TYB
Latest LA Hughes Fire already visible from space as over 50,000 remain under evacuations orders
Updated21:39 ET, JAN 22 2025
The latest wildfire raging through Southern California is already large enough to be seen from space as 50,000 residents in Los Angeles and Ventura County Counties are under evacuation orders, according to CALFire.
The Hughes Fire has already burned over 8,000 acres after breaking out on Wednesday morning near Castaic Lake, a popular recreation spot just north of Santa Clarita.
A 30-mile (48-kilometer) stretch of Interstate 5, a major north-south artery, was closed as flames raced along hilltops and down into wooded canyons.
Crews on the ground and in water-dropping aircraft tried to prevent the wind-driven fire from moving across the interstate and toward Castaic, where most of the 19,000 residents were ordered to evacuate.
Another 15,000 people in the area were warned to prepare to leave at a moment’s notice, according to the LA County Sheriff’s Department.
Winds in the area were gusting at 42 mph in the afternoon but were expected to increase to 60 mph by later in the evening and Thursday, the National Weather Service said on the social platform X.
The Hughes Fire comes only weeks after the Eaton and Palisades Fires devastated areas of the Los Angeles region, killing at least 28 people and destroying over 15,000 structures, according to CALFire.
While dry conditions and high winds are making these ongoing blazes especially destructive, rain in the forecast for later in the week may bring some much needed relief for the area but that comes with it's own set of problems.
Officials in Los Angeles are beginning to prepare for potential rain even as some residents were allowed to return to the charred Pacific Palisades and Altadena areas.
Gusty weather was expected to last through Thursday and precipitation was possible starting Saturday, according to the National Weather Service.
“Rains are in the forecast and the threat of mud and debris flow in our fire-impacted communities is real,” Supervisor Kathryn Barger said during a Wednesday morning news conference.
Fire crews were filling sandbags for communities while county workers installed barriers and cleared drainage pipes and basins.
Red flag warnings for critical fire risk were extended through 10 a.m. Friday in LA and Ventura counties.
Officials remained concerned that the Palisades and Eaton fires could break their containment lines as firefighters continue watching for hot spots.
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass warned that winds could carry ash and advised Angelenos to visit the city’s website to learn how to protect themselves from toxic air during the latest Santa Ana wind event.
LA County public health director Barbara Ferrer cautioned that the ash could contain heavy metals, arsenic and other harmful materials.
The Hughes Fire remains at 0% containment as of Wednesday evening fresh evacuation orders were issued in the late evening as the fire continues to progress.
https://www.themirror.com/news/us-news/latest-la-hughes-fire-already-926749
I think I saw the pictures wiggle after those booms
https://www.earth.com/news/fast-radio-burst-frb-20240209a-detected-from-dead-galaxy-should-not-be-possible/
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/2041-8213/ad9ddc
Deep space radio burst is detected from a 'dead galaxy,' baffling scientists
01-22-2025
Fast radio bursts are sudden flashes of radio waves, often lasting mere milliseconds. The first appeared on astronomers’ radar in 2007, and for the most part, still remain a complete mystery.
Scientists have since recorded thousands of them across the sky, each leaving behind questions about what kind of cosmic drama can generate such concentrated energy in so little time.
The bursts usually come from far beyond our own galaxy, making them challenging to trace back to a specific source.
Last summer, one set of repeated bursts caught special attention. Intense radio signals in the northern constellation Ursa Minor suggested something unusual. Initial data pointed to a source lying well outside our galactic neighborhood.
Researchers worked to narrow down its origin with a newly commissioned radio telescope that could combine signals from multiple arrays.
They hoped to piece together a more precise map of these flashes to get clues about how and where they formed.
Unexpected FRB source
Astronomer Calvin Leung, a Miller Postdoctoral Fellowship recipient at the University of California, Berkeley, helped develop the computer code that made it possible to pinpoint the fast radio bursts with high accuracy.
When he and his team plotted the signals, they found that the source sat in the distant outskirts of an ancient elliptical galaxy about 2 billion light years from Earth.
This galaxy is around 11.3 billion years old, leading experts to believe it should not contain the kind of young, magnetized neutron star that might create these flashes.
Leung posits, “now the question was: How are you going to explain the presence of a magnetar inside this old, dead galaxy?”
Aiming telescopes at this radio burst
Once the spot was identified, colleagues turned optical telescopes to that region. What they saw did not match expectations.
Telescopes revealed a long-dead galaxy, lacking the active star factories known to give birth to the supermassive stars that collapse into magnetars.
A graduate researcher at McGill University in Montreal, Canada, named Vishwangi Shah refined the calculations used to confirm the bursts’ location.
“This is not only the first FRB to be found outside a dead galaxy, but compared to all other FRBs, it’s also the farthest from the galaxy it’s associated with,” Shah explained.
“The FRB’s location is surprising and raises questions about how such energetic events can occur in regions where no new stars are forming.”
