Amazon joins SpaceX, Trader Joe's in fight to declare government labor board unconstitutional

Amazon claims the National Labor Relations Board's enforcement proceedings are unconstitutional

By Chris Pandolfo 

FOXBusiness

Needham & Company senior media and internet analyst Laura Martin forecasts earnings expectations for Alphabet, Google, and Amazon on 'Making Money.'

Amazon.com has joined Elon Musk's SpaceX and grocer Trader Joe's in arguing that the enforcement proceedings of the top U.S. labor regulator violate the Constitution.

In a filing Thursday, Amazon said it will argue that the structure of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) is unconstitutional because it denies the company's right to a jury trial.

The company also said that limits on the removal of administrative judges and the board's five members, who are appointed by the president, violate the separation of powers and are unconstitutional.

SPACEX ILLEGALLY FIRED WORKERS CRITICAL OF ELON MUSK, US LABOR AGENCY SAYS


The filing came in a pending case accusing Amazon of illegally retaliating against workers at a warehouse in the New York City borough of Staten Island, where employees voted to unionize in 2022. Amazon, which has faced more than 250 NLRB complaints alleging unlawful labor practices across the country in recent years, has denied wrongdoing.

SpaceX made similar claims against NLRB in a lawsuit filed one day after the board accused the rocket and satellite maker of unlawfully firing eight employees for circulating a letter calling founder and CEO Musk "a distraction and embarrassment."

SPACEX WINS REPRIEVE FROM DOJ SUIT ALLEGING HIRING DISCRIMINATION

SpaceX founder Elon Musk walks on stage during a T-Mobile and SpaceX joint event on August 25, 2022 in Boca Chica Beach, Texas. (Photo by Michael Gonzalez/Getty Images / Getty Images)

The lawsuit was filed in Texas, but a federal judge on Thursday granted the board's request to transfer the case to California, where SpaceX is headquartered, the New York Times reported.

Trader Joe's also challenged the constitutionality of the board's structure later in January at a hearing over whether the grocery store retaliated against union activities. Two Starbucks baristas seeking to dissolve their unions have made the same complaint in separate lawsuits.

The NLRB's general counsel acts like a prosecutor and issues complaints against employers accused of violating federal labor law. Those cases are first brought to a series of administrative law judges that operate inside the agency, and then the five-member board. Only after the board rules can a defendant bring the case to a federal appeals court.

Seth Goldstein, an attorney who represents unions in the Amazon and Trader Joe's cases, told Reuters that arguments over the NLRB's constitutionality are likely to wind up before the Supreme Court.

He expressed concern that the high court's conservative majority has signaled skepticism towards other U.S. agencies' in-house proceedings. A ruling that limits the NLRB's enforcement powers could harm the ability of labor unions to bargain with employers.

"I’m very concerned that this is going to cause real problems in collective bargaining for both new and established unions," Goldstein told Reuters.

Honduran white bats: The fluffy little bats that roost together in leaf tents

By Megan Shersby

These tiny white bats, which can construct a leaf-made tent, are extremely picky eaters

The Honduran white bat can grow up to 1.9 inches 

(4.7 centimeters) long. 

(Image credit: André Gilden via Getty Images)

Name: Honduran white bat (Ectophylla alba)

Where it lives: Lowland rainforests of Central America

What it eats: Figs

Why it is awesome:

With fluffy white fur, a large yellow nose and ears, and weighing just 0.02 pound (9 grams), the Honduran white bat has got to be one of the cutest bats out there. It is just one of six bat species with an all-white coat, and it is easily distinguished from the others by its adorable upturned nose. It can be found in Central America from Honduras to Panama, and overlaps with only one other white bat, the northern ghost bat (Diclidurus albus).

As well as its endearing looks, the Honduran white bat is known for its ability to construct "tents" from large plant leaves, a behavior it shares with two dozen other bat species — less than 2% of the roughly 1,400 described bat species. Upon finding a suitable plant leaf, usually in the flowering plant genus Heliconia, the Honduran white bat will nibble at and cut the leaf's side veins. This causes the leaf to fold down and create a little tent, from which the bats can hide from predators.

Sometimes, multiple bats will cling to a single leaf, where they can rest during the day. Group sizes can vary from one bat to up to 17 individuals.

Researchers previously thought that males might construct the tents in order to attract females for mating, but a 2006 study published in the journal Acta Chiropterologica provided the first evidence that females also contributed to construction.

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Although bats are known for eating insects — or blood in the case of vampire bats — Honduran white bats are frugivores, meaning animals that eat fruit. They mainly eat figs from just one tree species (Ficus colubrinae) — which helps make them more effective at dispersing the tree's seeds than birds. Interestingly, studies have shown that the fig tree is able to produce different "odor bouquets" for attracting birds during the day and bats at night.

The Honduran white bat is listed as near threatened by the International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List, largely because of habitat loss and its reliance on mainly one species of fig.

ICYMI

Ancient DNA Reveals a Tragic Genocide Hidden in Humanity's Past

17 February 2024
ByCLARE WATSON

The skull of Porsmose man, found in Denmark, who died a violent death in the Neolithic period.

(National Museum of Denmark)

The rise of farming in late Stone Age Europe was no smooth transition from hunter-gatherer lifestyles but a bloody takeover that saw nomadic populations wiped out by farmer-settlers in a few generations, a new study has found.

In fact, twice in just a thousand years, the population of southern Scandinavia was entirely replaced by newcomers to the area, whose remains bear next to no trace of their predecessors in DNA profiles, analyzed by an international team of researchers.

"This transition has previously been presented as peaceful," explains study author and palaeoecologist Anne Birgitte Nielsen of Lund University. "However, our study indicates the opposite. In addition to violent death, it is likely that new pathogens from livestock finished off many gatherers."

