CRY ME A RIVER

U.S. lawmakers raise alarm over new Huawei phone
Morgan Chalfant

SEMAFOR
Thu, September 7, 2023 at 1:54 PM MDT·3 min read

The News

A new Huawei smartphone is drawing intensifying U.S. scrutiny, with some lawmakers suggesting the Chinese chipmaker SMIC may have run afoul of U.S. rules in supplying chips to Huawei for the new product.

“I am very concerned because the industry perception was that China had not been able to get down to a 7-nanometer chip,” Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Mark Warner, D-Va. told Semafor, questioning whether SMIC may have used “sanctioned Western technology or materials” to produce the chips now powering the Huawei Mate 60 Pro. SMIC and Huawei both continue to license some technology from U.S. companies, though they face substantial restrictions.

“This is an area that I think might need additional sanctions,” he added.

Rep. Mike Gallagher, R-Wis., who chairs the House select committee on China, said in a statement that SMIC may have violated the Commerce Department’s Foreign Direct Product Rule. He called for ending “all U.S. technology exports to both Huawei and SMIC to make clear any firm that flouts U.S. law and undermines our national security will be cut off from our technology.”

House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul, R-Texas, who suggested Wednesday that SMIC may have violated existing U.S. sanctions, told Semafor in a statement that his committee would be requesting a briefing from the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security, which oversees export controls, including those on cutting-edge chips and technology used to make them.

Warner, too, said he was in touch with the administration and expected to receive a briefing on the development.

The White House said this week it is also seeking more information on the “character and composition” of the chip powering the Huawei Mate 60 Pro, which was released last week.

State-backed Chinese outlets have heralded the new chip design as a sign of the semiconductor industry’s resilience amid U.S. sanctions.

Neither Huawei nor SMIC returned requests for comment.

Know More

Recent analysis indicated that the phone was made with a 7-nanometer processor produced by SMIC, which has been on the Commerce Department’s Entity List and as a result subject to U.S. sanctions since the end of the Trump administration. The sanctions on SMIC limit the company’s ability to acquire U.S. technology, while existing sanctions on Huawei restrict the company from obtaining goods made with American technology.

The phone development has raised doubts about the effectiveness of the U.S. effort to curb China’s access to advanced chips used in weapons, artificial intelligence, and other advanced technology.

“This shouldn’t have been a surprise. The Chinese were just faster than in the past,” Jim Lewis, a technology expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told Semafor. “It happened with satellites, it happened with computers, it happened with encryption, it happened with machine tools back in the Reagan administration. You put on tight export controls, the other guys don’t give up and go home.”

At the same time, Lewis said it was worth the U.S. looking into potential violations of its own rules, given that SMIC may have used U.S. equipment to produce the chips. Equipment used to manufacture the more advanced chips is made in the U.S., Japan, and the Netherlands, all of which have placed restrictions on exports of chipmaking equipment to China.

Lewis said officials could reverse engineer the phone to examine how the chip was made and potentially determine where SMIC procured the equipment from.

“It’s difficult to believe they did this entirely on their own,” he said. “But it’s also not impossible.”

Opinion

Will Arizonans soon need to seek abortion care in more progressive …

(CATHOLIC) Mexico?

EJ Montini, Arizona Republic
Thu, September 7, 2023 

Abortion-rights activists protest outside the Arizona State Senate following the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, in Phoenix on June 24, 2022.

If what happened in Mexico on Wednesday would have happened in, say, the 1980s, Americans would have said, “It’s about time.”

If it had happened in the 1990s we would have said, “What took them so long?”

If it had happened in the 2000s, or the 2010s, or even in the early 2020s we would have huffed and puffed and declared that it was way, WAY overdue.

But it happened on Wednesday, when Mexico’s Supreme Court decriminalized abortion nationwide, and suddenly the United States — which had been 50 years ahead — is now 50 years behind.

Arizona could be 100 years behind

And possibly 100 years behind in Arizona, where the state Supreme Court will consider whether to put in force an 1864 abortion ban that comes with a two- to five-year prison sentence for anyone providing an abortion.

The revival of that law became possible when the U.S. Supreme Court tossed nearly 50 years of precedent and overturned the Roe v. Wade decision that had affirmed a woman’s constitutional right to abortion.

