ASSASSINICO
Reaction to killing of Ecuador presidential candidate Villavicencio

Ecuadorean presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio campaigns in Quito

Reuters
Updated Thu, August 10, 2023

QUITO (Reuters) -The following are reactions to the assassination of Ecuadorian presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio on Wednesday.

WHITE HOUSE NATIONAL SECURITY SPOKESMAN JOHN KIRBY

"It's heartbreaking for him and for his family, for his supporters. And I'm sure that all of Ecuador is grieving right now.

"We obviously hope that there'll be a full, complete and transparent investigation into this and that the perpetrators are held properly accountable."

ECUADOREAN PRESIDENT GUILLERMO LASSO

"For his memory and his fight, I assure you that this crime will not remain unpunished. Organized crime have gone very far, but all the weight of the law will fall on them."


VILLAVICENCIO'S PARTY MOVIMIENTO CONSTRUYE

"We have not yet found a way to react to the horror and pain of the assassination of our presidential candidate.

"A few days ago, after the assassination of Mayor Intriago, there was a discussion about what to do with the campaign, suspend it some days, or redouble security. Fernando was radical about it and shared on his social media: "Guarding silence and hiding in moments when criminals assassin citizens and authorities is an act of cowardice."

RAFAEL CORREA, EX PRESIDENT OF ECUADOR

"Ecuador has become a failed state. The country hurts. My solidarity with his family and with all the families of the victims of violence. Those who intend to sow even more hatred with this new tragedy, I hope they understand that it only continues to destroy us."

ECUADOREAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE LUISA GONZALEZ

"This makes us all mourn, my solidarity to all his family ... This vile act will not go unpunished!"

ECUADOREAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE DANIEL NOBOA AZIN

"This is an attack against the country, democracy and peace of all Ecuadorians."

ECUADOREAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE XAVIER HERVAS

"We have reached a critical point. My solidarity with the family of Fernando Villavicencio. He is one more Ecuadorian who has fallen victim to organized crime."

ORGANIZATION OF AMERICAN STATES (OAS)

"We urge all candidates to strengthen their security measures and call upon the authorities to provide the necessary support to guarantee the integrity of the participants in the electoral process. The security of candidates is fundamental to maintaining confidence in the democratic system."

U.S. AMBASSADOR TO ECUADOR MIKE FITZPATRICK

"I am deeply dismayed to learn of the assassination of Fernando Villavicencio, presidential candidate and fighter against the corruption and narco-criminals who have done so much damage to Ecuador."

"The U.S. Government strongly condemns this attack and offers urgent investigative assistance."

CHINA FOREIGN MINISTRY

"China condemns the attack and expresses condolences over the assassination of Villavicencio," the ministry said in a statement. "China hopes that the Ecuadorian government and relevant parties will maintain the stability of the situation and the upcoming general election will be safe, stable and smooth."

GOVERNMENT OF COLOMBIA

“We reaffirm our solidarity with the Ecuadorian people and trust in the strength of the institutions of the sister Republic of Ecuador to clarify the facts and punish those responsible.

"The Government rejects this act, which is an attack against the leaders, the people and democracy of the neighboring country."

MEXICAN FOREIGN AFFAIRS MINISTRY

"The ministry, on behalf of the Mexican government, regret the acts of violence that occurred in Quito, Ecuador, which ended the life of presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio, and express their solidarity with the Ecuadorian government and people.

"We condemn any violent act that violates the will of the Ecuadorian people and we hope that peace is restored within the democratic electoral process of our brother country."

URUGUAY GOVERNMENT

The Government of Uruguay expresses its condemnation and consternation for the assassination of presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio perpetrated yesterday afternoon in Quito, and extends its condolences to his family, government and Ecuadorian people.

PARAGUAY'S PRESIDENT-ELECT SANTIAGO PENA

"We repudiate and condemn the assassination of Ecuadorian presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio.

"We stand with the sister nation of Ecuador at this difficult time."

CHILEAN GOVERNMENT

"The Government of Chile expresses its strong condemnation and deep repudiation of the assassination of the presidential candidate, Fernando Villavicencio, which occurred today in Quito, and extends its condolences to the Ecuadorian Government and people and, in particular, to his family."

"This unjustifiable fact reminds us of the importance of strengthening democratic coexistence and dialogue as a tool to fight intolerance and violence."

BRAZILIAN MINISTRY OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS

"By expressing confidence that those responsible for this deplorable act will be identified and brought to justice, the Brazilian government conveys its heartfelt condolences to the presidential candidate's family and to the Ecuadorian government and people."

HONDURAN PRESIDENT XIOMARA CASTRO

"We strongly condemn the assassination of presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio. Defeating organized crime is the mandate of our democracies. Our solidarity with the people of Ecuador."

GOVERNMENT OF SPAIN

"Spain regrets and condemns the murder of Ecuadorian presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio. The government of Spain supports the Ecuadorian electoral process, its democracy and the authorities of that country so that this tragic death is investigated, and the guilty parties are brought to justice."

FRENCH FOREIGN MINISTRY

"The assassination of Mr. Fernando Villavicencio ... is a barbaric act and an attack on democracy that we condemn in the strongest terms."

(Reporting by Alexandra Valencia in Quito; Additional reporting by Isabel Woodford, Valentine Hilaire and Caroline Pulice in Mexico City and Natalia Siniawski in Gdansk; Editing by Lincoln Feast and Tomasz Janowski)

US economy in 'uncharted waters' as inflation falls with low unemployment -study

Thu, August 10, 2023 
By Howard Schneider

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Federal Reserve officials are in "uncharted waters" with no clear historical guide as they set monetary policy in an environment with inflation falling but no increase as yet in the unemployment rate, Richmond Fed staff said in a new research note analyzing a central bank rate cycle they deemed "unlike any other."

"The current cycle is the first time over the entire postwar period the (Federal Open Market Committee) has made significant progress in lowering inflation without an associated increase in the unemployment rate," Richmond Fed staffers including senior adviser Pierre-Daniel Sarte wrote in the paper, published Wednesday on the bank's website.