Shah’s paper on this unusual fast radio burst, designated FRB 20240209A, was published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters on Tuesday, Jan. 21.
Pinpointing fast radio burst locations
Further progress in Leung’s FRB mapping mission came from the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME), which has detected a large share of these bursts.
Its main array in British Columbia recently gained partner stations called outriggers, designed to sharpen its imaging abilities.
“When paired with the three outriggers, we should be able to accurately pinpoint one FRB a day to its galaxy, which is substantial.
That’s 20 times better than CHIME, with two outrigger arrays,” Leung explained.
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Using both optical and infrared telescopes
A new site at Hat Creek Observatory in Northern California is also online this week, raising hopes that astronomers can identify many more locations of similar bursts.
With these improvements, researchers can steer optical and infrared telescopes to the same spot in the sky. They can then figure out whether these bursts come from star clusters or distinct structures within a galaxy.
After Shah’s paper on FRB 20240209A was submitted, observers at the Green Bank Observatory in West Virginia, led by MIT’s Shion Andrew, used a second outrigger to verify the position of that newly discovered signal.
A related study by scientists at Northwestern University in Illinois, led by Einstein Postdoctoral Fellow Tarraneh Eftekhari, was also published that day.
Eftekhari said, “It’s clear that there’s still a lot of exciting discovery space when it comes to FRBs and that their environments could hold the key to unlocking their secrets,”
Explaining this radio burst
The presence of such a powerful burst in the outskirts of a silent elliptical galaxy hints at a new chapter in FRB studies.
“This result challenges existing theories that tie FRB origins to phenomena in star-forming galaxies,” Shah noted.
Because active star-forming regions are known breeding grounds for magnetars, this development opens the door to alternative ideas about how these bursts arise.
“The source could be in a globular cluster, a dense region of old, dead stars outside the galaxy.
If confirmed, it would make FRB 20240209A only the second FRB linked to a globular cluster,” Shah concluded.
This galaxy stopped forming new stars long ago, yet the data point to a burst generated by something akin to a magnetar.
If that scenario is correct, it might mean these exotic objects can emerge in places once deemed unlikely.
What happens next?
Researchers want to learn more about how an old galaxy could host events usually tied to younger environments. Leung sees huge promise in better pinpointing tools.
“CHIME and its outrigger telescopes will let us do astrometry at a level unmatched by the Hubble Space Telescope or the James Webb Space Telescope.
It’ll be up to them to drill down to find the source. It’s an amazing radio telescope,” Leung enthusiastically concluded.
To sum it all up, what we learned is that astronomers still have a lot to learn about fast radio bursts. What causes them? Where do they come from?
As with most things in the universe, FRB answers are elusive, but that won’t keep us from continuing to ask the questions and doing the the work that it takes to find the answers, because that’s what science is all about.
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>>22418814
There’s A Chirping Chorus In Space Far Beyond The Earth
January 22, 2025
Electromagnetic chorus waves once thought to only exist close to the Earth have been found at a distance of 165,000 kilometers (102,526 miles) from us.
Although that is still less than half the way to the Moon, the discovery indicates this chorus of rising-tone waves may exist far from any planet.
“Chorus waves” is the name given to bursts of electromagnetic radiation that, when converted to sound, reminded scientists of the dawn chorus of bird chirps.
Whether you have the same response might depend on the type of birds in your neighborhood, but the name stuck.
They’re far from the only poorly understood natural electromagnetic emissions we have found in space, but are among the strongest, leading to intense study.
Chorus waves are very brief, lasting less than a second, but they contribute to the formation of the radiation belt around the Earth that acts as a protective mechanism, and shape auroras and deflect electrons to strike the atmosphere.
Since they align with Earth’s magnetic field, chorus waves were thought to be a local phenomenon, resulting from some planetary influence, probably the field itself.
They’ve also been found near other planets, indicating their cause is not strictly Earthly. It was thought they might be restricted to areas within 10 times a planet’s radius and formed over the equator.
However, the distinctive rising tone of chorus waves has now been detected much further away by NASA’s four Magnetospheric Multiscale Satellites (MMS).
The detected waves last just 0.1 seconds, and their frequency rises by about 100 Hz a second, similar to those detected closer to the planet.
Although a larger sample of locations would be useful, that may mean that these waves occur in a much wider range of environments.
That said, the newly detected waves come not from some truly remote location halfway to another planet, but from an area known as the terrestrial mid-tail neutral sheet.
This is on the opposite side of the Earth from the Sun, where the Earth’s magnetic field has become highly distorted. Indeed, this region doesn’t show the effects of the Earth’s magnetic dipole, which was thought to cause, or at least shape, chorus waves.
Based on the MMS observations, a team led by Dr Chengming Liu of Beihang University report the chorus waves interact with electrons in the area.
It had been proposed these interactions would cause electrons to spiral, creating electron “holes” somewhat analogous to those of semiconductors.
Liu’s team managed to find one such hole.
