TYB
I would add a high pitched deathwhistle shriek to it, and then train it to juggle chainsaws while running
NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day
August 3, 2026
Vaporizing Meteor Photobombs the Lacerta Nebula
What's happening to this meteor? This bright meteor streak appeared and disappeared quickly during a long exposure of the Great Lacerta Nebula, seen faintly in red toward the center of the image. The meteoroid, likely a small pebble, creates its glow partly by heating and exciting surrounding air in Earth's atmosphere, but itself vaporizes and leaves wind-blown gas and dust with colors that give clues to its composition. The featured image was captured last month from Death Valley Observatories in Nevada, USA. This month, though, is particularly good for seeing meteors. Presently there are three meteor showers ongoing, although they are currently competing for visibility with the glow of a bright gibbous Moon. The most active of these showers, the Perseids, will be busiest in about 10 days – after the Moon has dimmed considerably. This year, the Perseids peak nearly coincides with not only a new Moon, but, from some locations, one that totally eclipses the Sun.
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MePBdjofkg8
We're at a Critical Breaking Point… Stefan Burns and frens
August 2, 2026
A solar storm has begun to sweep by Earth and has triggered a geomagnetic storm which is likely to reach G1-G2 levels and may even hit G3 (strong) levels.
Meanwhile recent earthquake and volcanic activity around the world suggests that this new plasma energy coming in from the Sun may tip certain dangerous volcanoes and fault systems over the edge.
Geophysicist Stefan Burns reports live…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TArwGTC3BJw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_8YjIuydRI (On the Pulse with Silki: Washington's 2nd Largest City Is Burning - 640 Structures Gone In One Night -62,000 EVACUATED)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZq6JopSpa4 (Dutchsinse: 8/01/2026 Strong Damaging Earthquake strikes near Campi Flegrei Volcano in Italy Where and Why)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-eEVuPAzEA (Mr Weatherman: Monitoring for Tropical Development…)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2ipwHnlACY (MrMBB333: This got COMPLETELY out hand SO fast!)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bce-uZhlURM (Sabine Hossenfelder: Physicist Successfully Demonstrates the Origin of Time)
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rain and storms
https://www.foxweather.com/weather-news/severe-storms-target-northern-plains-midwest-hail-damaging-winds
https://www.accuweather.com/en/severe-weather/damaging-winds-flash-flooding-to-roll-through-the-plains-early-week/1918093
https://www.thetraveler.org/typhoons-trigger-major-flight-chaos-across-asian-skies/
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way too many fires
https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2026/08/03/wildfire-smoke-wont-quit-poor-air-quality-expand-across-west/
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2026/08/03/spokane-wildfires-washington-evacuations/9114599
https://www.redcross.org/about-us/news-and-events/news/2026/spokane-wildfires-force-thousands-to-evacuate.html
https://www.fastcompany.com/91584056/spokane-wildfires-map-track-washington-fires-smoke-in-real-time
https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/washington-wildfires-spokane-evacutation-disaster-b3026230.html
https://www.kgw.com/article/news/local/wildfire/updates-on-oregon-wildfires-2026-breaks-record-199m-acres-burned/283-3cd4c6d3-c190-4f86-a824-1b65d96fe4c83007/
https://news3lv.com/news/local/las-vegas-valley-firefighters-helping-battle-wildfire-in-northeastern-nevada
https://www.kpax.com/news/western-montana-news/weekend-update-on-western-montanas-wildfires
https://cowboystatedaily.com/2026/08/02/second-wildfire-breaks-out-near-devils-tower-monument-still-closed/
-also way too many earthquakes
https://www.sacbee.com/news/california/earthquakes/article316748300.html
https://news.az/news/26-magnitude-earthquake-shakes-hawthorne-california
https://dtinews.dantri.com.vn/vietnam-today/third-earthquake-in-five-days-strikes-cao-bang-20260803172106088.htm
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/minor-earthquake-quebec-city-9.7294799
https://newsarenaindia.com/international/earthquake-of-4-4-magnitude-hits-nepal/83745
https://cedarnews.net/newstasks/939744/magnitude-4-6-earthquake-strikes-near-nagua-dominican-republic/
https://cedarnews.net/newstasks/939840/strong-magnitude-5-3-earthquake-strikes-near-lahr-germany-damage-reported/
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tornados
https://www.whio.com/news/local/nearly-dozen-tornado-warnings-issued-across-valley-saturday/IBRHSYJLOVG3RBXRGNPWFV7TGM/
https://wrbiradio.com/possible-tornado-hits-franklin-co/
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volcanos
