>The Sun God of Science
NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day
July 29, 2026
Psyche Receives Gravity Assist from Mars
Solar System bodies make deep space exploration more fuel efficient! Today’s video shows the Psyche spacecraft gaining speed and changing its trajectory with minimal fuel spent due to a gravity assist from Mars in May 2026. Mars has an average orbital speed of almost 87,000 km/h (54,000 mph) around the Sun. Its orbital motion and its gravity allowed Mars to pull Psyche along with it, increasing the spacecraft’s speed. Gravity assists have been used since 1959’s Luna 3 mission to allow for spacecraft (the Voyagers, Cassini) to reach farther than they could with fuel alone. This assist helped the Psyche spacecraft on its journey to the Psyche asteroid, which it will reach in 2029. While passing Mars, the spacecraft tested instruments that will analyze the asteroid’s composition and magnetic field. This is the first mission to an asteroid thought to be largely made of metal, an essential building block for planets, rather than rock or ice.
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_cH5-daLjg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yr8vuofsalE
Still no S0 news update.
He prided himself on being as reliable as the sun and hasn't missed a day, rain or shine, sick or whatever, in a long time.
Sure, life happens, but maybe somebody should go check on him, especially considering all the missing scientists, and such.
https://www.youtube.com/@SpaceWeatherNewsS0s
https://x.com/SunWeatherMan
Earth STILL trembling on the heels of 9 HOURS of Chaos!
July 29, 2026
Seismographs trembling all around the world!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_sXC31iSws
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xea3F7VJ8Cg (On the Pulse with Silki: Mall EXPLODES after Earthquake - BLASTING SIDEWAYS ! How is that possible ????)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EsWq6KLkk0k (Mr Weatherman: New Earthquakes from the Caribbean to Florida…)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yguQrqswcU8 (thornews: RED ALERT! NorthEast Heart Shaped Flood signal & Eclipse season Hurricane Watch!)
https://www.esa.int/Space_Safety/Space_weather/Virtual_totality_ahead_of_the_solar_eclipse
https://www.weatherbug.com/news/Thunderstorms-to-Fire-Across-the-Southeast-Northern-Plains?source=news
https://www.foxweather.com/weather-news/multiday-storms-plains-midwest-flash-flood-heavy-rain-threat-july-2026
https://www.newsbreak.com/survival-world-358566355/4797782571340-meteorologist-warns-millions-aren-t-ready-for-this-storm
https://www.wbal.com/wildfire-smoke-from-canada-and-minnesota-pushes-farther-into-the-us-and-engulfs-dc-in-haze
https://gulfnews.com/world/asia/pakistan/pakistan-monsoon-floods-force-villagers-to-flee-as-homes-disappear-underwater-1.500624015
https://weather.substack.com/p/super-typhoon-dolphin
https://kfiz.com/state-of-emergency-declared-after-fox-valley-tornado/
https://chicago.suntimes.com/news/2026/07/28/storms-flooding-tornadoes-damage-worker-missing-power-outage
https://www.sfchronicle.com/california/article/earthquake-21248587.php
https://www.syracuse.com/us-news/2026/07/earthquake-in-florida-blamed-on-mystery-explosion-reports.html
https://www.gmanetwork.com/news/scitech/science/996670/magnitude-5-6-earthquake-strikes-off-jomalig-quezon/story/
https://japannews.yomiuri.co.jp/society/general-news/20260729-340757/
https://www.foxweather.com/extreme-weather/video-kilauea-lava-eruption-52-episode
https://watchers.news/2026/07/29/eruptive-episode-52-begins-at-kilauea-volcano-hawaii/
https://schumannresonance.today/
https://www.tornadohq.com/
https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/map/
https://www.volcanodiscovery.com/earthquakes-volcanoes/news/321320/Volcano-earthquake-report-for-Wednesday-29-Jul-2026.html
https://www.spaceweather.gov/
https://spaceweather.com/archive.php?view=1&day=29&month=07&year=2026
‘Thought it was a plane on fire’: large meteor sightings stir delight in New Zealand
Tue 28 Jul 2026 22.28 EDT
Footage shows North Island skies lighting up followed by a ‘huge boom’ days after a separate fireball in South Island
“Absolutely insane. I thought it was a plane on fire,” one commentator wrote. “It was huge, the ball was orange with a purple tail. We saw black soot coming off it,” wrote another.
One person said it was the biggest they had seen: “It had a tail that stretched most of the sky and had brilliant colours.”
Another wrote said they heard “a loud low rumble” that disturbed birds in the area, while one witness said their “cows went nuts”.
“We heard and saw it in Ruby Bay [and] wondered what the noise was, like someone hit a wheelie bin with a stone,” another said.
Steve Wyn-Harris, who recently became director of Fireballs Aotearoa, an organisation made up of geologists, astronomers and citizen scientists who track meteors and meteorites, was relaxing in his spa in Hawke’s Bay when the sky lit up.