The authors think the chorus waves are produced by thermal electrons with energies of around 3 kiloelectron volts.
Although local electrons with energies in that range transfer energy to the waves, high-energy electrons can extract energy from them through a process known as relativistic resonance.
https://www.iflscience.com/theres-a-chirping-chorus-in-space-far-beyond-the-earth-77744
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-08402-z
Florida Snowfall Seen From Space in 'Historic' Photo
Jan 22, 2025 at 3:33 PM EST
Enough snow fell in the Florida panhandle on Tuesday that it was visible from space.
On Wednesday morning, the National Weather Service (NWS) office in Tallahassee, Florida, posted a satellite image to X (formerly Twitter) that was taken around 9:50 a.m. local time.
The image, which NWS Tallahassee called a "historic," showed snowfall throughout the Florida panhandle, as well as in Alabama and Georgia.
Rare winter storms hit the Gulf Coast on Tuesday from eastern Texas through the Florida panhandle.
Snowfall was so intense in the Lake Charles, Louisiana, region that the local National Weather Service (NWS) office issued its first-ever blizzard warning.
Florida was among the southern states that saw accumulating snow, so much so that it was visible from space.
As of Wednesday afternoon, the winter storm that produced the snow had passed, though temperatures in the panhandle still remained far below normal.
Many locations saw temperatures dip into the 20s and even the teens, which was colder than the temperature in Anchorage, Alaska.
Snow reports poured in, and meteorologists are still evaluating if any records were broken in the area. The Tallahassee snowfall record of 2.4 inches, which was made in 1958, was not broken, NWS meteorologist Lance Franck told Newsweek, as 1.9 inches of snow fell in Tallahassee with the recent storm. The last time measurable snowfall occurred in Tallahassee was in 2018.
It has stopped snowing in Florida, though snow still remains on the ground. Extreme cold warnings will remain in place in some parts of the state until Thursday.
Records were broken elsewhere along the Gulf Coast, such as in New Orleans. As much as 8 inches of snow fell in New Orleans, which breaks the all-time snowfall record of 2.7 inches in 1963 by more than 5 inches.
NWS meteorologist Lance Franck told Newsweek: "Fortunately, no further winter weather is expected. It moved out of the region late last night.
Now, we are looking at concerns about what is melting today as temperatures approach freezing will refreeze tonight and create additional hazardous travel conditions."
NWS Tallahassee in a post on X: "A historic morning snapshot of the Tri-State area following the unforgettable winter storm that blanketed much of the Gulf Coast states.
The snow on the ground is a site to behold from space. The red dot roughly represents #Tallahassee."
NWS Tallahassee in an extreme cold warning: "Frostbite and hypothermia will occur if unprotected skin is exposed to these temperatures. An extended period of freezing temperatures could cause ruptured water pipes."
The extreme cold warning in Florida will expire Thursday morning.
According to a six- to 10-day temperature outlook from the NWS Climate Prediction Center, a warming trend will take place in the Sunshine State.
Temperatures are expected to be above normal.
https://www.newsweek.com/florida-snowfall-seen-space-historic-photo-2019172
https://twitter.com/NWSTallahassee/status/1882078987599716849
https://www.space.com/the-universe/solar-system/strange-earth-quasi-moon-named-cardea-after-goddess-of-door-hinges
Strange 'quasi-moon' of Earth gets named Cardea, after goddess of door hinges
January 22, 2025
Until we live in a world based purely on sliding doors, door hinges will remain some of the most unsung heroes of our society.
We'd still be able to saunter through door frames, sure, but nothing would so seamlessly connect the place we once were with the place we are going.
On a metaphorical level, door hinges represent an intermediate state we use to move back and forth, and decide when to lock ourselves in the locations of here or there.
It is thus only fitting for a goddess to be named for none other than the door hinge: Cardea. And now, thanks to Clay Chilcutt, a student at the University of Georgia, there is a cosmic object named for this goddess.
Chilcutt was the winner of a naming contest created by the International Astronomical Union — the organization in charge of formally naming space phenomena — and the popular science podcast Radiolab.
The goal was to find a name for one of Earth's seven known quasi-moons; its provisional designation was the very catchy title of 2004 GU9.
Quasi-moons are "moons" that orbit planets and seem to behave like regular moons at first glance.
In truth, however, a quasi-moon follows an orbit around the sun (like an asteroid would) rather than the respective planet itself (like a standard old moon would).
The mooniness of a quasi-moon is simply an illusion. (The most famous quasi-moon of Earth is probably Kamo'oalewa, which could actually have true lunar origins.)
Chilcutt submitted the name Cardea for the particular quasi-moon 2004 GU9 — and won.
"Before this assignment, Cardea was completely unknown to me." Chilcutt told Space.com. "This whole thing happened because of an extra credit assignment for my astronomy class at UGA.
I figured I'd put in just a little effort and it ended up going a long way."
In the official submission, Chilcutt wrote: "Cardea presides over transitions and liminal spaces.