Using a technique called shotgun sequencing, the team analyzed DNA samples from 100 human remains found in Denmark. The remains spanned 7,300 years of the Mesolithic period (or Middle Stone Age when hunter-gatherer lifestyles started to decline), the Neolithic period (or New Stone Age when humans settled into farming life), and the Early Bronze Age.

Focusing on one specific region – that just so happens to have a climate suitable for both foraging and farming, and preserving human remains – allowed the researchers to map out the gene flows between populations, alongside changes in vegetation that reflect how they used the land.

The analysis shows that around 5,900 years ago, a farmer population drove out the hunters, foragers, and fishers who had previously populated Scandinavia, and lopped forests to make farmland.

Previous research (comparing DNA from a handful of skeletons) had suggested that these first Scandinavian farmers inherited around 30 percent of their genomes from hunter-gatherers, which would mean that their populations mixed – not that one wiped out the other.

Plenty of archeological evidence suggests, instead, that this was a particularly violent time, and the new study shows that hunter-gatherer DNA was essentially erased, hardly detectable in the genomes of Scandinavia's first farmers.

But their dominance was relatively short-lived. The farmers, also known as the Funnelbeaker culture, lived for about another 1,000 years before another wave of new arrivals from the eastern Steppes moved in.

The newcomers carried with them their ancestry from the Yamnaya, a livestock-herding people with origins in southern Russia. They quickly replaced the Funnelbeakers, giving rise to a new cultural group called the Single Grave culture.

"This time there was also a rapid population turnover, with virtually no descendants from the predecessors," Nielsen says, noting how the DNA profile of the first farmers to settle in Denmark has been essentially erased from modern-day Danish populations.

"We don't have as much DNA material from Sweden, but what there is points to a similar course of events," Nielsen adds.

Extensive archeological evidence unearthed before this study had chronicled this transition from the Funnelbeakers to the Single Grave culture, but the relationship between the two groups was often debated.

Now, by better understanding the ancestry of Danish and Swedish people, researchers hope they may be able to uncover genetic markers in ancient DNA that could explain modern-day health patterns – in the same way that scientists just pinpointed why multiple sclerosis is more common among white, northern Europeans than their southern counterparts.

"Our results help to enhance our knowledge of our heredity and our understanding of the development of certain diseases. Something that in the long term could be beneficial, for example in medical research," concludes Nielsen.

The study has been published in Nature.

JOE ROGAN’S IDIOTIC NEW THEORY: AIDS IS CAUSED BY POPPERS

NEVER HEARD THAT ONE BEFORE.

BY NOOR AL-SIBAI

IT WAS A CONSPIRACY THEORY / ALTERNATE THEORY FOR THE ORIGIN OF HIV/AIDS WHICH COINCIDED WITH THE INCREASING USE OF POPPERS IN THE CLUB SCENE IN NYC, PUBLISHED AS A PAMPHLET

AT THE BEGINING OF THE EPIDEMIC IN THE MID EIGHTIES

From causing the munchies to causing AIDS, amyl nitrate — aka "poppers" — has had an extended moment in popular culture over the past few years.

For those who don't spend time in gay clubs, poppers may seem kind of mystifying. In reality, there's not a lot to them: it's a huffing liquid, often sold as "VHS cleaner" to get around legal loopholes, that's known to cause brief sensations of lightheadedness, euphoria, and — perhaps most notably — the relaxation of certain muscles including the anus.

Now, however, poppers are undoubtedly going to be brought back up in certain heterosexual circles by none other than DMT and steroid enthusiast-turned-podcaster Joe Rogan, who erroneously suggested that the huffing drug used for anal sex and quick dancefloor highs may contribute to the spread of acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) — more so than, you know, the actual virus that causes it.

During his latest interview with ivermectin-pusher Bret Weinstein, who has on several occasions taken to Rogan's show to spew his nonsense, the host seemed to be in agreement with his guest about the disconnect between the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and AIDS. Unfortunately, that bogus claim is not at all new, and is often used as a covert means of homophobia given that HIV denialists often blame gay sex and culture for the continued AIDS epidemic rather than governments around the world failing to treat it as a serious and deadly disease.

While discussing COVID-19, medical conspiracists' favorite topic for the last four years, the pair veered into another pandemic — namely, HIV/AIDS — as an "example" of knowledge being supposedly hidden from the public.

Specifically, Rogan and Weinstein were discussing a book about former National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and presidential health advisor Anthony Fauci, who earlier in his career oversaw the US government's response to the HIV/AIDS crisis in the 1990s, when things took a decidedly wilder turn.

"There are patients who have AIDS who don't have HIV, right?" Weinstein said, wrongly. "So that's the problem. You need a richer toolkit in order to be able to establish a causal relationship."

Again, this goes against all established science about HIV and AIDS, which has clearly shown for decades that people with HIV will develop AIDS if the virus is left untreated.

Rogan pointed out that the medical community's acceptance of HIV developing into AIDS "ignores a very important factor in AIDS, which is party drugs." He went on to reference disgraced molecular biologist Peter Duesberg, one of the biggest names in HIV denialism, whose "hypothesis" posits that recreational drug use in queer men's communities is a more compelling factor than infection with HIV itself.

Duesberg, notably, seems to be particularly focused on poppers. On his very archaic-looking website, he even has displayed an article, penned by a different writer in "Reefer Madness" style, about the popularity of the so-called "party drug."

Although the so-called "Deusberg hypothesis" is far from the worst or most dangerous thing Rogan has ever discussed on his podcast, it's a chilling example of the dangerous half-baked bullshit his show is a party to — and that he pushes to his tens of millions of listeners, too.

