NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope captures Saturn’s new ‘spoke’ season – Check video here

According to NASA, scientists believe that even the smallest, dust-sized icy ring particles have the potential to get charged, elevating them momentarily above the larger icy particles and boulders in the rings.

Written by FE Science
February 11, 2023 15:09 IST

According to NASA, scientists believe that even the smallest, dust-sized icy ring particles have the potential to get charged, elevating them momentarily above the larger icy particles and boulders in the rings. (File/NASA)


The National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s Hubble Space Telescope has taken the latest image of Saturn which shows the appearance of spokes on the planet’s rings, marking the beginning of a new spoke season, according to a NASA statement.The statement said scientists will look for clues to explain the cause and nature of the spokes.The statement further said the suspected culprit for the spokes is the planet’s variable magnetic field.

The magnetic field of the planets interact with the solar wind, creating an electrically charged environment. NASA said when those charged particles on earth hit the atmosphere, it is visible in the northern hemisphere as the aurora borealis, or northern lights.


According to NASA, scientists believe that even the smallest, dust-sized icy ring particles have the potential to get charged, elevating them momentarily above the larger icy particles and boulders in the rings.

Saturn has four seasons, just like Earth, and is inclined on its axis, much like Earth. However, due to Saturn’s far bigger orbit, each season lasts roughly seven Earth years, according to the space agency.

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Equinox occurs when the rings are tilted edge-on to the Sun.

The spokes disappear when it is near the summer or winter solstice on Saturn, which is when the Sun appears to reach either its highest or lowest latitude, respectively, in the northern or southern hemisphere of a planet, the space agency said.

As Saturn’s northern hemisphere autumnal equinox on May 6, 2025, approaches, the spokes are expected to become increasingly prominent and observable, the statement said.

The latest image captured by Hubble marks the beginning of Saturn’s “spoke season” showing two smudgy spokes in the B ring, one of which is the Saturn ring, the statement said.

The ephemeral features don’t last long, but as the planet’s autumnal equinox approaches, more will appear, the statement said.

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The ring spokes were first observed by NASA’s Voyager mission in the early 1980s. The transient, mysterious features can appear dark or light depending on the illumination and viewing angles, the statement said.

NASA senior planetary scientist Amy Simon, head of the Hubble Outer Planet Atmospheres Legacy (OPAL) program said, “Thanks to Hubble’s OPAL program, which is building an archive of data on the outer solar system planets, we will have longer dedicated time to study Saturn’s spokes this season than ever before.” NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has observation time devoted to Saturn each year, thanks to the OPAL program, and the dynamic gas giant planet always showed something new, said the space agency.

(With PTI inputs)

TOXIC ECOCIDE

SpaceX Starship rocket surpassed NASA’s Saturn V rocket during Thursday’s static fire

Seth Kurkowski - Feb. 11th 2023 


After over three years of development in South Texas, SpaceX finally reached its final milestone before launching a complete Starship rocket to orbit, the 33-engine static fire. While only 31 Raptor engines successfully ignited, this is still a major milestone for the company as it hopes to start flying this rocket to finally gain an ROI on its investment.

Partial successful static fire is still a ‘W’ for SpaceX

After completing a full wet dress rehearsal two weeks ago, SpaceX was able to complete work towards a static fire of the Super Heavy booster (the Starship rocket’s first stage) Thursday afternoon. The goal was to test a static fire of all 33 engines installed on the booster, Booster 7. This would be the largest number of engines ever ignited at one time, beating the Russian N1 Moon rocket with 30.

That still came true, even though Elon Musk stated the total number of engines test-fired Thursday was 31, that still marks a record. The cause for not having the full 33 engines was due to one engine being turned off prior to the test and another aborted on its own before ignition.

