It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Thursday, September 07, 2023
SPACE
Hubble Space Telescope sees lonely galaxy looming in isolation (photo)
Samantha Mathewson Wed, September 6, 2023
a spiral galaxy
A distant galaxy looms in lonely isolation in a new photo from the Hubble Space Telescope.
The galaxy, called IC 1776, lies over 150 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Pisces. Hubble, a joint mission led by NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA), snapped this new view of the galaxy, capturing its irregularly-shaped structure and indistinct spiral arms.
"The edges are faint and the core has a pale yellow glow. It is dotted with small, wispy, blue regions where stars are forming," ESA officials said in a statement. "A few stars and small galaxies in warm colors are visible around it."
Observations of IC 1776 suggest the galaxy recently hosted a violent star explosion, also known as a supernova. Data from the Lick Observatory Supernova Search — a robotic telescope that scours the night sky in search of transient phenomena such as supernovas — revealed remnants of the stellar explosion, named SN 2015ap, with observations collected in 2015.
Hubble then followed up with observations of the supernova’s aftermath as part of two different projects, both of which were designed to investigate the debris left behind by such stellar explosions. The ESA shared Hubble’s latest view of IC 1776, in which the supernova SN 2015ap occurred, on Sept. 4.
"A variety of telescopes automatically follow up the detection of supernovae to obtain early measurements of these events’ brightnesses and spectra," ESA officials said in the statement. "Complementing these measurements with later observations which reveal the lingering energy of supernovae can shed light on the systems which gave rise to these cosmic cataclysms in the first place."
Astronomers discover new class of cosmic explosion brighter than 100 billion suns
Brandon Specktor Wed, September 6, 2023 Artists impression of a black hole destroying a nearby star. The researchers believe such a collision may be responsible for this new type of explosion.
Astronomers have discovered a mysterious new type of cosmic explosion that outshines nearly every supernova ever detected. Within 10 days, the peculiar blast grew brighter than 100 billion suns, then faded away to nearly nothing a few weeks later — a destructive event both briefer and more spectacular than a typical supernova.
The fast and furious event likely represents a new class of explosion never studied before, according to research published Sept. 1 in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.
"We have named this new class of sources 'Luminous Fast Coolers' or LFCs," lead study author Matt Nicholl, an astrophysicist at Queen's University Belfast said in a statement. "The exquisite data set that we have obtained rules out this being another supernova."
Supernovas are bright explosions that occur when large stars (typically measuring at least eight times the mass of the sun) burn up their nuclear fuel, collapse in on themselves and blast their outer layers of gas into space. Every year, astronomers observe hundreds of supernovas suddenly brighten, then gradually dim. Typically, a supernova reaches peak brightness after about 20 days, shining several billion times brighter than the sun. Over the following months, the explosion slowly fades away.
But LFCs are not supernovas. For one thing, the newly discovered explosion — which astronomers detected with the Asteroid Terrestrial-Impact Last Alert System (ATLAS) telescope network in Hawaii, Chile and South Africa — occurred in a galaxy full of sun-like stars that are far too small to be supernova material.
Image from the European Southern Observatory New Technology Telescope showing the distant red galaxy (center) where the explosion occurred. The explosion site is marked by the yellow cross.
"Our data showed that this event happened in a massive, red galaxy two billion light-years away," study co-author Shubham Srivastav, a research fellow also at Queen's University, said in the statement. "These galaxies contain billions of stars like our Sun, but they shouldn't have any stars big enough to end up as a supernova."
In addition to its unusual location, the newfound explosion also grew far brighter and faded far quicker than a typical supernova, according to the researchers. Within the next 15 days, the object had faded by two orders of magnitude, and had faded to only 1% of its peak brightness just one month after detonating.
Simply put, the explosion did not fit the profile of any known supernova. So, had anything like it ever occurred before? To find out, the researchers combed through archival telescope surveys, looking for objects with a similar brightness and lifespan. They ultimately uncovered two other objects — one from a 2009 survey, and the second from 2020 — with similar properties to the newly detected blast.
The team concluded that these blasts represent a new — and very rare — class of cosmic explosion that likely has nothing to do with dying stars. What exactly are LFCs, then? For now, the team can only speculate.
"The most plausible explanation seems to be a black hole colliding with a star," Nicholl said.
However, even this explanation doesn't quite fit; when black holes rip material away from passing stars in gruesome interactions known as tidal disruption events, they release bright X-ray emissions — and none of the LFCs identified here showed any X-ray emissions.