More on conspiracy theories: Elon Musk Visits Auschwitz, Twists Holocaust Into Excuse to Make Money

Particles have “fuzzy memory” in a solid-state battery

Seen close-up, the flow of ions between battery electrodes is actually a series of erratic, atomic-scale hops. But when shaken with a jolt of voltage, most ions briefly hopped backward to their previous positions before resuming their usual erratic journeys. 

Credit: Greg Stewart/SLAC National. Accelerator Laboratory

Ellen Phiddian
February 17, 2024

When you fire a laser at a solid-state battery, it turns out the particles inside aren’t tossed into chaos. This has surprised a team of US and UK researchers.

The team has found “persistence of memory” in the ions (charged atoms) that help move electricity around a solid-state battery.

The discovery improves understanding of solid-state batteries, which are candidates for the next generation of safer, more powerful batteries.

A paper describing the research is published in Nature.

The team was investigating the way ions behave in a solid-state battery electrolyte when a laser fires a sudden bolt of voltage through it.

Previously, researchers had observed ions in these electrolytes “hopping” from place to place in a jumbled way, eventually letting electric charge flow.

But this team found that, for a few billionths of a second, the ions briefly changed direction and went back to the positions they’d been in a moment earlier – before continuing on their chaotic way.

Lead author Andrey Poletayev, a postdoctoral researcher now at Oxford University, calls this “fuzzy memory”.

“Researchers have been investigating ionic transport with macroscopic tools for so long, and they couldn’t observe what we saw in this study,” says Poletayev.

A laser apparatus built by SLAC lead scientist Matthias C. Hoffmann for experiments that shook ions traveling through a solid-state battery electrolyte with a jolt of voltage. 

Credit: Andrey D. Poletayev/Oxford University

The researchers used high-frequency lasers, with pulses just a few trillionths of a second, to observe the ions moving – the way the light reflected off the electrolytes could tell them what the ions were up to.

“There are multiple weird and unusual things going on in the ion hopping process,” says senior author Aaron Lindenberg, a professor at Stanford University, and the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, US, where the experiments took place.

“When we apply a force that shakes the electrolyte, the ion doesn’t immediately respond like in most materials.

“The ion may sit there a while, suddenly jump, then sit there for quite a while again. You might have to wait for some time and then suddenly a giant displacement occurs.

“So there’s an element of randomness in this process which makes these experiments difficult.”

Ellen Phiddian is a science journalist at Cosmos. She has a BSc (Honours) in chemistry and science communication, and an MSc in science communication, both from the Australian National University.

• 
  

Traditional potato tillage systems in the Peruvian Andes impact bacterial diversity, evenness, community composition, and functions in soil microbiomes

• Aura L. García-Serquén, 
• Lenin D. Chumbe-Nolasco, 
• Acacio Aparecido Navarrete, 
• R. Carolina Girón-Aguilar & 
• Dina L. Gutiérrez-Reynoso 

Scientific Reports volume 14, Article number: 3963 (2024) Cite this article

• • Article
  • Open access
  • Published: 17 February 2024

  details

Abstract

The soil microbiome, a crucial component of agricultural ecosystems, plays a pivotal role in crop production and ecosystem functioning. However, its response to traditional tillage systems in potato cultivation in the Peruvian highlands is still far from understood. Here, ecological and functional aspects of the bacterial community were analyzed based on soil samples from two traditional tillage systems: 'chiwa' (minimal tillage) and 'barbecho' (full tillage), in the Huanuco region of the Peruvian central Andes. Similar soil bacterial community composition was shown for minimal tillage system, but it was heterogeneous for full tillage system. This soil bacterial community composition under full tillage system may be attributed to stochastic, and a more dynamic environment within this tillage system. 'Chiwa' and 'barbecho' soils harbored distinct bacterial genera into their communities, indicating their potential as bioindicators of traditional tillage effects. Functional analysis revealed common metabolic pathways in both tillage systems, with differences in anaerobic pathways in 'chiwa' and more diverse pathways in 'barbecho'. These findings open the possibilities to explore microbial bioindicators for minimal and full tillage systems, which are in relationship with healthy soil, and they can be used to propose adequate tillage systems for the sowing of potatoes in Peru.

Traditional potato tillage systems in the Peruvian Andes impact bacterial diversity, evenness, community composition, and functions in soil microbiomes | Scientific Reports (nature.com)

Lignin utilization makes inexpensive, carbon-neutral jet fuel possible

It demonstrated the possibility of supplying SAF to the market at competitive prices.

By Ashwini Sakharkar
17 Feb, 2024


The process of breaking down plant matter has always been a challenge in making fuel from plants. A new study finds that introducing a simple, renewable chemical to the pretreatment step of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) made from waste wood biomass can potentially make biofuel production cost-effective and carbon neutral.

While SAF may not be a perfect green solution to aviation, it is definitely a step in the right direction. SAF produces up to 3% more energy while burning cleaner, with heavily reduced sulfur and particulate emissions. Also, it eliminates the entire emissions cost of the oil extraction and refining processes.

SAF doesn’t rely on food crops as feedstock but instead uses feedstocks like wood residues, sugarcane bagasse, corn stover, and other cheap, abundant waste products.

A research study conducted by UC Riverside researchers highlights the challenges of extracting carbon for fuel from biomass. The problem has been lignin, which is a tough and resilient structural component found in plant cells.

UCR associate research professor Charles Cai, who developed the CELF biomass pretreatment technology. Credit: Stan Lim/UCR

Lignin makes it difficult to extract carbon for fuel from biomass, especially when dealing with harder woods. As a result, many operations end up burning the lignin for process heat and power, which is economically viable but not environmentally sound.

