explored the geology of the binary asteroid system, comprising moonlet Dimorphos and parent asteroid Didymos, to characterize its origin and evolution and constrain its physical characteristics.
“These findings give us new insights into the ways that asteroids can change over time,” said Thomas Statler, lead scientist for Solar System Small Bodies at NASA Headquarters in Washington.
“This is important not just for understanding the near-Earth objects that are the focus of planetary defense, but also for our ability to read the history of our Solar System from these remnants of planet formation.
This is just part of the wealth of new knowledge we’ve gained from DART.”
Olivier Barnouin and Ronald-Louis Ballouz of Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland, led a paper that analyzed the geology of both asteroids and drew conclusions about their surface materials and interior properties.
From images captured by DART and its accompanying LICIACube cubesat – contributed by the Italian Space Agency (ASI), the team observed the smaller asteroid Dimorphos’ topography, which featured boulders of varying sizes. In comparison, the larger asteroid Didymos was smoother at lower elevations, though rocky at higher elevations, with more craters than Dimorphos. The authors inferred that Dimorphos likely spun off from Didymos in a large mass shedding event.
There are natural processes that can accelerate the spins of small asteroids, and there is growing evidence that these processes may be responsible for re-shaping these bodies or even forcing material to be spun off their surfaces.
Analysis suggested that both Didymos and Dimorphos have weak surface characteristics, which led the team to posit that Didymos has a surface age 40–130 times older than Dimorphos, with the former estimated to be 12.5 million years and the latter less than 300,000 years old.
The low surface strength of Dimorphos likely contributed to DART’s significant impact on its orbit.
“The images and data that DART collected at the Didymos system provided a unique opportunity for a close-up geological look of a near-Earth asteroid binary system,” said Barnouin.
“From these images alone, we were able to infer a great deal of information on geophysical properties of both Didymos and Dimorphos and expand our understanding on the formation of these two asteroids.
We also better understand why DART was so effective in moving Dimorphos.”
Maurizio Pajola, of the National Institute for Astrophysics (INAF) in Rome, and co-authors led a paper comparing the shapes and sizes of the various boulders and their distribution patterns on the two asteroids’ surfaces.
They determined the physical characteristics of Dimorphos indicate it formed in stages, likely of material inherited from its parent asteroid Didymos.
That conclusion reinforces the prevailing theory that some binary asteroid systems arise from shed remnants of a larger primary asteroid accumulating into a new asteroid moonlet.
Alice Lucchetti, also of INAF, and colleagues found that thermal fatigue — the gradual weakening and cracking of a material caused by heat — could rapidly break up boulders on the surface of Dimorphos, generating surface lines and altering the physical characteristics of this type of asteroid more quickly than previously thought. The DART mission was likely the first observation of such a phenomenon on this type of asteroid.
Supervised by researcher Naomi Murdoch of ISAE-SUPAERO in Toulouse, France, and colleagues, a paper led by students Jeanne Bigot and Pauline Lombardo determined Didymos’ bearing capacity — the surface’s ability to support applied loads — to be at least 1,000 times lower than that of dry sand on Earth or lunar soil. This is considered an important parameter for understanding and predicting the response of a surface, including for the purposes of displacing an asteroid.
Colas Robin, also of ISAE-SUPAERO, and co-authors analyzed the surface boulders on Dimorphos, comparing them with those on other rubble pile asteroids, including Itokawa, Ryugu and Bennu.
The researchers found the boulders shared similar characteristics, suggesting all these types of asteroids formed and evolved in a similar fashion.
https://science.nasa.gov/missions/dart/nasas-dart-mission-sheds-new-light-on-target-binary-asteroid-system/
California's Park Fire Hits 380,000 Acres as NASA Reveals Burn From Space
Updated Jul 30, 2024 at 2:48 PM EDT
The gargantuan Park Fire torching California has been snapped from space by NASA.
The blaze, which has burned 383,619 acres across Butte, Plumas, Shasta and Tehama counties as of July 30, is now the fifth-largest fire in California history and the largest burning in the U.S.
Staggering images of the fire's scorch marks and smoke from above were captured on July 27—when the blaze was 307,000 acres in size—by the OLI-2 (Operational Land Imager 2) on the Landsat 9 satellite in orbit around our planet.
The fire began in Chico in Butte County on Wednesday, possibly because of arson, and quickly spread across the region, swelling to over 160,000 acres in only two days and 307,000 acres by Saturday.
Its rapid expansion was aided by the intense temperatures, low humidity and high winds, combined with plentiful dried vegetation for fuel.
"It's been growing 5,000 acres an hour since the inception or the ignition of this incident started," Cal Fire Incident Commander Billy See said at a briefing on Saturday morning. "OK, just to put that into perspective, we're looking at almost 8 square miles an hour this thing is taking out."
The NASA images reveal a natural-colored scene shrouded in smoke, with a false-color image combining shortwave infrared, near-infrared and visible light highlighting the scorch marks of the burned land.