A quasi-moon occupies a unique orbital path, existing in a transitional state between a true moon and an independent asteroid.
She symbolizes change, guardianship, and the passage between realms. This name reflects the quasi-moon's unique orbital path, embodying a celestial gateway between Earth and space."
Cardea was up against six other finalists in the 2004 GU9 name contest, each of which has an equally rich history.
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There was "Bakunawa," in reference to a moon-eating, serpent-like dragon in Filipino mythology that's said to cause eclipses and earthquakes, and Ehaema, calling on a nocturnal spirit in Estonian mythology.
There was also Enkidu, a legendary figure and friend of the iconic Gilgamesh in Mesopotamian (Sumerian) mythology and Ótr, who, in Norse mythology, could take any form but usually picked that of an otter.
The last options were Tarriaksuk, in reference to humanoid shadow beings that exist in another dimension, according to Inuit mythology, and Tecciztecatl, a lunar deity representing the "man on the moon" in Aztec mythology.
"When I had heard I won I was honestly very shocked. I almost couldn't believe it," Chilcutt said. "It's a very unique experience to say I've left my mark on history and made a contribution to science."
The jury of cosmic nomenclators for this contest was robust and quite diverse in discipline. Co-host of Radiolab, Latif Nasser, was arguably the orchestrator of it all because he's the reason 2004 GU9 started on its road to earning a name in the first place.
Last year, Nasser managed to name a quasi-moon of Venus, numerically tagged as 2002 VE, "Zoozve."
If you didn't notice in that sentence, Zoozve is the letter version of 2002 VE, if you think of the 2's as Z's and the 0's as O's. There's a lovely story about why that's the case.
When putting his son to bed one day, Nasser had been looking at a solar system poster on the wall. According to this poster, Venus had a moon named "Zoozve."
That's not possible, Nasser thought to himself, because Venus is moonless. It was eventually revealed that Nasser was simply misreading the poster. It depicted Venus with a natural satellite, yes, but that satellite was named 2002 VE.
Nasser's mind just made up "Zoozve." This story went viral on social media, bringing people together in cosmic serendipity online. So, Nasser asked the IAU if the moment could be christened by actually naming 2002 VE Zoozve.
Ultimately, the answer was yes — and here we are now.
It makes sense why Nasser was inspired to name yet another quasi-moon in our solar system, particularly through a contest that lets a space-lover pick said name.
"We did it! A new year and a new (quasi) moon name! Who better to help usher us through this liminal time than an ancient doorkeeper?
This whole naming contest has been a true celebration of what Radiolab is all about — curiosity and enthusiasm for the mysterious universe around us," Nasser said in a statement.
"We hope that this quasi-moon name continues to inspire people to learn more about space and science in general, to look up together to remember the universal things we all share."
Meanwhile, other members of the jury included Gossip Girl actor Penn Badgley, theoretical physicist Sean Carroll, astrophysicist Wanda Diaz Merced — and, to Chilcutt's delight, Bill Nye the Science Guy.
"I later found out Bill Nye was on the panel of experts that Radiolab and the International Astronomical Union put together to select the finalists," Chilcutt said. "It was a truly humbling experience."
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Astrophotographer captures a 'Great Dragon' in the Pelican Nebula
January 22, 2025
The image features a dark region of space found between the Pelican Nebula and the Cygnus Wall, which are both part of the North America Nebula in the constellation Cygnus.
This region is photographed often, especially because of the well-known North American nebula NGC 7000 where this region of the sky is embedded.
The nebula gets its name from the fact that it resembles the North American continent.
But few images – I only found half a dozen in Astrobin prior to this, for reference – offer a real portrait of the "hidden" Dragon in all its glory.
I tried to emphasize this dragon-like shape in my framing of this photograph, which I have named the "Great Dragon of Pelican."
The dark nebula LDN 935, which resembles the figure of a Chinese Dragon, is known as the "Gulf of Mexico" – which is more easy to understand when seeing it from certain angles that make it resemble its geographic counterpart.
This is a region where the obscured interstellar dust lanes absorb and scatter the light, darkening the space between both nebulas.
The greenish right edge reveals the bright interesting area known as the Cygnus Wall, a true stellar nursery of newly formed stars.
The wall is eroded and illuminated by bright young stars, partially not visible for being occulted behind the dust they have just created.
On the left side of the dust shines the Pelican Nebula, an evolving cloud of gas and star formation.
The light from young energetic stars is slowly transforming the cold gas into hot gas, revealing the advancing boundary between both, known as the ionization front.
This front is visible on the image as a bright orange-reddish region, with intricate filaments of cold gas visible along the front.
I have also included a starless image to help viewers appreciate only the nebulosity in the image.