Now, the UC Riverside team has come up with a promising solution. They have developed a pretreatment that adds tetrahydrofuran (THF) to water and dilute acid during biomass pretreatment. This pretreatment has the potential to significantly improve overall efficiency and add lignin extraction capabilities. THF itself can be made from biomass sugars.

According to the study, using THF pretreatment with corn stover can yield up to 51.8 gallons (196 L) of gasoline equivalent per ton of dry feedstock, which is 18% more than the conventional process. However, if you use poplar wood with its higher lignin content, the yield can be as high as 75.9 gallons (287 L) of gasoline equivalent per ton of dry feedstock, nearly twice as much as corn stover can produce. That’s certainly a lot more aviation bang for your waste biomass buck.

The THF pretreatment chemical is not only cheap but also easily obtainable, as it can be produced from the same sugars that SAF operations are already processing.


According to the Department of Energy, up to a billion tons of biomass could be used annually to manufacture biofuels and bioproducts in the United States alone, which could displace 30% of the country’s petroleum consumption and create new jobs. Using a heavier, denser feedstock like hardwood poplar in a CELF (co-solvent enhanced lignocellulosic fractionation) biorefinery can yield greater economic and environmental benefits than less carbon-dense corn stover.

The UC Riverside researchers demonstrate that sustainable aviation fuel can be produced at a break-even price as low as $3.15 per gallon of gasoline equivalent, which is significantly lower than the current average cost of a gallon of jet fuel in the United States.​

Charles Cai and a newly installed 20-gallon CELF reactor that will be used in the scale-up project. 

Credit: Stan Lim/UCR

The paper shows that utilizing lignin can have a positive impact on the overall economics of a biorefinery while keeping the carbon footprint as low as possible. In older biorefinery models where biomass is cooked in water and acid, the lignin is mostly unusable for anything other than its heating value.

However, in the CELF biorefinery model, better lignin utilization is proposed, along with the production of renewable chemicals that can be used as building blocks for bioplastics and food and drink flavoring compounds. These chemicals can take up some of the carbon in the plant biomass that would otherwise not get released back into the atmosphere as CO2.

“Lignin utilization is the gateway to making what you want out of biomass in the most economical and environmentally friendly way possible,” said UC Riverside Associate Research Professor Charles Cai. “Designing a process that can better utilize both the lignin and sugars found in biomass is one of the most exciting technical challenges in this field.”

“I began this work more than a decade ago because I wanted to make an impact. I wanted to find a viable alternative to fossil fuels, and my colleagues and I have done that,” Cai said. “Using CELF, we have shown it is possible to create cost-effective fuels from biomass and lignin and help curb our contribution of carbon emissions into the atmosphere.”

Journal reference: Bruno Colling Klein, Brent Scheidemantle, Rebecca J. Hanes, Andrew W. Bartling, Nicholas J. Grundl, Robin J. Clark, Mary J. Biddy, Ling Tao, Cong T. Trinh, Adam M. Guss, Charles E. Wyman, Arthur J. Ragauskas, Erin G. Webb, Brian H. Davison, and Charles M. Cai. Economics and global warming potential of a commercial-scale delignifying biorefinery based on co-solvent enhanced lignocellulosic fractionation to produce alcohols, sustainable aviation fuels, and co-products from biomass. Energy & Environmental Science, 2023; DOI: 10.1039/D3EE02532B

SPACE

INSAT 3DS mission successful; naughty boy is now an obedient boy, says ISRO

 17 Feb 2024, 

On the launch of INSAT-3DS meteorological satellite, ISRO chairman S Somanath says “I am very happy to announce the successful accomplishment of the mission GSLV-F14 INSAT-3DS…”

Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) posted this photo on their X account as preparations underway for the launch of ISRO’s GSLV-F14/INSAT-3DS mission that is to be scheduled at 5.35 p.m on Feb 17, at the Satish Dhawan Space Station, in Sriharikota on Friday. (ISRO twitter)

The GSLV-F14 vehicle successfully placed the INSAT-3DS satellite into intended orbit, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) said on Saturday. A Geosynchronous Launch Vehicle carrying a third generation meteorological satellite lifted-off from the spaceport in Andhra Pradesh's Sriharikota on Saturday.

"GSLV-F14/INSAT-3DS Mission: The vehicle has successfully placed the satellite into the intended geosynchronous transfer orbit," the ISRO tweeted.

The INSAT-3DS Satellite is a follow-on mission of Third Generation Meteorological Satellite from Geostationary Orbit. This is the second mission for the ISRO in 2024 after the successful launch of PSLV-C58/EXPOSAT mission on January 1.

On the launch of INSAT-3DS meteorological satellite, ISRO chairman S Somanath said, "I am very happy to announce the successful accomplishment of the mission GSLV-F14 INSAT-3DS. The spacecraft has been injected into a very good orbit. We also noted that the vehicle has performed very well. Congratulations to everyone who has been a part of the team..."

Meanwhile, INSAT-3DS Mission Director Tomy Joseph said, “…naughty boy (ISRO’s GSLV-F14 rocket) has now become a mature, disciplined and obedient boy."

"I congratulate and salute all the ISRO ‘family’ members for this achievement. This is GSLV’s tenth mission, and the payload has been increased by almost 50 kilograms this time. I am grateful to higher management and ISRO chairman for the opportunity (of leading the mission)," Joseph said.

ALSO READ:  ISRO set to launch satellite INSAT-3DS today; 5 things to know about this 2024 space mission

The 51.7 metre tall GSLV-F14 soared majestically from the second launch pad at the spaceport, leaving behind thick fumes on its tail and soared towards the sky. It saw thunderous applause from spectators who had gathered at the gallery here since afternoon.

