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National Purple Heart Day
August 7, 2024
Purple Heart Day on August 7 is the kind of day created to give back. It’s a day for Americans to remember and honor the men and women who bravely represented their country and were wounded or killed whilst serving. These people are decorated with a Purple Heart in the name of the President, and this day is for remembering them and their sacrifice. Some states, counties, and cities pause in recognition, as do some sports and entertainment entities. Military and veteran organizations also hold meetings for remembrance. Please join us as we honor those that have been given a Purple Heart.
HISTORY OF PURPLE HEART DAY
George Washington awarded the original Purple Heart, designated as a Badge of Merit, in 1782. There was a lack of funds in the Continental Army at the time so the award was a way to honor enlisted and deserving people. The honor is presented to soldiers for “any singularly meritorious action.” It was designed with a piece of silk bound through it with a thin edge of silver. Washington only gave out three of the badges himself, and instead authorized subordinates to issue the badges as they saw fit.
The Badge of Merit faded from use but was revived and launched in 1932, this time as the Purple Heart. As well as honoring those wounded in combat, this iteration of the Purple Heart recognized commendable action. It was in 1944 that the policy was tweaked slightly and the Purple Heart was given the purpose we know it for today, specifically to honor those who have been wounded or died.
The first service member to be given the modern Purple Heart was General Douglas MacArthur for his service in the Pacific theater during World War II. In total there have been 1.8 million Purple Hearts awarded over the years.
Purple Heart Day was first observed in 2014 and has been observed every year since. It’s a chance to reflect on the bravery of those who have fought for the U.S. and to ensure that their courage is never forgotten.
https://www.dvnf.org/national-purple-heart-day/
https://friscolegion.org/2024/08/06/aug-7-2024-purple-heart-day/
NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day
August 7, 2024
Milky Way Behind Three Merlons
To some, they look like battlements, here protecting us against the center of the Milky Way. The Three Merlons, also called the Three Peaks of Lavaredo, stand tall today because they are made of dense dolomite rock which has better resisted erosion than surrounding softer rock. They formed about 250 million years ago and so are comparable in age with one of the great extinctions of life on Earth. A leading hypothesis is that this great extinction was triggered by an asteroid about 10-km across, larger in size than Mount Everest, impacting the Earth. Humans have gazed up at the stars in the Milky Way and beyond for centuries, making these battlefield-like formations, based in the Sexten Dolomites, a popular place for current and ancient astronomers.
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html?
NASA delays Crew-9 launch as it grapples with Starliner problems
August 7, 2024
NASA is postponing the launch of the next crew rotation mission to the International Space Station by a month as examines when, or if, Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner spacecraft can complete its test flight.
The agency announced late Aug. 6 that the launch of the Crew-9 mission, which had been scheduled for as soon as Aug. 18, would be delayed to no earlier than Sept. 24. The delay would provide “operational flexibility” for the agency, it stated.
“This adjustment allows more time for mission managers to finalize return planning for the agency’s Boeing Crew Flight Test currently docked to the orbiting laboratory,” NASA said.
That CFT mission has been docked to the station for two months, far longer than original plans for a stay of as short as eight days.
NASA did not elaborate on the factors that led it to push back Crew-9’s launch, although agency officials will participate in a briefing Aug. 7 to discuss the situation.
Ars Technica reported Aug. 5 that NASA would likely delay Crew-9 to correct a software flaw on Starliner that would prevent it from making an automated undocking from the ISS.
The agency did note that it is continuing to analyze data from ground tests of reaction control system (RCS) thrusters to confirm their performance after several of them malfunctioned during Starliner’s approach to the station in June.
“NASA and Boeing continue to evaluate the spacecraft’s readiness, and no decisions have been made regarding Starliner’s return,” it stated.
There has been reportedly a lack of consensus among NASA officials about whether Starliner is safe enough to return astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams to Earth, revolving around the performance of those thrusters.
At a July 25 briefing, NASA said it expected to hold an agency-level flight readiness review regarding Starliner’s return as soon as the end of the following week.
But despite on-orbit tests of Starliner’s thrusters that went according to plan days later, that review has not taken place, and the latest agency statement did not mention a schedule for it.