The Arizona Legislature had passed a 15-week abortion ban, but that law is challenged by the right-wing Alliance Defending Freedom (backed by many of the Republicans in the Legislature) who are hoping to put the never-repealed 1864 law back into effect.

After Roe v. Wade: How reproductive rights have changed

In 2022, a poll conducted by the nonpartisan Public Religion Research Institute found that 62% of Arizonans support legalized abortion.

Group would put abortion rights on ballot

A coalition of abortion rights advocates is counting on that majority to pass a state constitutional amendment guaranteeing abortion rights up to fetal viability, or around 24 weeks.

They’re hoping to put such a question on the ballot but will need to collect at least 383,923 valid signatures to do so. The group behind what they call the Arizona for Abortion Access initiative hopes to start collecting those signatures this month.

Gov. Katie Hobbs issued an executive order that bars county attorneys from prosecuting abortion law violations. But that isn’t a solid solution.

When the initiative proposal was announced, she issued a statement saying, “I’ve been a lifelong advocate for Arizonans’ reproductive freedom, and I’ve repeatedly said that I do not believe the government or politicians should be in the business of making personal healthcare decisions. I’m confident that Arizonans will vote for reproductive freedom next November.”

Should that not happen, and Arizona law reverts to the draconian past, women here may have to seek care in what would be the more health conscious and progressive locale of … Mexico.

Reach Montini at ed.montini@arizonarepublic.com.

For more opinions content, please subscribe.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Will Arizona seek abortion care in a more progressive ... Mexico?

Developing countries propose $100bn climate damage fund

NO WAY WE'RE FUCKING PAYING SAYS U$ CLIMATE CZAR 

Wed, September 6, 2023

FILE PHOTO: Flooding in Zhuozhou

By Kate Abnett

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Developing countries have proposed that a new U.N. fund unlocks at least $100 billion by 2030 to address irreversible damage caused by climate change, as states prepare to discuss who will benefit and who will pay in at the U.N. COP28 climate summit.

Countries will attempt to hammer out the details of the climate "loss and damage" fund at the summit taking place from Nov. 30 to Dec. 12 in Dubai. If launched, it would be the first U.N. fund dedicated to addressing irreparable damage from climate-fuelled drought, floods and rising sea levels.

While countries agreed to the fund last year, they postponed the most contentious decisions, including which countries will pay into it.

At a United Nations committee meeting last week, developing countries including those in Africa, Latin America, Asia-Pacific and small island states, proposed that the climate damage fund should programme at least $100 billion by 2030.

The published proposal said $100 billion should be a "minimum" and provide a safety net when climate impacts overburden a country's capacity to cope.

"Loss and damage is not just an environmental setback; it's unravelling decades of development efforts," said Madeleine Diouf Sarr, chair of the Least Developed Countries group of 46 nations, which supports the $100 billion proposal.

However, decisions at COP28 need unanimous backing from the nearly 200 countries that attend U.N. climate summits - and the proposal is at odds with the stance of some wealthy nations expected to contribute to the fund.

TOUGH TALKS AHEAD

Diplomats said the U.N. meeting last week did not resolve the most contentious issues around the fund.

Last year's U.N. deal ended years of deadlock over climate damages funding - which the United States and European Union had previously resisted, concerned it could lead to liabilities for countries whose historical emissions fuelled climate change.

But countries are now at odds over which nations should pay into the fund, and which should receive support.

Michai Robertson, who represented the small island developing states' group at last week's U.N. meeting, said all developing nations should be eligible to receive support.

However, small island states - which are among the countries most vulnerable to climate impacts - caveat that this "open to all" approach must also ensure small, highly vulnerable communities are not sidelined by the demands of bigger nations.

The U.N. definition of developed countries that should contribute to climate finance - which dates back to the 1990s - does not include major economies like China and high wealth-per-capita nations like the United Arab Emirates, which is President of this year's UN climate summit.

Wealthy nations want a more targeted fund. A draft of the European Union's negotiating position for COP28, seen by Reuters, said the fund "should focus on developing countries that are particularly vulnerable".

Countries are also split over who should pay.