“I saw a big flash in the sky and thought, ‘No, that can’t be a fireball – this would be too good to be true’,” he said.
He initially thought it was lightning, until his phone started pinging with eyewitness reports.
“More importantly, what’s exciting about this is people heard the sound, the sonic boom,” he said, which means the meteor reached relatively close to the ground.
On Sunday night, South Island residents reported a similar streak of light.
Fireballs Aotearoa is encouraging residents in the lower North Island to keep their eyes peeled for debris – called meteorites – from Tuesday’s suspected meteor and to contact the group if they find anything.
“Look out for a black stone that wouldn’t ordinarily be there,” Wyn-Harris said.
Just 10 confirmed meteorites have been found in New Zealand in the past 150 years, but many more will have fallen and never been found. Retrieving one can be difficult:
New Zealand has a small population that is unlikely to spot most meteors entering the atmosphere, has rugged and dense terrain that can hinder the hunt for debris, and there is a lack of infrastructure to help triangulate the location of a landing.
But that is changing, Wyn-Harris said. Fireballs Aotearoa has 200 cameras set up around the country, and an increase in security cameras and dashcams could help efforts to retrieve meteorites.
“We’ve got some of the best coverage in the world, which is why we’re seeing these things now.”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jul/29/new-zealand-meteor-fireball-sightings
other space objects
https://www.foxweather.com/earth-space/august-skywatching-guide-planetary-parade-eclipses-perseids
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/keep-eye-out-two-stellar-meteor-showers-peak-this-week-southern-delta-aquariids-alpha-capricornids-180989215/
gregory lynch
@gregorylyn21241
Anyone know what's going on with Ben Davidson SpaceWeatherNews@SunWeatherman?
He hasn't missed a morning news since I've been following him, over ten years.
This is the second morning in a row he's missed.
6:34 AM · Jul 29, 2026
https://x.com/gregorylyn21241/status/2082459773300068577
NASA’s Curiosity Mars Rover Discovers Field of Honeycomb Textures
Jul 29, 2026
As NASA’s Curiosity rover recently began climbing up a Martian valley nicknamed “Valle Grande,” it sent back images that were a familiar sight to mission scientists: honeycomb-like textures called polygonal fractures, each one about 1.5 to 3 inches (4 to 8 centimeters) across.
The mission has spotted small patches of these geometric shapes several times before, but nothing at the scale discovered in Valle Grande.
In a 360-degree panorama that the rover captured on June 19 and 20, the 4,930th and 4,931st Martian days, or sols, of the mission, the polygonal shapes spread in all directions for as far as the rover can see.
They even wrap around the sides of a nearby butte nicknamed “Miraflores,” which stands 20 feet (6 meters) tall and is topped with a thick cap of sand.
“We’ve seen a lot of fascinating landscapes through Curiosity’s eyes, but this sea of polygons took our breath away,” said the mission’s project scientist, Ashwin Vasavada of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California.
“We measured their shapes and chemistry carefully and are hopeful there are clues in the data as to how these features formed.”
Some of the polygons that the mission has spotted in the past clearly formed as mud cracks, though a variety of processes can contribute to their honeycomb textures, including cycles of warm and cold temperatures or compression that squeezed water out of the sediment when the surface was buried.
These newly discovered polygons are among the many surprises Curiosity has trundled across since landing on Mars 14 years ago, on Aug. 5, 2012.
Besides sulfur crystals, shiny meteorites, and other interesting geologic features, the rover has made major discoveries about the ancient Martian environment — most importantly, that it had the water, chemistry, and nutrients to support microbial life.
Billions of years ago, lakes and streams dappled the lower foothills of Mount Sharp, a 3-mile-tall (5-kilometer-tall) mountain that Curiosity has been ascending since 2014.
The rover has previously uncovered chemistry left over from Mars’ watery history, including carbon-based molecules believed to be precursors to RNA and DNA, two nucleic acids that carry genetic information.
Scientists have no way of knowing whether these organic molecules were created by biologic or geologic processes — either path is possible — but their discovery reconfirmed that ancient Mars had the right chemistry to support life.
https://www.nasa.gov/missions/mars-science-laboratory/curiosity-rover/nasas-curiosity-mars-rover-discovers-field-of-honeycomb-textures/
moar NASA
https://www.nasa.gov/blogs/spacestation/2026/07/28/commander-jessica-meir-and-crew-check-spacesuits-prep-for-spacewalks/
https://science.nasa.gov/blogs/swift/2026/07/28/commissioning-update-for-spacecraft-to-boost-nasas-swift/
https://www.techtimes.com/articles/321933/20260729/south-korea-joins-nasa-moon-base-talks-hardware-already-en-route-moon.htm
https://www.earthdata.nasa.gov/data/tools/worldview