Boeing, meanwhile, has been making the case that Starliner is safe to come home with astronauts on board. The company, in a statement late Aug. 2, outlined extensive testing of spacecraft systems as well as simulations and other work.
“Boeing remains confident in the Starliner spacecraft and its ability to return safely with crew.
We continue to support NASA’s requests for additional testing, data, analysis and reviews to affirm the spacecraft’s safe undocking and landing capabilities,” the company stated. Boeing will not participate in the Aug. 7 NASA briefing.
NASA’s approach to dealing with Starliner’s problems won it praise from the agency’s safety advisers. “NASA’s commercial crew program appears to be following disciplined processes working through the helium leaks and the thruster fail-off issues,” said Kent Rominger, a former astronaut who serves on the Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel, during an Aug. 1 public meeting of the panel.
NASA, he added, is using “resources across the nation that can support the analysis and potential rationale for the decision on the dispositioning of Starliner.”
The program appears to have a “healthy” safety culture, he noted, one where “people are willing to speak up with varying opinions and are being listened to.”
“This is all about NASA determining the most prudent path forward,” he concluded.
The delay in Crew-9, which moves it to after a mid-September Soyuz crew rotation mission, will change another aspect in that mission. NASA now expects to launch Crew-9 from Space Launch Complex 40, the first crewed launch from that pad.
That move is prompted by work needed to prepare Launch Complex 39A for the Falcon Heavy launch of NASA’s Europa Clipper mission scheduled for as soon as Oct. 10.
At a July 26 briefing, Steve Stich, NASA commercial crew program manager, said the agency considered moving Crew-9 to SLC-40 for an August launch but concluded the pad’s crew tower would not be certified in time.
“That’s probably a little bit more like the late September timeframe,” he said of certifying the pad for crewed missions.
https://spacenews.com/nasa-delays-crew-9-launch-as-it-grapples-with-starliner-problems/
Doomed Star Eta Carinae
Aug 06, 2024
Eta Carinae may be about to explode. But no one knows when – it may be next year, it may be one million years from now.
Eta Carinae’s mass – about 100 times greater than our Sun – makes it an excellent candidate for a full blown supernova.
Historical records do show that about 170 years ago Eta Carinae underwent an unusual outburst that made it one of the brightest stars in the southern sky.
Eta Carinae, in the Keyhole Nebula, is the only star currently thought to emit natural LASER light.
This featured image brings out details in the unusual nebula that surrounds this rogue star.
Diffraction spikes, caused by the telescope, are visible as bright multi-colored streaks emanating from Eta Carinae’s center.
Two distinct lobes of the Homunculus Nebula encompass the hot central region, while some strange radial streaks are visible in red extending toward the image right.
The lobes are filled with lanes of gas and dust which absorb the blue and ultraviolet light emitted near the center. The streaks, however, remain unexplained.
https://www.nasa.gov/image-article/doomed-star-eta-carinae/
NASA acquires C1000 ceramic 3D printer from 3DCeram
August 6, 2024
The NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, in collaboration with Jacobs Space Exploration Group, has awarded 3DCERAM Sinto, Inc. a contract for a C1000 FLEXMATIC ceramic 3D printer and will add 3DCERAM as an official partner working with NASA.
This printer will be used to make samples for small and large parts and components using new and innovative materials that will be tested in space and other extreme environments.
The first test parts from the NASA-3DCeram partnership will proceed with testing immediately under the MISSE (Materials International Space Station Experiment) program.
It is no secret that advanced technical ceramics are the materials of the future for their extreme hardness, and heat and chemical resistance and lightweight. Redwire, another commercial entity working on 3D printable materials for space made ceramics one of its first focus materials.
And ceramic tiles, such as those on the outside of both the space shuttle and SpaceX Starship are a trademark element for any space and re-entry mission.
MISSE is a testing program designed to manufacture materials samples and secure them to a panel that will be mounted outside of the International Space Station to study the effects of outer space on 3D printed objects.
3DCERAM Sinto Inc, based in Grand Ledge USA, will be manufacturing 20 sample parts to be launched to the space station for the MISSE program next year.
