beauty

Happy 35th Birthday to Hubble

I feel so grateful to have grown up during the Hubble Era. I might not be the lover of space I am (or even a scifi writer)* if not for the inspiration Hubble's images provided over the years.

*Okay, I'd probably be both no matter what. But the images have still been amazing!

And on that note, to celebrate the 35th anniversary of Hubble’s launch, NASA has released 4 stunning new images. You can read more about Hubble’s mission and the new images here: https://science.nasa.gov/missions/hubble/nasa-celebrates-hubbles-35th-year-in-orbit/

Cosmic Tornado

Wow. Now THIS is the kind of imagery I am here for. Look at that crispness and clarity! And the galaxies in the background.... On behalf of amateur space aficionados everywhere, I declare that JWST was worth the time, trouble and money it took to build and deploy.

“NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope captured this beautiful juxtaposition of the nearby protostellar outflow known as Herbig-Haro 49/50 with a perfectly positioned, more distant spiral galaxy. Due to the close proximity of this Herbig-Haro object to the Earth, this new composite infrared image of the outflow from a young star allows researchers to examine details on small spatial scales like never before.

Herbig-Haro objects are outflows produced by jets launched from a nearby, forming star. The outflows, which can extend for light-years, plow into a denser region of material. This creates shock waves, heating the material to higher temperatures. The material then cools by emitting light at visible and infrared wavelengths.”

I have words on the moon!

It's a historic day for private space exploration. Early Sunday morning, Firefly Space's Blue Ghost stuck the landing, making it the first fully successful private, commercial moon landing!

On a tiny nanofiche onboard Blue Ghost reside two of my short stories, "Apogee" and "Solatium," as part of the Lunar Codex. All the thanks to Samuel Peralta for making so many writers' and artists' dream come true.

Blue Ghost is ALSO carrying a bucketload of science. Instruments will investigate the structure and composition of the moon’s mantle, the heat flow at different depths beneath the lunar surface, the interaction of solar wind and Earth’s magnetic field, and the impact of solar radiation on the lunar surface.

The lander also carries the Lunar PlanetVac, which is designed to collect regolith from the lunar surface that could be returned to Earth as part of a separate mission, and the Lunar GNSS Receiver Experiment, which will test the ability to use GPS signals at lunar distances.

Blue Ghost will operate for about 14 Earth days on the lunar surface. On March 14, Firefly expects to capture high-definition imagery of a total eclipse when the Earth blocks the sun above the moon’s horizon. How amazing is that going to be?

The Horizon of Earth

This might be the most beautiful photograph ever taken from the ISS. Snapped by astronaut Don Petit this weekend, it features the Milky Way, Zodical light, Starlink satellites as streaks, stars as pin points, the atmosphere on edge showing OH emission as burned umber, the soon to rise sun, and cities at night as streaks - all in one image.

Source: https://x.com/astro_Pettit/status/1878900589238923290

Ice Clouds Over a Red Planet

From NASA / Astronomy Picture of the Day:

“If you could stand on Mars -- what might you see? You might look out over a vast orange landscape covered with rocks under a dusty orange sky, with a blue-tinted Sun over the horizon, and odd-shaped water clouds hovering high overhead. This was just the view captured last March by NASA's rolling explorer, Perseverance. The orange coloring is caused by rusted iron in the Martian dirt, some of which is small enough to be swept up by winds into the atmosphere. The blue tint near the rising Sun is caused by blue light being preferentially scattered out from the Sun by the floating dust. The light-colored clouds on the right are likely composed of water-ice and appear high in the Martian atmosphere. The shapes of some of these clouds are unusual for Earth and remain a topic of research.”

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap241203.html

Thedas

I’ve taken a momentary detour from Amaranthe to Thedas - I’m playing Dragon Age: The Veilguard. I don’t spend nearly as much time playing video games as I used to; writing is a full-time job, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. But I’ll always play a Bioware game (admittedly, Baldur’s Gate 3 got me this year, too - it was incredible, in all the best Bioware-style ways).

Anyway, Veilguard is an absolutely gorgeous game!