This image represents ten total hours of observation and was captured from the Dark Sky Alqueva observatory in Portugal, in different wavelengths between Ha, OIII and RGB light, using the Anit-Halo PRO Dual-Band 3nm and a Poseidon-C Pro Camera from Player One Astronomy.
https://www.space.com/stargazing/astrophotgrapher-captures-the-great-dragon-of-the-pelican-nebula-in-all-its-glory
https://miguel-claro-prints.myshopify.com/pages/email-signup
Watch Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost moon lander witness an eclipse from space
January 22, 2025
Firefly Aerospace's Blue Ghost moon lander is on its way to the moon.
The Blue Ghost lander completed its first main engine burn during its journey to the lunar surface, which is expected to take a total of 45 days.
Blue Ghost will orbit Earth for 21 more days before it embarks on a four-day trip to reach lunar orbit.
Once there, it will spend 16 days circling the moon before making its way down to attempt a landing on the lunar surface, if all goes according to plan.
On Tuesday (Jan. 20), NASA released an update about one of the 10 scientific payloads the agency is sending to the moon on Blue Ghost, stating that the experiment has successfully acquired a signal while 205,674 miles (331,000 kilometers) from Earth's surface.
The update was released along with a timelapse video that shows Earth eclipsing the sun as seen from the perspective of the lander while en route to the moon.
The instrument about which NASA released an update, known as the Lunar GNSS Receiver Experiment (LuGRE), is designed to demonstrate and test satellite-based position, navigation and timing systems close to and on the moon.
GPS satellites are a type of GNSS technology, as are the European Union's Galileo navigation spacecraft.
LuGRE was able to acquire a signal from both GPS and Galileo constellations while at 90% of the distance to the moon, setting an Earth-moon "signal distance record," according to NASA's statement.
Aside from successfully testing LuGRE, NASA and Firefly Aerospace say Blue Ghost remains healthy as it prepares to make for lunar orbit sometime next month.
In an update posted to X, Firefly Aerospace said the lander executed its first burn with a high level of precision, setting the spacecraft up for its upcoming translunar injection burn that will put it on course for the moon.
Blue Ghost launched on Jan. 15 atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying not one but two moon landers; ispace's Resilience lander was also along for the ride.
When Blue Ghost — Firefly's first-ever moon lander — reaches the lunar surface, it will deploy or operate 10 NASA science experiments.
It is built to operate for about two Earth weeks, or one lunar day, before the sun sets and eventually depletes the lander's power source.
Once night begins setting on the moon, the lander will take images of the lunar sunset and measure how lunar regolith (moon dust) reacts to dusk and sunset on the moon.
Blue Ghost will then operate for a few hours into the night before its batteries die.
https://www.space.com/space-exploration/launches-spacecraft/watch-firefly-aerospaces-blue-ghost-moon-lander-witness-an-eclipse-from-space-video
https://blogs.nasa.gov/artemis/2025/01/21/blue-ghost-conducts-first-burn-science-operations-captures-eclipse/
400 rocket landings! SpaceX notches reuse milestone
January 23, 2025
SpaceX made some history during Tuesday's (Jan. 21) Starlink satellite launch from California.
On that mission, a Falcon 9 rocket sent 27 Starlink broadband craft to low Earth orbit from Vandenberg Space Force Base.
About eight minutes after liftoff, the Falcon 9's first stage returned to Earth as planned, acing its landing on a drone ship at sea.
SpaceX has made such pinpoint touchdowns commonplace, pulling them off hundreds of times to date.
In fact, Tuesday's success brought the number of its orbital-class rocket landings to an even 400, the company announced via X.
The vast majority of those touchdowns have been achieved by the Falcon 9, SpaceX's workhorse rocket.
The company re-flies Falcon 9 boosters repeatedly. One first stage, for instance, has a record 25 launches and landings under its belt.
The rest of the 400 landings have come courtesy of SpaceX's powerful Falcon Heavy, whose first stage consists of three modified Falcon 9 boosters.
(The Heavy can notch three landings on a single mission, but it has flown just 11 times to date.)
Not included in the tally are landings by the next-gen Starship megarocket, a fully reusable vehicle that SpaceX is developing to help humanity settle the moon and Mars, among other tasks. (The upper stages of both the Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy are expendable.)
The 403.5-foot-tall (123 meters) Starship has launched on surborbital test flights seven times to date, most recently on Jan. 16.
That mission featured a dramatic catch of Starship's Super Heavy first stage by the "chopstick" arms of its launch tower at Starbase, in South Texas.
It was the second time SpaceX had pulled off the feat; it also snagged Super Heavy on Starship Flight 5 this past November.
Starship's upper stage, however, exploded about 8.5 minutes into Flight 7, apparently due to a propellant leak.
https://www.space.com/space-exploration/launches-spacecraft/400-rocket-landings-spacex-notches-reuse-milestone
https://x.com/SpaceX/status/1881732223831080967
https://www.space.com/the-universe/comets/trillions-of-comets-discovered-orbiting-alien-planet-systems-image
https://www.tcd.ie/news_events/articles/2025/astrophysicists-reveal-structure-of-74-exocomet-belts-orbiting-nearby-stars-in-landmark-survey/
https://www.aanda.org/articles/aa/full_html/2025/01/aa51397-24/aa51397-24.html
Trillions of comets discovered orbiting alien planet systems
January 23, 2025
Rings of comets have been discovered around 74 alien star systems, revealing not only the existence of trillions of icy exocomets, but also the source of most of the water in these systems.