A United States proposal suggested the fund should attract cash from governments, the private sector, philanthropies and new "innovative sources". A section on which countries should pay was left blank. "There are currently differences of views," the US proposal said.

Looming over the talks is wealthy nations' failure to meet a 2009 pledge to provide $100 billion per year from 2020 in climate finance to poorer nations. That broken promise has fuelled mistrust and resentment among poor nations facing calls to cut their CO2 emissions but struggling raise money to do this.

(Reporting by Kate Abnett; editing by Richard Valdmanis, Alexandra Hudson)

 $23 billion pledged at Africa Climate Summit, but leaders warn of need ‘to act with urgency’

Jacopo Prisco, CNN
Thu, September 7, 2023 

The inaugural Africa Climate Summit drew to a close on Wednesday, with the host, Kenya’s president William Ruto, saying that a total of $23 billion had been pledged to green projects by governments, investors, development banks and philanthropists.

The summit, which focussed on driving green growth and climate finance solutions, concluded with the “Nairobi Declaration,” a call from African leaders for urgent action on climate change, which included a request for new global taxes on carbon pollution as well as phasing out coal use and ending fossil fuel subsidies.

African heads of state and government warned that many African countries face “disproportionate burdens and risks” from climate change, and called on the global community “to act with urgency” in reducing planet-heating pollution and supporting the continent in addressing the problem.

“Africa is not historically responsible for global warming, but bears the brunt of its effect, impacting lives, livelihoods, and economies,” the leaders said in the joint declaration.

Among the most eye-catching finance announcements, the United Arab Emirates pledged $4.5 billion to clean energy initiatives in Africa. The pledge was announced by Sultan Al-Jaber, the head of the UAE’s national oil company, ADNOC, and the government-owned renewable energy company, Masdar. He will also serve as the president of COP28, the annual UN climate meeting that will take place in Dubai starting in November.

“It is our ambition that this will launch a new transformative partnership to jumpstart a pipeline of bankable clean energy projects in this important continent,” Al-Jaber said, adding that the investment could lead to the generation of 15 gigawatts of clean energy by 2030. Africa’s current clean energy generation capacity is 56 gigawatts.

The initiative marks a positive development, according to Yemi Osinbajo, former vice president of Nigeria and now an advisor for the Global Energy Alliance for People and Planet (GEAPP), a consortium that helps developing countries shift to clean energy.

“It reflects a commitment to addressing the pressing issue of climate change by investing in renewable and sustainable energy solutions in Africa, which is essential for reducing emissions, creating jobs and driving social and economic development,” he told CNN

At the Africa Climate Summit, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres noted that the continent was responsible for less than four per cent of global carbon emissions. - LUIS TATO/AFP/AFP via Getty Images

Germany announced 450 million euros (about $481 million) of climate finance pledges, and and the US pledged $30 million to support climate resilient food security efforts across Africa. Hundreds of millions more were offered following an initiative to boost Africa’s carbon credit production 19-fold by 2030.

Carbon credits are used by companies to offset carbon emissions, and are usually generated by financing projects that aim to reduce carbon pollution in the atmosphere, such as tree planting, or reduce planet-heating pollution by promoting switching to renewable energy, especially in developing countries.

“Carbon credits could be a game-changer for Africa,” said Osinbajo. “They have the potential to unlock billions for the climate finance needs of African economies while expanding energy access, creating jobs, protecting biodiversity, and driving climate action.”

However, campaigners in Nairobi protested against this approach, arguing that carbon credits are flawed and allow wealthy countries and companies to continue to pollute.

A new framing

In the joint declaration, African leaders called upon the global community “to act with urgency in reducing emissions, fulfilling its obligations, keeping past promises, and supporting the continent in addressing climate change.”

They pointed to steps to achieve this, including accelerating efforts to reduce emissions, honoring the commitment to provide $100 billion in annual climate finance as promised at the 2009 UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, and upholding commitments to “a fair and accelerated process of phasing down coal, and abolishment of all fossil fuel subsidies.”

“Decarbonizing the global economy is also an opportunity to contribute to equality and shared prosperity,” the leaders said.