It could be that scientific models of star-on-black-hole collisions need to be refined — or, astronomers just don't have enough information about LFCs to make any conclusions yet. The team will continue looking for more of these mysterious explosions in galaxies closer to Earth.
Astronomers discover the biggest shockwaves in the known universe
Scott Sutherland Wed, September 6, 2023 Astronomers discover the biggest shockwaves in the known universe
A team of astronomers has identified immense shockwaves radiating out from a massive collision in space as the biggest in the known universe.
Hiding behind the dust and gas of our Milky Way galaxy is a pair of galaxy clusters, called CIZA J1358.9-4750, that are in the early stages of merging together. Milky Way plus CIRA clusters - centred
A map of the galaxy clusters found by the Clusters in the Zone of Avoidance (CIZA) survey has been centred with the galactic core and matched up with a panoramic view of the Milky Way. The location of merging galaxy clusters CIZA J1358.9-4750 (CIZA 1359) is indicated by an arrow. The green arch denotes a region of the map that is best viewed from the southern hemisphere. Credits: Milky Way panorama - ESO/S. Brunier. CIZA map - D.D. Kocevski et al., 2003
CIZA 1359 is located around 1 billion light years away in what astronomers call the Zone of Avoidance — a region of space beyond our galaxy that most telescopes avoid due to the obscuring light, gas, and dust of the Milky Way.
However, x-ray telescopes can detect high-energy events even though the core of our galaxy. In fact, Japan's Suzaku x-ray astronomy satellite (deactivated since 2015) and the European Space Agency's XMM-Newton x-ray astronomy satellite (still operating after 23 years) have both collected observations of CIZA 1359 over the years.
By combining these observations, a team of researchers led by Kazuhiro Nakazawa and doctoral student Yuki Omiya, both from Nagoya University's Kobayashi-Maskawa Institute for the Origin of Particles and the Universe (KMI), closely examined these merging galaxy clusters.
Through their research, the researchers confirmed an intensely hot region of space located between the two that is roughly 20 million degrees hotter than the cores of both clusters. This zone is the result of two immense shockwaves, measured at around 3 million light years square, that are travelling through the material of the clusters at around 1,500 kilometres per second. 20230615 ciza1359 01 en
On the left, an X-ray image of CIZA J1359 points out the locations of the two galaxy clusters and the filament structure currently joining the two as they merge. On the right, a detailed model isolates the extremely hot region between the two clusters and the shockwaves generated by the collision. Credit: Yuki Omiya, et al., 2023/KMI
"By conducting a detailed reanalysis of past data in this study, we have successfully discovered the existence of two 'newborn giant shock waves' in merging clusters," said Omiya. "These shock waves have a width and depth 30 times larger than the diameter of our Milky Way galaxy, and this is the first time they have been observed."
In a blog post discussing the research on the KMI website, the team called this "the largest energy-release event in the universe."
Since the merger of these galaxy clusters is in such an early stage, this gave the researchers a good idea of the initial shape of the pair. That made it possible to compute the kinetic energy of one of these shock waves.
Taking the size and speed of the 'northwest' shockwave (the one pushing into the galaxy cluster on the right in the above images), they estimated its kinetic energy at "one billion times the energy consumed by the sun in a year, all released within just one second."
From here, the hope is that observations from new, more advanced radio telescopes, and new x-ray observatories such as Japan's XRISM mission, will help reveal more details of CIZA 1359 and deepen the researchers' understanding of the processes involved in the merging of galaxy clusters.
(Thumbnail image courtesy Yuki Omiya, et al., 2023)
SpaceX launch of NASA's Psyche mission to bizarre metal asteroid just 1 month away
Mike Wall Wed, September 6, 2023
A NASA probe will start winging its way toward a bizarre metal asteroid less than a month from now, if all goes according to plan.
The agency's Psyche spacecraft is scheduled to lift off atop a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Oct. 5 (though the launch window extends through Oct. 25, with each day offering one opportunity).
Psyche will arrive at its namesake — a 170-mile-wide (280 kilometers) metallic object in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter — in the summer of 2029, providing a feast for scientists and lots of eye candy for space fans.
"I am so looking forward to seeing those first images," Lori Glaze, director of NASA's Planetary Sciences Division, said during a news conference on Wednesday (Sept. 6). "They are going to be spectacular, when we finally get to see what this metal asteroid looks like up close."
