TYB
Tucker Carlson's 5 part 9-11 documentary is live
https://www.youtube.com/@TuckerCarlson
https://tuckercarlson.com/documentaries
NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day
September 23, 2025
NGC 6357: Cathedral to Massive Stars
How massive can a normal star be? Estimates made from distance, brightness and standard solar models had given one star in the open cluster Pismis 24 over 200 times the mass of our Sun, making it one of the most massive stars known. This star is the brightest object located in the central cavity near the bottom center of the featured image taken with the Webb Space Telescope in infrared light. For comparison, a rollover image from the Hubble Space Telescope is also featured in visible light. Close inspection of the images, however, has shown that Pismis 24-1 derives its brilliant luminosity not from a single star but from three at least. Component stars would still remain near 100 solar masses, making them among the more massive stars currently on record. Toward the bottom of the image, stars are still forming in the associated emission nebula NGC 6357. Appearing perhaps like a Gothic cathedral, energetic stars near the center appear to be breaking out and illuminating a spectacular cocoon.
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html
https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/nasa-selects-all-american-2025-class-of-astronaut-candidates/
https://www.nasa.gov/humans-in-space/astronauts/
NASA Selects All-American 2025 Class of Astronaut Candidates
Sep 22, 2025
NASA’s 10 new astronaut candidates were introduced Monday following a competitive selection process of more than 8,000 applicants from across the United States.
The class now will complete nearly two years of training before becoming eligible for flight assignments supporting future science and exploration missions to low Earth orbit, the Moon, and Mars.
Acting NASA Administrator Sean Duffy welcomed the all-American 2025 astronaut candidate class during a ceremony at the agency’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.
“I’m honored to welcome the next generation of American explorers to our agency! More than 8,000 people applied – scientists, pilots, engineers, dreamers from every corner of this nation.
The 10 men and women sitting here today embody the truth that in America, regardless of where you start, there is no limit to what a determined dreamer can achieve – even going to space,” said Duffy. “Together, we’ll unlock the Golden Age of exploration.”
The agency’s 24th astronaut class reported for duty at NASA Johnson in mid-September and immediately began their training.
Their curriculum includes instruction and skills development for complex operations aboard the International Space Station, Artemis missions to the Moon, and beyond.
Specifically, training includes robotics, land and water survival, geology, foreign language, space medicine and physiology, and more, while also conducting simulated spacewalks and flying high-performance jets.
After graduation, the 2025 class will join the agency’s active astronaut corps. Active astronauts are conducting science research aboard the space station while preparing for the transition to commercial space stations and the next great leaps in human exploration at the Moon and Mars. The candidates’ operational expertise, scientific knowledge, and technical backgrounds are essential to advancing NASA’s deep space exploration goals and sustaining a long-term human presence beyond low Earth orbit.
The 2025 astronaut candidates are:
Ben Bailey, 38, chief warrant officer 3, U.S. Army, was born and raised in Charlottesville, Virginia.
He has a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Virginia and is completing a master’s in systems engineering at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California.
Bailey is a U.S. Naval Test Pilot School graduate with more than 2,000 flight hours in more than 30 different rotary and fixed-wing aircraft.
At the time of his selection, Bailey was responsible for the developmental testing of emerging technologies aboard Army rotary wing aircraft, specializing in the UH-60 Black Hawk and CH-47F Chinook.
Lauren Edgar, 40, considers Sammamish, Washington, her hometown.
She earned a bachelor’s degree in Earth sciences from Dartmouth College, and her master’s and doctorate in geology from the California Institute of Technology.
Edgar has served as the deputy principal investigator for the Artemis III Geology Team. In this role, she helped define lunar science goals, geology activities NASA astronauts will conduct, and science operations for NASA’s return to the Moon.
She also spent more than 17 years supporting Mars exploration rovers. She was working at the U.S. Geological Survey at the time of her selection.
Adam Fuhrmann, 35, major, U.S. Air Force, is from Leesburg, Virginia, and has accumulated more than 2,100 flight hours in 27 aircraft, including the F-16 and F-35.
He holds a bachelor’s degree in aerospace engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and master’s degrees in flight test engineering and systems engineering from the U.S. Air Force Test Pilot School and Purdue University, respectively.
He has deployed in support of Operations Freedom’s Sentinel and Resolute Support, logging 400 combat hours. At the time of his selection, Fuhrmann served as the director of operations for an Air Force flight test unit.