"The current rate episode sees us in uncharted waters," with the Fed facing the largest-ever gap between inflation and the target federal funds rate when officials started tightening monetary policy in March of 2022, and now seeing the unemployment rate remain stable and low despite the fastest increase in interest rates in at least 40 years, the researchers wrote.

Whether that sort of cost-free decline in inflation can continue will be at the center of Fed discussion in coming weeks as policymakers decide whether they have moved interest rates high enough, or whether further rate hikes are needed.

New data to be released Thursday morning may do little to move the discussion.

Economists polled by Reuters project the consumer price index rose at a 3.3% annual rate in July, a slight increase over June's 3% reading.

But that headline number will be influenced by the fact that some of the largest monthly price increases, registered in mid-2022, are now falling out of the current annual calculation.

Underlying price trends are expected to show continued slowing in inflation, with the CPI on a three-month annualized basis and stripped of food and energy costs rising 3.2% as of July compared to 4.1% as of June, wrote Inflation Insights President Omair Sharif.

"The summer of disinflation will likely continue" despite the rise in the headline inflation number, he said.

The direction for the Fed so far has been a good one, with inflation as measured by the CPI down from a peak of 9.1% in June of last year.

The Fed has raised the federal funds rate 5.25 percentage points since March of last year, with policymakers approving rate increases at 11 of the last 12 meetings in a sequence of actions meant to discourage borrowing and spending, and slow both the economy and the pace of price increases.

Typically, that would be associated with a jump in unemployment as businesses and consumers scale back. Yet the unemployment rate has remained below 4% -- low for the U.S. -- since February of 2022, and stood at 3.5% as of last month.

Fed policymakers have offered different interpretations of why that's happening, from "labor hoarding" among firms scarred by how hard it was to hire during the pandemic, to inflation that may have been driven largely by problems in supply chains that have slowly corrected. Others feel the economy remains slow to adjust to higher interest rates, and that the unemployment rate will ultimately rise before the Fed finishes its inflation fight.

How Fed officials analyze those sorts of nuances will determine whether they follow through with another rate increase at some point this year -- the majority view among policymakers as of their latest projections, issued in June -- or decide that the current target interest rate range of between 5.25% and 5.5% is adequate.

Their next meeting is Sept. 19-20, with many analysts and investors at this point betting the Fed will not raise rates again.

Policymakers have been reluctant to commit. The gap between the last Fed meeting in July and the next one is an unusually long eight weeks, giving them two full months of data to consider.

As of June, one closely watched measure of prices, the personal consumption expenditures price index excluding food and energy, was still running more than double the Fed's 2% target. Only two Fed officials so far have publicly said they feel rates do not need to go higher, with others saying they want the "totality" of the data in hand before making a decision.

Given the unique circumstances, the Richmond Fed researchers noted risks on both sides.

The current Fed "has been uniquely successful thus far in lowering inflation while leaving the unemployment rate at its lowest levels in roughly half a century," they wrote, with the potential that policy tightening so far "may bring about further declines in inflation without a dramatic rise in the unemployment rate. This would be a first in the postwar U.S. economic experience."

Still, "with little guidance from past rate cycles, the FOMC will have to remain vigilant to avoid missing its target should the economy prove more resilient than anticipated."

(Reporting by Howard Schneider; Editing by Andrea Ricci)

An oversupply-led plunge in pork price has pushed the Chinese economy into deflation

Joseph Wilkins
Wed, August 9, 2023 

Hogs are raised at Old Elm Farms, a fifth generation family farm,  near Sycamore, Illinois

(Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images

China's economic woes continue to mount, as CPI figures released Wednesday showing 0.3% deflation.


Pork prices are a significant driver of the consumer price index, and have fallen 26% year-on-year.


Deflation could have wider economic consequences, such as lowering Chinese consumer demand.

Chinese pork prices have plummeted by more than a quarter as the world's second largest economy slipped into deflation for the first time in over two years.

Consumer price figures fell by 0.3% Wednesday, the first decline since 2021, with the government under considerable pressure to introduce much-needed support into the economy.

Pork is the largest driver of the country's Consumer Price Index basket, comprising approximately 3% of it, per the Economist Intelligence Unit. "A rough rule of thumb is therefore that a 10% increase in the pork price will push up the CPI by 0.3%," the EIU said in a research note.

Data from the National Bureau of Statistics showed that pork prices have fallen 26% in July year-on-year, and this has led to a decline in the wider index.

China is the world's largest producer and consumer of pork and it is widely reported that the government keeps a frozen reserve of the meat to ensure supply and price steadiness – though the exact amount is unclear.

The swing in pork prices over the past many years has thrown a huge challenge in front of China's hog farmers. An outbreak of African swine fever that started in 2018 brought China's hog production down by nearly 40%, according to a report published by S&P global ratings in 2021.

Oversupply is leading to deflation

A strict COVID-19 lockdown in China prompted a lack of supply of pork meat to the market as well as delay in this reaching the consumer.

Pork prices soared in October 2022 due to a tight supply market but the subsequent decline in prices since then is due to a number of factors including a recovery in African swine fever outbreak, a big backlog of pork meat from before as well as new pigs arriving in the market.

This oversupply and resulting decline in pork prices has weighed heavily on the country's consumer price index, pushing the country into the region of deflation.

Deflation is where the prices of goods and services decline – which may sound like good news for consumers' purchasing power, but falling prices pose a danger to the wider economy as individuals may postpone current purchases in the hopes of further reductions.

These figures add to the pile of worrying economic data for President Xi. Beijing must also contend with faltering growth, skyrocketing youth unemployment, and enormous amounts of debt.

 Business Insider

A billion-dollar coastal project begins in Louisiana. Will it work as sea levels rise?

This computer rendering provided by Louisiana's Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority depicts the planned Mid-Barataria Sediment Diversion project, which, when completed in five years, will channel sediment-laden Mississippi River water into southeast Louisiana's Barataria Basin. The nearly $3 billion project is an attempt to mimic the natural building of delta wetlands that occurred for thousands of years before levees and flow-control structures were built in an effort to prevent flooding and hold the river on its current course. 

(Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority via AP) 


KEVIN McGILL
Wed, August 9, 2023

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — It's a nearly $3 billion attempt to mimic Mother Nature: Massive gates will be incorporated into a section of a flood protection levee southeast of New Orleans to divert some of the Mississippi River's sediment-laden water into a new channel that will guide it into southeast Louisiana's Barataria Basin.

If the Mid-Barataria Sediment Diversion project works as intended, the solids in the river water will settle out in the basin and gradually restore land that has been steadily disappearing for decades. State coastal officials call it a first-of-its-kind project they are certain will work, even as climate change-induced rising sea levels threaten the disappearing coast.

A groundbreaking ceremony with Gov. John Bel Edwards was set for Thursday morning in Plaquemines Parish, where Louisiana's close associations with commercial seafood harvests, recreational fishing and the offshore oil industry are all on display — as is the vulnerability to land loss.

Flat, sparsely populated and split lengthwise by the river, the parish juts into the Gulf of Mexico at Louisiana's southeastern tip. It's marbled by bayous and bays. Highways paralleling the river as it nears its endpoint at the Gulf pass farmland and fishing camps, shrimp boats, offshore oil rig supply vessels and industrial storage yards.

“Without question, we are confident that this project will build land within the Barataria Basin,” Bren Haase, chair of Louisiana's Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority, said Tuesday.

He estimates the diversion will build anywhere from 20 square miles (52 square kilometers) to 40 square miles (104 square kilometers) over the next 30 to 50 years.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which permitted the project last year, projected creation of as much as 21 square miles (54 square kilometers) by 2070. Subsidence — the natural sinking of land — and sea level rise will diminish the returns, so much so that a net loss of land remains likely. But that can be seen as a factor increasing the importance of the effort.

“As land loss accelerates due to sea-level rise and subsidence, more of the remaining wetland area would be attributed to diversion operations,” the statement’s executive summary said.

Coastal experts say south Louisiana was built by sediment deposited as the powerful river continuously altered its own crooked, meandering course over thousands of years.

Human efforts to constrain the river with flood protection levees and huge flow-control structures safeguarded cities and communities that developed along the banks as the river became a medium of navigation and commerce. But the development also stopped the millennia-old process of building land naturally.

That is a major reason Louisiana's marshy coastal wetlands have given way to growing swaths of open water, posing a myriad of environmental concerns. Those concerns include worry about the erosion of land that serves as a natural hurricane buffer for New Orleans.

Channeling water from the Mississippi into the basin poses environmental and economic problems, too. Even as it granted permits for the project, the Corps noted the environmental costs of introducing non-salty river water into coastal areas where aquatic animals thrive in salty or brackish water. The changes will likely kill bottlenose dolphins and have varying effects on fish and sea turtles. Fishermen have long opposed the project because of its expected effects on shrimp and oysters as well.

Kerri Callais, a board member for the Save Louisiana Coalition, which opposes the diversion, is among opponents who favor other coast-building methods, including rebuilding barrier islands and using pipelines to pump sediment to land-depleted areas.

“These are projects that we know will build land, will not take decades, and will not take the livelihoods, culture, and heritage of our citizens away,” Callais, a member of the governing council in neighboring St. Bernard Parish, said in an email.

Opposition has remained despite state promises of efforts to mitigate harm. On Tuesday, for instance, coastal officials outlined $10 million in planned spending on a variety of projects to aid fishers and oyster harvesters who will have to change the areas where they work or make other adjustments as a result of the project. Millions more in spending is planned to help communities near the river that might see increased flood threats from the project, including elevation of roadways.

Some environmental groups see the potential benefits. Matt Rota, senior policy director for the nonprofit Healthy Gulf, said the project will use less energy than sediment pumping, and he acknowledged the need to work with the river on its natural ability to build land.

“This diversion, if it's successful, is more passive,” Rota said in a phone interview, “which means it can keep going, whether or not we have money or the fuel.”

Still, Rota said, Healthy Gulf wants to see more done to help locals who depend on fisheries and oysters for their livelihoods. He said state and federal governments must also work harder to limit pollution upriver that flows south.

Plan to turn an asteroid into a space station housing 70,000 people

Rob Waugh
·Contributor
Wed, August 9, 2023 

Could an asteroid be turned into a space station in just 12 years? (Getty)

A space scientist has devised a plan to turn an asteroid into a habitable space station in just 12 years –which he claims could be achieved using 21st-century technology.

David W Jensen, a retired technical fellow at Rockwell Collins has devised the plan, which would create a rotating space station three miles wide that could house 70,000 people.

He believes that it could be accomplished with equipment put in orbit in a single rocket launch and pinpoints nan asteroid target for the mission, Atira.

Jensen writes, "In an example simulation, it takes 12 years to autonomously restructure a large asteroid into the space station.

"This is accomplished with a single rocket launch. The single payload contains a base station, four robots (spiders), and a modest set of supplies. Our simulation creates 3000 spiders and over 23,500 other pieces of equipment."

The full research was published on Arxiv.

Read more: Astronomers find closest black hole to Earth

Jensen’s proposed target, Atira, is a stony asteroid found within the interior of Earth’s orbit.

The binary asteroid is three miles wide, and was discovered in 2003.

Jensen argues that self-replicating robots could turn the minerals in the asteroid into a working space station, relatively rapidly.

He believes that it would not involve exotic or unknown technologies.

"Only the base station and spiders (replicators) have advanced microprocessors and algorithms. These represent 21st century technologies created and transported from Earth," he says.

"The equipment and tools are built using in-situ materials and represent 18th or 19th century technologies. The equipment and tools (helpers) have simple mechanical programs to perform repetitive tasks."

Read more: There might once have been life on the moon

In Jensen’s plan, the asteroid would rotate to create artificial gravity for those within.