Next month's launch will be a milestone moment for SpaceX as well: It will mark the first Falcon Heavy liftoff for NASA, as well as the rocket's first interplanetary mission. The Falcon Heavy, which is the second-most powerful rocket currently in operation (after NASA's Space Launch System), has lifted off just seven times to date, most recently on July 28.
Psyche was supposed to be aloft already. The original plan called for launch in the fall of 2022, but problems with the spacecraft's flight software led to a one-year delay.
Those kinks have all been worked out, say mission team members, who are eager for the upcoming liftoff.
"It’s getting increasingly real," Henry Stone, Psyche's project manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Southern California, said in a statement on Wednesday. "We are counting the days. The team is more than ready to send this spacecraft off on its journey, and it's very exciting."
Liftoff will kick off a long cruise phase for Psyche, which will use highly efficient solar electric propulsion to make its way to the asteroid belt. A "gravity assist" flyby of Mars in May 2026 will boost Psyche's velocity, helping it reach its target space rock in late July 2029.
The probe will then study the asteroid up close for 26 months, circling lower and lower until it orbits a mere 40 miles (64 kilometers) above Psyche's surface. Scientists don't know what that surface looks like — they've never gotten a good look at Psyche or any other metal asteroid — but they have some intriguing ideas.
"One possibility is that the metal surface of Psyche is covered by tiny, spiky, cup-shaped micrometeorite impacts into metal, and little tiny grains of metal that flew off of them when they happened," the mission's principal investigator, Lindy Elkins-Tanton of Arizona State University, said during Wednesday's press conference.
"We expect part of the surface to be metal and part of it not to be metal," she added. "What's the non-metal part? Rock? Sulfur? We don't really know. I would say that the only thing we're pretty darn confident of is that there's metal there, and the metal is going to be similar to metal meteorites."
NASA’s Psyche spacecraft is shown in a clean room on June 26 at the Astrotech Space Operations facility near the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
And Psyche has a lot of metal — so much, in fact, that it would be worth about $10 quintillion here on Earth, Elkins-Tanton calculated a few years ago. But that figure is not to be taken seriously, she stressed on Wednesday.
"We have zero technology as a species to bring Psyche back to Earth. And if we did, it would likely be a catastrophic mistake," Elkins-Tanton said.
"Let's say we were able to actually bring Psyche back. Then it would flood the metals market, and it would literally be worth nothing," she added. "So, calculating the value of it is a fun intellectual exercise with no truth to it. We are not going there to mine an asteroid."
Rather, the $1.2 billion Psyche mission will take the asteroid's measure for science's sake. It will study the space rock using three dedicated instruments — a gamma-ray and neutron spectrometer, a multispectral imager and a magnetometer. The spacecraft will also use its onboard radio telecommunications system to conduct "gravity science," learning more about Psyche's internal structure and composition.
Such work will reveal a great deal about the asteroid, which scientists think may be the exposed core of a protoplanet — the raw materials from which rocky planets such as Earth and Mars are made.
"The first mission to explore an asteroid with a surface that contains substantial amounts of metal rather than rock or ice, Psyche seeks to better understand iron cores, an unexplored building block of planet formation," NASA officials wrote in a mission description.
"The mission will be the first to directly examine the interior of a previously layered planetary body, which they expect will shed additional light on how Earth and other rocky planets formed," they added.
The 6,056-pound (2,747 kilograms) Psyche probe also carries a ride-along NASA technology demonstration called DSOC (short for "Deep Space Optical Communications").
DSOC will use a laser system to send and receive data during the mission's long cruise phase out to the asteroid belt. To date, such high-capacity optical communications systems have been used on spacecraft only as far away as the moon. DSOC aims to extend that reach much farther, into very deep space.
"We're very excited about launch and looking forward to the important lessons learned, which will in the future enable human missions to Mars and the use of very high-resolution instruments," Abi Biswas, project technologist for DSOC at JPL, said during Wednesday's press conference.
