TYB Good morning
NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day
March 26, 2025
Star Formation in the Pacman Nebula
You'd think the Pacman Nebula would be eating stars, but actually it is forming them. Within the nebula, a cluster's young, massive stars are powering the pervasive nebular glow. The eye-catching shapes looming in the featured portrait of NGC 281 are sculpted dusty columns and dense Bok globules seen in silhouette, eroded by intense, energetic winds and radiation from the hot cluster stars. If they survive long enough, the dusty structures could also be sites of future star formation. Playfully called the Pacman Nebula because of its overall shape, NGC 281 is about 10,000 light-years away in the constellation Cassiopeia. This sharp composite image was made through narrow-band filters in Spain in mid 2024. It combines emissions from the nebula's hydrogen and oxygen atoms to synthesize red, green, and blue colors. The scene spans well over 80 light-years at the estimated distance of NGC 281.
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html
NASA Statement on Nomination of Greg Autry for Agency CFO
Mar 25, 2025
The following is a statement from NASA acting Administrator Janet Petro regarding the nomination by President Donald Trump of Greg Autry on March 24 to serve as the agency’s chief financial officer (CFO):
“The NASA CFO is responsible for executing more than $25 billion in agency funding across a variety of missions, including the Moon and Mars, for the benefit of humanity.
With his previous experience as the White House liaison during President Trump’s first administration, as well as his extensive experience in space policy, I look forward to welcoming Greg as our next CFO.
If confirmed, we will work together with the current Trump Administration to ensure NASA’s success in maximizing efficiencies, refining our processes, and remaining effective stewards of every tax dollar invested in our agency.”
In addition to his previous experience on the agency review team and as White House liaison at NASA, he also has served on the Commercial Space Transportation Advisory Committee (COMSTAC) at the FAA and is the vice president of the National Space Society.
Autry is the associate provost for Space Commercialization and Strategy at the University of Central Florida, a published author, and entrepreneur.
He also serves as a visiting professor at Imperial College London. He formerly served as the director of Space Leadership, Policy, and Business in the Thunderbird School of Global Management and a professor at Arizona State University.
He also has taught technology entrepreneurship at the University of Southern California and macroeconomics at the University of California, Irvine.
https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/nasa-statement-on-nomination-of-greg-autry-for-agency-cfo/
NASA Demonstrates New Wildland Fire Airspace Management System
Mar 25, 2025
NASA researchers conducted initial validation of a new airspace management system designed to enable crews to use aircraft to fight and monitor wildland fires 24 hours a day, even during low-visibility conditions.
From March 17-28, NASA’s Advanced Capabilities for Emergency Response Operations (ACERO) project stationed researchers at multiple strategic locations across the foothills of the Sierra de Salinas mountains in Monterey County, California.
Their mission: to test and validate a new, portable system that can provide reliable airspace management under poor visual conditions, one of the biggest barriers for aerial wildland firefighting support.
The mission was a success.
“At NASA, we have decades of experience leveraging our aviation expertise in ways that improve everyday life for Americans,” said Carol Carroll, deputy associate administrator for NASA’s Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate at agency headquarters in Washington.
“We need every advantage possible when it comes to saving lives and property when wildfires affect our communities, and ACERO technology will give responders critical new tools to monitor and fight fires.”
One of the barriers for continued monitoring, suppression, and logistics support in wildland fire situations is a lack of tools for managing airspace and air traffic that can support operations under all visibility conditions.
Current aerial firefighting operations are limited to times with clear visibility when a Tactical Air Group Supervisor or “air boss” in a piloted aircraft can provide direction. Otherwise, pilots may risk collisions.
The ACERO technology will provide that air boss capability for remotely piloted aircraft operations – and users will be able to do it from the ground.
The project’s Portable Airspace Management System (PAMS) is a suitcase-sized solution that builds on decades of NASA air traffic and airspace management research.
The PAMS units will allow pilots to view the locations and operational intents of other aircraft, even in thick smoke or at night.
During the testing in Salinas, researchers evaluated the PAMS’ core airspace management functions, including strategic coordination and the ability to automatically alert pilots once their aircrafts exit their preapproved paths or the simulated preapproved fire operation zone.
Using the PAMS prototype, researchers were able to safely conduct flight operations of a vertical takeoff and landing aircraft operated by Overwatch Aero, LLC, of Solvang, California, and two small NASA drones.
Flying as if responding to a wildfire scenario, the Overwatch aircraft connected with two PAMS units in different locations.
Though the systems were separated by mountains and valleys with weak cellular service, the PAMS units were able to successfully share and display a simulated fire zone, aircraft location, flight plans, and flight intent, thanks to a radio communications relay established by the Overwatch aircraft.