"We are at the stage where it appears that the restructuring process is viable. Of course, we expect additional problems to be identified during reviews," he writes.

"We also expect that experts and future teams will be able to solve those problems and improve on the work already done. The restructuring process offers humanity the opportunity to truly become a space faring society."

Watch: Could 3D printers make space colonies a reality?

Nasa asteroid strike unleashes boulder storm ‘as deadly as Hiroshima’

Sarah Knapton
Tue, August 8, 2023

Nasa’s test knocked the asteroid Dimorphos, in blue, off course, but accidentally released a swarm of boulders, circled - Nasa/ESA/David Jewitt (UCLA)/Alyssa Pagan (STScI)

A storm of boulders “as deadly as Hiroshima” was accidentally unleashed by Nasa during tests to change the trajectory of an asteroid, scientists have found.

Last September, the agency crashed a spacecraft into the asteroid Dimorphos in the first planetary defence experiment aimed at finding ways to protect humanity from an extinction-level event.

Now astronomers have found that although the impact succeeded in knocking Dimorphos slightly off course, it also dislodged 37 boulders, which are currently zipping through space at 13,000mph.

Experts said it showed that deflection strategies could have unintended consequences that leave smaller rocks on a collision course with Earth.

David Jewitt, a professor of Earth and planetary sciences at UCLA, said: “The boulder swarm is like a cloud of shrapnel expanding from a hand grenade. Because those big boulders basically share the speed of the targeted asteroid, they’re capable of doing their own damage.”

This graphic showed the effect of Dart’s impact on the orbit of Dimorphos - Nasa/Johns Hopkins APL

The boulders, which were spotted by the Hubble Space Telescope, range in size from three feet to 22ft across, and are drifting away from the asteroid at little more than a half-mile per hour – roughly the walking speed of a giant tortoise.

Prof Jewitt said that given the high speed of a typical impact, a 15ft boulder hitting Earth would deliver as much energy as the atomic bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima, Japan, during the Second World War.

The rocks are not shattered pieces of the asteroid, but were already scattered on the surface and knocked off by the shock of the impact from the Dart (Double Asteroid Redirection Test) spacecraft, astronomers believed.

A close-up photograph taken by Dart just two seconds before the collision showed a similar number of boulders sitting on the asteroid’s surface – and of similar sizes and shapes.

The last complete image of Dimorphos, as seen by Nasa’s Dart spacecraft, two seconds before impact - NASA/APL

Experts think that the boulders may have been flung off the surface when a seismic wave from the impact rattled through the asteroid – like hitting a bell with a hammer – shaking loose the surface rubble. They may also have been ejected in the impact plume.

The current estimate is that about 1,000 tonnes of debris were blasted away, enough to fill 60 train carriages.

Dimorphos, which was about the size of one of the Great Pyramids of Giza, was chosen because it posed little threat to Earth, so there is no danger from the boulders.

The asteroid is part of a binary system and orbits a larger mountain-sized asteroid called Didymos. Although the system is technically classified as potentially hazardous, it is still six million miles away from Earth and unlikely to pose a threat in the near future.

However, experts warned that if rubble from a future asteroid deflection were to reach our planet, it would hit at the same speed the asteroid was travelling — fast enough to cause “tremendous damage”.

Experts hope that future Hubble observations will help them pin down the precise trajectories of the boulders.

“If we follow the boulders in future Hubble observations, we may have enough data to pin down the boulders’ precise trajectories,” added Prof Jewitt.

“And then we’ll see in which directions they were launched from the surface and figure out exactly how they were ejected.”

The European Space Agency is planning an in-depth study of the aftermath of the impact with its Hera mission, due to launch in 2024 and scheduled to reach Dimorphos by Christmas 2026.

Science’s biggest mistakes

Early studies suggested that the Dart mission was a success, with the impact causing the orbit of Dimorphos to slow by about 0.1 inches per second.

Patrick Michel, Hera’s principal investigator, said: “It is likely Dimorphos was tidally locked before Dart’s impact, but is now probably either rotating or ‘librating’ – wobbling – as it orbits Didymos.”

The research was published in the journal Astrophysical Journal Letters.

Associate professor Cristina Thomas, the Dart Observations Working Group Lead, of the University of Arizona, said: “These boulders are definitely something to take into consideration as we look forward to ESA’s Hera mission.

“As for planetary defense missions in general, it is certainly something for us to consider to improve our understanding of the kinetic impact technique, but on Earth there is nothing to be concerned about from objects this size.

“A kinetic impact would be used many years in advance of any potential Earth impact, so boulders of this kind would have a lot of time to move away from the potentially hazardous asteroid.

“We did expect boulders to be part of the material ejected from the surface of Dimorphos after the Dart impact. It’s still incredibly exciting to see these predictions come to life.”

 

Potentially Hazardous Space Rock Found by Asteroid-Hunting AI

Cassidy Ward
Sat, August 5, 2023

In 1998, humanity got real worried about asteroids for a minute. Theaters saw two back-to-back asteroid apocalypse movies that year, the Bruce Willis-led Armageddon and the Elijah Wood, Morgan Freeman vehicle Deep Impact (streaming now on Peacock).

In Deep Impact, an impactor 7-miles wide is on a collision course with Earth. Unlike some other asteroid movies, it cannot be stopped, it can only be survived. In an effort to prevent something similar happening to us in the real world, astronomers and engineers are hard at work building the software and hardware that will protect us from a cosmic sucker punch.
Asteroid-hunting Algorithms

There are a whole bunch of rocks out there, whizzing around through space on the invisible tram lines of their orbit. Fortunately, most of those rocks aren't any of our concern. They are just too far away.

RELATED: Mile-Wide Asteroid Found Hiding in Sun's Glare

The space rocks of most concern are what are known as near-Earth objects (NEOs), that's anything within about 50 million kilometers of here (30 million miles). Even most of them aren't worth worrying about, too small to cause any real trouble even if they did hit us. But there is a smaller subset of objects which are both close and large, which are potentially hazardous. To be clear, we call anything that is both close and large "potentially hazardous." The moniker is not an indication that it's likely to hit us anytime soon or at all.