The parts will be made as part of the evaluation process for ceramics that may one day be used outside vehicles in space.
The samples will remain there for six months to gain knowledge about the printed ceramic material’s ability to withstand the space environment.
These tests will demonstrate the effects of in-space environmental exposures, such as zero gravity and radiation from the sun.
Once these materials and manufacturing processes are characterized in space, flight-worthy hot structures and heat shields could be printed on the 3DCERAM C1000 FLEXMATIC.
The C1000 FLEXMATIC will allow NASA to print large and fully dense parts or many parts on the 320 mm x 320 mm printing platform and its semi-automatic process.
https://www.voxelmatters.com/nasa-acquires-c1000-ceramic-3d-printer-from-3dceram/
Hurricane Debby Slams US in NASA Image Amid 'Catastrophic' Flood Warning
Updated Aug 06, 2024 at 7:38 AM EDT
NASA images have revealed how Category 1 Hurricane Debby looked from space, just before it slammed into the Florida coast yesterday morning.
The hurricane, which has claimed at least five lives across the state according to The Associated Press, pounded into Florida's Big Bend region at around 7 a.m. local time on Monday, bringing 80 mph winds, storm surges and flash flooding.
No longer hurricane-force, the now tropical storm traveled across Florida throughout Monday, and is now blustering its way into Georgia, causing intense rainfall with warnings of "catastrophic flooding."
Hurricane Debby dropped huge volumes of rain across Florida—over a foot in some regions—causing rapid and disastrous flash flooding in several areas.
In Sarasota, around 500 people were rescued from flooded houses, and in Manatee County, nearly 200 more needed to be rescued from floodwaters.
"Essentially we've had twice the amount of the rain that was predicted for us to have," Sarasota County Fire Chief David Rathbun said on social media.
Over 200,000 homes were left without power as of 11 a.m. local time on Monday, according to PowerOutage.us
Five deaths have been reported from the storm so far, including a 13-year-old boy in Levy County, Florida and a 19-year-old man in Georgia who had trees fall onto their homes.
A 64-year-old truck driver from Mississippi died when his vehicle fell into a canal in Hillsborough County and a 38-year-old woman and 12-year-old boy died in a car crash in Dixie County.
"In portions of Florida where Debby has passed, deadly hazards remain, including downed power lines and flooded areas.
Ensure generators are properly ventilated to avoid carbon monoxide poisoning. Exercise caution when using chainsaws and power tools, and drink plenty of water to avoid heat exhaustion," the National Hurricane Center (NHC) said in a Forecast Discussion early on Tuesday morning.
The NASA image of the hurricane hitting Florida was snapped by the ABI (Advanced Baseline Imager) on the NOAA GOES-16 (Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite-16) at about 3 a.m. Eastern Time, roughly four hours before Debby made landfall.
The storm, which currently has wind speeds of about 45 mph, is expected to move slightly off the Georgia coast later today, possibly intensifying over the ocean, before moving back over South Carolina on Thursday, traveling up the East Coast.
"Potentially historic heavy rainfall across southeast Georgia and eastern South Carolina through Friday will likely result in areas of catastrophic flooding," the NHC said.
"Heavy rainfall will likely result in flooding impacts from northern North Carolina through portions of Mid-Atlantic States and southern New England through Sunday Morning."
"Rainfall totals of 10 to 20 inches, with maximum amounts of 25 inches" are being forecast for certain regions of Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina later this week, potentially causing disastrous flash flooding. Additionally, coastal communities are at risk from storm surges caused by intense winds.
"Dangerous storm surge and tropical storm conditions will spread northward along the southeast U.S. coast from northeastern Florida to North Carolina through the middle of the week," the NHC said.
"Storm surge and tropical storm watches and warnings have been issued for portions of these areas. Residents in the storm surge watch and warning area should follow any advice given by local officials."
https://www.newsweek.com/hurricane-debby-nasa-space-flash-flooding-florida-1935130
1st 'hyperspectral' image of aurora borealis reveals true colors of northern lights
August 6, 2024
A newly developed instrument shows Earth's Northern Lights or the Aurora Borealis in a dazzling rainbow of colors.