Operating in a rural mountain range validated that PAMS could work successfully in an actual wildland fire environment.
“Testing in real mountainous environments presents numerous challenges, but it offers significantly more value than lab-based testing,” said Dr. Min Xue, ACERO project manager at NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley.
“The tests were successful, providing valuable insights and highlighting areas for future improvement.”
Pilots on the ground used PAMS to coordinate the drones, which performed flights simulating aerial ignition – the practice of setting controlled, intentional fires to manage vegetation, helping to control fires and reduce wildland fire risk.
As a part of the testing, Joby Aviation of Santa Cruz, California, flew its remotely piloted aircraft, similar in size to a Cessna Grand Caravan, over the testing site.
The PAMS system successfully exchanged aircraft location and flight intent with Joby’s mission management system. The test marked the first successful interaction between PAMS and an optionally piloted aircraft.
Fire chiefs from the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CAL FIRE) attended the testing and provided feedback on the system’s functionality, features that could improve wildland fire air traffic coordination, and potential for integration into operations.
“We appreciate the work being done by the NASA ACERO program in relation to portable airspace management capabilities,” said Marcus Hernandez, deputy chief for CAL FIRE’s Office of Wildfire Technology.
“It’s great to see federal, state, and local agencies, as it is important to address safety and regulatory challenges alongside technological advancements.”
https://www.nasa.gov/centers-and-facilities/ames/nasa-demonstrates-new-wildland-fire-airspace-management-system/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ziwa-u72EsE
https://www.miragenews.com/nasas-webb-captures-neptunes-auroras-for-first-1433076/
https://webbtelescope.org/contents/news-releases/2025/news-2025-104#section-id-2
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41550-025-02507-9
NASA's Webb Captures Neptune's Auroras For First Time
26 Mar 2025 9:16 pm
Long-sought auroral glow finally emerges under Webb's powerful gaze For the first time, NASA's James Webb Space Telescope has captured bright auroral activity on Neptune.
Auroras occur when energetic particles, often originating from the Sun, become trapped in a planet's magnetic field and eventually strike the upper atmosphere. The energy released during these collisions creates the signature glow.
In the past, astronomers have seen tantalizing hints of auroral activity on Neptune, for example, in the flyby of NASA's Voyager 2 in 1989.
However, imaging and confirming the auroras on Neptune has long evaded astronomers despite successful detections on Jupiter, Saturn, and Uranus.
Neptune was the missing piece of the puzzle when it came to detecting auroras on the giant planets of our solar system.
"Turns out, actually imaging the auroral activity on Neptune was only possible with Webb's near-infrared sensitivity," said lead author Henrik Melin of Northumbria University, who conducted the research while at the University of Leicester.
"It was so stunning to not just see the auroras, but the detail and clarity of the signature really shocked me."
The data was obtained in June 2023 using Webb's Near-Infrared Spectrograph. In addition to the image of the planet, astronomers obtained a spectrum to characterize the composition and measure the temperature of the planet's upper atmosphere (the ionosphere).
For the first time, they found an extremely prominent emission line signifying the presence of the trihydrogen cation (H3+), which can be created in auroras. In the Webb images of Neptune, the glowing aurora appears as splotches represented in cyan.
Neptune's Auroras - Hubble and Webb
At the left, an enhanced-color image of Neptune from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. At the right, that image is combined with data from NASA's James Webb Space Telescope.
The cyan splotches, which represent auroral activity, and white clouds, are data from Webb's Near-Infrared Spectrograph (NIRSpec), overlayed on top of the full image of the planet from Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3.
"H3+ has a been a clear signifier on all the gas giants - Jupiter, Saturn, and Uranus - of auroral activity, and we expected to see the same on Neptune as we investigated the planet over the years with the best ground-based facilities available," explained Heidi Hammel of the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Webb interdisciplinary scientist and leader of the Guaranteed Time Observation program for the Solar System in which the data were obtained.
"Only with a machine like Webb have we finally gotten that confirmation."
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The auroral activity seen on Neptune is also noticeably different from what we are accustomed to seeing here on Earth, or even Jupiter or Saturn.
Instead of being confined to the planet's northern and southern poles, Neptune's auroras are located at the planet's geographic mid-latitudes - think where South America is located on Earth.
This is due to the strange nature of Neptune's magnetic field, originally discovered by Voyager 2 in 1989 which is tilted by 47 degrees from the planet's rotation axis.
Since auroral activity is based where the magnetic fields converge into the planet's atmosphere, Neptune's auroras are far from its rotational poles.