The satellite weighing 2,274 kg would serve various departments under the Ministry of Earth Sciences including the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD), ISRO said.

INSAT-3DS satellite: Aim and objective

Somnath said INSAT 3DS is the next generation weather satellite with improved capability over the existing INSAT series which is there in orbit. "This will augment the capability of various atmospheric parameters that leads to information related to weather and climate," he added.

The new satellite, equipped with cutting-edge payloads and top-notch data collection, will aid in monitoring land and ocean surfaces for near-precise weather forecasting and disaster warnings.

The primary objectives of the mission are to monitor Earth's surface, carry out oceanic observations and its environment in various spectral channels of meteorological importance -- to provide the vertical profile of various meteorological parameters of the Atmosphere.

Among others, it will provide the Data Collection and Data Dissemination capabilities from the Data Collection Platforms (DCPs), and to provide Satellite Aided Search and Rescue services.

"This particular satellite will be doing a lot of advanced research and helping for the weather forecast of our country...," said Debanik Roy, senior Scientist and Group Head, Division of Remote Handling and Robotics, Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Department of Atomic Energy, Mumbai.

NASA has more than twice the asteroid Bennu samples it could have hoped for from OSIRIS-REx probe

By Josh Dinner 

The once inaccessible sample container has been fully opened, and NASA has released the numbers

View of the OSIRIS-REx Touch-and-Go-Sample-Acquisition-Mechanism (TAGSAM) head with lid removed, unveiling the bulk of asteroid Bennu sample inside. 

(Image credit: NASA/Erika Blumenfeld/Joseph Aebersold)

We now know exactly how much material OSIRIS-REx captured from its target asteroid Bennu — and, it's a lot.

In addition to the 2.48 ounces (70.3 grams) of sample already collected from the outside of the canister, NASA has finally managed to fully open OSIRIS-REx's sample container to find another 1.81 ounces (51.2 grams) of asteroid Bennu within. In all, the probe collected more than twice what scientists had hoped for.

OSIRIS-REx completed its asteroid sample return mission when the probe parachuted a tightly-sealed container back to Earth on Sep. 24 before embarking on a secondary mission dubbed OSIRIS-APEX, named for its next space rock target, the asteroid Apophis.

With this container came the first pieces of an asteroid NASA has ever captured and returned for further study. The mission launched in 2016, and the safe recovery of the capsule last year was the ceremonious end to an epic seven-year journey through space. However, once NASA technicians got a hold of the sample container, they stumbled upon some complications — it was too difficult to open.

Related: Asteroid Bennu may 'a fragment of an ancient ocean world,' samples suggest

OSIRIS-REx's original mission goal was to collect up to 2.12 ounces (60 grams) of material, which was actually met with even just bits of Bennu spotted across the container's exterior. However, the team knew there had to be much more inside.

So, in order to access the entirety of the Bennu sample, NASA teams started designing a new tool to open the sealed container.

To talk specifics, the container was actually secured inside a larger enclosure, built for protection during the probe's arduous journey. As OSIRIS-REx collected its asteroid samples in space, a portion of the material wound up inside this protective enclosure but outside the designated sample container, gifting scientists some of the Bennu sample before the main canister was unlocked.

Far exceeding their expectations, mission operators managed to collect 2.48 ounces (70.3 grams) before ever opening the inaccessible part of the OSIRIS-REx return capsule. Still, scientists and space enthusiasts everywhere remained waiting to see what OSIRIS-REx's grand sample total would be. And now, the new tool having been derived, scientists have access to all of the probe's asteroid sample, and the results are in.

Combined with the samples already collected, OSIRIS-REx returned a total of 4.29 ounces (121.6 grams) of material from asteroid Bennu — that's more than double the mission's goal and the largest asteroid sample ever collected, according to a recent NASA release. For comparison, the Japanese Aerospace Agency's Hayabusa2 mission only brought back about 0.18 ounces (5 grams) of material from its asteroid target, Ryugu, in Dec. 2020.

 —  At last! NASA finally frees lid of asteroid Bennu sample capsule after battling stuck fasteners

 — OSIRIS-APEX prepares for 1st close solar encounter on way to asteroid Apophis

— NASA's OSIRIS-REx lands samples of asteroid Bennu to Earth after historic 4-billion-mile journey

Examination of the samples has already begun, and scientists are finding "a whole realm of material" previously inaccessible using samples collected from meteorites, according to Dante Lauretta, principal investigator for OSIRIS-REx. Bennu is believed to be a remnant of the early solar system, and scientists think studying these samples could help unravel some mysteries of early planetary development.

About a quarter of the Bennu sample will remain with researchers on the OSIRIS-REx research team. NASA also plans to preserve at least 70 percent of the sample for study by scientists worldwide, as well as for future generations of researchers.

An astronomer's lament: SpaceX 'megaconstellations' are ruining space exploration for everyone

News
By Samantha Lawler

published about 19 hours ago
THE CONVERSATION

Private companies like SpaceX are crowding Earth's atmosphere with ever-increasing numbers of satellite 'megaconstellations'. For astronomers, the toll of these bright, ubiquitous objects is already painfully clear.

Telescopes have to contend with light pollution from satellites.

I used to love rocket launches when I was younger. During every launch, I imagined what it would feel like to be an astronaut sitting in the spacecraft, listening to that final countdown and then feeling multiple gees push me up through the atmosphere and away from our blue marble.

But as I learned more about the severe limitations of human spaceflight, I turned my attention to the oldest and most accessible form of space exploration: the science of astronomy.

Since 2019, I've watched my unencumbered enthusiasm for rocket launches soften to tepid interest, and finally sour to outright dread. The corporate space race, led by SpaceX, is entirely responsible for this transformation in my mindset.