Illustration of an asteroid, the Earth, and the Moon. Photo: JUAN GARTNER/Getty Images

In September of 2022, one such object, an asteroid about 600 feet in diameter, got to within 7.2 million kilometers (4.5 million miles) of us, and nobody noticed. No one, that is, except an algorithm.

Researchers used archival data from the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS) survey. ATLAS takes four images of the same section of sky every night, looking for objects moving across the background. The newly discovered asteroid, now dubbed 2022 SF289, showed up in three images, but not the fourth, so ATLAS missed it.

RELATED: Asteroid impacts formed natural water bottles on the Moon

The new A.I.-powered system can make detections with less data, allowing it to capture objects other programs miss. Researchers suspect there could be hundreds or thousands of objects hiding in plain sight, waiting to be spotted.

There has been a lot of debate of late about what sorts of jobs A.I. should be engaged in, and what activities should be left to humans. I think we can all agree that when it comes to the hunt for potential planet killers, we'll take all the help we can get.

Galaxy from the 'teenage' universe reveals its water map for the 1st time

Robert Lea

SPACE.COM
Wed, August 9, 2023  

Illustration shows water molecules seen in a vapor cloud around a galaxy.

For the first time, scientists managed to develop a map of water distribution in a galaxy that existed when the 13.8-billion-year-old universe was just a cosmic teenager.

The galaxy, designated J1135, is located around 12 billion light-years from Earth and is therefore seen as it was less than 2 billion years after the Big Bang.

J1135's water map, created as part of a Scuola Internazionale Superiore di Studi Avanzati (SISSA) study conducted by the Galaxy Observational and Theoretical Astrophysics (GOThA) team, also has an unprecedented resolution that could reveal never-before-seen dynamics of early universe galaxies.

Though water is an essential ingredient for life, its presence across the universe has a purpose beyond searching for habitable regions. Scientists can use the distribution of water across a galaxy to tell the cosmic story of certain processes occurring within. This is because, as water changes its state from ice to vapor, it indicates areas of increased energy where stars, or even black holes, are being born. In short, that means finding water vapor in a particular region of a galaxy indicates that something very important is happening there.

"Water can be found not only on Earth but anywhere in space, in different states," Francesca Perrotta, lead author of the study and a SISSA researcher, said in a statement. "For example, in the form of ice, water can be found in so-called molecular clouds, dense regions of dust and gas in which stars are born."

"Water acts like a cloak," Perrotta continued, "covering the surface of interstellar dust grains, which form the building blocks of these molecular clouds and the principal catalysts of molecule formation in space.”

Related: James Webb Space Telescope finds water in super-hot exoplanet's atmosphere

Perrotta also explained that there are times with something breaks the stillness and coldness of these molecular clouds, such as a star birth that releases heat or a black hole beginning to feast on surrounding matter that, in turn, emits energy.

Radiation from these disruptive sources heats frozen water, causing it to convert straight to a gaseous form, aka water vapor, during a process called sublimation. Then, as this water vapor cools, it emits infrared light that astronomers are able to observe.

"Astrophysicists can then observe this water vapor emission to map the regions of the galaxy where energy is produced, giving us unprecedented insights into how galaxies are formed," Perrotta said.

That emission data can also be combined with the mapping of certain molecules, such as carbon dioxide, to reveal even more about how galaxies come together over time.

But observing early galaxies, such as J1135, wouldn’t be possible without a little help from a phenomenon first predicted in Albert Einstein’s theory of general relativity called "gravitational lensing."
A deep dive into early galaxies, courtesy of Einstein

Einstein's 1915 theory of general relativity basically predicts that objects with mass have a warping effect on the very fabric of space and time, assuming time as tangible in higher dimensions. This is akin to the 2D analogy of spherical weights placed on a stretched rubber sheet causing dents in the fabric. Just as weights with greater mass cause more extreme curving of the sheet, cosmic objects of greater mass cause more extreme warping of spacetime. Except, in reality, the warping of spacetime happens in 4D because of the time bit.

Not only does that curvature give rise to what we know as gravity, but also to a really interesting phenomena to do with light.

When light from a background source — say, an ancient star — passes by spacetime curvature created by a massive galaxy between that background source and Earth, the curve of the light's path past the intervening object depends on how close it comes to the warp. This ultimately means the light from the same object can arrive at our telescopes at different times.

As a result of this, not only can the same background object appear at multiple points in a single image, but can also be magnified by the effect, hence the description of these intervening objects as “gravitational lenses.”

RELATED STORIES:

— James Webb Space Telescope unveils the gravitationally warped galaxies of 'El Gordo'

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The phenomenon has been used to great effect by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), as the instrument has observed the earliest galaxies ever seen by humanity. And, importantly for the new study, it was also integral in the discovery of J1135.

By playing a role in helping scientists determine the water distribution of J1135, gravitational lensing has also become integral in understanding how that galaxy evolved during the teenage years of the universe. A better picture of this transition will hopefully be revealed by the team as they continue to investigate this galaxy.

“It isn’t yet clear how galaxies are formed. There are at least two possible scenarios, not necessarily alternative: one sees the aggregation of small galaxies to create larger ones, and the other sees the formation of stars in situ,” Perrotta said. “Studies like ours help us to understand what is happening, specifically in that galaxy, but we can also potentially deduce more generic information from that.”

The team's research was published July 19 in The Astrophysical Journal.

SPACE RACE 1.5

Virgin Galactic flies its first tourists to the edge of space

SUSAN MONTOYA BRYAN and MARCIA DUNN
Updated Thu, August 10, 2023


TRUTH OR CONSEQUENCES, N.M. (AP) — Virgin Galactic rocketed to the edge of space with its first tourists Thursday, including a former British Olympian who bought his ticket 18 years ago and a mother-daughter duo from the Caribbean.

The space plane glided back to a runway landing at Spaceport America in the New Mexico desert, after a brief flight that gave passengers a few minutes of weightlessness.

