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Starship Soars

Welcome to the future of spaceflight, everyone! This week, in its third test flight, Starship made it to space, oribiting the planet for around 40 minutes before heading home. No, it didn’t make it all the way to a soft splashdown in the Indian Ocean, but that’s what testing is for, and it traveled so much farther, for so much longer, than ever before. I was a little twitchy after the second explosive test, but I’m now very optimistic for the future of this spacecraft and what it means for our journey to the moon, then onward to Mars and throughout the solar system.

Now enjoy these absolutely stunning photos of the flight:

Babes in the Woods

Read yet another article this week about new findings on an early-universe galaxy that * shouldn't exist * according to our current scientific understanding, because "something something dark matter something something." At this point, I feel like this is the state of our "understanding" of astrophysics.

We are truly babes in the woods. With blindfolds on, waving around a dime-store metal detector. We know legions more than we ever have in the history of humanity - but imagine what we can know tomorrow.

Is Anyone Out There?

Two reknowned researchers, an astrobiologist and a planetary scientists, have bet a bottle of whiskey (hopefully a good one) over whether we will discover convincing evidence of *technological* life in the universe in the next 15 years: https://mindmatters.ai/2024/01/science-wager-extraterrestrials-will-be-spotted-within-15-years/

Per the two: "Our conclusion is that advanced extraterrestrial intelligent life (ETI) is either (1) extremely rare or non-existent in our galaxy or (2) these civilizations are deliberately hiding from us. No other possibility seems very likely."

I'm not at all sure that no other possibility is very likely. For instance, see Universe Today's excellent series on SEVENTEEN hypotheses of why we haven't yet detected intelligent life in the universe: https://www.universetoday.com/119727/beyond-fermis-paradox-i-a-lunchtime-conversation-enrico-fermi-and-extraterrestrial-intelligence/

Also, I'll readily concede there might not currently be many (any?) other advanced civilizations in the Milky Way, but our galaxy is a minuscule dot in the cosmos....

...which is why FTL will not be enough. We need wormholes!*

*also, I'm almost finished rewatching Farscape, and at this point it's All Wormholes, All The Time.

Webb's Incredible View of Cassiopeia A

Isn’t this just an astonishing image? We thought we knew Cassiopeia A, but we were wrong.

“Webb’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) view of Cas A displays a very violent explosion at a resolution previously unreachable at these wavelengths. This high-resolution look unveils intricate details of the expanding shell of material slamming into the gas shed by the star before it exploded.” Learn much more about the image and the history of our study of Cas A, go here: https://esawebb.org/news/weic2330/

The Rhapsody of Space

See what I did there? ;)

From NASA: “For millennia, musicians have looked to the heavens for inspiration. Now a new collaboration is enabling actual data from NASA telescopes to be used as the basis for original music that can be played by humans.

Since 2020, the “sonification” project at NASA’s Chandra X-ray Center has translated the digital data taken by telescopes into notes and sounds. This process allows the listener to experience the data through the sense of hearing instead of seeing it as images, a more common way to present astronomical data.

A new phase of the sonification project takes the data into different territory. Working with composer Sophie Kastner, the team has developed versions of the data that can be played by musicians.”

Listen and learn more here.

Protostar

From Webb’s newest observation:

Herbig-Haro (HH) objects are luminous regions surrounding newborn stars, formed when stellar winds or jets of gas spewing from these newborn stars form shock waves colliding with nearby gas and dust at high speeds. This image of HH 211 from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope reveals an outflow from a Class 0 protostar, an infantile analog of our Sun when it was no more than a few tens of thousands of years old and with a mass only 8% of the present-day Sun (it will eventually grow into a star like the Sun).

The image showcases a series of bow shocks to the southeast (lower-left) and northwest (upper-right) as well as the narrow bipolar jet that powers them. Webb reveals this scene in unprecedented detail — roughly 5 to 10 times higher spatial resolution than any previous images of HH 211. The inner jet is seen to “wiggle” with mirror symmetry on either side of the central protostar. This is in agreement with observations on smaller scales and suggests that the protostar may in fact be an unresolved binary star.