There's no shortage of images of Earth's auroras, the Aurora Borealis or Aurora Australias, dazzling ribbons of lights that dance over our planet's northern and southern hemispheres, respectively.
Both amateur and professional astronomers photograph this dazzling phenomenon pretty much every time it makes an appearance.
But hyperspectral imaging of the aurora, well, now that's a different beast.
Japan's National Institute for Fusion Science (NIFS) has installed the ultra-sensitive Hyperspectral Camera (HySCAI) at the Swedish Space Center's Kiruna Esrange Optical Platform Site (KEOPS) in Kiruna, Sweden, and it's returned the first-ever hyperspectral images of the aurora.
A hyperspectral image is a two-dimensional image that's broken down by wavelength (or color), which, in this case, allows researchers to study auroral emission in extraordinary detail.
More specifically, they can measure the energy of incoming electrons that cause the aurora and cause specific colors to light up the night sky.
Other forms of auroral imaging are filtered by wavelength but don’t produce such a comprehensive overview.
With HySCAI, researchers hope to "[solve] important auroral issues such as the distribution of precipitating electrons, their relationship to auroral color, and the mechanism of auroral emission," according to a press release.
To create HySCAI, the NIFS researchers used technology developed for the Large Helical Device (LHD), the world's largest superconducting plasma device, located at their lab in Toki, Gifu, Japan. In building the LHD, the team devised various imaging systems to observe light emitted from plasma in a magnetic field, with the goal of studying energy transport and atomic and molecular emission.
Auroras are natural light shows sparked by charged particles from the sun, contained in the solar wind, hitting Earth's magnetic field, the magnetosphere, and our planet's thin atmosphere at high altitudes.
These particles collide with oxygen and nitrogen particles and energize them.
The particles then shed this energy in the form of light, or electromagnetic radiation, that shines at characteristic wavelengths depending on the molecule emitting it.
That means a hyperspectral image of the Northern Lights can give a detailed picture of the composition of Earth's atmosphere.
NIFS came up with the idea to adapt those systems for HySCAI in 2018 — the imaging system took five more years to develop fully, and it was installed at KEOPS in May 2023. HySCAI became operational in September 2023, and the team has published its research on the data in the journal Earth, Planets and Space.
With HySCAI, scientists the world over will be able to gain new insight into the mysterious aurora.
https://www.space.com/aurora-borealis-1st-hyperspectral-images
https://www.space.com/lunar-samples-graphene-moon-origins
'Wonder material' found in lunar samples hints at moon's origins
August 6, 2024
Scientists have discovered naturally formed graphene flakes in lunar soil samples, potentially shedding light on the mystery surrounding the moon's formation.
The samples were collected from the moon in 2020 by Chang'e-5 (CE-5), the fifth lunar exploration mission of the Chinese Lunar Exploration Program and China's first mission to return samples to Earth.
Graphene is a form of carbon, or "allotrope," made up of a single layer of atoms arranged in a honeycomb structure. It was first discovered in 2004 by Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov.
In 2010, the duo received the Nobel Prize in Physics for the discovery because of graphene's remarkable physical properties and its potential applications in electronics, energy storage, sensing and biomedicine, among many others.
"Graphene has revolutionized the research of condensed matter physics and materials science with its novel physical phenomena and extraordinary properties," the lunar sample team wrote in a recent paper published in the journal National Science Review.
But why were scientists looking for graphene on the moon to begin with?
Could graphene reveal how the moon formed?
The moon's origins are still up for debate, though many theories have been put forward throughout the years. One theory in particular, the giant impact hypothesis, has gained popularity.
This hypothesis proposes that Earth collided with a Mars-size planet around 4.5 billion years ago, producing debris in Earth's orbit that eventually formed the moon.
Giant impacts like this were common in the inner solar system when Earth was coming together in the turbulent early era of our planetary system.
While the moon's composition is similar to Earth's, samples brought back by NASA's Apollo missions revealed that our planet's long-serving lunar companion is relatively depleted in volatile elements (elements that are easily vaporized), including carbon, when compared to our planet.
Scientists postulated that the intense heat generated by such a massive collision would have caused volatile elements to vaporize and escape, leaving behind a carbon-depleted body.