Furthest ever detection of a galaxy’s magnetic field
ESO
IMAGE: THIS IMAGE SHOWS THE ORIENTATION OF THE MAGNETIC FIELD IN THE DISTANT 9IO9 GALAXY, SEEN HERE WHEN THE UNIVERSE WAS ONLY 20% OF ITS CURRENT AGE — THE FURTHEST EVER DETECTION OF A GALAXY’S MAGNETIC FIELD. THE OBSERVATIONS WERE DONE WITH THE ATACAMA LARGE MILLIMETER/SUBMILLIMETER ARRAY (ALMA), IN WHICH ESO IS A PARTNER. DUST GRAINS WITHIN 9IO9 ARE SOMEWHAT ALIGNED WITH THE GALAXY’S MAGNETIC FIELD, AND DUE TO THIS THEY EMIT POLARISED LIGHT, MEANING THAT LIGHT WAVES OSCILLATE ALONG A PREFERRED DIRECTION RATHER THAN RANDOMLY. ALMA DETECTED THIS POLARISATION SIGNAL, FROM WHICH ASTRONOMERS COULD WORK OUT THE ORIENTATION OF THE MAGNETIC FIELD, SHOWN HERE AS CURVED LINES OVERLAID ON THE ALMA IMAGE. THE POLARISED LIGHT SIGNAL EMITTED BY THE MAGNETICALLY ALIGNED DUST IN 9IO9 WAS EXTREMELY FAINT, REPRESENTING JUST ONE PERCENT OF THE TOTAL BRIGHTNESS OF THE GALAXY, SO ASTRONOMERS USED A CLEVER TRICK OF NATURE TO HELP THEM OBTAIN THIS RESULT. THE TEAM WAS HELPED BY THE FACT THAT 9IO9, ALTHOUGH VERY DISTANT FROM US, HAD BEEN MAGNIFIED VIA A PROCESS KNOWN AS GRAVITATIONAL LENSING. THIS OCCURS WHEN LIGHT FROM A DISTANT GALAXY, IN THIS CASE 9IO9, APPEARS BRIGHTER AND DISTORTED AS IT IS BENT BY THE GRAVITY OF A VERY LARGE OBJECT IN THE FOREGROUND.view more
CREDIT: ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO)/J. GEACH ET AL.
Using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), astronomers have detected the magnetic field of a galaxy so far away that its light has taken more than 11 billion years to reach us: we see it as it was when the Universe was just 2.5 billion years old. The result provides astronomers with vital clues about how the magnetic fields of galaxies like our own Milky Way came to be.
Lots of astronomical bodies in the Universe have magnetic fields, whether it be planets, stars or galaxies. “Many people might not be aware that our entire galaxy and other galaxies are laced with magnetic fields, spanning tens of thousands of light-years,” says James Geach, a professor of astrophysics at the University of Hertfordshire, UK, and lead author of the study published today in Nature.
“We actually know very little about how these fields form, despite their being quite fundamental to how galaxies evolve,” adds Enrique Lopez Rodriguez, a researcher at Stanford University, USA, who also participated in the study. It is not clear how early in the lifetime of the Universe, and how quickly, magnetic fields in galaxies form because so far astronomers have only mapped magnetic fields in galaxies close to us.
Now, using ALMA, in which the European Southern Observatory (ESO) is a partner, Geach and his team have discovered a fully formed magnetic field in a distant galaxy, similar in structure to what is observed in nearby galaxies. The field is about 1000 times weaker than the Earth’s magnetic field, but extends over more than 16 000 light-years.
“This discovery gives us new clues as to how galactic-scale magnetic fields are formed,” explains Geach. Observing a fully developed magnetic field this early in the history of the Universe indicates that magnetic fields spanning entire galaxies can form rapidly while young galaxies are still growing.
The team believes that intense star formation in the early Universe could have played a role in accelerating the development of the fields. Moreover, these fields can in turn influence how later generations of stars will form. Co-author and ESO astronomer Rob Ivison says that the discovery opens up “a new window onto the inner workings of galaxies, because the magnetic fields are linked to the material that is forming new stars.”
To make this detection, the team searched for light emitted by dust grains in a distant galaxy, 9io9 [1]. Galaxies are packed full of dust grains and when a magnetic field is present, the grains tend to align and the light they emit becomes polarised. This means that the light waves oscillate along a preferred direction rather than randomly. When ALMA detected and mapped a polarised signal coming from 9io9, the presence of a magnetic field in a very distant galaxy was confirmed for the first time.
“No other telescope could have achieved this,” says Geach. The hope is that with this and future observations of distant magnetic fields the mystery of how these fundamental galactic features form will begin to unravel.
Notes
[1] 9io9 was discovered in the course of a citizen science project. The discovery was helped by viewers of the British BBC television programme Stargazing Live, when over three nights in 2014 the audience was asked to examine millions of images in the hunt for distant galaxies.
More information
This research was presented in a paper to appear in Nature.