According to Osinbajo, the summit provided a “new framing” of Africa, not as victim, but as a key solution to the climate crisis. He said that “with its untapped renewable energy potential, the world’s youngest and fastest growing workforce, and critical minerals and resources, (Africa) has the fundamentals to become a cost-competitive green industrial hub, greening both African and global consumption and removing carbon from the air.”

On this day in history, September 8, 1966, iconic TV series 'Star Trek' premieres

Christine Rousselle
Thu, September 7, 2023 

"Star Trek" first took its audiences aboard the starship Enterprise on Sept. 8, 1966.

STAR TREK DIVERSITY ON THE RIGHT; 

AFRICAN AMERICAN WOMAN, ASIAN AMERICAN, JEWISH AMERICAN.

The world first met Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock on this day in history, Sept. 8, 1966, with the premiere of the television series "Star Trek."

"Space: the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its five-year mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before," said actor William Shatner in the show's opening.

Shatner played Captain James T. Kirk.

Throughout the series, the crew of the starship Enterprise "confront strange alien races, friendly and hostile alike, as they explore unknown worlds," said the official "Star Trek" website.

The series' first episode, "The Man Trap," was actually the sixth episode produced, said the website IMDB.

"After landing on planet M-113, the Enterprise is stalked by a creature which can assume the shape and form of anyone it chooses, and which kills by removing the entire salt content of its victims' bodies," said the episode's summary on Apple TV.

Actor William Shatner shown in a scene from an episode of the TV series "Star Trek" entitled "The Man Trap." It was the first episode to air.

The first pilot produced, "The Cage," was nixed as it was considered "too cerebral" for NBC's audiences, said IMDB.

"The Cage" would not see a wide release until Oct. 14, 1986.

Conversely, "The Man Trap" had a monster and "more action" than the other five episodes, said IMDB, which NBC thought would be more appealing to audiences.

While "Star Trek" is now a cultural phenomenon with scores of dedicated "Trekkies," the first iteration of "Star Trek" was not nearly as commercially successful.

The show, which is now referred to as "Star Trek: The Original Series," was canceled after just three seasons and 79 episodes.

The program gained a cult following during its syndication, notes Encyclopedia Britannica. Nearly two decades after its cancellation, "Star Trek" was rebooted into "Star Trek: The Next Generation."

That show, which aired from 1987-1994, starred Patrick Stewart as Captain Jean-Luc Picard.

"Nearly 100 years after Kirk, Spock and the original Enterprise patrolled the galaxy, Captain Jean-Luc Picard, a new U.S.S. Enterprise and a new crew carry forth Starfleet’s orders to ‘seek out new life and new civilizations’ and ‘to boldly go where no one has gone before,’" says Star Trek's website.

There have now been 11 "Star Trek" television series, as well as 13 movies.

The current version of "Star Trek" is "Star Trek: Strange New Worlds," which is available to stream on Paramount+.

"Star Trek: Strange New Worlds" debuted in 2022 and takes place before the events of "Star Trek: The Original Series," says its website.

William Shatner as Captain Kirk, DeForest Kelley as Dr. "Bones" McCoy and Leonard Nimoy as Mr. Spock in a promotional portrait for the TV series, "Star Trek."

September 8 is now celebrated worldwide by "Trekkies" as "Star Trek Day," says the "Star Trek" website.

"On that day, ‘Star Trek’ creator Gene Roddenberry introduced audiences to a world that championed diversity, inclusion, acceptance and hope," said the "Star Trek" website.

"Fifty-seven years later, we celebrate the day and the franchise’s enduring legacy with the fourth annual ‘Star Trek Day’ celebration."

Original article source: On this day in history, September 8, 1966, iconic TV series 'Star Trek' premieres

SPACE

Hundreds of Thousands of Stars Shine in New Hubble Space Telescope Image

Isaac Schultz
Thu, September 7, 2023 

A slice of the brilliant globular cluster Terzan 12.

Behold the celestial bounty of space. In an image recently taken by the Hubble Space Telescope, a proliferation of stars in the globular cluster Terzan 12 shine through interstellar gas and dust, making the entire image glow with activity.