Cameron Jones, 35, major, U.S. Air Force, is a native of Savanna, Illinois. He holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in aerospace engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
He is also a graduate of the U.S. Air Force Test Pilot School at Edwards Air Force Base in California and the U.S. Air Force Weapons School at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada.
He’s an experienced test pilot with more than 1,600 flight hours in more than 30 different aircraft, including 150 combat hours. The majority of his flight time is in the F-22 Raptor.
At the time of his selection, Jones was an Air Force Academic Fellow at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.
1/2
Yuri Kubo, 40, is a native of Columbus, Indiana. He earned a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering and a master’s in electrical and computer engineering from Purdue University.
He spent 12 years working across various teams at SpaceX, including as launch director for Falcon 9 rocket launches, director of avionics for the Starshield program, and director of Ground Segment.
Earlier in his career, Kubo was a co-op student at NASA Johnson, where he completed multiple tours supporting the Orion spacecraft, the International Space Station, and the Space Shuttle Program.
At the time of his selection, Kubo was the senior vice president of Engineering at Electric Hydrogen.
Rebecca Lawler, 38, is a native of Little Elm, Texas, and a former lieutenant commander in the U.S. Navy. She is a former Navy P-3 pilot and experimental test pilot with more than 2,800 flight hours in more than 45 aircraft.
Lawler holds a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from the U.S. Naval Academy and master’s degrees from Johns Hopkins University and the National Test Pilot School. She also is a U.S. Naval Test Pilot School graduate.
Lawler also flew as a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration hurricane hunter and during NASA’s Operation IceBridge. She was a test pilot for United Airlines at the time of selection.
Anna Menon, 39, is from Houston and earned her bachelor’s degree from Texas Christian University with a double major in mathematics and Spanish. She also holds a master’s in biomedical engineering from Duke University.
Menon previously worked in the Mission Control Center at NASA Johnson, supporting medical hardware and software aboard the International Space Station. In 2024, Menon flew to space as a mission specialist and medical officer aboard SpaceX’s Polaris Dawn.
The mission saw a new female altitude record, the first commercial spacewalk, and the completion of approximately 40 research experiments. At the time of her selection, Menon was a senior engineer at SpaceX.
Imelda Muller, 34, considers Copake Falls, New York, her hometown. She formerly was a lieutenant in the U.S. Navy and served as an undersea medical officer after training at the Naval Undersea Medical Institute.
Muller earned a bachelor’s degree in behavioral neuroscience from Northeastern University and a medical degree from the University of Vermont College of Medicine.
Her experience includes providing medical support during Navy operational diving training at NASA’s Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory.
At the time of her selection, Muller was completing a residency in anesthesia at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore.
Erin Overcash, 34, lieutenant commander, U.S. Navy, is from Goshen, Kentucky. She holds a bachelor’s degree in aerospace engineering and a master’s in bioastronautics from the University of Colorado, Boulder.
A U.S. Naval Test Pilot School graduate, Overcash is an experienced F/A-18E and F/A-18F Super Hornet pilot with multiple deployments. She has logged more than 1,300 flight hours in 20 aircraft, including 249 carrier arrested landings.
Overcash was part of the Navy’s World Class Athlete Program and trained full-time at the Olympic Training Center with the USA Rugby Women’s National Team. She was training for a squadron department head tour at the time of selection.
Katherine Spies, 43, is a native of San Diego and holds a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from the University of Southern California and a master’s in design engineering from Harvard University.
She is a former Marine Corps AH-1 attack helicopter pilot and experimental test pilot, with more than 2,000 flight hours in more than 30 different aircraft.
A graduate of the U.S. Naval Test Pilot School, she served as UH-1Y/AH-1Z project officer and AH-1W platform coordinator during her time on active duty.
At the time of her selection, Spies was the director of flight test engineering at Gulfstream Aerospace Corporation.
With the addition of these 10 individuals, NASA now has recruited 370 astronaut candidates since selecting the original Mercury Seven in 1959.
“Today, our mission propels us even further as we prepare for our next giant leap with NASA’s newest astronaut candidate class,” said Vanessa Wyche, director of NASA Johnson.
“Representing America’s best and brightest, this astronaut candidate class will usher in the Golden Age of innovation and exploration as we push toward the Moon and Mars.”
The astronaut candidates will be available to speak with media virtually and in-person on Tuesday, Oct. 7.
Media interested in this limited opportunity should contact the NASA Johnson Newsroom at 281-483-5111 or jsccommu@mail.nasa.gov. NASA’s media accreditation policy is available online.