The team is composed of J. E. Geach (Centre for Astrophysics Research, School of Physics, Engineering and Computer Science, University of Hertfordshire, UK [Hertfordshire]), E. Lopez-Rodriguez (Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology, Stanford University, USA), M. J. Doherty (Hertfordshire), Jianhang Chen (European Southern Observatory, Garching, Germany [ESO]), R. J. Ivison (ESO), G. J. Bendo (UK ALMA Regional Centre Node, Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics, Department of Physics and Astronomy, The University of Manchester, UK), S. Dye (School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Nottingham, UK) and K. E. K. Coppin (Hertfordshire).
The European Southern Observatory (ESO) enables scientists worldwide to discover the secrets of the Universe for the benefit of all. We design, build and operate world-class observatories on the ground — which astronomers use to tackle exciting questions and spread the fascination of astronomy — and promote international collaboration for astronomy. Established as an intergovernmental organisation in 1962, today ESO is supported by 16 Member States (Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom), along with the host state of Chile and with Australia as a Strategic Partner. ESO’s headquarters and its visitor centre and planetarium, the ESO Supernova, are located close to Munich in Germany, while the Chilean Atacama Desert, a marvellous place with unique conditions to observe the sky, hosts our telescopes. ESO operates three observing sites: La Silla, Paranal and Chajnantor. At Paranal, ESO operates the Very Large Telescope and its Very Large Telescope Interferometer, as well as survey telescopes such as VISTA. Also at Paranal ESO will host and operate the Cherenkov Telescope Array South, the world’s largest and most sensitive gamma-ray observatory. Together with international partners, ESO operates ALMA on Chajnantor, a facility that observes the skies in the millimetre and submillimetre range. At Cerro Armazones, near Paranal, we are building “the world’s biggest eye on the sky” — ESO’s Extremely Large Telescope. From our offices in Santiago, Chile we support our operations in the country and engage with Chilean partners and society.
The Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), an international astronomy facility, is a partnership of ESO, the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Institutes of Natural Sciences (NINS) of Japan in cooperation with the Republic of Chile. ALMA is funded by ESO on behalf of its Member States, by NSF in cooperation with the National Research Council of Canada (NRC) and the National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) in Taiwan and by NINS in cooperation with the Academia Sinica (AS) in Taiwan and the Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute (KASI). ALMA construction and operations are led by ESO on behalf of its Member States; by the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO), managed by Associated Universities, Inc. (AUI), on behalf of North America; and by the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ) on behalf of East Asia. The Joint ALMA Observatory (JAO) provides the unified leadership and management of the construction, commissioning and operation of ALMA.
About the University of Hertfordshire: Defined by the spirit of innovation and enterprise, the University of Hertfordshire has been an innovative, vocation-first educational force for more than 70 years. From our start as a leading educator within Britain’s aeronautical industry to our extensive offering today, we have always specialised in providing the environment and expertise needed to power every kind of potential. For our thriving community of more than 30,000 students from over 140 countries, that means high-quality teaching from experts engaged in groundbreaking research with real-world impact. Access to over 550 career-focused degree options and a chance to study at more than 170 universities worldwide, using outstanding, true to life facilities. And industry connections that offer professional networking opportunities which take talents even further. We are Herts. Herts. Beats Faster. Discover a place where ideas move at a different pace. Visit herts.ac.uk.
IMAGE: THE AERO CLUB OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA HAS AWARDED THE HOWARD HUGHES MEMORIAL AWARD TO NASA'S JAMES WEBB SPACE TELESCOPE.view more
CREDIT: NASA
The Aero Club of Southern California has awarded the Howard Hughes Memorial Award to NASA's James Webb Space Telescope. The award will be accepted at a ceremony Wednesday, Sept. 6, at the California Club in Los Angeles.
The Howard Hughes Memorial Award honors exceptional leaders who have advanced the fields of aviation or aerospace technology. Hughes’ first cousin, William R. Lummis, established the award in 1978, and the Aero Club of Southern California presents the award annually.
Accepting the award will be Mike Menzel, the NASA mission systems engineer for Webb at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.
“On behalf of the entire Webb team I would like to thank Aero Club for this great honor,” Menzel said. “Our team was privileged to have had the opportunity to develop and execute such an important scientific mission – one that clearly demonstrates what can be achieved when a dedicated team of international partners commits to such an endeavor. We are all excited and inspired by Webb’s first year of images and scientific data, and we look forward to many more years of future exploration and discoveries.”
The award recognizes the contributions of the team that designed, developed, and now operate Webb, including individuals from Goddard; Northrop Grumman, Redondo Beach, California; the Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Maryland; and Ball Aerospace, Boulder, Colorado. The mission was also made possible by many international contributions from partnerships with ESA (European Space Agency) and the CSA (Canadian Space Agency).