The globular cluster is about 15,000 light-years from Earth in the constellation Sagittarius. Globular clusters are groups of ancient stars that populate the area on either side of galactic disks, including that of our own Milky Way. The clusters can be hard to distinguish amid the busyness of space and are sometimes shrouded with dust and gas. That is the case with Terzan 12, but the globular cluster still looks stunning on camera.

Besides looking pretty and conveying a semblance of how much stuff is in space, globular clusters have a few tricks up their sleeve. Two years ago, a team of researchers looking at the globular cluster NGC 6397 found that a group of small, star-sized black holes are lurking in the cluster, holding stars together with their gravity.

That’s not entirely a surprise, as stellar-mass black holes form when an ancient star collapses in on itself, leaving the void-like shadow of black hole in its wake. The globular cluster Palomar 5, for example, is a 10-billion-year old group of stars that has roughly three times more black holes than expected based on the number of stars in the cluster. That team posited that in about one billion years, Palomar 5 will be completely dominated by black holes.

Terzan 12 has a brighter future, at least for the foreseeable. (By the way, it’s really the 11th globular cluster discovered by the Turkish-Armenian astronomer Agop Terzan because Terzan 5 was counted twice. To avoid confusion, Terzan 12 has just been called that, in spite of a missing Terzan 11.)

Because of their superlative age, globular clusters help astronomers understand the life cycles of stars and even seek out binary systems of ancient (and dead) stars, like neutron stars and black holes. But to the lay viewer (and indeed, the astronomer), they’re just a wonderful sight to behold.

Here’s what India’s historic lunar lander found on the moon — and what’s next

Jackie Wattles, CNN
Thu, September 7, 2023

After completing a historic landing on the lunar surface, putting India in the tiny club of countries that have safely placed a spacecraft on the moon, the Chandrayaan-3 lander is now asleep — resting through the 14-day lunar night before mission controllers attempt to reawaken the spacecraft later this month.

The primary goals of the mission have now been successfully checked off the list, cementing the Chandrayaan-3 lander’s legacy in exploration history. For nearly two weeks, the lander carried out technology demonstrations and data collection mainly focused on analyzing the composition of the moon’s soil and super-thin atmosphere.

The Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft landed on the lunar surface on August 23. The safe touchdown made India only the fourth nation in the world to complete such a feat, following the former Soviet Union, the United States and China. So far in the 21st Century, only China and India have landed on the moon.

It also marked the first mission to explore so close to the lunar south pole, a region of key scientific and strategic importance for global space powers because it is believed to be home to deposits of water ice. The resource could be harvested and converted into drinking water or even rocket fuel for future missions that explore deeper into the cosmos.

In India, the Chandryaan-3 mission has been hailed as a point of national pride. More than 70 million people watched online coverage of the landing, and thousands more packed into auditoriums and viewing parties across the country.

“Our tireless scientific efforts will continue in order to develop better understanding of the Universe for the welfare of entire humanity,” Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi posted on social media September 2, celebrating the Chandrayaan-3 mission and the recent launch of India’s first spacecraft dedicated to studying the sun


The Chandrayaan-3 lander is captured by NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, which is currently in orbit around the moon. The Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft's dark shadow is visible against a bright halo surrounding the vehicle, which resulted from the rocket plume interacting with the fine-grained regolith (soil). - NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/Arizona State University

The Indian Space Research Organization, or ISRO, confirmed on Monday, September 4, that the Chandryaan-3 lunar lander had been put into sleep mode, as the spacecraft isn’t designed to continue collecting scientific data while its landing spot is in the Earth’s shadow, or lunar night.

But the space agency hopes that the lander — and a small six-wheeled rover it deployed — will be reawakened later this month, on September 22.

A look back at Chandryaan-3

The Chandrayaan-3 landing in August came mere days after Russia failed in its attempt to put a similar spacecraft, Luna-25, near the moon’s south pole. Standing in sharp contrast to the tense failures of Luna-25, the Chandryaan-3 vehicle almost immediately began dispatching updates on its successes.

The day after landing, the ISRO confirmed that the Chandryaan-3 lander had successfully deployed the six-wheeled lunar rover that had ridden to the surface tucked inside the spacecraft’s body.

It was released by rolling down a small ramp before setting off “in pursuit of lunar secrets at the South Pole,” the ISRO said on X, the website formerly known as Twitter.