The Apollo samples also showed a similarity in isotope composition between Earth and the moon.
Isotopes are atoms of the same element with different numbers of neutrons in their nuclei, so these results further support the idea that the moon formed from material flung away from Earth after a giant impact.
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This new data from CE-5, along with recent observations that have detected carbon ion fluxes emanating from the moon, indicate there might be native or indigenous carbon present there.
That challenges the existing consensus around this theory. "It is highly desirable to unravel the crystalline structure of the [moon's] indigenous carbon," wrote the team.
This is because carbon is a fundamental element for understanding the formation and evolution of planetary bodies, with its shape and structure determined by the process of its formation.
"Since graphene has been routinely prepared by using artificial techniques with distinct morphologies and properties as determined by the specific formation process, the composition and structure characterization of natural graphene would provide rich information on the geologic evolution of parent bodies," the team said.
The team behind the discovery of graphene in lunar samples analyzed an "olive-shaped" lunar soil sample 2.9 millimeters long and 1.6 mm wide.
To search for graphene carbon within this sample, the researchers used a variety of characterization techniques commonly used by chemists, including scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and Raman spectroscopy.
Raman spectroscopy is a light-scattering technique that allows scientists to study the vibrational, rotational and low-frequency modes of bonds within molecules.
Thus, this technique provides insights into the structure and composition of these molecules. On the other hand, SEM creates high-resolution images of the surface of a material using a focused beam of electrons.
SEM can be used to determine elemental composition. With these tools, the scientists identified embedded flakes of graphene in carbon-rich areas of the sample, ranging from two to seven layers thick.
The team also observed that the layered graphene forms a shell structure enclosing a core of complex compounds.
This suggests a bottom-up synthesis process rather than creation by exfoliation, the separation of layers by breaking bonds between them, which typically involves a high-temperature reaction.
In addition to finding graphene in the CE-5 returned lunar soil samples, the scientists found an iron-containing compound present only in areas of the sample where carbon was found.
This is intriguing because iron-containing minerals on the moon, such as olivine and pyroxene, may have played a role in catalyzing carbon's transformation into graphene.
"This finding may reinvent the understanding of chemical components, geography episodes, and the history of the moon," the team behind this discovery said.
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How satellite technology made it into 2024 Olympic swimsuits
August 5, 2024
The swimsuits worn at the 2024 Summer Olympics leverage a similar technology used to protect satellites in space.
Fastskin LZR swimsuits — a collaboration between Lamoral and Speedo — are coated in a durable water repellent that's also used to protect satellites from cosmic radiation.
Thanks to this technology, swimmers are able to glide more easily through the pool.
"Our new development with Lamoral underpins [Speedo] Aqualab's mission to push the limits of swimwear design through innovation," Simon Breckon, senior vice president at Speedo, said in a statement released by Lamoral Coatings.
"We've retained all the brilliant properties that make Speedo Fastskin suits the world's fastest, the world's best just got even better."
Tech suits, as they're called, can have a big impact on swimmers' performance.
Ultimately, the goal of Speedo's Fastskin LZR Intent 2.0 and the Fastskin LZR Valor 2.0 is to reduce friction, or drag, in the water and improve hydrodynamics.
Lamoral's innovative water repellency technology is a lightweight fabric coating that offers a feeling of weightlessness.
It has the lowest water absorption rate with six times more durable water repellency, according to the statement.
"When you see athletes splash themselves or you see them getting out of the water, they're glistening because you see these water droplets kind of running off of them," Coora Lavezzo, Speedo's head of innovation, told USA Today Sports.
"And that's really down to the water repellency that we use."
For swimmers competing in the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris, their choice of tech suit could cost them a gold medal.
Olympian Ryan Murphy stated that he glides further off the wall in his tech suit, compared to his training suit, estimating that his tech suit shaves about a second off his times for every 50 meters,
USA Today Sports reported. And that could very well be the second separating first and second place.
The Lamoral coating used on satellites helps protect the spacecraft from long-term exposure to harsh sun radiation and extreme cold in space.
https://www.space.com/satellite-technology-olympic-swimsuits-2024
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