Launched in late 2021 after more than a decade of preparation, Webb successfully performed a complex series of deployments shortly after leaving Earth's orbit. About a month later, the telescope reached its working orbit at the Sun-Earth L2 Lagrange point, a stable orbit in space well beyond that of the Moon. Once there and fully commissioned, the 21-foot (6.5-meter) telescope began its record-breaking work. The first images were unveiled on July 12, 2022.
Webb operates at infrared frequencies. The combination of sensitive instrumentation with its massive primary mirror allows the telescope to see farther and more clearly than any previous observatory of its kind. Discoveries from existing and newly identified targets began to accumulate almost immediately.
The Aero Club of Southern California is a 501(c)(3) charitable aviation industry non-profit led by volunteer officers and Board members. Open to everyone with an interest in aviation and aerospace, Aero Club members get insights into the future of air and space exploration and access to the legends who explored the unknown.
The James Webb Space Telescope is the world’s largest, most powerful, and most complex space science telescope ever built. Webb is solving mysteries in our solar system, looking beyond to distant worlds around other stars, and probing the mysterious structures and origins of our universe and our place in it. Webb is an international program led by NASA with its partners, ESAand the Canadian Space Agency.
2 new eclipse projects receive NASA funding
Ahead of the total solar eclipse crossing North America on April 8, 2024, NASA has funded two more proposals that will use the eclipse to advance science while engaging the public
IMAGE: THE BAILY'S BEADS EFFECT AS SEEN FROM MADRAS, OREGON, DURING THE AUG. 21, 2017, TOTAL SOLAR ECLIPSE.view more
CREDIT: CREDIT: NASA/AUBREY GEMIGNANI
Ahead of the total solar eclipse crossing North America on April 8, 2024, NASA has funded two more proposals that will use the eclipse to advance science while engaging the public. The new projects were awarded via NASA’s Heliophysics Innovation in Technology and Science (HITS) program.
“There are so many ways to participate in NASA science, especially as we enter the Heliophysics Big Year,” said NASA Heliophysics citizen science lead, Elizabeth MacDonald. “We’re so excited to watch these and our many other projects come to life.”
SunSketcher 2024: An Eclipse Movie Across America
Led by Gordon Emslie, a professor of physics and astronomy at Western Kentucky University in Bowling Green, SunSketcher 2024 will become NASA’s newest citizen science project. Citizen science, also known as participatory science, involves collaboration between professional scientists and members of the public who work together to conduct scientific studies.
SunSketcher 2024 will enable observers from along the eclipse’s path of totality – the region wherein the Moon completely blocks the Sun’s light during a total solar eclipse – to collaborate and create a single crowd-sourced “megamovie” of the event. Using the SunSketcher 2024 smartphone app, an upgraded version of an app originally developed for the 2017 total solar eclipse, participants will capture their views of the eclipse. The app uses the device’s GPS coordinates to determine the exact time when an eclipse phenomenon known as Baily’s Beads are visible. Baily’s Beads appear for a few moments right before and after totality, as tiny slivers of sunlight pass through the valleys on the lunar surface, giving the brief appearance of bright points, or “beads,” of sunlight. They disappear during totality, when the Moon completely blocks the solar surface, and then reappear as the Sun emerges from behind the Moon.
Using the SunSketcher 2024 app, participant observations will be combined to create a continuous one-hour movie of Baily’s Beads, recording exactly when they appear and disappear at different locations. Combined with precision maps of the lunar limb collected by NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, this movie will allow the team to precisely measure the shape of the Sun – in particular, how much it deviates from a perfect sphere. This information will lead to an improved understanding of the flows in the solar interior, and is also key to testing gravitational theories.
GeoCollaborate: Sharing Eclipse Data for Broadcasters and Educators
Eclipses present a special scientific opportunity to collect a wide array of information, from direct solar measurements to the fleeting effects on Earth’s surface and atmosphere. But gathering and sharing that data is a challenge in and of itself. To address that challenge, StormCenter Communications, a company based out of Halethorpe, Maryland, and led by founder and CEO Dave Jones, has been funded to use their patented GeoCollaborate software application to widen access to eclipse science data.