Together, the lander, which weighs about 1,700 kilograms (3,748 pounds), and the 26-kilogram (57.3-pound) rover are packed with nearly a dozen scientific instruments. They include a laser that can analyze the chemical composition of the moon’s regolith — aiding in the hunt for water ice — and the ultra-thin layer of gases that make up the moon’s exosphere. The rover is also equipped with a seismometer that attempted to detect quakes within the moon’s interior.

The ISRO confirmed that all the instruments were “performing normally” during the mission.

The space agency shared sporadic updates on social media, posting first glimpses at various data points gathered by the lander and rover, which managed to travel a total of more than 100 meters (330 feet) across the lunar surface and was able to snap photos of the lander during its trek.

One experiment measured the temperature of the moon’s topsoil at various depths, and ISRO scientist BHM Darukesha told a local news outlet, PTI, that the surface was hotter than expected.

“We all believed that the temperature could be somewhere around 20 degree centigrade to 30 degrees centigrade (68 to 86 degrees Fahrenheit) on the surface but it is 70 degree centigrade (158 degrees Fahrenheit). This is surprisingly higher than what we had expected,” he said.

The rover also detected some seismic activity using an instrument designed to measure rumbles and quakes beneath the lunar surface, and the rover used a spectroscope to confirm the presence of sulfur near the moon’s south pole. Now scientists will aim to investigate how the element got there and whether it exists naturally on the surface or was put there by a meteor strike or volcanic activity, according to the ISRO.

The ISRO put the rover to rest on September 2, though its solar panels were oriented to catch the first sun rays as the moon travels back into daytime later this month.

“Hoping for a successful awakening for another set of assignments! Else, it will forever stay there as India’s lunar ambassador,” the ISRO posted on X.

But the lander wasn’t finished. It completed another stunning feat on September 4, firing up its engines to lift itself about 40 centimeters (16 inches) off the ground and make a small hop to land about 30 to 40 centimeters (12 to 16 inches) away from its original position.

The ISRO emphasized the importance of this technology demonstration, noting that being able to get a lander back off the lunar surface will be essential for future missions that aim to return soil samples — or even astronauts — back home after a lunar mission.

Shortly after, the lander joined the rover, entering its own slumber and awaiting its reawakening when the sunshine returns to its resting place.

It’s not yet certain that the lander and rover will, in fact, properly function when mission controllers attempt to turn them back on later this month.

But all of the primary objectives the ISRO set out for the mission have been met.

Perseverance rover spots a shark fin and crab claw on Mars

Robert Lea

SPACE.COM
Thu, September 7, 2023 at 3:00 AM MDT·5 min read

(Left) a shark fin shaped rock on Mars (Right) an accompanying crab claw shaped boulder (Insert) NASA's Perseverance Rover.


It looks like something fishy is happening on Mars. NASA's Perseverance Rover recently spotted a shark-fin-looking outcrop and an accompanying crab-claw-like boulder on the Red Planet.

Since arriving on Mars on Feb. 18, 2021, the rolling robot has been exploring the Jezero Crater on Mars while hunting for signs of ancient life. But these strange rocks, captured on Aug. 18, 2023, came as surprise.

Even though the now barren and arid landscape of Mars overflowed with water billions of years ago, there is no evidence that the planet was abundant with any sort of seafood, and these images certainly don't change that. Instead, what the rocks in the image evidence is the phenomenon of pareidolia.

The infamous Face on Mars, an illusion created by shadows that caused quite a stir in the 1970s and 1980s.

Pareidolia refers to the brain's tendency to perceive a meaningful image from random visual data. It is the reason we see dogs or clowns in clouds, and it has been responsible for humans catching a wide variety of famous figures in foodstuff. And Mars is no stranger to being subjected to pareidolia.

In fact, one of the most famous examples of pareidolia in history is the iconic "Face on Mars."

Related: NASA spies Martian rocks that look just like a teddy bear
What was the Face on Mars?

Subsequent images of the Face on Mars taken over the years sees the facial features fade away.

In July 1976, NASA's Viking 1 spacecraft was exploring Mars from orbit, taking pictures of the Martian landscape that would later be used to select a landing site for the Viking 2 lander. Then, something extraordinary was revealed in the monitors of its operators here on Earth.