The ground-breaking detection of Neptune's auroras will help us understand how Neptune's magnetic field interacts with particles that stream out from the Sun to the distant reaches of our solar system, a totally new window in ice giant atmospheric science.
From the Webb observations, the team also measured the temperature of the top of Neptune's atmosphere for the first time since Voyager 2's flyby.
The results hint at why Neptune's auroras remained hidden from astronomers for so long.
"I was astonished - Neptune's upper atmosphere has cooled by several hundreds of degrees," Melin said. "In fact, the temperature in 2023 was just over half of that in 1989."
Through the years, astronomers have predicted the intensity of Neptune's auroras based on the temperature recorded by Voyager 2. A substantially colder temperature would result in much fainter auroras.
This cold temperature is likely the reason that Neptune's auroras have remained undetected for so long.
The dramatic cooling also suggests that this region of the atmosphere can change greatly even though the planet sits over 30 times farther from the Sun compared to Earth.
Equipped with these new findings, astronomers now hope to study Neptune with Webb over a full solar cycle, an 11-year period of activity driven by the Sun's magnetic field.
Results could provide insights into the origin of Neptune's bizarre magnetic field, and even explain why it's so tilted.
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‘Perfect space crop’: Australian company to attempt to grow first mushrooms in orbit
Tue 25 Mar 2025 17.27 EDT
An Australian company will attempt to be the first to grow a crop of mushrooms in space, aboard SpaceX’s Fram2 mission set to launch in early April.
In an experiment aboard Fram2, the first human spaceflight mission to orbit Earth’s polar regions, the Australian firm FOODiQ Global is aiming to grow oyster mushrooms in microgravity.
Launching from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, the Fram2 mission is planned to last between three and five days. The mushroom experiment will be conducted on the last day by the Australian adventurer Eric Philips.
Phillips will be only the fourth Australian-born person to go to space, after Dr Paul Scully-Power and Dr Andy Thomas, who flew for Nasa as US citizens, and Dr Chris Boshuizen in 2021, whose suborbital journey aboard a Blue Origin vehicle lasted about 10 minutes.
FOODiQ Global’s chief executive, Dr Flávia Fayet-Moore, described mushrooms as a “perfect space crop”, citing their fast growth, ability to be eaten raw and nutritional value.
“Because we don’t have technology to process food in space yet … Nasa is currently prioritising research into ‘grow, pick and eat’ crops – things like lettuce, tomatoes and mushrooms,” she said.
Mushrooms are one of the few foods that naturally contain vitamin D, which increases when they are exposed to ultraviolet light.
“They double in size every day,” Fayet-Moore said. “They don’t need a lot of inputs: they don’t need any special fertilisers, they don’t need a lot of water.”
“They also have potassium that’s found in vegetables, but then they also have selenium and copper, which are typically found in nuts and seeds,” she said. “It’s a very versatile example of a nutrient-dense food.”
Food and nutrition for lunar and Mars missions numbers among the top 30 priorities in Nasa’s list of civil space challenges. It is not the first time fungi have been sent to space.
Last August, an Australian experiment led by Swinburne University astrophysicists Dr Sara Webb and Dr Rebecca Allen sent vials containing lion’s mane, turkey tail and Cordyceps to the International Space Station.
The vials contained mycelia (root-like networks of fungi) but did not have adequate space for mushrooms (the fruiting bodies of the organisms) to grow.
Aboard Fram2, if the mycelia fruit into oyster mushrooms, Philips will be responsible for documenting mushroom growth, crop yield and signs of contamination.
Upon return to Earth, FOODiQ Global will analyse the mushrooms’ nutritional content to see how microgravity affected their growth, comparing the results to control kits stored in Florida.
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2025/mar/26/perfect-space-crop-australian-company-to-attempt-to-grow-first-mushrooms-in-orbit
Squirrels could be the key to getting us into deep space
March 26, 2025
What’s the weirdest thing you learned this week? Well, whatever it is, we promise you’ll have an even weirder answer if you listen to PopSci’s hit podcast.
The Weirdest Thing I Learned This Week hits Apple, Spotify, YouTube, and everywhere else you listen to podcasts every-other Wednesday morning.
It’s your new favorite source for the strangest science-adjacent facts, figures, and Wikipedia spirals the editors of Popular Science can muster.
If you like the stories in this post, we guarantee you’ll love the show.
Certain species of ground squirrels hibernate underground without any food or water for up to eight months of the year.
It’s a super-extreme survival strategy, enabled by a complicated cascade of physiological processes, some of which we understand and many of which scientists are still trying to figure out.