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/mt-ruapehu-tremor-rises-to-moderate-level-as-scientists-monitor-volcano/RFY7XVEYVFD4XC3PRWYQEXSJ2I/
https://www.volcanodiscovery.com/reventador/news/322626/vaac-advisory-2026-773.html
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dailys
https://schumannresonance.today/
https://www.weatherbug.com/news/Today-s-Weather-Outlook
https://www.nifc.gov/fire-information/nfn
https://www.tornadohq.com/
https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/map/
https://www.volcanodiscovery.com/reventador/news/322626/vaac-advisory-2026-773.html
https://www.spaceweather.gov/news/moderate-g2-geomagnetic-storming-observed-02-aug-2026
https://www.spaceweather.gov/
https://spaceweather.com/archive.php?view=1&day=03&month=08&year=2026
https://africa.businessinsider.com/local/markets/54-magnitude-earthquake-strikes-africas-second-largest-economy-after-recent-tremors/je53mz7
https://spacedaily.com/t-chinese-rocket-scientists-have-modelled-the-most-effective-way-to-nuke-a-doomsday-asteroid-and-it-is-not-a-blast-at-the-surface-first-drill-a-hole-then-bury-the-bomb-about-thirty-metres-down-which-t/
https://spacedaily.com/t-china-has-detailed-a-plan-for-its-first-asteroid-deflection-test-a-kinetic-strike-on-a-small-near-earth-object-meant-to-hit-harder-and-faster-than-nasas-dart-but-the-mission-is-still-at-the-study-st/
https://interestingengineering.com/space/nuclear-strategy-to-deflect-earth-threatening-asteroids
moar space objects
https://starwalk.space/en/news/comet-10p-tempel-2
https://www.astronomy.com/science/could-we-collect-samples-of-3i-atlas/
Chinese rocket scientists have modelled the most effective way to nuke a doomsday asteroid, and it is not a blast at the surface: first drill a hole, then bury the bomb about thirty metres down, which their simulations say more than triples the deflection
August 3, 2026
Burying the bomb deep inside the asteroid, rather than detonating it on impact, could multiply the deflection needed to save Earth—if the theory survives real-world testing.
If an asteroid large enough to end a city, or worse, were ever found on a collision course with too little time to nudge it gently aside, the option of last resort has always been the crude one: hit it with a nuclear bomb.
A team of Chinese researchers has now worked out, in detail, how to do that far more effectively, and the answer is not the version from the films.
The important caveat comes first. This is a simulation study, a piece of modelling on a computer. No such device exists, nothing has been built, and nothing has flown.
I am a writer with a long interest in this beat, not a physicist, so treat this as a careful reading of the work rather than expert testimony.
The two-step method
The study, led by Xiaowei Wang at the China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology in Beijing and published in the journal Space: Science and Technology, compared different ways of using a nuclear device against a threatening asteroid.
The approach it favours comes in two steps. First, a metal penetrator slams into the asteroid and digs a deep hole. Then a second spacecraft drops a nuclear bomb into that hole, so it detonates buried well beneath the surface rather than against it.
As Space.com reported, the simulations found that a 3-megaton explosion, roughly 200 times the Hiroshima bomb, could blast apart an asteroid around 100 metres across.
The headline number is about depth. Placing the bomb about 30 metres down, rather than setting it off at the surface, more than tripled the change in the asteroid’s speed in the model.
That is a large difference for the same weapon, and it is the whole point of the paper.
Why burying it matters so much
The physics behind that is intuitive once you picture it. A bomb detonated at or above the surface throws most of its energy uselessly out into space, and only a fraction pushes on the rock.
A bomb buried inside couples far more of its energy into the asteroid itself, either shoving it harder or breaking it apart, depending on what you are trying to do.
As the South China Morning Post noted, the two-step design is also less demanding than the obvious alternative of driving an intact bomb into an asteroid at enormous speed.
Separating the digging from the delivery lets engineers choose where the charge goes and how deep, instead of relying on a violent impact at a random spot.
1/2
2/2
When you would actually reach for a nuke
It is worth being clear about where this sits, because a nuclear option is not the first choice and is not meant to be.
The gentler and better-understood method is kinetic deflection, simply crashing an ordinary spacecraft into an asteroid to shift its path.
NASA demonstrated it with DART in 2022, and China itself has a kinetic-impact test mission planned for later this decade. But a kinetic nudge is tiny. It only works if you catch the asteroid years or decades early and let that small shove accumulate.
The nuclear case is the one where that comfort has run out: a large object found with little warning, too big and too close for a gentle push to save you.