The spacecraft had appeared to capture a huge sculpture of a crudely drawn face replete with eyes, a nose and a mouth. The image was shown to the public a few days after it was taken, and despite NASA being clear the appearance of a face was an illusion caused by shadows, it caused quite a fuss. Many claimed that this was the work of sentient beings.

The debate surrounding the "Face on Mars" raged (at least in certain quarters) through the 1980s, with books published on the topic and even scientific conferences held to discuss it.

Much of the sensationalism surrounding this image was settled in the late 1990s. In Sept. 1997, NASA's Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) arrived at the Red Planet, with one of its primary missions being to reexamine this rocky outcrop.

"We felt this was important to taxpayers," chief scientist for NASA's Mars Exploration Program Jim Garvin explained in a statement. "We photographed the Face as soon as we could get a good shot at it."

In April 1998, the MGS finally flew over the Cydonia region of Mars, where the supposed Face on Mars was located, capturing images ten times sharper than those taken 18 years prior by Viking 1. These revealed the formation to be much more natural in nature, with evidence of facial features fading. Still, some insisted the facial features of this supposed alien monument had been obscured by haze as the MGS flew overhead.

However, such objections were dealt a serious blow in April 2001 when the same spacecraft imaged the outcrop on a cloudless day for Cydonia. This revealed the Face on Mars to be a butte, or mesa, which is a common geological feature in the western United States.

"It reminds me most of Middle Butte in the Snake River Plain of Idaho," Garvin said. "That's a lava dome that takes the form of an isolated mesa about the same height as the Face on Mars."

The Mars Face

Yet, the revelation that this Martian facial sculpture was little more than a common geological structure hasn't quelled our passion for space simulacrum.

In May of this year, Perseverance's fellow Martian rover caught a shadowy feature in a rock face nicknamed the "East Cliffs" that many claimed was a "doorway" carved into the rock. Some even speculated that this could be one end of a passageway leading to an underground bunker.

NASA poured cold water on speculation when it revealed this so-called doorway was little more than a few inches wide and tall. Geologists also spoiled the party by adding that it is likely the result of several straight-line fractures coinciding.

But there was more to discuss as a recent image by the agency's Curiosity rover seemed to show an abandoned spoon floating over the surface of the Red Planet.

Is that really a floating spoon on Mars or just a strange rock?

The hovering cutlery imaged on Aug. 30 was actually revealed to be a strangely shaped rock, with NASA officials writing in an image description: "There is no spoon. This weird Mars feature is likely a ventifact — a rock shaped by wind."

The "Martian spoon" is just further evidence that humans really eat up all Mars-related pareidolia. Though these images ultimately represent random rock formations, speculating about their significance can be fascinating in itself.

Star blows giant exoplanet's atmosphere away, leaving massive tail in its wake

Robert Lea

SPACE.COM

Tue, September 5, 2023

An artist's impression of a hot Jupiter blasting out its atmosphere and creating a huge gaseous tail

A planet located 950 light years from Earth is explosively losing its atmosphere and creating a tail that is around 18 times the size of Jupiter in the process. This makes the gaseous tail one of the largest planetary structures seen outside the solar system.

The extra-solar planet, or exoplanet, known as HAT-P-32 b has a mass around 68% that of Jupiter but is twice as wide as the solar system's largest planet. HAT-P-32 exists just 3.2 million miles from its parent star, or about 3% of the distance between Earth and the sun, and completes an orbit every 2.2 days. This proximity means the gas giant is roasted by radiation from its parent star, classifying HAT-P-32 b as a "hot Jupiter" planet.

Astronomers have monitored the trailing gas tail of HAT-P-32 b created from helium flowing from its atmosphere with telescopes from Earth, including the Hobby-Eberly Telescope of The University of Texas at Austin's McDonald Observatory. "We have monitored this planet and the host star with long time series spectroscopy, observations made of the star and planet over a couple of nights," research lead author and University of California Santa Cruz, Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics postdoctoral fellow Zhoujian Zhang said in a statement. "And what we found is there's a gigantic helium gas tail that is associated with the planet. The tail is large — about 53 times the planet's radius — formed by gas that's escaping from the planet."