Helping them along is funding and interest from heavy hitters in the research world like NASA, the European Space agency, and private aerospace companies, because–since the 1960’s–those with their eyes on the stars have wondered if human hibernation could enable us to travel farther and more safely in space.
Hibernation isn’t just a long nap. It’s closer to death than sleep. While in hibernation torpor, ground squirrels’ endure up to a 95 percent reduction in their metabolic rate.
Their heart and respiration rates drop to a few beats and breaths per minute. Their brain waves go flat. Their body temperatures plummet to near freezing for some species (or even below freezing for Arctic ground squirrels).
Yet amid all of this, the squirrels stay pretty healthy: maintaining muscle mass, reversing pre-hibernation diabetes, experiencing organ regeneration, stalling aging, and undergoing physiological shifts that can ward off things like radiation damage.
For these reasons and more, scientists have been studying if we can harness the power of squirrel hibernation for ourselves.
It could help propel us to outer reaches of the galaxy. Even if it doesn’t, it’s poised to fuel some big Earth-bound biomedical advances.
Listen to learn more about squirrel-sicles, the challenges of long-distance space travel, and the ultimate in restorative rest.
https://www.popsci.com/science/squirrels-deep-space-weirdest-thing-podcast/
https://www.popsci.com/science/hibernation-science-squirrels/
Firm wins Space Force funding to provide an “aircraft carrier” in orbit
Mar 26, 2025 5:56 AM
In recent years the US military has made much of a concept known as tactically responsive launch.
This essentially means that if there is some rapidly developing threat in space—say an adversary takes out a key national defense satellite—the military would like the capability to rapidly fuel a satellite on Earth, mate it to a rocket, and launch it into space.
The US Space Force first demonstrated this tactically responsive capability with a launch on Firefly's Alpha rocket in 2023.
As part of this "Victus Nox" test flight, a satellite was encapsulated into a payload fairing and mated to the rocket and completed all final launch preparations within 27 hours.
But what if there were an even faster way to respond? That's the vision behind a new, $60 million federal award to a new space company named Gravitics for a concept called an orbital carrier.
"In many ways it's kind of like what an aircraft carrier does," said Jon Goff, director of advanced concepts for the Seattle-based company.
Shielding satellites
In interviews about the concept with Ars, company officials were fairly vague about specific details of what orbital carriers will be able to do.
A news release published on Wednesday morning, highlighting the Strategic Funding Increase, or STRATFI grant from the United States Space Force, also lacks specifics.
The Space Force would prefer to keep the vehicle's operational capabilities under wraps.
But in general, the idea is to provide an unpressurized module in which one or more satellites can be pre-positioned in orbit.
Such a module would isolate the satellites from the space environment, sparing their batteries and sensitive electronics from harsh thermal cycles every 90 minutes, and provide some shielding from radiation.
In addition the orbital carrier would obfuscate the satellites inside from observation by other nations or hostile actors in space. Then, when a satellite is needed, it can be deployed into multiple orbits by the carrier.
A demonstration mission is possible as early as 2026, although Gravitics and the Space Force have shared no specific timeline.
Habitats for humans, too
Gravitics was founded in 2021 to build large structures in space for habitation or other purposes, and its name reflects a long-term desire to provide artificial gravity.
The company's initial product is a module with a 4-meter diameter that can provide power and pressurized volume.
It is already working with Axiom Space to support its operations and could work with other space station companies.
With the new federal award, the company is now moving into national defense applications as well.
"The vision is space superiority," said Colin Doughan, chief executive officer of Gravitics.
"We think that vision is very compatible with both a Department of Defense product line as well as a commercial one. Orbital carriers, in their broadest sense, are really based off of the same vehicle.
One is in an unpressurized state to be able to provide these mobility capabilities to the DOD, and one is in a pressurized state to be able to provide logistics services, station expansion options, power supplementation for station operations."
Gravitics is also doing preliminary work on a larger module 7.6 meters in diameter, known as "StarMax." This has included pressure testing.
A single StarMax module would have a pressurized volume of 400 cubic meters, which is about 40 percent the size of the entire International Space Station.
Such a vehicle would, in theory, be large enough to deploy TIE Fighters. That's a joke—we think.
https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/03/firm-wins-space-force-funding-to-provide-an-aircraft-carrier-in-orbit/
Atomic Clock Ensemble in Space: Time to get ready
March 25, 2025
ESA's Atomic Clock Ensemble in Space (ACES) has arrived at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, United States.
This cutting-edge European experiment will test fundamental physics from the outside of ESA's Columbus module on the International Space Station, measuring time from orbit with unprecedented precision.