2/2
Crew Studies Cardiac Health and Unpacks Cygnus, Progress Spacecraft
September 22, 2025
Expedition 73 kicked off the week with ultrasound scans for cardiac research and unloading new science experiments delivered last week aboard the Cygnus XL cargo craft.
Spacesuit work and computer networking maintenance rounded out the day aboard the International Space Station.
NASA Flight Engineers Mike Fincke and Jonny Kim joined each other on Monday in the Columbus laboratory module to continue learning how living and working in space affects cardiovascular health.
Fincke led the biomedical investigation scanning Kim’s chest with the Ultrasound 2 device to identify signs of space-caused plaque buildup or accelerated aging-like symptoms in the arteries.
Kim also wore sensors that measured his cardiac activity during the scans for the CIPHER human research investigation.
Doctors collect the health data from astronauts before, during, and after a spaceflight and compare it to data collected from other astronauts to gain clearer insights into crew health.
Earlier in the day, the duo partnered with NASA Flight Engineer Zena Cardman unpacking some of the 11,000 pounds of new science and supplies delivered last week aboard Northrop Grumman’s Cygnus XL resupply ship.
A pair of portable science freezers containing research samples were removed from Cygnus and installed in an EXPRESS science rack ahead of upcoming experiment work.
Cardman also installed new cloud computing hardware in the Destiny laboratory module then relocated air monitors from Destiny to the Tranquility module.
Flight Engineer Kimiya Yui of JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) spent his shift inside the Kibo laboratory module installing new computer networking gear.
The ethernet hub upgrades will transmit data quicker and more efficiently throughout the orbital outpost.
Station Commander Sergey Ryzhikov of Roscosmos worked on an Orlan spacesuit in the Poisk module ahead of spacewalks planned for later this year.
The three-time lab resident installed a variety of components inside the suit including a battery pack and a backup oxygen tank then conducted leak and pressure checks.
Flight Engineers Alexey Zubritsky and Oleg Platonov worked together throughout Monday unloading some of the nearly three tons of food, fuel, and supplies delivered aboard the Progress 93 cargo craft on Sept. 13.
The duo also split up with Zubritsky working on the Roscosmos ventilation system and Platonov photographing landmarks in the Caspian Sea and the Amazon Delta.
https://www.nasa.gov/blogs/spacestation/2025/09/22/crew-studies-cardiac-health-and-unpacks-cygnus-progress-spacecraft/
NASA Mars Curiosity Rover
Sol 4662: Right Navigation Camera, Cylindrical Projection
September 22, 2025
NASA's Mars rover Curiosity took 31 images in Gale Crater using its mast-mounted Right Navigation Camera (Navcam) to create this mosaic.
The seam-corrected mosaic provides a 360-degree cylindrical projection panorama of the Martian surface centered at 149 degrees azimuth (measured clockwise from north).
Curiosity took the images on September 17, 2025, Sol 4662 of the Mars Science Laboratory mission at drive 2832, site number 118.
The local mean solar time for the image exposures was from 11 AM to 12 PM. Each Navcam image has a 45 degree field of view.
https://science.nasa.gov/resource/sol-4662-right-navigation-camera-cylindrical-projection/
Sol 4664: Right Navigation Camera, Cylindrical Projection
September 22, 2025
NASA's Mars rover Curiosity took 31 images in Gale Crater using its mast-mounted Right Navigation Camera (Navcam) to create this mosaic.
The seam-corrected mosaic provides a 360-degree cylindrical projection panorama of the Martian surface centered at 78 degrees azimuth (measured clockwise from north).
Curiosity took the images on September 19, 2025, Sol 4664 of the Mars Science Laboratory mission at drive 3156, site number 118.
The local mean solar time for the image exposures was from 1 PM to 2 PM. Each Navcam image has a 45 degree field of view.
https://science.nasa.gov/resource/sol-4664-right-navigation-camera-cylindrical-projection/
Sol 4667: Right Navigation Camera, Cylindrical Projection
September 22, 2025
NASA's Mars rover Curiosity took 31 images in Gale Crater using its mast-mounted Right Navigation Camera (Navcam) to create this mosaic.
The seam-corrected mosaic provides a 360-degree cylindrical projection panorama of the Martian surface centered at 101 degrees azimuth (measured clockwise from north).
Curiosity took the images on September 22, 2025, Sol 4667 of the Mars Science Laboratory mission at drive 0, site number 119.