GeoCollaborate was developed through NASA and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) contracts. The platform provides real-time data visualization, data sharing, and collaboration capabilities within a single interactive environment. For the upcoming 2024 total solar eclipse, StormCenter will use the GeoCollaborate Dashboard to share interactive visualizations, video content, and graphics with broadcast meteorologists and educators who can share it with broader audiences. By leveraging existing relationships in the broadcast community, GeoCollaborate will make it much easier for eclipse-related information to be accessed and broadcast to viewers across the nation. Social media posts and links to additional information will be presented in both English and Spanish to better engage speakers of both languages.
“These two projects join several other NASA-funded eclipse projects, and highlight how important solar eclipses are to understanding the Sun and its influence on Earth,” said program scientist and eclipse lead at NASA Headquarters, Kelly Korreck.
The same GeoCollaborate technology that supported response operations for Hurricane Idalia will be sharing Heliophysics content to broadcast meteorologists and educators in the classroom, delivering NASA data and information to help inspire the public and the next generation explorers.
CREDIT
StormCenter Communications, Inc.
California and Florida grew quickly on the promise of perfect climates in the 1900s – today, they lead the country in climate change risks
Henry Knight Lozano, Senior Lecturer in American History & Director of Liberal Arts, University of Exeter Tue, September 5, 2023
Images of orange groves and Spanish-themed hotels with palm tree gardens filled countless pamphlets and articles promoting Southern California and Florida in the late 19th century, promising escape from winter’s reach.
This vision of an “American Italy” captured hearts and imaginations across the U.S. In it, Florida and California promised a place in the sun for industrious Americans to live the good life, with the perfect climate.
But the very climates that made these semitropical playgrounds the American dream of the 20th century threaten to break their reputations in the 21st century. A postcard illustrates the latest style for Miami beach bathing around 1920. Asheville Post Card Co./Wikimedia
My books and research have explored how these two states were sold to the U.S. public like twin Edens. Today, descendants of those early waves of residents are facing a different world. Selling semitropical climates
As railroads first reached Southern California and the Florida peninsula in the 1870s and 1880s, land, civic and newspaper boosters in each state worked to overturn beliefs that people only thrived in colder climes. In the decades after the Civil War, white Americans living in the North and Midwest had to be persuaded that sun-kissed climates would not do them more harm than good.
Employed by the transcontinental railroads, influential writers like Charles Nordhoff contested eastern notions of Southern California as barren desert where “Anglo-Americans” would inevitably succumb to the “disease” of laziness.
Climate became integral to California’s and Florida’s growing reputation as idealized U.S. destinations. Moreover, it was deemed unlike other natural assets: an inexhaustible resource.
Tourists and settlers gave weight to these claims. “The drawing card of Southern California,” a tourist from Chicago visiting Pasadena wrote in the Chicago Tribune in 1886, “is the beautiful, even climate.” Peninsula Florida was “blessed by nature with a semi-tropical climate,” a visitor wrote in the Atlanta Constitution in 1890. He saw its destiny to attract those who would “bask in the sunlight of a genial clime.”
This proved a compelling vision. In the 1880s, both Southern California and eastern Florida saw booms in settlement and tourism. Southern California’s population more than trebled during the decade to over 201,000, while peninsular Florida’s doubled to over 147,000.
Affluent white Americans weighed up the merits of each: for citrus-growing, winter recuperation, land investment. The differences were, of course, numerous. One state was western, the other southern; one more mountainous, the other flat. Some boosters critiqued their subtropical rival’s climate.
Southern California was too arid, a writer in the Florida Dispatch claimed, a desert “parched for want of water.” Florida, meanwhile, had too much of the stuff, editorials in California replied: a wetland fit for reptiles but potentially deadly to new residents who would wilt in its torrid summers.
Yet Southern California and Florida became connected through economic futures founded upon climate promotion and related industries of citrus, tourism and real estate. If rivals, they shared distinct market ambitions.
“California and Florida can [together] control the citrus trade,” the Los Angeles Times declared in 1885, arguing for mutual benefits in the promotion of oranges. The pair had much to gain from persuading Americans to eat their fruit. Swampland was drained for subdivisions across Florida in the early 20th century. State Library and Archives of Florida
Developers in both also changed the landscape by rerouting water to create communities in once-inhospitable places. In California, the spread of irrigation to turn “desert into garden” enabled the growth of citrus towns such as Riverside, while vast aqueducts conveyed water to thirsty cities like Los Angeles.