The discovery of what are being termed 'planetesimal belts' was made in joint observations by the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) in Chile and the Submillimeter Array (SMA) on Mauna Kea in Hawaii.
Because the belts are so far away from their central star, they are cold, with temperatures ranging between –418 to –238 degrees Fahrenheit (–250 to –150 degrees Celsius).
As such, they mostly radiate light at long wavelengths, hence the need for ALMA and SMA.
Although to us a millimeter is small, it is much larger than the nanometer wavelength of optical light and the micron-sized wavelengths of infrared light seen by other observatories like the James Webb Space Telescope.
The submillimeter light ALMA and the SMA detected is coming from uncountable tiny 'pebbles', just millimeters in size, which were flung off of larger cometary bodies as those larger bodies collided together over cosmic timescales.
Astronomers say these types of belts are fairly common among exoplanets.
"Exocomets are boulders of rock and ice, at least 1 kilometer in size, which smash together within these belts to produce the pebbles that we observe here with the ALMA and SMA arrays of telescopes," said Luca Matrà of the University of Dublin in a statement. "Exocometary belts are found in at least 20% of planetary systems."
In our own solar system, the Kuiper Belt is a region of icy bodies, some of which fly through the inner solar system as comets, which languishes far from the sun at distances between 30 and 55 astronomical units (AU; one AU is 149.6 million kilometers/93 million miles, which is the average distance between Earth and the sun).
Exocomets beyond our solar system have previously been detected by NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), their tails flaring as they pass close to their star, and planetesimal belts have been identified before, but never in such quantities.
Hence the need for this more comprehensive survey. Matrà led the research as part of the REsolved ALMA and SMA Observations of Nearby Stars (REASONS) program.
"The images reveal a remarkable diversity in the structure of belts," said REASONS team-member Sebastián Marino of the University of Exeter.
The 74 planetesimal belts are all found around stars within 500 light years of our solar system. They have a range of ages, some having just formed, others now billions of years old.
They are found between tens of AU and hundreds of AU from their star, and some of the belts are tilted or elongated, as though the gravity of an unseen planet or planets is pulling on them.
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Yet for all the difference between them, patterns emerge.
"For example, [the survey] confirmed that the number of pebbles decreases for older planetary systems as belts run out of larger exocomets smashing together, but showed for the first time that this decrease in pebbles is faster if the belt is closer to the central star," said Matrà.
"It also indirectly showed — through the belts' vertical thickness — that unobservable objects as large as 140 kilometers to moon-size are likely present in these belts."
In general, there's also a trend among the 74 planetesimal belts for them to be larger than expected, extending out to large radii from their central star.
"Some are narrow rings, as in the canonical picture of a 'belt' like our solar system's Edgeworth–Kuiper Belt, but a larger number of them are wide, and probably better described as disks rather than rings," said Marino.
It's possible there's an observation bias at work here; smaller belts closer to their star would be warmer, and therefore would not radiate as greatly at submillimeter wavelengths, making it harder for ALMA and SMA to detect them.
This possibility could be followed up on by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), which could detect warmer belts.
JWST could also search for structure beyond ALMA's ability to resolve, such as narrow gaps in the belts or objects ranging from dwarf planets like Pluto to fully-fledged worlds.
The reason for REASONS, if you'll pardon the pun, is to give astronomers more guidance about how these icy belts form and develop, and learn more about the role they play in planetary systems as a whole.
For example, as comets do they deliver water to worlds closer to their star, perhaps for alien life on those worlds to survive from? Or do the comets bring death from the sky by impacting those worlds and wiping out life?
By being able to compare these planetesimal belts around other stars with our own Edgeworth–Kuiper Belt, which is a frontier currently being explored by pioneers such as the New Horizons mission, astronomers can uncover the secrets that these frozen realms have kept hidden.
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Aurora alert: Incoming solar storm could spark northern lights in upper Midwest skies this week
January 23, 2025
An incoming solar storm, also known as coronal mass ejection (CME), erupted from the sun on Jan. 21 and is currently on track to strike Earth with a glancing blow on Jan. 24-25.
The possible impact could spark minor geomagnetic storm conditions and possible northern lights at high latitudes such as northern Michigan and Maine.
NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center forecasts that the Kp index will peak at 5.33 over the next 48 hours, with G1 geomagnetic storm conditions possible tomorrow night (Jan. 24) from 10:00 p.m. EDT through 4:00 a.m. EDT on Jan. 25 (0300-0900 GMT on Jan. 25).
When CMEs strike Earth's magnetosphere, they bring electrically charged particles called ions that collide with our planet's magnetic field.