By learning more about how this hot Jupiter is losing its atmosphere, a team of researchers hopes to build a better picture of planetary evolution. This could help solve a puzzling absence of a specific planetary type in the exoplanet catalog.

Related: New 'warm Jupiter' exoplanet has a weird orbit and another planet may be to blame

Using a hot Jupiter to investigate the "hot-Neptunian desert"

Since the first planets outside the solar system were first discovered in the 1990s, exoplanet hunters have found over 5,000 worlds orbiting distant stars, and these come in an array of shapes, masses, and characteristics. Yet there remains a puzzling gap in our exoplanet catalog.

Astronomers have discovered a vast array of large Jupiter-sized planets orbiting close to their stars and fewer, but still a considerable number of small Earth-sized worlds proximate to their stellar parents.

What seems to be missing, however, are intermediate-sized planets orbiting close to their parent stars. Astronomers refer to such planets as "hot-Neptunes" after the solar system ice giant of a similar size, and thus, the absence of these worlds is called the "hot-Neptunian desert."

One of the possible explanations for this absence is that planets close to their stars are being stripped of their atmosphere and are thus losing mass.

"If we can capture planets in the process of losing their atmosphere, then we can study how fast the planet is losing its mass and what are the mechanisms that cause their atmosphere to escape from the planet," Zhang explained. "It's good to have some examples to see, like the HAT-P-32 b process in action."

The team studied HAT-P-32 b, which was discovered in 2011, by observing light coming from its parent star, which is around the same size as the sun and is slightly hotter than our star. When the hot Jupiter passes in front of the star, starlight is filtered through the planet's atmosphere.

Because chemical elements absorb light at specific frequencies, astronomers can compare starlight that has filtered through the atmosphere to starlight that hasn't, helping them determine the chemical composition of the planet's atmosphere. Searching for these absorption gaps is called "transmission spectroscopy."

Performing transmission spectroscopy for HAT-P-32 b revealed deep helium absorption lines in starlight when the planet transited the star.

"The helium absorption is stronger than what we expect from the stellar atmosphere. This excess helium absorption should be caused by the planet's atmosphere," Zhang said. "When the planet is transiting, its atmosphere is so huge that it blocks part of the atmosphere that absorbs the helium line, and that causes this excess absorption. That's how we discovered the HAT-P-32 b to be an interesting planet."

But, to better understand it, they created a 3D simulation of this hot Jupiter using the Stampede2 supercomputer of the Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC). And the computer modeling of the planet revealed it to be even more interesting than even these observations had suggested.

The computer simulations developed by the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics Institute for Theory and Computation researcher Morgan MacLeod, and colleagues modeled the interaction between the outflow of gas from the planet and stellar winds from its parent star.

This showed that planetary outflow was both trailing and leading HAT-P-32 b in its orbital path.

The team was also able to calculate the rate of mass loss for the planet, finding that it would take 40 billion years for HAT-P-32 b to completely lose its atmosphere. The planet is unlikely to survive this long, however; F-type stars like the planet's host star HAT-P-32 A only have lifetimes of between 2 to 4 billion years, after which they exhaust the hydrogen at their cores used for nuclear fusion.

This causes the star's core to collapse and the outer layers where nuclear fusion is still ongoing to swell out. This increases the star's radius up to a hundred times, resulting in the creation of a red giant. When HAT-P-32 A undergoes this process, the exoplanet is so close to it, that it and its remaining atmosphere are likely to be engulfed.

In the future, the team intends to study other planets similar to HAT-P-32 b to observe their evolution. Additionally, the researchers behind the supercomputer model will now develop other sophisticated simulations for exoplanet dynamics.

This could deliver simulations that can model other effects like the mixing of gas gases in planetary atmospheres and even how the winds move through atmospheres for planets hundreds or even thousands of light-years from Earth, too far for these effects to be observed with current telescopes.

"Now is the time to have supercomputers with the computational power to make this happen," Zhang concluded. "We need the computers to make real predictions based on recent advances in the theory and to explain the data. Supercomputers bridge the model and the data."

The team's research is published in the journal Science Advances.