It isn’t known how these shutdown engines will affect Starship’s launch plans, you could both easily believe SpaceX to reattempt the static fire or move forward with the launch.
Beating the historic Saturn V rocket

The total thrust stated by SpaceX outputted by the 31 engines Thursday was 7.9 million foot-pounds of thrust. That number barely puts Starship over NASA’s Saturn V rocket (7.75 million lbf) which launched the first crews to the Moon in the 1960s and 70s.

On SpaceX’s website, the company states the Starship Super Heavy booster will be able to output 17 million lbf. That amount of thrust will give it a solid lead for the most powerful rocket, passing the Space Launch System, which launched only a few months ago.

Next step: Starship orbital launch attempt

Disregarding any possible need to redo tests, the next step forward for SpaceX is launching the full stack to orbit. Something we have been waiting on for quite some time now. The last plan we’ve seen for Starship’s orbital launch attempt would have it make just shy of one orbit, splashing down off the coast of Hawaii. This will test the entire system in the real world, including the heat shield, by far the biggest question mark in form of reliability for the rocket.

Before SpaceX can launch Starship, the company must first obtain a launch license from the FAA, and unless you have a crystal ball, no one can predict how well that will go. SpaceX gained approval to launch Starship out of Starbase last year after a long environmental review process.

Eventually, SpaceX gained a mitigated FONSI (finding of no significant impact), meaning they could launch, but changes would have to be made. It’s unsure what all needs to be changed and if SpaceX has made those changes yet. However, both Elon Musk and company President and COO Gwynne Shotwell have stated launch is expected in the next month or so.

IF THE SHOE FITS...
France hits out at 'Black Panther' over depiction of its army

Issued on: 12/02/2023 - 

French troops were stationed in several countries in West Africa to fight jihadists 

© MICHELE CATTANI / AFP/File

Paris (AFP) – Paris' defence minister on Sunday condemned the latest instalment of Marvel's Black Panther franchise, which depicts French troops caught trying to steal resources belonging to the fictional African kingdom of Wakanda.

"I strongly condemn this false and deceptive representation of our armed forces," Sebastien Lecornu wrote on Twitter, responding to a clip from the November movie posted by a journalist.

The scene turns on a group of bound French soldiers being brought into a UN meeting, embarrassing Paris' ambassador to the world body, after they were caught on a secret mission to a Wakandan base in Mali.

Journalist Jean Bexon, who posted the Black Panther clip, noted, "The evil French mercenaries operating in Mali are dressed like soldiers from Operation Barkhane," a real-life military mission.

France is particularly sensitive to its image in West Africa after military juntas in Mali and Burkina Faso demanded the departure of French troops, deployed to the Sahel region since 2013 to fight jihadists.

"I am thinking of and honouring the 58 French soldiers who died defending Mali, at its request, in the face of Islamist terrorist groups," Lecornu wrote.

The defence ministry told AFP that France was not calling for withdrawal or censorship of a work of art.

But "no revisionism can be allowed about France's recent actions in Mali: we intervened at the county's own request to fight armed terrorist groups, far from the story told in the film, namely a French army coming to pillage natural resources," the ministry added.

People close to Lecornu said he was "angry at seeing the film", which was released as Russia appears to be making progress in turning West African populations against France and its military deployments.

Mali called on Russia's Wagner mercenary group to reinforce its army once French troops left -- although the junta continues to deny hiring the fighters -- and there has been speculation that Burkina may follow suit.

Online, cartoons spread by pro-Russian accounts and influencers have shown France sending skeletons and a giant snake to "conquer all of Africa", in videos analysed this month by AFP Factcheck.

Armed white men in Wagner combat fatigues are seen coming to the rescue of soldiers carrying the flags of Mali, Burkina Faso and Ivory Coast.

"We face a steamroller that plays with the perceptions of local people who are in existential difficulty" from war and famine, a French military source acknowledged earlier this month.

In November, President Emmanuel Macron stressed that today "influence" is a "strategic priority".