In that corner, a nuclear device is one of the few things that could deliver enough energy quickly enough to matter. This study is really about making that grim, last-ditch scenario more survivable, not about a routine tool.
The caveats that matter
Several things need saying plainly, because a headline about nuking asteroids invites overreaction in both directions.
The first is that this remains a model. Simulations are how this kind of work has to begin, since no one is going to test a real nuclear device on a real asteroid, but a result in a computer is not the same as a proven capability.
The second is that blowing an asteroid apart is genuinely contested among scientists.
Fragmenting a rock risks turning one large threat into several smaller ones, and whether the pieces disperse harmlessly or some still strike Earth depends on details that are hard to model with confidence.
Careful deflection, moving the object intact, is generally seen as safer than disruption where there is any choice.
The third is legal. The Outer Space Treaty, which almost every spacefaring nation has signed, prohibits placing nuclear weapons in orbit around the Earth or on celestial bodies.
Whether a one-off interception of an incoming asteroid would fall foul of that is itself an unsettled question, and it is not one a simulation can answer.
What to watch
The realistic near-term work in planetary defence is still the unglamorous kind: finding and tracking the objects that could threaten us, and flight-testing the gentle kinetic methods that only work with early warning.
Nuclear options, Chinese or American, remain on the drawing board, studied precisely so that the knowledge exists if it is ever truly needed.
That is probably the right place for them to stay. The value of a paper like this is not that anyone is about to launch a bomb into deep space.
It is that if the worst ever came, someone would already have thought carefully about how to aim it.
2/2
SpaceX moon crash offers ‘incredible’ lessons, ex-NASA official says
Updated: Aug 2, 2026 / 10:34 PM CDT
A SpaceX rocket is on a high-speed collision course with the lunar surface, and it could provide NASA with some key data for its future lunar base.
“This is one small crash for SpaceX, potentially one giant leap for lunar science,” former NASA Associate Administrator Mike Gold told NewsNation’s Hena Doba on Sunday.
The Falcon 9 rocket is set to crash into the near side of the moon on Wednesday, giving astronomers insight into how space junk could affect astronaut safety when humans eventually build lunar bases.
“When the SpaceX upper stage crashes in,” Gold said, “we’ll learn a lot about what happens when objects hit the moon and how far away we need to be for safety.
…And what we learn from this incident on Wednesday night will be important for making sure those astronauts and the moon base is safe.”
The discarded rocket launched a pair of lunar landers back in 2025 before they were abandoned. It weighs thousands of pounds and will be traveling at 5,400 miles per hour at the time of impact.
It is expected to strike the lunar surface with a force equivalent to three tons of TNT.
“This is a wonderful opportunity for citizen science,” noted Gold, as the crash will happen on the side that faces Earth.
“Maybe even [with] a strong pair of binoculars, you might be able to see some of this. So great time to get the kids out. Everyone should see this.”
This isn’t the first time a dead rocket has hit the lunar surface. A Chinese rocket dug out a pair of craters on the far side of the moon in 2022.
https://www.newsnationnow.com/space/spacex-moon-crash-incredible-lessons-nasa/
https://www.cbc.ca/news/science/falcon9-rocket-moon-impact-9.7290981
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THBBP-SxIYE (VideofromSpace: SpaceX rocket will slam into the moon in Aug. 2026)
moar NASA and frens
https://www.eurasiareview.com/01082026-scientists-use-moonquakes-to-locate-lunar-ice/
https://www.nasa.gov/centers-and-facilities/johnson/ike-theriot-helps-prepare-astronauts-to-work-on-the-moon/
https://science.nasa.gov/event/249th-meeting-of-the-american-astronomical-society/
https://www.denver7.com/money/science-and-tech/denver-astrological-society-web-traffic-more-than-doubles-ahead-of-artemis-ii-flight-crew-visit-to-red-rocks
>After years of outsourcing and industrial decline, President Trump is reversing course - bringing back investment, creating jobs, and reviving MADE IN AMERICA.
Thank God
Anil Menon
@astro_anil
I’ll never forget this sight. Tonight I saw my first aurora from space.
Luckily, there is a video to help remember and captured it perfectly.
The KP index was over 5 tonight because of a solar event and the sky over Australia lit up and the green snaked across the atmosphere.
I was filled with awe and gratitude. It’s a beautiful planet we share.
1:30 PM · Aug 2, 2026
https://x.com/astro_anil/status/2084014072027070640
moar
https://x.com/astro_anil/status/2083856550788043064
https://x.com/NASA/status/2084308522221588976
https://x.com/Soph_astro/status/2083881157087678695
https://x.com/Soph_astro/status/2084261687960440981
dickfoot