Earlier this month, ACES departed from Europe for its transatlantic flight. Since its arrival at the Kennedy Space Center, ACES completed critical preparations in the Space Station Processing Facility cleanroom.
Teams from ESA, Airbus and NASA carefully unboxed and unwrapped the payload to check all was well with the precious instrument.
After engineers successfully performed these system checks, they wrapped and boxed ACES once more, placing it in a special magnetic "G-iron" shield to protect its sensitive atomic clocks.
ACES will be transported to SpaceX for final integration with the Falcon 9 vehicle ahead of its scheduled launch in less than a month, on 21 April.
https://phys.org/news/2025-03-image-atomic-clock-ensemble-space.html
A Legendary Space Chronograph Just Got Better. It’s Not an Omega
March 25, 2025
The Omega Speedmaster may have been the first watch on the moon, but no other timepiece has been tested for the riggers of space travel like the Fortis Novonaut.
Fortis started supplying watches for Russia’s space agency in 1994. The Swiss tool watch brand developed the caliber Werk 17 automatic movement to handle the extreme changes in pressure and gravity experienced during space flight.
The Novonaut N-42 is the modern version of the chronograph used by Russian Cosmonauts. An upgraded reference is now available, built with a titanium case and bracelet, topped with a ceramic bezel.
This lighter, more durable version of the thoroughly tested space watch is decorated with gold plating on the chronograph hands.
In both looks and performance, the Novonaut N-42 Titanium has enough to give even the most premium Speedmaster a run for its money.
Space tested performance
Fortis is one of the rare watchmakers that designs and builds its own movements in-house. Since creating the caliber Werk 17 for the Russian Cosmonauts, it has undergone thorough testing in outer space.
The column wheel chronograph features a 12-hour stopwatch function, registered on two sub-dials at six and 12 o’clock. Along with the central second counter hand, all three chronograph hands have a real gold coating to help differentiate them from the running time hands.
The running second hand sub-dial is at nine o’clock, and a day-date complication is displayed through two separate windows placed at three o’clock. Two quickset button pushers flanking the screw-down crown operate the chronograph complication.
Emphasizing that this is a high-performance tool watch, the dial and rotating bezel are loaded with numerals on every track. The seconds track on the dial’s outer rim is a 1/20 scale with dual numeral markers that count up and down.
Large applied Arabic numeral indices marking the hours are made out of Lumicast X1 for exceptional legibility under limited light conditions. The hour, minute and chronograph second hand are inlaid with SuperLuminova.
Harder, lighter, faster, stronger
With a movement tested to meet the most extreme requirements of space travel, the only way to improve the Novonaut N-42 was to upgrade the case and bracelet. That is exactly what Fortis did.
The 42-millimeter case, which measures 51 millimeters lug-to-lug, is made from solid titanium, as are the case back, crown and pushers. A cartoon space ship is engraved on the back as a nod to the watch’s origins.
The titanium three-link bracelet has a three-piece squeeze-activated clasp with a push-button micro-adjustment system. Although Fortis will fit the bracelet to a chosen wrist size upon purchase, it is adjustable with screw-in pins. A screwdriver is provided with the watch.
This is a tool watch for people who appreciate the beauty in great functionality. Fortis did not sacrifice any margin of performance for improved looks, but the Novonaut N-42 is beautiful because it epitomizes great industrial design in tool watches.
A titanium case makes it that much easier to wear.
Availability and pricing
The Fortis Novonaut N-42 Titanium Legacy is available now from Fortis for $5,360.
It is only available in one color and only comes with a titanium three-link bracelet.
https://www.gearpatrol.com/watches/fortis-novonaut-n42-titanium-legacy/
https://www.fortis-swiss.com/products/novonaut-n-42?variant=54138570015068
https://cerncourier.com/a/space-oddities/
Space oddities
26 Mar 2025
Space Oddities: The Mysterious Anomalies Challenging Our Understanding of the Universe, by Harry Cliff, Penguin Random House.
Space Oddities takes readers on a journey through the mysteries of modern physics, from the smallest subatomic particles to the vast expanse of stars and space.
Harry Cliff – an experimental particle physicist at Cambridge University – unravels some of the most perplexing anomalies challenging the Standard Model (SM), with behind-the-scenes scoops from eight different experiments.
The most intriguing stories concern lepton universality and the magnetic moment of the muon.
Theoretical predictions have demonstrated an extremely precise value for the muon’s magnetic moment, experimentally verified to an astonishing 11 significant figures. O
ver the last few years, however, experimental measurements have suggested a slight discrepancy – the devil lying in the 12th digit. 2021 measurements at Fermilab disagreed with theory predictions at 4σ.