I am worried by the complete shift to the move-fast-and-break-things attitude that comes from the tech sector instead of government scientific agencies. I am put off by the colonialist language and billionaire-worship of private corporations. I am increasingly furious at the nonexistent public education and lack of transparency offered by these companies.

Crowded orbits

The corporate space race is well underway, with private companies flooding Low Earth Orbit with thousands of mass-produced satellites. In previous decades, the prohibitively high cost of launch kept the rate of increase and total number of satellites from growing too rapidly. But launches have been getting steadily cheaper for years.

SpaceX has launched thousands of their own Starlink communication satellites, as well as hundreds of satellites for their direct competitors. Half of all launches worldwide in 2023 were SpaceX rockets.

As an astronomer, I'm painfully aware of what these thousands of new satellites have done to the night sky worldwide. They reflect sunlight long after the sky has grown dark, looking like moving stars.

Starlink satellites are the most numerous and occupy some of the lowest orbits, so they make up the majority of the satellites seen in the sky.

 

Last year, SpaceX launched one of the brightest objects in the sky on behalf of another company: BlueWalker 3, a satellite with the same sky-footprint as a small house. They plan to operate a fleet of dozens, each as bright as the brightest stars in the sky.
Lost information and knowledge

These satellites are now increasingly obstructing telescopic space exploration, both on the ground and in space. Astronomers are the canaries in the coal mine for this rapidly expanding experiment in orbit: we see these satellites increasingly affecting our research every day.

I have watched over the past five years as satellite streaks in my own research images from the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope have changed from an unusual occurrence to lost data in nearly every image.

Astronomy is the only way to learn about the universe, the overwhelming majority of which can never be explored by humans. The farthest human-made object from Earth is the Voyager 1 probe, now eight times farther from the sun than Neptune after 46 years continuously travelling significantly faster than a speeding bullet.


A composite of 29 individual exposures from the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope on Maunakea, taken in August 2022. The horizontal and diagonal white lines are bright satellites that unexpectedly flew through the field of view during observations, covering any objects behind them. (P. Cowan/W. Fraser/S. Lawler/CLASSY Survey Team/CFHT)

But even if Voyager 1 was pointed directly toward our nearest neighbouring star, Proxima Centauri (it's not), it would take over 100,000 years to get there. We are light-years away from having technology that can robotically explore even our neighbouring solar systems on a human timescale, let alone bring humans out to the stars.

The vast majority of astronomy research is carried out by telescopes on Earth: large optical telescopes on remote mountaintops, large radio telescopes in radio-quiet zones that are meticulously maintained, as well as smaller telescopes scattered around the world.

There are a handful of telescopes in Low Earth Orbit that also have to contend with light pollution from Starlink and other megaconstellations. There are also a handful of telescopes outside Earth orbit which can only operate for a few years, unlike ground-based facilities that can be maintained and enhanced with new technologies for decades.
Government regulation needed

The Canada-Hawaii-France telescope, located on the summit of Mauna Kea, a dormant volcano located on the island of Hawaii. 

Space exploration using Earth-based telescopes is growing increasingly less effective as more bright and radio-loud satellites are placed between Earth and the stars. But there are much worse problems ahead if corporations continue launching satellites: atmospheric pollution on launch and re-entry, ground casualty risks from re-entries, and the very real possibility of a runaway collisional cascade in orbit, referred to as the Kessler Syndrome.

Satellites are an incredibly useful part of our lives, but there are limits to how many can safely orbit Earth. Current regulations on launches and orbital operations by governments are very weak, and are not set up for the current regime of thousands of new satellites per year.

Regulation on the number of satellites in orbit would force corporations toward technology improvements and service models that use fewer satellites, keeping orbit usable for future generations.

Ask your government representatives to support satellite regulation, and expansion of rural broadband. Get out and enjoy your dark skies, before they change.

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With proper regulation, our oldest form of space exploration can continue. I desperately hope we never reach a point where the natural patterns in the sky are drowned out by anthropogenic ones, but without regulation, corporations will get us there soon.

This edited article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

UK Space Agency on red alert for doomed satellite crashing back down to Earth

Scientists from the UK Space Agency are on high alert as doomed satellite is set to come crashing down to Earth – and boffins say they have no idea where it will land

By Lizzie McAllister

Senior News Reporter

17 FEB 2024

The satellite could come crashing down to Earth next week (Image: ESA/SWNS)

The UK Space Agency is on high alert as a doomed satellite is set to crash back to Earth next week.

Scientists have no idea where the out-of-control European Remote Sensing 2 satellite (ERS-2) will land. The European Space Agency reckons it could re-enter the atmosphere on Wednesday (February 21) at 2.34am, but this prediction could be off by up to 31 hours either way

The UK Space Agency, which operates the country's re-entry warning service, has tasked its sensors to monitor ERS-2's re-entry. This government service scans for incoming threats and can issue a warning if an emergency situation arises.

READ MORE: Brits to have ashes blasted into space to orbit Earth before falling as snowflakes

Scientists have no idea where the doomed satellite will land (Image: ESA/SWNS)

The agency uses state-of-the-art modelling to track re-entering objects and issues warnings if a UK-licensed object is re-entering, or if the UK or our overseas territories or crown dependencies might be affected. These warnings are sent to civil protection authorities in the UK and to overseas government departments.

The re-entry service, along with the in-orbit collision and fragmentation service (known as the Space Surveillance and Tracking service), operates 365 days a year. Angus Stewart, the boss of Space Surveillance and Tracking at the UK Space Agency, said: "There are thousands of operational and defunct satellites in orbit around the Earth, and the ability to operate safely in space and bring the benefits back to Earth is growing increasingly challenging."