Learn more: https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2023/nasa-s-webb-snaps-supersonic-outflow-of-young-star

What Is 'Alive'?

I came upon this conversation while working on the Rubicon hardback formatting. I took this screenshot last week - but then this weekend, I was having dinner with family, and we were talking about ChatGPT. Someone posed the question, "if something is designed by us, does that mean it can't be 'alive'?"

While no one (serious) today is suggesting that ChatGPT might be alive, there's going to come a day when we, like Alex, will need to answer this question. It's sure to be one hell of discussion.

Originally posted on Facebook.

Logarithmic Map of the Observable Universe

This is wicked cool! The image is so tall, I had to cut into 4 pieces, so follow the link and check out the full image.

"A Logarithmic Map of the Entire Observable Universe": https://www.visualcapitalist.com/cp/map-of-the-entire-known-universe/

Originally posted on Facebook.

M74 Grand Design Spiral Galaxy, Courtesy of Webb

M74 Grand Design Spiral Galaxy, 32 million light-years distant, imaged by Webb's Mid-Infrared Instrument and processed to draw out *even more detail* by Judy Schmidt. You can check out her awesome Flickr page here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/geckzilla/with/52225196953/

Lots of science detail regarding what Webb is doing here: https://www.universetoday.com/.../heres-m74-like-youve.../.

I'm honestly not sure any of us were truly prepared for the images Webb is going to throw our way. How could we be?

Originally posted on Facebook.

Trillions and Trillions

"Forget billions and billions. When it comes to the number of galaxies in the Universe, both theorists' and observers' estimates are too low."

- OR -

"Why the science in my books will inevitably become dated by increased knowledge with the passage of time, and there's nothing I can do about it."

Alex uses the "approximately two hundred billion galaxies" in the books, because that's been the best estimate available to us. Now we're talking about 6 trillion? TWENTY trillion???

I can imagine a lot - I'm paid to imagine a lot! - but I think we've found my limit here. What is the universe, even?

P.S.: I'm thinking I can use this number going forward, the justification being that the Kats have a better estimate than we did. But chasing the advance of science is probably a game I can't win - which is fine; I'm just glad it's advancing!

“There are more galaxies in the Universe than even Carl Sagan ever imagined”: https://bigthink.com/starts-with-a-bang/galaxies-in-universe/

(As an aside, I am amused that this article uses as its header image a “simulated galaxy catalog providing a snippet of sky that might correspond, statistically, with what James Webb expects to see.” I’d say Webb outperformed expectations by a wide margin!)

Originally posted on Facebook.

The Beating Heart of the Milky Way

Say hello to Sagittarius A*, the supermassive black hole at the beating heart of our very own galaxy!

For a long time, we've *assumed* there must be a SMBH at the center of the Milky Way, collecting a plethora of evidence that supported this theory. But we've never been able to see it, BECAUSE it's at the center of the galaxy, which is obviously a very, very busy, noisy place.

After the Event Horizon Telescope revealed the first ever direct imaging of a black hole in 2019, it turned its attention inward, and has been working diligently ever since to finally snap this picture. And it got it done.

Learn more about the image and all the science it has revealed here: https://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=305148

Originally posted on Facebook.

Keep Exploring

NASA has extended the planetary science missions of eight of its spacecraft due to their scientific productivity and potential to deepen our knowledge and understanding of the solar system and beyond.

The missions – Mars Odyssey, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, MAVEN, Mars Science Laboratory (Curiosity rover), InSight lander, Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, OSIRIS-REx, and New Horizons – have been selected for continuation

Check that out! Curiosity is such a champ, showing no signs of slowing down on Mars after a decade of exploring the Red Planet. OSIRIS-REx is going to visit * another * asteroid, and New Horizons - can you believe it made its extraordinary visit to Pluto SEVEN years ago - will continue to probe the far outer reaches of our solar system.

https://www.nasa.gov/feature/nasa-extends-exploration-for-8-planetary-science-missions

Originally posted on Twitter.