This first private customer flight had been delayed for years; its success means Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic can now start offering monthly rides, joining Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin and Elon Musk's SpaceX in the space tourism business.

“That was by far the most awesome thing I’ve ever done in my life,” passenger Jon Goodwin told the crowd after his flight.

Goodwin, who was among the first to buy a ticket in 2005, said he had faith that he would someday make the trip. The 80-year-old athlete — he competed in canoeing in the 1972 Olympics — has Parkinson's disease and wants to be an inspiration to others.

Ticket prices were $200,000 when Goodwin signed up. The cost is now $450,000.

He was joined on the flight by sweepstakes winner Keisha Schahaff, 46, a health coach from Antigua, and her daughter, Anastatia Mayers, 18, a student at Scotland's University of Aberdeen. They high-fived and pumped their fists as the spaceport crowd cheered their return.

"A childhood dream has come true,” Schahaff said. Added her daughter: “I have no words. The only thought I had the whole time was ‘Wow!’ ”

With the company's astronaut trainer and one of the two pilots, it marked the first time women outnumbered men on a spaceflight, four to two.

Cheers erupted from families and friends watching below when the craft’s rocket motor fired after it was released from the twin-fuselage aircraft that had carried it aloft. The rocket ship’s portion of the flight lasted about 15 minutes and it reached 55 miles (88 kilometers) high.

It was Virgin Galactic's seventh trip to space since 2018, but the first with a ticket-holder. Branson, the company's founder, hopped on board for the first full-size crew ride in 2021. Italian military and government researchers soared in June on the first commercial flight. About 800 people are currently on Virgin Galactic’s waiting list, according to the company.

In contrast to Virgin Galactic’s plane-launched rocket ship, the capsules used by SpaceX and Blue Origin are fully automated and parachute back down.

Like Virgin Galactic, Blue Origin aims for the fringes of space, quick ups-and-downs from West Texas. Blue Origin has launched 31 people so far, but flights are on hold following a rocket crash last fall. The capsule, carrying experiments but no passengers, landed intact.

SpaceX, is the only private company flying customers all the way to orbit, charging a much heftier price, too: tens of millions of dollars per seat. It’s already flown three private crews. NASA is its biggest customer, relying on SpaceX to ferry its astronauts to and from the International Space Station. since 2020.

People have been taking on adventure travel for decades, the risks underscored by the recent implosion of the Titan submersible that killed five passengers on their way down to view the Titanic wreckage. Virgin Galactic suffered its own casualty in 2014 when its rocket plane broke apart during a test flight, killing one pilot. Yet space tourists are still lining up, ever since the first one rocketed into orbit in 2001 with the Russians.

Branson, who lives in the British Virgin Islands, watched Thursday's flight from a party in Antigua. He was joined by the country's prime minister, as well as Schahaff's mother and other relatives.

"Welcome to the club,” he told the new spacefliers via X, formerly Twitter.

Several months ago, Branson held a virtual lottery to establish a pecking order for the company's first 50 customers — dubbed the Founding Astronauts. Virgin Galactic said the group agreed Goodwin would go first, given his age and his Parkinson’s.

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This story has been updated to correct introductory price to $200,000, not $250,000.

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Dunn reported from Cape Canaveral, Florida.

SPACE RACE 2.0

A rocket with a lunar landing craft blasts off on Russia’s first moon mission in nearly 50 years

The Canadian Press
Thu, August 10, 2023


TALLINN, Estonia (AP) — A rocket carrying a lunar landing craft blasted off Friday on Russia’s first moon mission in nearly 50 years, racing to land on Earth’s satellite ahead of an Indian spacecraft.

The launch from Russia’s Vostochny spaceport in the Far East of the Luna-25 craft to the moon is Russia’s first since 1976 when it was part of the Soviet Union.

The Russian lunar lander is expected to reach the moon on Aug. 23, about the same day as an Indian craft which was launched on July 14. The Russian spacecraft will take about 5.5 days to travel to the moon's vicinity, then spend three to seven days orbiting at about 100 kilometers (62 miles) before heading for the surface.

Only three governments have managed successful moon landings: the Soviet Union, the United States and China. India and Russia are aiming to be the first to land at the moon’s south pole.

Roscosmos, Russia's space agency, said it wants to show Russia “is a state capable of delivering a payload to the moon,” and “ensure Russia’s guaranteed access to the moon’s surface.”

“Study of the moon is not the goal,” said Vitaly Egorov, a popular Russian space analyst. “The goal is political competition between two superpowers — China and the USA — and a number of other countries which also want to claim the title of space superpower.”

Sanctions imposed on Russia after it invaded Ukraine make it harder for it to access Western technology, impacting its space program. The Luna-25 was initially meant to carry a small moon rover but that idea was abandoned to reduce the weight of the craft for improved reliability, analysts say.

“Foreign electronics are lighter, domestic electronics are heavier,” Egorov said. “While scientists might have the task of studying lunar water, for Roscosmos the main task is simply to land on the moon — to recover lost Soviet expertise and learn how to perform this task in a new era.”

The Luna-25 launched flawlessly from the Vostochny Cosmodrome in Russia's Far East, according to video feed from Roscosmos.

The spaceport is a pet project of Russian President Vladimir Putin and is key to his efforts to make Russia a space superpower and move Russian launches from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

A previous Indian attempt to land at the moon’s south pole in 2019 ended when the lander crashed into the moon’s surface.

The lunar south pole is of particular interest to scientists, who believe the permanently shadowed polar craters may contain water. The frozen water in the rocks could be transformed by future explorers into air and rocket fuel.

“The moon is largely untouched and the whole history of the moon is written on its face,” said Ed Bloomer, an astronomer at Britain's Royal Observatory, Greenwich. “It is pristine and like nothing you get on Earth. It is its own laboratory.”

The Luna-25 is to take samples of moon rock and dust. The samples are crucial to understanding the moon’s environment ahead of building any base there, “otherwise we could be building things and having to shut them down six months later because everything has effectively been sand-blasted,” Bloomer said.