ERS-2's final image captured above Rome, Italy, in 2011 (Image: ESA/SWNS)

Talking about data from a partnership with satellite tracking company HEO, Mr Stewart said: "As well as capturing these images as part of our work with HEO, the UK Space Agency operates the UK's re-entry warning service and has tasked our UK sensors to observe the re-entry of ERS-2."

"We share data with ESA and other international partners through the Inter-Agency Space Debris Coordination Committee (IADC) and other forums to support satellite re-entries."

The European Space Agency is now monitoring ERS-2's path down to Earth

 (Image: ESA/SWNS)

Moon Race 2.0: Why so many nations and private companies are aiming for lunar landings

By Sue Nelson

Features correspondent

Getty Images

Five decades on from the last of the Apollo missions, the Moon is once again a target for space exploration. But Nasa no longer has lunar exploration to itself.

The number of astronauts who walked on the Moon hasn't changed in over 50 years.

Only 12 human beings have had this privilege – all Americans – but that will soon increase. The historical two-nation competition between the US and Soviet space agencies for lunar exploration has become a global pursuit. Launching missions to either orbit the Moon, or land on its surface, is now carried out by governments and commercial companies from Europe and the Middle East to the South Pacific.

Despite the success of the US Apollo missions between 1969-72, to date only five nations have landed on the Moon. China is one of the most ambitious of the nations with the Moon in its sights.

After two successful orbital missions in 2007 and 2010, China landed the unmanned Chang'e 3 in 2013. Six years later Chang'e 4 became the first mission to land on the far side of the Moon. The robotic Chang'e 5 returned lunar samples back to Earth in 2020 and Chang'e 6, which launches in May this year, will bring back the first samples from the Moon's far side.

The country's ambitions don't stop there. "China is openly aiming to put a pair of its astronauts on the Moon before 2030," says space journalist Andrew Jones, who focusses on China's space industry.

"There is demonstrable progress in a number of areas needed to perform such a mission, including developing a new human-rated launch vehicle, a new-generation crew spacecraft, a lunar lander and expanding ground stations," says Jones. "It is a tremendous undertaking, but China has demonstrated that it can plan and execute long-term lunar and human spaceflight endeavours."

After being delayed four times, the first Artemis mission lifted off in November 2022 – but Nasa has many rivals for a return to the Moon

 (Credit: Getty Images)

Not surprisingly, recently announced delays to US space agency Nasa's own Moon programme Artemis, which has pushed back plans to land astronauts on the lunar surface to September 2026 at the earliest, has produced the phrase "Moon Race" between the US and China.

"I think that China has a very aggressive plan," Nasa chief Bill Nelson told a media teleconference about the amended Artemis timescale. "I think they would like to land before us, because that might give them some PR coup. But the fact is, I don't think they will."

China, of course, may also experience slips in its launch schedule. "China needs a super heavy-lift launcher to start putting large pieces of infrastructure on the Moon," says Jones. "Its Long March 9 rocket project has undergone changes, so this may delay first missions from 2030 into the early or mid 2030s."

India became the fourth nation to land on the Moon with the unmanned Chandrayaan-3 in August 2023, which touched down close to the lunar south pole. After its success, the chairman of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) announced it aims to send astronauts to the Moon by 2040. (Find out more about the mysteries of the lunar south pole and why so many nations want to land there in this feature by Jonathan O'Callaghan.)
In such a crowded field, the big question is who will become the next major global player in the next phase of lunar exploration

Meanwhile, Japan's Slim (Smart Lander for Investigating Moon) mission recently placed its Moon Sniper lander on lunar soil to become the fifth nation on our nearest neighbour. The Japanese space agency, Jaxa, is also nearing the end of negotiations to put a Japanese astronaut on the Moon as part of the US Artemis programme.

Other countries – such as Israel, South Korea and numerous member states of the European Space Agency (Esa) – have also placed robotic spacecraft into lunar orbit. Nasa recently announced that the Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Centre in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) would provide an airlock for Gateway, its planned lunar orbiting space station for the Artemis missions.

The reasons for going vary: from scientific knowledge and technological advances to the prospect of accessing potentially useful lunar resources and political or economic value. The UK space industry, for instance, was extremely robust during the recession.

But in such a crowded field, the big question is who will become the next major global player in the next phase of lunar exploration. It will no longer be the sole preserve of national space agencies; commercial companies also want a piece of the lunar action.

India's lander Chandrayaan-3 touched down on the Moon's surface in August 2023, and India has vowed to send astronauts there in future missions 

Although China launched the first commercial mission to the Moon in 2014, the small privately funded Manfred Memorial Moon Mission was a microsatellite (61cm x 26cm x10cm) for a lunar flyby built by LuxSpace in Luxembourg. America's first planned commercial lunar mission, however, was much more ambitious.

In January this year, Astrobotic, a company based in Pittsburgh, launched Peregrine Mission 1. It was to be the first US spacecraft to land on the lunar surface since Apollo 17 in 1972. Unfortunately, a "critical loss of propellant" shortly after launch meant that it had to return home without landing and burned up in the Earth's atmosphere above a remote part of the South Pacific Ocean.

As a result, the upcoming US commercial mission, Intuitive Machines IM-1, which launched on 15 February and intends to place its Nova-C lander on the Moon, has been bumped up from second to potentially first place.
We are seeing that [space launch] economy start to catch up because the prospect of landing on the Moon exists - Steve Altemus

"As partners in advancing lunar exploration, we understand and share the collective disappointment of unforeseen challenges," says president and CEO of Intuitive Machines, Steve Altemus. "It is a testament to the resilience of the space community that we continue to push the boundaries of our understanding, embracing the inherent risks in our pursuit of opening access to the Moon for the progress of humanity."