Not enough to cause a “scientific earthquake”, as Cliff puts it, but enough to suggest that new physics might be at play.
Just as everything seemed to be edging towards a new discovery, Cliff introduces the “villains” of the piece.
Groundbreaking lattice–QCD predictions from the Budapest–Marseille–Wuppertal collaboration were published on the same day as a new measurement from Fermilab.
If correct, these would destroy the anomaly by contradicting the data-driven theory consensus. (“Yeah, bullshit,” said one experimentalist to Cliff when put to him that the timing wasn’t intended to steal the experiment’s thunder.)
The situation is still unresolved, though many new theoretical predictions have been made and a new theoretical consensus is imminent (see “Do muons wobble faster than expected“).
Regardless of the outcome, Cliff emphasises that this research will pave the way for future discoveries, and none of it should be taken for granted – even if the anomaly disappears.
“One of the challenging aspects of being part of a large international project is that your colleagues are both collaborators and competitors,” Cliff notes.
“When it comes to analysing the data with the ultimate goal of making discoveries, each research group will fight to claim ownership of the most interesting topics.”
This spirit of spurring collaborator- competitors on to greater heights of precision is echoed throughout Cliff’s own experience of working in the LHCb collaboration, where he studies “lepton universality”.
All three lepton flavours – electron, muon and tau – should interact almost identically, except for small differences due to their masses.
However, over the past decade several experimental results suggested that this theory might not hold in B-meson decays, where muons seemed to be appearing less frequently than electrons.
If confirmed, this would point to physics beyond the SM.
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Having been involved himself in a complementary but less sensitive analysis of B-meson decay channels involving strange quarks, Cliff recalls the emotional rollercoaster experienced by some of the key protagonists: the “RK” team from Imperial College London.
After a year of rigorous testing, RK unblinded a sanity check of their new computational toolkit: a reanalysis of the prior measurement that yielded a perfectly consistent R value of 0.72 with an uncertainty of about 0.08, upholding a 3σ discrepancy.
Now was the time to put the data collected since then through the same pasta machine: if it agreed, the tension between the SM and their overall measurement would cross the 5σ threshold.
After an anxious wait while the numbers were crunched, the team received the results for the new data: 0.93 with an uncertainty of 0.09.
“Dreams of a major discovery evaporated in an instant,” recalls Cliff. “Anyone who saw the RK team in the CERN cafeteria that day could read the result from their faces.”
The lead on the RK team, Mitesh Patel, told Cliff that they felt “emotionally train wrecked”. One day we might make the right mistake and escape the claustrophobic clutches of the SM
With both results combined, the ratio averaged out to 0.85 ± 0.06, just shy of 3σ away from unity.
While the experimentalists were deflated, Cliff notes that for theorists this result may have been more exciting than the initial anomaly, as it was easier to explain using new particles or forces.
“It was as if we were spying the footprints of a great, unknown beast as it crashed about in a dark jungle,” writes Cliff.
Space Oddities is a great defence of irrepressible experimentation.
Even “failed” anomalies are far from useless: if they evaporate, the effort required to investigate them pushes the boundaries of experimental precision, enhances collaboration between scientists across the world, and refines theoretical frameworks.
Through retellings and interviews, Cliff helps the public experience the excitement of near breakthroughs, the heartbreak of failed experiments, and the dynamic interactions between theoretical and experimental physicists.
Thwarting myths that physicists are cold, calculating figures working in isolation, Cliff sheds light on a community driven by curiosity, ambition and (healthy) competition.
His book is a story of hope that one day we might make the right mistake and escape the claustrophobic clutches of the SM.
“I’ve learned so much from my mistakes,” read a poster above Cliff’s undergraduate tutor’s desk. “I think I’ll make another.”
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Watch Rocket Lab launch 'Finding Hot Wildfires Near You' mission from New Zealand today
11:30 a.m. EST (1530 GMT) March 26
Rocket Lab is gearing up for the next launch of its workhorse Electron rocket.
The New Zealand-based company completed a 'wet dress rehearsal' on Monday, March 24, fueling up the launch vehicle for a run-through of its countdown ahead of the "Finding Hot Wildfires Near You" mission.
Electron will launch "Finding Hot Wildfires Near You" from Pad B at Rocket Lab's Launch Complex 1, Mahia, New Zealand.
Liftoff is expected sometime during a 30-minute window that opens at 11:30 a.m. EST (1530 GMT) March 26 — with a local time of 4:30 a.m. NZT, March 27.