© 2023 AFP

US military shoots down third flying object in three days after Great Lakes airspace closure

Issued on: 12/02/2023 -

The US and Canada have raised the surveillance over their airspaces after a number of unindentified flying objects were spotted. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, right, meets with Canada's Minister of National Defense Anita Anand, far left, at the Pentagon in Washington, Friday, Feb. 10, 2023. © J. Scott Applewhite, AP

Text by:NEWS WIRES

The U.S. military shot down a flying object over Lake Huron near the Canadian border, U.S. officials said on Sunday, as North American security forces have been on high alert for airborne threats.

Two U.S. officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Reuters that the military had shot down the object but declined to say whether it resembled the large white Chinese balloon that was shot down earlier this month.

U.S. Representative Elissa Slotkin, who represents a district in Michigan, near where the incident took place, said pilots from the U.S. Air Force and National Guard shot down the object. "Great work by all who carried out this mission," she wrote on Twitter.

Meanwhile, Canadian investigators are hunting for the wreckage of an unidentified flying object that was shot down by a U.S. jet over Yukon territory on Saturday.

"Recovery teams are on the ground, looking to find and analyze the object," Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told reporters on Sunday.

"The security of citizens is our top priority and that's why I made the decision to have that unidentified object shot down," he said, adding that it had posed a danger to civilian aircraft.

North America has been on high alert for aerial intrusions following the appearance of a white, eye-catching Chinese airship over American skies earlier this month.

The 200-foot-tall (60-meter-high) balloon - which Americans have accused Beijing of using to spy on the United States - caused an international incident, leading Secretary of State Antony Blinken to call off a planned trip to China only hours before he was set to depart.

Surveillance fears appear to have U.S. officials on high alert.

Twice in 24 hours, U.S. officials closed airspace - only to reopen it swiftly.

On Sunday, the Federal Aviation Administration briefly closed space above Lake Michigan. On Saturday, the U.S. military scrambled fighter jets in Montana to investigate a radar anomaly there.

Canada also closed airspace on Sunday near Tobermory, Ontario, which is on Lake Huron near the U.S. border, according to Nav Canada, a private non-profit that operates Canada's air traffic control system.

China denies the first balloon was being used for surveillance and says it was a civilian research craft. It condemned the United States for shooting it down off the coast of South Carolina last Saturday.

At least three other flying objects have been destroyed over North America since then, as military and intelligence officials focus on airborne threats.

U.S. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer told U.S. broadcaster ABC that U.S. officials think two of the latest objects were smaller balloons than the original one, which was brought down off the coast of South Carolina on Feb. 4.

A second was shot down over sea ice near Deadhorse, Alaska, on Friday. The third was destroyed over the Yukon on Saturday.

The White House said only that the recently downed objects "did not closely resemble" the Chinese balloon, echoing Schumer's description of them as "much smaller."

"We will not definitively characterize them until we can recover the debris, which we are working on," a spokesperson said.

Schumer said he was confident U.S. investigators scouring the ocean off South Carolina to recover debris and electronic gadgetry from the original balloon would get to the bottom of what it was being used for.

Debris in remote locale

Canadian counterparts trying to piece together what was shot down over the Yukon may have their own challenges. The territory is a sparsely populated region in Canada's far northwest, which borders Alaska. It can be brutally cold in the winter, but temperatures are unusually mild for this time of year, which could ease the recovery effort.

Speaking to Fox News, House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul said the balloon shot down over the South Carolina coast had been on a mission to get imagery of sensitive American nuclear sites.

"They want to get imagery, get intelligence on our military capability, particularly nuclear," McCaul said. "And they're building quite a nuclear stockpile themselves."

Republican lawmaker Mike Turner, who serves on the U.S. House Armed Services Committee, suggested the White House might be overcompensating for what he described as its previously lax monitoring of American airspace.

"They do appear somewhat trigger-happy," Turner told CNN on Sunday. "I would prefer them to be trigger-happy than to be permissive."

Republicans have criticized the Biden administration over its handling of the incursion by the suspected Chinese spy balloon, saying it should have been shot down much earlier.