The US declared the Moon a strategic interest in 2018. Does Altemus see his commercial mission as the beginning of a lunar economy? "At the time, no lunar landers or lunar programs existed in the United States," he says. "Today, over a dozen companies are building landers, which is a new market. In turn, we've seen an increase in payloads, science instruments, and engineering systems being built for the Moon. We are seeing that economy start to catch up because the prospect of landing on the Moon exists. Space is an enormous human endeavour and it will always contain a government component because they have a strategic need to be in space. But there's room now, for the first time in history, for commercial companies to be there."

In recent years India has also seen a boom in space start-ups such as Pixel, Dhruva Space, Bellatrix Aerospace and Hyderabad's Skyroot Aerospace, which launched India's first private rocket in 2022.

It has been more than 50 years since the last Apollo astronauts walked on the lunar surface (Credit: Nasa)

In October 2023 an Australian private company, Hex20, announced a collaboration with Skyroot Aerospace and Japan's ispace, which will attempt its second robotic lunar landing at the end of this year. The collaboration aims to stimulate demand for affordable lunar satellite missions.

But when it comes to the Moon, footprints and flags on the ground still generate the biggest headlines. The four astronauts who will go into lunar orbit on Artemis II – Nasa's Christina Hammock Koch, Reid Wiseman and Victor Glover plus Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen – all feature in London's immersive Moonwalkers show.

You might also like:

The mysteries of the Moon's South Pole
The next footsteps on the Moon
What did Apollo do for us?

Written by British filmmaker Chris Riley and actor Tom Hanks (who famously played astronaut Jim Lovell in the Apollo 13 movie), it highlights the collective Nasa effort required to put astronauts on the Moon and looks ahead to Artemis doing the same.

I recently watched the show sat alongside an upcoming guest on the Space Boffins podcast: former Nasa Apollo flight director, Gerry Griffin. Afterwards he described the Artemis programme as "wonderful".

"I'm worried about the funding," he says. "It's going to always be a problem."

But Griffin is optimistic and full of confidence in its astronauts. "We got the best. They are really, really good. But we've got to get going. It's time we get back."

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Scientists Detect Water on the Surface of Asteroids for the First Time Ever

Using data from a retired NASA mission, researchers identified unique signs of water molecules on two space rocks, unlocking new insight into how water may have arrived on Earth

Catherine Duncan
Staff Contributor

SMITHSONIAN

February 16, 2024 

Data from the retired Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA), a joint venture between NASA and the German Space Agency, led scientists to their discovery. NASA / Carla Thomas / SwRI


In a cosmic first, scientists have discovered water on the surface of two asteroids. The findings, published Monday in The Planetary Science Journal, chart new territory in understanding how the life-sustaining molecule is distributed throughout the solar system—and hint at how it ended up on Earth.

Scientists at the Southwest Research Institute detected the water molecules using data collected by the now-defunct Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA), a Boeing airplane modified to carry a telescope that made its final flight in 2022.

Previously, other researchers used an instrument on SOFIA to examine particular wavelengths of light, called spectral signatures, emitted by molecules on the moon. In 2020, they spotted a specific wavelength unique to water molecules, revealing enough water on the moon’s sunlit surface to fill a 12-ounce bottle.

Inspired by this research, “we thought we could use SOFIA to find this spectral signature on other bodies,” says Anicia Arredondo, lead author of the new study and an asteroid researcher at the Southwest Research Institute, in a statement.

The scientists studied SOFIA’s observations of four asteroids rich in silicate, or minerals containing silicon and oxygen. Two of the asteroids, named Iris and Massalia, were found to emit the unique wavelength that “unambiguously” indicated the presence of water molecules, Arredondo says in the statement.

Iris and Massalia, which measure 124 miles and 84 miles in diameter, respectively, formed relatively close to the sun. According to the study, their water could be stored in multiple ways: The molecules could be trapped in beads of silicate glass or stuck to the silicates’ surface. Or, in a manner similar to the moon’s sunlit surface, where the molecular water was found within lunar soil, the asteroids’ water may be bound to minerals.

Though scientists have discovered water on asteroid samples brought to Earth through return missions, water molecules had never before been identified on asteroids still floating in space, writes Space.com’s Samantha Mathewson. Finding molecular water on Iris and Massalia, in particular, suggests liquid water can exist for eons on space rocks in the inner solar system—contrary to previous assumptions that any water would have evaporated from these asteroids under the heat of the sun.

“Asteroids are leftovers from the planetary formation process, so their compositions vary depending on where they formed in the solar nebula,” says Arredondo in the statement. “Of particular interest is the distribution of water on asteroids, because that can shed light on how water was delivered to Earth.”

The finding bolsters support for the popular theory that water did not originate on Earth, but rather crashed onto the planet through an asteroid impact.

“Asteroids, comets and their associated dust and debris are continually being nudged around by the gravity of the planets—changing the paths they follow through space,” Jonti Horner, an astrophysicist at the University of Southern Queensland in Australia, tells Newsweek’s Jess Thomson.

Knowledge of the composition of asteroids helps explain how materials within the inner solar system are distributed, according to the study. Understanding where water is located within our solar system could provide insight into how the substance is distributed in others.

“Because water is necessary for all life on Earth, [it] will drive where to look for potential life, both in our solar system and beyond,” according to the statement.

While the researchers found signs of water on Iris and Massalia, the other two asteroids they examined gave inconclusive results. Next, the team plans to use the James Webb Space Telescope to take a higher-resolution look at these bodies, then expand their search to even more asteroids.

“We have another proposal in for the next cycle to look at another 30 targets [with Webb],” adds Arredondo in the statement. “These studies will increase our understanding of the distribution of water in the solar system.”


Catherine Duncan is an intern with Smithsonian magazine.