The three-stage rocket is scheduled to release its payloads just under an hour after launch, where the satellites will begin their synchronized alignment.
A livestream of the launch will be available on Rocket Lab's website, the top of this page and on the Space.com homepage.
Soon to be on their way to orbit aboard Electron are eight wildfire detection satellites from German-based company OroraTech.
The small fleet will join a constellation of thermal infrared imaging spacecraft already in space, which will enable OroraTech to monitor wildfires and wildfire hotspots around-the-clock across the globe.
These Phase 1 satellites, as OroraTech has designated them, will orbit at a steep 97-degree inclination, at an altitude of 340 miles (550 kilometers) above Earth, and are the humble beginning in a constellation the company hopes to grow to over 100 in the next five years.
"Finding Hot Wildfires Near You" is a rapid turnaround mission for Rocket Lab and OroraTech, who scheduled the mission for liftoff only four months ago.
The expediency allows the company's constellation to get up and running just before wildfire season begins.
This will be Rocket Lab's fifth launch of 2025, with another expected within the next few weeks.
That mission, DART AE, will liftoff using the company's HASTE (Hypersonic Accelerator Suborbital Test Electron) vehicle, a suborbital version of Electron, to test hypersonic drone technology for the U.S. Defense Department.
https://www.space.com/space-exploration/launches-spacecraft/watch-rocket-lab-launch-finding-hot-wildfires-near-you-mission-from-new-zealand-today
https://www.rocketlabusa.com/live-stream/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M-ozUCTeDFE
https://www.space.com/space-exploration/earth-to-space-art-festival-set-to-launch-at-kennedy-center-this-week
https://www.kennedy-center.org/whats-on/festivals-series/earth-to-space/
'Earth to Space' art festival set to launch at Kennedy Center this week
Mar 25, 2025
A nearly month-long space mission is ready to lift off, with final preparations being made at the Kennedy Center.
To be clear, not NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, but rather the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C.
"Earth to Space: Arts Breaking the Sky" is set to transform the United States' national cultural hub into a launch pad for three weeks of live performances, films, art, interactive exhibits and discussions, all inspired by spaceflight and the wonders of the universe.
The festival will see artists paired with astronauts, poets perform with physicists and dancers take the stage with spacecraft designers.
"How do we use space? What are the issues with space? And how does space help us understand more about Earth?
Those are the themes we explored as we talked to artists and scientists and traveled about to meet with people to understand as much as we could about this topic," said Alicia Adams, vice president for international programming at the Kennedy Center, in an interview with collectSPACE.com.
"Earth to Space" is the center's third festival as part of a decade-long initiative themed to the arts and nature.
After focusing on rivers in 2023 and the forest in 2024, Adams and her co-curator, Gilda Almeida, were motivated by NASA's current focus on returning to the moon and the center's namesake to look beyond the planet for this year's event.
"President John F. Kennedy was an inspiration to us because he was the person who initiated the moonshot," said Adams.
"There are lots of quotes about what Kennedy thought about space. We do these things 'not because they are easy, but because they are hard,' as he said, and 'it's in our nature to explore,' so we started there."
The festival, which runs from Friday (March 28) through April 20, blasts off, quite literally, with a one-night-only event.
On Saturday (March 29), the sky over the Potomac River will become a giant canvas for large-scale projections and custom fireworks to tell a truly cosmic story.
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"Visible from the riverside of the Kennedy Center will be our big, splashy opening," Adams said.
"What you will experience will be narrated by artist Cai Guo-Qiang's custom AI model cAI, and it's a love story. That's why it's called 'Interspecies Love Letter.'"
The "sky painting" will follow the relationship between Stella, a satellite, and her engineer Ethan on the ground.
In the fleeting moments of her "life" searching for extraterrestrial intelligence, Stella reaches out from her graveyard orbit to both her love and a new friend with a message connecting them both.
"It is interactive as well. People will be able to use their phones to access a QR code and, at the right time, they will be given a signal to do a certain thing, which will launch fireworks into the sky," said Adams.
The "Earth to Space" sessions then get underway Tuesday (April 1) with a two-day special version of Starmus, the global celebration that unites science, music and art.
For its U.S. debut, the conference will feature talks by Apollo 16 moonwalker Charlie Duke, astronaut-turned-artist Nicole Stott, National Academy of Sciences president Marcia McNutt, SETI pioneer Jill Tarter, astrophysicist Garik Israelian and the Kennedy Center's own Youth Ambassador for the Arts and Environment, Aneeshwar Kunchala, among others.