The local mean solar time for the image exposures was from 1 PM to 2 PM. Each Navcam image has a 45 degree field of view.
https://science.nasa.gov/resource/sol-4667-right-navigation-camera-cylindrical-projection/
Curiosity Works Its Robotic Arm During Sunset
Sept. 22, 2025
NASA's Curiosity Mars rover captured this view of its robotic arm during sunset on Sept. 16, 2025, the 4,661st Martian day, or sol, of the mission.
This series of six images shows the rover's 7-foot-long (2.5-meter-long) arm setting its turret, a rotating platform for science instruments, onto rock targets nicknamed "Turbio" and "Rio Aguas Blancas."
The front hazard cameras, located on the front of the rover's chassis, took the images between 3:55 and 4:51 p.m. local Mars time, showcasing the lengthening shadows at the end of the day.
The sun finally set at 4:54 p.m. local Mars time.
https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/images/pia26673-curiosity-works-its-robotic-arm-during-sunset/
The state of space: 4 takeaways from Christian Davenport’s ‘Rocket Dreams’ book launch
September 22, 2025
The New Space Age looks much different than the space race of the 20th century, yet it’s still marked by fierce competition.
In his new book, Rocket Dreams, Christian Davenport, space industry reporter for The Washington Post, provides an inside look at the rivalry between billionaires Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk as Blue Origin and SpaceX compete to build commercial rockets.
He also addresses the new space race between the U.S. and China to return humans to the moon and, eventually, Mars.
At his book launch, part of the Authors & Insights series at the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg Center, Davenport spoke with former NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine about defining moments in the story of how the U.S. has come to embrace the commercial space industry to support its new space ambitions and help shape humanity’s off-planet future.
These are four broad takeaways about the future of space from their conversation.
-
The government still directs space priorities, even for private space companies
While SpaceX has primarily focused on getting to Mars, Davenport noted that the company has also had to compete for government contracts to fund these missions, which has affected where it has put its energy.
Davenport pointed to 2017 when Musk said at a space conference that the U.S. should have a moon base already, garnering a lot of attention as a break from his fixation on the Red Planet.
“What that indicates is when an administration makes a decision that says, ‘Hey, Space Policy Directive 1 is to go to the moon,’ it fundamentally changes the direction that the whole country moves, including the contractors who created their companies for entirely different reasons,” Bridenstine added. “Everybody pivots because they’re chasing those dollars.”
-
The commercial space industry must have healthy competition, not just one dominant player
Davenport noted that for a long time, Boeing was NASA’s primary commercial space partner.
In his book, he describes a shift early on in NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, when Phil McAlister, the former director of commercial spaceflight development at NASA, pushed for more than one commercial provider, paving the way for SpaceX to become a more central NASA collaborator.
This underscored the notion that “you cannot just rely on one company, on one person, [and] that having competition, multiple providers, more people out there, is ultimately good for the whole space enterprise,” Davenport said.
Bridenstine echoed this, saying that as NASA administrator, he often said a commercial space industry can’t exist if there aren’t multiple providers competing on cost and innovation.
Additionally, each of those providers must have customers that aren’t NASA or the government. “In the end, the goal is to say, ‘If the government quits paying, does it continue?’” Bridenstine said. “If the answer is yes, then in fact it is a commercial system.”
-
The future of space is intertwined with national security
Davenport specifically mentioned satellite security as an issue he’s been following over the past several months, especially since we rely on satellites for everything from Uber to bank transactions.
He noted that there’s even a website for tracking where GPS satellite services are being disrupted or interfered with. “The ramifications of that are scary,” he said.
-
Two space races are happening simultaneously
Bridenstine made the distinction between two competitions underway: one to commercialize space, a potential “multitrillion-dollar market,” and a “lunar land rush”—as Davenport calls it—to beat China to the moon. Sometimes they’re at odds with each other.
“I think it’s important to turn to commercial industry to deliver on behalf of the American taxpayer when we can have commercial markets do that,” Bridenstine said.
“But when you hear the U.S. government say we’re going to beat China to the moon … and instead, there are contractors that are interested in disrupting a paradigm, it’s going to take a lot longer.”
This disconnect stems from the fact that the geopolitical race focuses on achieving a specific goal quickly, while the commercial one focuses on how that goal is achieved.
“If we’re trying to beat China to the moon, then we need to have programs to beat China to the moon,” he said. “If we’re trying to fundamentally disrupt and transform how we get to the moon, that’s a different thing.
Maybe we’ve got to figure out, what is our primary objective here?”
https://washingtondc.jhu.edu/news/rocket-dreams-christian-davenport-launch-recap/
Scientists Confirm Massive Underground Tunnels on Venus
Sep 23, 2025 10:03 AM EDT
We’ve known for quite some time that molten rock gouged enormous tunnels into the surface of the Earth, the Moon, and Mars.