These collisions can spark geomagnetic storms. During these storms, ions collide with atmospheric gases, releasing energy as light.
This creates the stunning displays known as the northern lights, or Aurora Borealis, in the Northern Hemisphere, and the southern lights, or Aurora Australis, in the Southern Hemisphere.
"Heads up aurora chasers! CME INBOUND!" avid aurora chaser and PhD researcher Vincent Ledvina "The Aurora Guy" wrote in a post on X.
According to Ledvina, Kp levels of 5 to 6 are possible, so aurora chasers, charge those camera batteries
NOAA classifies geomagnetic storms using a G-scale, which ranks their intensity from G1 (minor) to G5 (extreme). The recent geomagnetic storm predictions are rated G1, indicating minor storm conditions.
The Kp index is a scale from 0 to 9 that measures geomagnetic activity with higher values indicating stronger disturbances and increased chances of auroras.
Current forecasts predict possible G1 conditions overnight on Jan. 24-Jan. 25. Check out NOAA's 3-day forecast for the latest timings.
https://www.space.com/stargazing/aurora-borealis/aurora-alert-incoming-solar-storm-could-spark-northern-lights-in-upper-midwest-skies-this-week
https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/products/3-day-forecast
https://x.com/Vincent_Ledvina/status/1882221354155745668
Chinese commercial Ceres-1 rocket launches 5 weather satellites to orbit
January 22, 2025
A Chinese commercial space launch company is continuing its success with a small solid rocket ahead of a more ambitious launch later this year.
The Ceres-1 four-stage solid propellant rocket lifted off at 5:11 a.m. EST on Jan. 20 (1011 GMT; or 8:11 p.m. local time) from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in the Gobi Desert, northwest China.
Galactic Energy, the Ceres-1 manufacturer and operator, announced in a statement that five satellites had been successfully inserted into preplanned orbits.
Aboard the flight were four Yunyao-1 commercial meteorological satellites (satellites 37-40) and the Jitianxing A-05 satellite for K-Space Aerospace Technology based in Sichuan Province.
The Yunyao-1 satellites feature GNSS occultation (GNSS-RO) payloads which discern weather data by detecting changes in signals from GPS and Beidou satellites as they pass through the atmosphere.
The Jitianxing A-05 satellite carries a hyperspectral camera to capture remote sensing imagery of the Earth.
Galactic Energy is one of the early successes from China's commercial space sector, with a launch record which stands at 17 launch attempts and 16 successes.
The company also plans to launch its first, more complex liquid propellant launch vehicle later this year.
The Pallas-1 rocket—like Ceres-1 it is also named after a major planetary body in the main asteroid belt—uses a kerosene-liquid oxygen propellant mix and will eventually be adapted so that the first stage can be recovered and reused.
While the 62-foot-tall (19 meters), four-stage Ceres-1 can send 880 pounds (400 kilograms) to low Earth orbit (LEO), the 138-ft-tall (42 m) Pallas-1 will be capable of sending up to 17,630 pounds (8,000 kg) to LEO.
Monday’s mission was China’s fourth orbital launch of 2025, following launches that sent a satellite refueling test spacecraft, navigation enhancement satellite and an Earth observation satellite for Pakistan into orbit.
https://www.space.com/space-exploration/private-spaceflight/chinese-commercial-ceres-1-rocket-launches-5-satellites-video
https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/-XhG6VUzU2cKZfJPlUsbDw
China launches fourth batch of Thousand Sails megaconstellation satellites
January 23, 2025
China launched the fourth batch of 18 satellites for the Thousand Sails megaconstellation early Thursday using a Long March 6A rocket.
The Long March 6A lifted off at 12:11 a.m. Eastern (0511 UTC) Jan. 23 from Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center in north China, carrying 18 Qianfan (Thousand Sails) Polar orbit group 6 satellites into orbit.
The China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC), which produced the launcher, confirmed launch success in a post-launch statement.
THe 18 flat panel satellites are part of the Thousand Sails megaconstellation to provide low Earth orbit internet services. The project is led by Shanghai Spacecom Satellite Technology (SSST).
The project is sometimes also referred to as Qianfan and G60 Starlink. The launch followed earlier Thousand Sails/Qianfan constellation satellite launches in August, October and December 2024.
There are now 72 Qianfan satellites in orbit. SSST, or Spacesail, plans to construct a constellation of 14,000 satellites, including having around 600 in orbit by the end of 2025.
Spacesail has garnered substantial support, securing approximately $943 million in funding in early 2024. Genesat, a satellite manufacturing subsidiary of Spacesai, secured $137 million in funding in late December.
The satellites launched today are thought to have been manufactured by the Shanghai Engineering Center for Microsatellites.
Of the three batches already in orbit, the first batch of 18 satellites have mostly raised their orbits from around 800 kilometers to around 1,060 kilometers in altitude, according to U.S. space tracking data.