Over 25,000 people were evacuated from the surrounding areas as the fire spread, and California Governor Gavin Newsom declared a state of emergency in Butte and Tehama counties.
Cal Fire, which is short for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, reported that 165 structures have been destroyed by the blaze, with five damaged and another 4,200 at risk. As of early Tuesday morning, the fire was 14 percent contained by firefighters.
In an update Monday evening, Cal Fire said: "The fire continues to burn actively at multiple locations around the perimeter. Smoke blanketed the northern portion of the fire, causing a slight dampening of activity within that area.
The southern portion of the fire had clearer skies, allowing for the finer fuels, such as grass, to be more receptive to fire with a longer burn window."
The update continued: "Crews continue to engage offensively in parts of the fire when it is possible to build direct line, reinforce lines, and to begin mop-up where applicable.
Crews have been attacking spot fires aggressively throughout the day and continue to extend contingency lines."
The spread of the fire slowed somewhat over the weekend, thanks to cooler temperatures, and some evacuees were allowed back into their homes. Many areas are still very threatened by the blaze, however.
Temperatures may be about to rise again, which could make it even harder to stem the blaze.
"It already feels noticeably warmer today," Sergio Arellano, a spokesperson for Cal Fire, told news outlet SFGate.
"We're looking at temperatures between 88 and 94 today. We were in the 80s over the weekend."
Wind speeds are expected to pick up, reaching up to 20 mph on higher ground, which could make the fire harder to manage.
The Park Fire blaze just overtook the fifth-largest fire in the state's history, the 379,895-acre Creek Fire in Fresno and Madera counties in 2020.
The largest fire California has seen was the 1,032,648-acre August Complex Fire, which also occurred in 2020. It was a complex of fires ignited by lightning and burned across Glenn, Lake, Mendocino, Tehama, Trinity and Shasta counties.
The 2021 Dixie Fire is the second largest, at 963,309 acres across Butte, Plumas, Lassen, Shasta and Tehama Counties.
It is followed by the 459,123-acre Mendocino Complex Fire, which was in Mendocino, Lake, Colusa and Glenn counties, and the 2020 SCU Lightning Complex.
The latter burned 396,624 acres in Santa Clara, Alameda, Contra Costa, San Joaquin, Merced and Stanislaus counties.
https://www.newsweek.com/park-fire-california-wildfire-nasa-images-1932099
Put Zuck in and make it a triple threat match
Fly-around observation images of space debris released
July 31, 2024
The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) has advanced the Commercial Removal of Debris Demonstration (CRD2) Phase I project.
Under this initiative, the demonstration satellite ADRAS-J, developed by Astroscale Japan Inc., has successfully captured images of space debris, a non-cooperative target, through "Fly-around observation."
These images have now been released by Astroscale Japan Inc. The fly-around observation service is the third of the four services required by JAXA in CRD2 Phase I.
This service involves pointing a camera at the target debris, maintaining a constant distance from it, and orbiting around the target debris to capture images from different directions.
On July 15 and 16, 2024, ADRAS-J, operated by Astroscale Japan Inc., successfully carried out the fly-around observation service in compliance with the safety requirements set by JAXA (JERG-2-026 Safety Standards for On-Orbit Servicing Missions).
The distance to the target debris was approximately 50 meters. As a result, a series of images shown in Figures 1 and 2 were successfully captured.
In these images, the target debris appears almost stationary with the PAF pointing in the nadir direction, while ADRAS-J moves around and takes images.
The specifications for the fly-around observation service are designed to obtain high-quality images and sufficient data to reveal the motion, damage, and degradation of long-orbiting debris, which is globally scarce information.
These specifications have been carefully developed based on JAXA's technical expertise, ensuring their feasibility.
By providing this service, the contracted company acquires Rendezvous and Proximity Operations (RPO) technologies applicable to a wide range of on-orbit services, including active debris removal.
In on-orbit services, it is necessary to control the relative position and attitude of the servicer to get around to a specific part of the target to observe or perform some task on it.
There are several technical challenges in achieving this for non-cooperative targets, including the detailed shape and surface reflectance of the real target object, which is not known in advance, the changing visibility of the target object, and the influence of Earth-reflected light, which disturbs the navigation sensor (the so-called earth background problem in non-cooperative relative navigation).
This is a technically challenging mission, as the servicer spacecraft must overcome these challenges for relative navigation while achieving highly accurate relative six-degree-of-freedom control.
The successful safe completion of this service by ADRAS-J marks a steady step toward achieving CRD2's two objectives: acquiring debris removal technology to improve the increasingly serious space debris problem and enhancing the competitiveness of Japanese companies in the on-orbit services market.
The images in Figures 1 and 2 allowed us to see the surface appearance of the entire target debris, not just the sides visible during the previous fixed-point observation service.
Additionally, the PAF of the upper stage of the rocket and its surroundings, which are the target part to be grabbed during CRD2 Phase II, were identified in detail after 15 years in orbit.
The string-like objects observed on either side of the body are presumed to be surface protection tapes, also seen in the launch operation images.