(REUTERS)

US military shoots down fourth flying object over North America

A US fighter jet shot down the object over the shores of Michigan on Sunday

The object, which was not deemed a military threat, has been described by defence officials as unmanned and octagonal in shape. It was downed by a missile fired from an F-16 fighter jet at 14:42 local time (19:42 GMT).

By Gareth Evans

BBC
in Washington

The US has shot down another unidentified flying object in the fourth military operation of its kind this month.

President Joe Biden ordered it to be downed near Lake Huron, close to the Canadian border, on Sunday afternoon.

The object could have interfered with commercial air traffic as it was traveling at 20,000ft (6,100m), a Pentagon statement said.

It was first detected above military sites in Montana on Saturday, it added.

The incident raised further questions about the spate of high-altitude objects that have been shot down over North America this month.

A suspected Chinese spy balloon was downed off the coast of South Carolina on 4 February after hovering for days over the continental US. Officials said it originated in China and had been used to monitor sensitive sites.

China denied the object was used for spying and said it was a weather monitoring device that had been blown astray. The incident - and the angry exchanges in its aftermath - ratcheted up tensions between Washington and Beijing.

On Sunday, a defence official said the US had communicated with Beijing about the first object after receiving no response for several days. It was not immediately clear what was discussed.

Since that first incident, American fighter jets have shot down three further high-altitude objects in as many days.

President Biden ordered an object to be shot down over Alaska on Friday, and on Saturday a similar object was shot down over the Yukon in north-western Canada.

Officials have not publicly identified the origin or purpose of these objects. Both the US and Canada are still working to recover the remnants, but the search in Alaska has been hampered by Arctic conditions.

"These objects did not closely resemble, and were much smaller than, the [4 February] balloon and we will not definitively characterise them until we can recover the debris," a White House National Security spokesperson said.

Unidentified flying objects - timeline

4 February: US military shoots down suspected surveillance balloon off the coast of South Carolina. It had drifted for days over the US, and officials said it came from China and had been monitoring sensitive sites

10 February: US downs another object off northern Alaska which officials said lacked any system of propulsion or control

11 February: An American fighter jet shoots down a "high-altitude airborne object" over Canada's Yukon territory, about 100 miles (160 km) from the US border. It was described as cylindrical and smaller than the first balloon

12 February: US jets shoot down a fourth high-altitude object near Lake Huron "out of an abundance of caution"

Later on Sunday, the US Air Force general overseeing North American airspace said he had not ruled any explanation out - including extraterrestrial life.


"I'll let the intel community and the counterintelligence community figure that out. I haven't ruled out anything," Gen Glen VanHerck told reporters after being asked about the possibility of aliens.

One senior official told ABC News that the three most recent objects to be shot down were likely weather balloons and not surveillance devices.

But this was contradicted by the top Democrat in Congress, who earlier told the broadcaster that intelligence officials believed the objects were in fact surveillance balloons.

"They believe they were [balloons], yes," Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said, adding that they were "much smaller" than the first one shot down off the South Carolina coast.

"The bottom line is, until a few months ago, we didn't know of these balloons," he said.

Democrat Debbie Dingell, one of several Michigan members of Congress who applauded the military for downing the object over the state on Sunday, joined growing calls for the White House and defence officials to provide more information.

"We need the facts about where they are originating from, what their purpose is, and why their frequency is increasing," she said.

Democratic Senator Jon Tester, who represents Montana, told the BBC's US partner CBS: "What's gone on the last two weeks or so... has been nothing short of craziness. And the military needs to have a plan to not only determine what's out there, but determine the dangers."

Republicans have repeatedly criticised the Biden administration for its handling of the first suspected spy balloon, saying it should have been shot down far sooner.

Meanwhile, Defence Secretary Ben Wallace said the UK would conduct a security review following the recent incidents in the US and Canada. "This development is another sign of how the global threat picture is changing for the worse," he said.