The second batch have so far performed little orbit raising, suggesting issues with the satellites. All satellites are in orbits inclined by 89 degrees.
CASC said it plans to launch more than 10 Long March 6A rockets this year. Last year it launched five; three of which were for Spacesail.
Ten Long March 6A rockets have now been launched in total since its debut in 2022.
The Long March 6A, developed by SAST, is the first and so far only Chinese launcher to bundle a liquid propellant core stage with solid propellant side boosters.
It is capable of launching 4,500 kilograms of payload to a 700-kilometer sun-synchronous orbit
The rocket has, despite successful launches, suffered apparent issues with its upper stage fragmenting.
The upper stage for the launch which carried the first 18 Qianfan satellites broke up into a cloud suspected to number more than 700 pieces of orbital debris.
The first launch of satellites for another, state-owned Chinese megaconstellation, Guowang, took place mid-December.
The mission was China’s fifth orbital launch attempt of 2025. It follows the launch of the Shijian-25 spacecraft servicing satellite Jan. 6, the sea launch of 10 navigation augmentation satellites Jan. 13, a remote sensing satellite for Pakistan and two smaller domestic satellites, and a Ceres-1 launch of five commercial satellites earlier this week.
CASC has yet to publish an overview of China’s overall plans for the year, but it may once again attempt to reach around 100 launches, as targeted for 2024.
Major missions for 2025 include crewed Shenzhou-20 and -21 missions and Tianzhou cargo spacecraft to the Tiangong space station and the Tianwen-2 near-Earth asteroid sample return mission.
The latter is expected to launch around May. China also aims to debut a number of new Long March and potentially reusable commercial rockets during 2025.
https://spacenews.com/china-launches-fourth-batch-of-thousand-sails-megaconstellation-satellites/
Citizen Airmen answer astronauts HSFS search, rescue call
Jan. 22, 2025
A joint-task force of Guardsmen and Reservists conquer air, space and sea to provide Human Space Flight Support training for astronaut retrieval through search and rescue Jan. 14-17, at Patrick Space Force Base.
Guardsmen from the 204th Airlift Squadron, Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, Hawaii, joined hands with Reservists from the 315th Airlift Wing, Joint Base Charleston, South Carolina, and the 308th Rescue Squadron, Patrick SFB, Florida, to train on HSFS search and rescue airdrop techniques, used to retrieve astronauts from open-ocean waters upon returning to Earth.
“The developments in the space industry from 2020, when [JB] Hickam originally picked up this alert, until now, show an increase in SpaceX launches to include Boeing Starliner, and now in 2026, the Artemis team,” said Maj. Ryan Schieber, 315th Operations Support Squadron HSFS lead planner.
With the space community growing, the number of HSFS astronaut retrievals also grew to approximately three to four alerts per year.
Leading the 204th AS to build a joint-task force with the 308th RQS, under the 920th Rescue Wing, as the only Air Force Reserve Command wing that trains and equips combat search and rescue Airmen, and partner with the 315th AW to certify HSFS airdrop search and rescue Airmen.
“We're here to certify the Charleston Reserve aircrew, the pilots, and the loadmasters,” said Master Sgt. Makaio Roberts, 204th AS HSFS deputy program manager.
“They’re our Total Force Partner with the 308th RQS, as we support the launches and recoveries by working with NASA, SpaceX, Boeing and now the Artemis programs.”
In 2025, the 315th AW answered the call to partner with the 204th AS to become HSFS airdrop qualified. HSFS training opportunities provide reliable training and efficiency for multi-capable Airmen.
“We're conducting realistic drops of both personnel and equipment into an offshore drop zone, simulating how we would locate and recover isolated personnel in a maritime environment,” said Capt. Nicolas Walsh, 308th RQS combat rescue officer drop zone controller.
In 7.5 hours of flight time, the joint task force accomplished 10 airdrops, to include 30 pararescuemen jumps, in hostile seas and winter temperatures.
Despite the limited availability, experienced airdrop aircrews and maintenance teams excelled in maximizing the use of available resources, ensuring high levels of readiness.
“By dropping different pieces of equipment that help to ensure astronauts are able to be rescued in the event of a splashdown and that we have rescue qualifications, so we'll be able to support the real-world launches and recoveries for the HSFS program,” Roberts said.
“Space travel is expected to increase, so the search and rescue alert is going to increase, and we will be ready to answer that call,” Schieber said.
The HSFS airdrop joint task force offers Airmen an opportunity that most C-17 aircrews haven’t experienced before.
By working jointly with the 204th AS and 308th RQS, HSFS airdrop qualified Airmen to help develop them into mission-ready Airmen.
“This is a very unique operation for the C-17 to participate in rescue airdrop, giving them a look at a different mission set on the C-17 is just another aspect of keeping them ready to go for the next fight,” Schieber said.
https://www.spaceforce.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/4035868/citizen-airmen-answer-astronauts-hsfs-search-rescue-call/
Sauce, please?