These observations provide critical insights for designing and validating the capture system for the upcoming CRD2 Phase II.
Astroscale Japan Inc. will continue to operate ADRAS-J and will first carry out Astroscale missions, which are planned and carried out by the company itself.
Next, as the last of the four "services" required by JAXA, the mission termination service (transfer to a safe orbit without colliding with the target) will be carried out.
https://phys.org/news/2024-07-fly-images-space-debris.html
I don't always grab the related videos, but when I do, you're very welcome
Space hurricanes swirl in the Southern Hemisphere, mostly in summer
July 31, 2024
Space hurricanes are a recently discovered geomagnetic phenomenon in which plasma interacts with Earth's magnetosphere, the area of space dominated by Earth's magnetic field.
Spiral arms of plasma, hundreds of kilometers long, stretch across the sky and turn clockwise around a calm "eye" in the center—forming aurorae shaped much like the hurricanes that occur closer to Earth's surface in the troposphere.
Electrons from space rain down into Earth's upper atmosphere, where they have the potential to disrupt satellite communications.
Scientists first found evidence of space hurricanes in 2021 while combing through satellite imagery.
All were detected over the Northern Hemisphere, where there is more scientific instrumentation and observation.
Previous work found that about 12 space hurricanes hit the Northern Hemisphere each year.
Now, Sheng Lu and colleagues present the first analysis of how frequently space hurricanes occur in the Southern Hemisphere, dovetailing with the group's previous work to improve understanding of when, where, and why space hurricanes strike.
The researchers combed through satellite imagery taken between 2005 and 2016 and identified 259 space hurricane events.
Space hurricanes in the Southern Hemisphere look and behave much like their northern counterparts, suggesting they're driven by similar mechanisms, the researchers found.
Space hurricanes hit the Southern Hemisphere most frequently in the summer, potentially because of the planet's magnetic tilt and the levels of sunlight exposure.
But like northern storms, they mostly occur at latitudes above 80° (over Antarctica), so the odds of glancing up and seeing such a storm are small.
The study also found that the average velocity of plasma near space hurricanes is about 1 kilometer per second (a whopping 3,600 kilometers per hour, or 2,237 miles per hour).
This is about 10 times faster than the normal speed of plasma in the polar cap, the authors said.
The findings set the stage for further explorations of space hurricanes, including their 3D characteristics and impacts on the lower atmosphere.
Ultimately, the researchers hope to establish a reliable method to forecast these events.
https://phys.org/news/2024-07-space-hurricanes-swirl-southern-hemisphere.html
Venus returns to the night sky as an 'Evening Star,' and its going to be brilliant
July 31, 2024
Currently, the planet Venus is visible, albeit very low in the west-northwest evening sky right after sundown.
Those with obstructions such as trees or buildings toward the west may not be able to see Venus yet thanks to its very low altitude.
But this current evening apparition of Venus is going to evolve into a very good one in the coming days and weeks, so let's get into a fuller explanation as to what is to come.
Venus passed superior conjunction (appearing to go directly behind the sun as seen from Earth) back on June 4.
Initially, it was mired deep in the brilliant glare of the sun.
Nonetheless, in the days that followed it moved on a steady — albeit very slow — course toward the east and gradually pulled away from the sun's vicinity.
And now, as we are about to make the transition from July into August, Venus has finally begun climbing up out of the sunset glow in earnest and is now about to reclaim its role as the brilliant Evening Star, a title it has not held since roughly a year ago. Look for it now by scanning with binoculars shortly after sundown very low in the western sky.
Venus will stand about 9 degrees high in the western sky at sundown (your clinched fist held at arm's length is roughly 10 degrees wide) and will touch the horizon about 50 minutes after sunset, giving less experienced sky watchers a chance to get a good glimpse.
During August, Venus sets around the middle of twilight; find it with binoculars right after sunset and with the naked eye some 20 to 30 minutes later depending on sky conditions and local topography.
It gradually creeps a little higher as the month progresses; by the end of the month, you can try seeking out Venus 30 or 40 minutes after sundown.
With binoculars and a clear sky on Aug. 4, you may be able to spot tiny Regulus — the brightest star in the constellation Leo the Lion — slightly more than 1 degree to Venus's lower left.
The following night Regulus is about 1 and a half degrees below Venus. But there's also a bonus that same night as well.
Sitting just three-quarters of a degree to the upper right of Venus will be an ultrathin waxing crescent moon, just 36 hours past new phase and only 2 percent illuminated.
You'll likely need binoculars, and Venus might have to guide you to the extremely thin lunar crescent's location, for Venus at magnitude -3.9, may be an easier body to spot than the moon.
Brilliant winter holiday beacon
Venus should become a bit easier to see during September. By Oct. 1, it will set about 30-degrees south of due west nearly 75 minutes after sunset.
Continuing to swing east of the sun as the fall season progresses, Venus will become plainly visible in the southwestern evening sky even to the most casual of observers by Thanksgiving.
https://www.space.com/here-she-comes-venus-is-back