There will also be a special dance performance by the Debbie Allen Dance Academy based on a poem written by Allen's mother Vivian Ayers, who was a "hidden figure" at NASA.
"In terms of diversity and inclusiveness, what we say to audiences is that it's of real importance to support the artists, to support the art, to support the work that we as curators and the staff of this center have been doing for the last 50 years," Adams told collectSPACE.
Her reply was in reaction to the recent changes in the center's leadership and the White House's efforts to do away with federally run diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs, like the type that Kennedy urged to hire women and minorities to work for the space program.
Other highlights of the Earth to Space festival include:
The U.S. premiere of the full 360-degree immersive experience, The Moonwalkers: A Journey with Tom Hanks. The film earlier opened at Space Center Houston in Texas, but in a 270-degree giant-screen format. Visitors to the Kennedy Center will be able to see Moonwalkers as it was originally, and still is being shown in London.
An opportunity to get an up-close look and a photo with Astrolab's FLEX, or Flexible Logistics and Exploration, lunar rover. FLEX is one of three lunar terrain vehicle designs that NASA has chosen for possible use by Artemis astronauts at the moon's south pole.
The world premiere of "MOON," anoriginal performance by the Mark Morris Dance Group that is inspired by the Golden Record placed on the two 1977 Voyager interplanetary spacecraft as an introduction to humanity.
The reveal of The Next Giant Leap: Lunar Quilts, the resulting creation of a nationwide competition led by astronaut and textile artist Karen Nyberg, the first person to quilt while in space.
From Earth to Space and Back, an exhibition by Norman Foster and Foster + Partners, which features scale modules and 3D-printed structures examining how space exploration can help build a better future on Earth.
And the Moon Rock Club that will offer a cabaret space for conversations over drinks and performances, including Vickie Kloeris, a food scientist who for 34 years worked in NASA's Space Food Systems Laboratory at the Johnson Space Center in Houston.
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California commits $95 million to purchase of satellite methane data
March 25, 2025
California plans to spend $95 million to monitor methane emissions via satellite and $5 million to help communities apply the data to stem pollution.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced the three-year, $95 million contract awarded by the California Air Resources Board to nonprofit Carbon Mapper to process and disseminate data gathered by Planet Tanager hyperspectral-imaging satellites.
The first Tanager satellite, owned and operated by Planet, launched in August on a SpaceX Transporter rideshare from Vandenberg Space Force Base. Planet has confirmed plans to launch at least three additional satellites.
The recent contract includes spatial-coverage requirements, but it will be up to Planet to determine how many Tanager satellites it needs to satisfy them.
Carbon Mapper’s methane-monitoring campaign “will help us better identify sources of pollution” and provide “information that is much closer to real time than the data now available,” California Air Resources Board chair Liane Randolph told SpaceNews by email.
“It allows us to directly address one of the major contributors to what has become an immediate threat to public health and the environment.
It also provides an opportunity for California to work with other jurisdictions which want to develop their own, similar satellite methane monitoring and reduction programs.”
California has announced a goal of reducing methane emissions 40 percent compared with 2013 levels.
Buying data from Carbon Mapper through the recently announced Satellite Data Purchase Program is an element of that campaign.
1,000 Plumes Detected
Carbon Mapper began publishing global methane observations through an online portal in October.
Within days, a report to Texas regulators of leaks from a Permian Basin pipeline prompted the pipeline operator to fix the problem.
“It’s a privilege being selected to support California’s methane reduction goals, and an exciting milestone with long-term benefits for communities across the state,” Carbon Mapper CEO Riley Duren said in a statement.
“Through this program, the State of California is leading the way in leveraging satellite remote-sensing technology to provide critical methane observations and data that can drive effective mitigation actions.
We applaud the state for its continued commitment to climate leadership.”
Tanager’s hyperspectral sensors, developed at JPL, are designed to map emissions targets with 30-meter resolution. Each satellite observes an area of about 130,000 square kilometers per day.
“Our partner, Carbon Mapper, has published over 1,000 methane and CO2 plume detections based on insights gleaned from the data,” Will Marshall, Planet co-founder and CEO, said March 21 during an earnings call.
“And we’re actively preparing to offer commercial data to the broader market, particularly to the energy and civil government verticals, within the next few months.”
Newsom announced the Carbon Mapper contract March 21, as he became co-chair of America is All In, a coalition of U.S. states, cities, businesses and other organizations working to slash greenhouse gas emissions.
https://spacenews.com/california-commits-95-million-to-purchase-of-satellite-methane-data/
https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20250320774806/en/Planet-Awarded-as-a-Subcontractor-for-%2495M-California-Satellite-Data-Purchase-Program