Objects shot down over Alaska, Yukon were balloons, US Senate leader says

Schumer says devices downed from 40,000 feet in air were smaller than Chinese balloon downed off South Carolina earlier this month, officials trying to analyze debris for data

By APToday, 8:26 pm  

FBI special agents assigned to the evidence response team process material recovered from the high altitude balloon recovered off the coast of South Carolina, February 9, 2023, at the FBI laboratory in Quantico, Virginia. (FBI via AP)

WASHINGTON (AP) — The United States believes the unidentified objects shot down by American fighter jets over Canada and Alaska were balloons, though smaller than the Chinese balloon downed over the Atlantic Ocean last weekend, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said Sunday.

Schumer told ABC’s “This Week” that he was briefed on Saturday night by US President Joe Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, after the incident hours earlier over the Yukon. On Friday, an object roughly the size of a small car was downed over remote Alaska, according to the White House.

Asked whether those two recent objects were balloons, Schumer said, “They believe they were, yes, but much smaller than the first one.”

The government has said the first balloon was about the size of three school buses. It was shot down February 4 off the South Carolina coast after it had traversed the United States.

The Biden administration said it was used for surveillance. China claims it was on a meteorological research mission.

Schumer said teams were recovering debris from the objects and would work to determine where they came from.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York speaks during a bill signing ceremony for the Respect for Marriage Act, December 13, 2022, on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

The ones downed on Friday and Saturday were smaller and flying at a lower altitude of about 40,000 feet, within the airspace occupied by commercial flights, compared with about 60,000 feet for the first one.

“The bottom line is until a few months ago we didn’t know about these balloons,” Schumer said. “It is wild that we didn’t know…. Now they are learning a lot more. And the military and the intelligence are focused like a laser on first gathering and accumulating the information, then coming up with a comprehensive analysis.”

Schumer: "It is wild" U.S. didn't know about China's balloon program earlier

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) acknowledged it was "wild" the U.S. didn't know about the Chinese government's use of balloons "until a few months ago," during an interview on ABC's "This Week" Sunday.

Catch up quick: Last week the U.S. shot down a suspected Chinese surveillance balloon that had traversed the U.S. and is believed to have been capable of collecting communications.

• Pentagon officials have said that similar balloons crossed into U.S. airspace briefly at least three times during the Trump administration.
• The State Department spokesperson said earlier this week that China has flown similar surveillance balloons over more than 40 countries across five continents in the past.
• The U.S. on Friday shot down a "high-altitude" object that violated its airspace above territorial waters near Alaska and on Saturday Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced that an unidentified object had been shot down in its airspace.
• Little is known about the origins of the latter two objects and it is not clear whether they were in any way connected to the first.

State of play: The U.S. military and intelligence are "focused like a laser" on gathering more information about the balloons, Schumer said.

• Asked by host George Stephanopoulos whether the surveillance balloon program would need to be shut down, Schumer agreed that the Chinese government would likely need to "get rid of it."
• “I think the Chinese were humiliated. I think the Chinese were caught lying, and it's a real step back for them," Schumer said.
• Schumer added that he believed Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) was looking into why it took so long for the U.S. military and intelligence to know about the balloons and said he supported Congress looking into the matter.

The big picture: Tester told CBS' "Face the Nation" Sunday that while the military likely had "some" awareness of the use of balloons, Congress needs to have a debate about whether that awareness was at a sufficient level.

• Going forward, the U.S. needs to have a specific plan for how to deal with such objects, "so we know exactly what's going to happen when these balloons come in and their threat is assessed," Tester said.
• Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas), the chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee, told the same program Sunday that the flight of the suspected surveillance balloon was clearly intentional, calling it an "act of belligerence."
• "It was done with provocation to gather intelligence data and collect intelligence on our three major nuclear sites in this country. Why? Because they're looking at what is our capability in the event of a possible future conflict in Taiwan. They're really assessing what we have in this country," McCaul said.
• https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2023/02/norad-trudeau-ordered-u.html