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Burrows reported from London. Associated Press writer Marcia Dunn in Cape Canaveral, Florida contributed to this story.

Jim Heintz And Emma Burrows, The Associated Press

Russia Elbows Into the New Moon Race With Upcoming Luna-25 Launch

Passant Rabie

Gizmodo
Tue, August 8, 2023 

the Soyuz-2.1b rocket with the moon lander Luna 25 automatic station is set at a launch pad at the Vostochny Cosmodrome in the Russian Far East on Tuesday, Aug. 8, 2023.

The Luna 25 lunar lander on board a Soyuz-2.1b rocket at a launch pad at the Vostochny Cosmodrome in August 8, 2023.

Russia is getting ready to launch its first mission to the Moon in nearly fifty years in an attempt to stay relevant amidst a renewed space race.

The Luna-25 lander has been loaded on board a Soyuz-2.1b carrier rocket, awaiting its launch on Friday at 7:00 p.m. ET from the Vostochny Cosmodrome in Moscow, according to Russian state news outlet TASS. The lunar lander is targeting the Moon’s south polar region, where it will study the composition of the polar regolith, and the plasma and dust components of the lunar polar exosphere.

Russia hasn’t launched a mission to the Moon since Luna-24 returned to Earth carrying samples of lunar regolith in August 1976. Luna-25 marks the first sign of Russia’s renewed interest in the Moon, with the country hoping to join forces with China in the new space race to the lunar surface.

The first mission of Russia’s new lunar program has been delayed for nearly two years. Luna-25 was originally planned in cooperation with the European Space Agency (ESA) but Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine led to severed ties between Europe and the Russian space agency, Roscosmos. ESA pulled out of the Luna-25 mission, as well as the subsequent Luna 26 and 27, and Russia was forced to replace European-made parts on the lander with locally built scientific instruments.

Russia’s long awaited return to the lunar surface comes not only at a time when Roscosmos is largely on the outs with major players in the space industry, but also as Russia tries to cement its partnership with China on building a base on the Moon. China is advancing its lunar program with aims to rival NASA’s Artemis program, including plans for a permanent base on the Moon’s surface. The International Lunar Research Station moon base was announced as a joint project between China and Russia in 2021, and other countries such as the United Arab Emirates and Pakistan later joined in on the project.
The Luna-25 mission explained

Following its launch, Luna-25 is expected to reach lunar orbit in five days and attempt a landing at one of three designated sites within the subsequent five to seven days, Reuters reports. India is also in the midst of its own lunar landing attempt with the launch of its Chandrayaan-3 mission, scheduled for touchdown on the Moon’s surface on August 23.

Landing on the Moon is no easy feat, as evidenced by Japan’s recent attempt to touchdown on the lunar surface with the privately owned Hakuto-R M1 lander. The Soviet Union, China, and the U.S. are the only three countries to have accomplished a soft landing on the surface of the Moon. Previous lunar landings, however, have mostly taken place near the Moon’s equator.

Should it stick the landing near the south pole, Luna-25 has a four-legged base and is expected to operate on the lunar surface for one year. The main purpose of the mission is to help develop technologies for landing on the Moon, as well as sampling lunar soil.

Ahead of the launch of Luna-25, Russia ordered the evacuation of a village in the far eastern region of the country due to a “one in a million chance” that rocket debris could hit that area, Reuters reported, adding that residents of Shakhtinsky will leave their homes for a period of around three hours, during which they will be taken to watch the launch and later hang back to avoid being crushed by pieces of the rocket.

Russia seems pretty confident in its attempt to land on the Moon, a renewed interest in a celestial surface it hasn’t touched in a very long time

See stunning new photos and videos of the moon as India's Chandrayaan-3 rover enters lunar orbit

Andrew Jones
Tue, August 8, 2023 

India's Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft snapped this photo while entering orbit around the moon on Aug. 5, 2023.

India's Chandrayaan-3 lunar lander has returned its first images from the moon after entering orbit around our nearest neighbor.

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) released the images on Sunday (Aug. 6), showing that the spacecraft had reached its destination ahead of a lunar landing attempt expected on Aug. 23.

Chandrayaan-3 launched on July 14, heading into an initial highly elliptical Earth orbit. It then gradually raised its orbit before making a burn on July 31 that set it on course for the moon. The spacecraft successfully entered orbit around our natural satellite on Saturday (Aug. 5), according to ISRO.

Related: Days before dying, Japan's lunar lander snaps glorious photo of Earth during a total solar eclipse

The spacecraft will conduct further engine burns to bring it into a circular track about 60 miles (100 kilometers) above the surface of the moon a week ahead of the expected landing attempt.

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The newly released images, which ISRO stitched into a 45-second video, show the solar arrays of the Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft in the foreground. The moon, with features including large impact craters and lunar mare, or seas, is in the background.

The 6-billion-rupee (roughly $73 million) Chandrayaan-3 mission aims to make a precise landing in the vicinity of the moon's south pole. If it's successful, India will join the United States, the former Soviet Union and China as the only nations to perform a soft lunar landing.

The mission's lander, known as Vikram, also carries a small rover called Pragyan. The pair will spend the best part of a lunar day (about 14 Earth days) conducting surface operations and experiments before succumbing to the deep cold of the lunar nighttime.

Originally posted on Space.com

NASA may delay crewed lunar landing beyond Artemis 3 mission

AFP
Tue, August 8, 2023

Officials and media personnel are seen inside the Operations and Checkout Building (O&C) at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida (CHANDAN KHANNA)

NASA's Artemis 3 mission, set to return humans to the Moon in 2025, might not involve a crewed landing after all, an official said Tuesday.

Jim Free, the space agency's associate administrator for the Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate, told reporters in a briefing that certain key elements would have to be in place -- notably the landing system that is being developed by SpaceX.

Should that not be ready on time, "We may end up flying a different mission," he said.

Under the Artemis program, NASA is planning a series of missions of escalating complexity to return to the Moon and build a sustained presence in order to develop and test technologies for an eventual journey to Mars.