Starship and the Future of Rapidly Reusable Rockets

In an absolutely incredible feat of engineering, SpaceX has caught Starship's Super Heavy booster in the Mechazilla arms on the first try! What a sight.

After a succesful launch and orbit, Starship itself completed a planned soft splashdown in the Indian Ocean as well. All in all, a hugely successful 5th test flight of Starship.

One day soon, this will all be routine. Like we do now with the hundreds of Falcon 9 launches and booster landings, we'll go, "Oh, did Starship launch again today? Another moon trip, maybe?" And I look forward to that day.

But for now, WOW.

Aurora-palooza

It was quite a week for aurora watching in the U.S. (and in many other parts of the world, I believe). The first wave hit here at my house Monday night, and I was so ecstatic to get to see them in person for the first time in my life! I stood in my front yard and took a couple of really terrible photos that I won’t share here, because….

A stronger solar flare let loose later in the week, and Thursday night was a show for the ages. Family and friends back home in Georgia even got to see them. I’d done a bit of reading on how to take better pictures, but honestly, they were so much stronger and more dramatic, I didn’t have to do much work.

These are still horribly amateurish photos, taken with my phone without a tripod, but they’re mine. :D

Did you get to see the northern lights this week? I’d love to see any pictures you took!

A New Abode

Wait, this is not Montana...is it? I mean, there ARE mountains. But why is there a lake? And far less wood paneling? A thread in which I answer these questions and more.

Tl;dr: We've moved down the road to Coeur d'Alene, Idaho! (If you subscribe to my Buy Me A Coffee program and watch my livestreams, you already know this, but it’s new info for the rest of you).

The rest of the story: Actually, we moved a year ago. But we were camping out in an apartment while we built a house, and that was just so very uninteresting, I didn't mention it. But now things are exciting again.

First, why the move? A couple of reasons, but to encapsulate them, a beautiful view does not a life make (who knew?).

While wandering the woods was lovely, after a while I chafed against the isolation and lack of access to the trappings of modern life. #MrJennsen sucks at early retirement and, after two years chopping trees while wearing flannel , decided he was bored and wanted to get back in the engineering game. A series of frustrations when too much snow and impassable roads kept me from getting to the (distant) airport to travel for some family medical emergencies brought the problems into sharp relief.

Luckily, just a few hours down the road existed the equally lovely (if less wild) city of Coeur d'Alene. It, too, has mountains, rivers and lakes (Lake CDA is one of the most beautiful I've ever seen). But guess what it also has? Coffee shops and boutiques and theaters and a Best Buy and, well, people!

So here we are.

Now for a tour of the pictures!

1) My working space. The desk is a motorized standing desk, so I don't turn into a sloth while writing. No blinds? It's okay, they're getting installed tomorrow. That banner is just ridiculous, isn't it? #MrJennsen insisted on hanging it there. Swearz.

2) What I see when I'm *standing* at my desk. Gaming, comics, collectibles, science/space books, duplicates of some scifi books and, in the bottom right corner, a bit of a TBR stack. (Note: the rest of the scifi books will be going in the library - more on that soonish.)

3) The view out the window by my desk.

4) The bookcases on one wall of the main living room. I made a solar system out of my solar system glasses. :) (Close one, thermostat nemesis, but no dice! )

5 & 6) The view about 15 minutes down the road. I think it speaks for itself.

7) The patron saint of our home. Wherever Alex and Caleb live (in books), Akeso watches over.

Is this a good move? No, it's a WONDERFUL move. I have a feeling we'll stay this time.

Cartwheel Galaxy

The latest from the Webb Telescope:

“NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has peered into the chaos of the Cartwheel Galaxy, revealing new details about star formation and the galaxy’s central black hole. Webb’s powerful infrared gaze produced this detailed image of the Cartwheel and two smaller companion galaxies against a backdrop of many other galaxies. This image provides a new view of how the Cartwheel Galaxy has changed over billions of years.”

https://www.nasa.gov/universe/webb-captures-stellar-gymnastics-in-the-cartwheel-galaxy/

Note: There are 3 versions of the image. The composite from Webb’s Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) and Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) and the MIRI-only image are shown in the article, and the NIRI-only image is shown below and in this NASA tweet.