In fact, scientists have proposed that the vast lava tubes under the surface of the Moon and Mars could one day serve as homes for space colonists that provide shelter from space radiation and micrometeorite strikes.
Now, as New Scientist reports, researchers have confirmed that lava tubes also exist on Venus, our closest — and hellishly hot — planetary neighbor.
Surprisingly, the subterranean tunnels appear to have a lot more in common with those found on the Moon than on Earth.
It’s an unexpected finding, since Venus’ mass and gravity are more similar to the Earth than the Moon.
Scientists have previously found that lava tubes tend to be larger when there’s less gravity, since their walls are less likely to collapse.
“Earth lava tubes have smaller volumes, Mars tubes have slightly bigger volumes, and then the Moon’s tubes have even bigger volumes,” said University of Padova researcher Barbara De Toffoli during the Europlanet Science Congress in Finland earlier this month, as quoted by New Scientist.
“And then there’s Venus, completely disrupting this trend, displaying very, very big tube volumes.” “This is already giving away the fact that there’s likely something more on Venus playing a significant role,” she added.
Over the years, astronomers have spotted holes and large pits dotting Venus’ surface, suggesting the existence of lava tubes. Until now, though, they were unable to rule out other geological processes that could’ve caused them.
Now, as detailed in a new paper, De Toffoli and her colleagues presented the “first compelling evidence for the existence of lava tubes on Venus.”
They found that they were not only arranged near large volcanoes, but that the pits “also develop in a direction consistent with the slope of the terrain on which they were observed, thus consistent with the hypothesis that they are the product of lava flowing on an inclined surface.”
The team modeled these cavities and found that they perfectly match the formation process that involves the “upper layer of a lava flow while the underlying molten lava continues to drain, leaving behind a hollow conduit.”
Venus’ extremely hot and high-pressure environment could allow these tubes to grow to very large sizes, despite being exposed to stronger gravitational forces than on the Moon. In fact, the possible volumes of these tubes caught the researchers off guard.
“The characteristics of the observed Venusian lava tubes, particularly their large scale, suggest that Venus may host some of the most extensive subsurface cavities in the solar system,” they wrote in the paper.
The findings could allow us to better understand Venus’ “thermal and tectonic evolution, and offer exciting possibilities for understanding the planet’s past and present conditions,” they concluded.
The team is calling for the European Space Agency’s upcoming EnVision mission‘s Subsurface Radar Sounder (SRS) instrument to have a closer look.
The probe is set to launch to Venus in late 2031, in an effort to understand why Earth’s closest neighbor is “so different,” according to the agency.
https://futurism.com/space/venus-lava-tubes-tunnels
https://meetingorganizer.copernicus.org/EPSC-DPS2025/EPSC-DPS2025-686.html
NOAA GOES-19 satellite captures partial eclipse
Sept. 23, 2025
A striking view of the partial solar eclipse that happened on September 21 was caught not just by photographers on Earth, but also by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) GOES-19 satellite orbiting high above.
The images, highlighted in a post on X, show how satellites continue to give irreplaceable perspectives on familiar wonders.
What is it?
The GOES-19 satellite (also known as GOES-EAST) is part of NOAA's GOES-R series of environmental monitoring satellites.
It was launched in June 2024 by SpaceX aboard a Falcon Heavy and became fully operational in April 2025 when it replaced GOES-16.
The satellite works in tandem with GOES-18 to scan half of the globe, continuously monitoring weather, environmental hazards, oceanic conditions and notably solar and space weather phenomena.
Where is it?
The GOES-19 is around 22,236 miles (35,880 km) above Earth's equator in a fixed position relative to Earth's surface.
Why is it amazing?
While monitoring for space weather, the GOES-19 satellite captured this image of the partial solar eclipse that happened mid-September 2025.
o capture this image, the satellite used the Solar Ultraviolet Imager (SUVI) which is designed to observe the sun's hot outer atmosphere, the corona.
It captures full-disk solar images in multiple EUV wavelengths, which helps with detections of solar flares and other solar activity, but also captures unique phenomena like a solar eclipse.
https://www.space.com/stargazing/solar-eclipses/noaa-goes-19-satellite-captures-partial-eclipse-space-photo-of-the-day-for-sept-23-2025
https://x.com/JAtanackov/status/1970055810983055622
Indeed, harboring the oddest of lifeforms