The first, Artemis 1, flew an uncrewed spacecraft around the Moon in 2022. Artemis 2, planned for November 2024, will do the same with crew on board.

But it is during the Artemis 3 mission planned for December 2025 that NASA has planned its grand return to the Moon with humans for the first time since 1972, this time on the lunar south pole, where the ice can be harvested and turned into rocket fuel.

Elon Musk's SpaceX has won the contract for a landing system based on a version of its prototype Starship rocket, which remains far from ready. An orbital test flight of Starship ended in a dramatic explosion in April.

Free said NASA officials had visited SpaceX's Starbase facility in Texas a few weeks ago to "learn where they are with the hardware, trying to understand their schedule some more."

Though he found the visit insightful, he said he remained concerned "because they haven't launched," and will need to do so multiple times before the rocket will be ready.

What's more, delays to Starship have knock-on effects because the spacesuit contractor needs to know how the suits will interface with the spacecraft, and simulators need to be built for astronauts to learn its systems.

He added that NASA will update the public in the near future once it has had time to "digest" the information gathered during the Starbase visit.

SPACE WEATHER

Powerful sun storm knocks out radio transmissions across North America

Tereza Pultarova

SPACE.COM

Tue, August 8, 2023 

An x flare bursting from the sun in August 2023.

A powerful solar flare disrupted radio and navigation signals across North America on Monday (Aug. 7) and prompted space weather forecasters to issue warnings because of energetic particles hitting Earth.

The flare, classified as an X1.5, was the 20th X flare — the most potent solar flare category — of the current 11-year solar cycle, which will reach its maximum next year.

Solar flares are energetic flashes of radiation that explode from magnetically dense, cool regions on the sun's surface known as sunspots. Traveling at the speed of light, the photons from these flares arrive at our planet in eight minutes. As the radiation from the flares interacts with particles in Earth's ionosphere, the region of the atmosphere at altitudes between 50 and 400 miles (80 and 650 kilometers), it supercharges them. These changes then affect radio and satellite signals that pass through this region.

Related: Sun blasts out highest-energy radiation ever recorded, raising questions for solar physics


According to solar physicist Keith Strong, the blackout caused by the Monday flare was a strong category 3 on the five-point scale developed by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

"The X1.5 Flare caused an R3 (strong) radio blackout event on the daylit side of the Earth (most of the US and Canada and the Pacific Ocean)," Strong said on X, formerly Twitter. "Frequencies below 5 Mhz were most affected and navigation signals degraded."

The flare burst out of the largest and most active sunspot group currently visible on the sun's disk, according to the U.K. space weather forecaster Met Office, and emerged only two days after a somewhat weaker X flare that occurred on Saturday (Aug. 5).

In addition to these two powerful flares, the sun also unleashed multiple moderate-class flares in recent days, three of which occurred in the past 24 hours.

The Met Office issued a warning for a mild solar radiation storm due to the presence of charged solar particles in Earth's atmosphere, a result of the lashing by those solar flares. In extreme cases, these charged particles may pose a radiation hazard to astronauts in space and passengers and crew on aircraft traveling over polar regions. They can also damage satellites in orbit. The current event, a mild category 1, should, however, be rather harmless.

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The Met Office predicts that further strong flares may occur while the large sunspot cluster remains visible on the face of the sun. That threatening region should, however, disappear behind the sun's edge within the next two days, giving space weather forecasters some respite.

In the meantime, however, these experts are bracing for the arrival of two coronal mass ejections (CME), huge clouds of magnetized gas that frequently escape from the sun together with solar flares. CMEs that hit Earth can cause a different type of phenomenon, known as a geomagnetic storm, as they interact with our planet's magnetic field.

Geomagnetic storms produce beautiful aurora displays but can also cause problems to satellite operators as they make Earth's atmosphere swell. In the most severe cases, geomagnetic storms can knock out power grids and telecommunication networks. The upcoming geomagnetic storm could reach a strong G3 level, according to Spaceweather.com.

Earth hit by powerful ‘X-1’ solar flare, after fears of ‘cannibal’ blast

Andrew Griffin
Wed, August 9, 2023 

NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory captured this image of a solar flare – as seen in the bright flash on the top right – on Oct. 2, 2022. The image shows a subset of extreme ultraviolet light that highlights the extremely hot material in flares and which is colorized in orange 

(NASA/SDO)

The Earth narrowly avoided being hit by a “cannibal” solar flare – but has been lashed by powerful enough blasts to disrupt communications.

In recent days, space weather forecasters had warned that the Earth could be hit by a range of powerful flares that have been ejected from the Sun. Particular warnings focused on the “cannibal” flare, which was forecast to potentially glance Earth.

“Cannibal” solar flares are formed when a later blast catches up with one that was ejected earlier, and consumes it. The energy of the two is combined, which can make them far more powerful than flares that are released on their own.

The latest cannibal flare appears to have missed Earth, however. Forecasts had suggested that it was only expected to glance the planet, and so a miss was perhaps likely.

The Earth was struck by an X-class flare, however. That is the most potent category of solar flares, and can cause considerable disruption on Earth.

This time around, space weather experts warned that the blast was enough to disrupt radio and navigation signals in North America. It was measured as an R3 blackout – on a scale that runs from 1 to 5 – which meant that areas in the US and Canada as well as on the Pacific Ocean were at risk of having radio signals and navigation disrupted.

The Sun moves through a cycle of activity every 11 years, during which it releases more and less “coronal mass ejections” or CMEs, and it is currently in a particularly busy part of that cycle. Those CMEs can bring energetic flares that hit Earth – and could one day cause considerable problems on the planet, disrupting energy grids and other important infrastructure.

The latest flare was measured at X1.5 and is the 20th such X flare to have hit the Earth in its current period. It came out of a particularly active part of the Sun, and followed other, weaker flares, the UK’s Met Office said.

Nonetheless, experts said the “minor ongoing solar radiation storm” was “waning” and that it did not expect significant disruption in the coming days.