Happy 32nd Birthday to Hubble

Happy 32nd Birthday to the best telescope ever! Look at all this amazing activity going on in one tiny little sliver of our universe.

JWST will soon be bringing us even more astonishing images, but Hubble continues to carry the torch in spectacular fashion. Hubble has inspired 3 decades of space lovers, and we will forever be so grateful.

https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/happy-32nd-birthday-to-hubble

Originally posted on Facebook and Twitter.

Alcyoneus

Alcyoneus, a radio galaxy 3 billion light years away, now ranks as the biggest galaxy ever discovered - and it stretches for FIVE MEGAPARSECS (16.3 million light years). A single galaxy that's 5 megaparsecs in diameter??? That's as far as it is from the Milky Way to the Asterion Dominion! So that's, you know...big.

I wonder if it's the Rasu's home galaxy? Just speculating.

“The Biggest Galaxy Ever Found Has Just Been Discovered, And It Will Break Your Brain”: https://www.sciencealert.com/at-over-16-million-light-years-across-this-is-the-biggest-galaxy-ever-discovered

Originally posted on Facebook.

Galactic Core As We've Never Seen It

The South African Radio Astronomy Observatory (SARAO) has released new MeerKAT radio telescope images of the radio emissions at the center of our galaxy, and they are INCREDIBLE! I am once again in awe of our universe. Who wishes they could see radio waves now? Me, that’s who.

The primary image (first below) show nearly 1,000 strands of magnetic filaments, measuring up to 150 light-years in length. "It's unclear what they are, or how they came into existence. What we do know is that they contain cosmic-ray electrons, spinning around in filaments of magnetic fields at close to light-speeds."

"The image captures radio emission from numerous phenomena, including outbursting stars, stellar nurseries, and the chaotic region around the 4 million solar mass supermassive black hole that lurks in the centre of our Galaxy."

About the second image: "The complex, cirrus-like emission from the Galactic centre super bubble dominates this image. This is traversed by the Radio Arc, a complex of many parallel radio filaments. The radio bubble nestles against the diffuse Sagittarius A region in the lower centre of the image. The bright dot near the centre of this region is Sagittarius A*, a 4 million solar mass black hole."

And the third: "In the centre of the image is the supernova remnant G359.1-0.5. To the left is ‘the Mouse’, a runaway pulsar possibly formed and ejected by the supernova event. To the upper right is one of the longest and most famous radio filaments, known as ‘the Snake’."

More about the research here: https://www.sciencealert.com/jaw-dropping-new-image-of... and here: https://www.sarao.ac.za/.../new-meerkat-radio-image.../

Originally posted on Facebook.

Staring At The Sun

“On April 29, 2015, NuSTAR, Hinode, and Solar Dynamics Observatory all stared at our Sun. 

Flaring, active regions of our Sun are highlighted in this image combining observations from  Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array, or NuSTAR (shown in blue); low-energy X-rays from Japan's Hinode spacecraft are green; and extreme ultraviolet light from Solar Dynamics Observatory, or SDO, are yellow and red. This NuSTAR image is a mosaic made from combining smaller images.

The active regions across the Sun’s surface contain material heated to several millions of degrees. The blue-white areas showing the NuSTAR data pinpoint the most energetic spots. During the observations, microflares went off, which are smaller versions of the larger flares that also erupt from the sun's surface. The microflares rapidly release energy and heat the material in the active regions.”

https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/staring-at-the-sun

pia19821-nustar_xrt_sun.jpg

Originally posted on Twitter.

Ingenuity's Many Successes

Ginny has done such an incredible job in 5 flights (each one more daring than the last), that NASA is extending its mission! The little helicopter that could is no longer a simple technology demonstration - now it's going to be Percy's assistant for a while.

https://www.npr.org/2021/05/01/992739491/nasa-makes-new-plans-for-ingenuity-helicopter-on-mars

181907340_2953973971548417_8093028305305098846_n.jpg

Originally posted on Facebook.