In Florida, flawed schemes sought to “reclaim” – essentially drain – wetlands, including the Everglades, where boosters like Walter Waldin sold Americans on a once-in-a-lifetime “opportunity to secure a home and a livelihood in this superb climate.” An inexhaustible resource
The roaring ‘20s saw a new influx of sun-seeking, automobile-driving Americans drawn by boosters to the beaches and orange groves of Los Angeles County and South Florida. A postcard of a beachfront amusement park at Mission Beach in San Diego celebrates leisure time in sunny California in the 1930s or 1940s. Boston Public Library Tichnor Brothers collection/Wikimedia
Comparing Florida and California had become a national pastime as popular as mahjong and crossword puzzles, according to Robert Hodgson, a subtropical horticulturist at the University of California, in 1926.
Hodgson traveled to Florida to act as a judge at an agricultural show in Tampa where, the Los Angeles Times reported in a dig at Florida, he visited everything “from the dizziest pink stucco shore subdivision to the latest aspiring farming colony reclaimed from the alligators.” A postcard dated 1925 shows an orange grove in Florida. State Library and Archives of Florida/Wikimedia
Snipes aside, climate and the lifestyle they offered to middle-class Americans set Southern California and Florida apart. Hodgson wrote that they were similarly “blessed by the gods” through a “joint heritage of something like 90% of the subtropical climatic areas of the United States.”
Climate, moreover, was unlike other natural resources. Whereas precious metals or forests could be mined or cut down, climate was different: an infinite resource. It “can never be exhausted by man in his ignorance or cupidity,” he explained. Climate as crisis
This history of climate-based advertising puts into stark relief the challenges faced by California and Florida in the era of climate crisis.
Extensive home-building in wildfire and coastal zones has compounded these risks, with insurance companies now refusing coverage for properties at risk of fires or storm damage, or making it prohibitively expensive. Street flooding during high tides has become more common in Miami Beach, Fla., as sea level rises. Hurricanes on top of higher seas are increasingly destructive. Joe Raedle/Getty Images
Once marketed successfully as the United States’ two semitropical paradises, Southern California and Florida now share disturbing climate-influenced futures.
These futures bring into question how historic visions of economic growth and the sun-kissed good life that California and Florida have promised can be reconciled with climates that are no longer always genial or sustainable.
This article is republished from The Conversation, an independent nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts.
A type of ginger native to Southeast Asia has anti-cancer properties, a new study reveals.
What it is: This ginger is called kencur (Kaempferia galanga L.), which is typically used as a spice or prepared as herbal tea. It has a peppery and camphorous scent.
What it does: Researchers from Japan’s Osaka Metropolitan University found that kencur extract and its main active component, ethyl p-methoxycinnamate (EMC), can significantly suppress the growth of cancer cells in cellular and animal experiments. EMC is known to decrease the expression of mitochondrial transcription factor A (TFAM), which is linked to the proliferation of cancer cells.
Additionally, the researchers observed that kencur might induce anti-proliferative effects without cytotoxicity to normal cells. This makes it a promising candidate for further study as a safer anti-cancer agent.
What researchers are saying: The study confirms kencur’s anti-cancer properties, the researchers said. However, further research is needed, including clinical trials.
“The results of this study confirm the anti-cancer effects of Kencur extract and its main active ingredient, EMC,” lead author Akiko Kijima said in a statement. “It is highly expected that TFAM will become a new marker for anti-cancer effects in the future as research advances in related fields.”
Felony convictions vacated for 4 former Navy officers in sprawling 'Fat Leonard' bribery scandal Associated Press Updated Wed, September 6, 2023
This undated photo provided by the U.S. Marshals Service shows Leonard Francis, who was on home confinement, allegedly cut off his GPS ankle monitor and left his home on the morning of Sept. 4, 2022. The fugitive defense contractor nicknamed "Fat Leonard" - is at the center of one of the U.S. Navy's worst corruption scandals. (U.S. Marshals Service via AP, File)
SAN DIEGO (AP) — The felony convictions of four former Navy officers in one of the worst bribery cases in the maritime branch's history were vacated Wednesday following allegations of prosecutorial misconduct, the latest setback to the government's yearslong efforts in going after dozens of military officials tied to a defense contractor nicknamed Fat Leonard.
U.S. District Judge Janis Sammartino called the misconduct “outrageous” and agreed to allow the four men to plead guilty to a misdemeanor and pay a $100 fine each. Last year after the trial, Sammartino had ruled the lead federal prosecutor committed “flagrant misconduct” by withholding information from defense lawyers but said at the time that it was not enough to dismiss the case.
The surprising turn came at a sentencing hearing in federal court in San Diego.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Peter Ko, who was brought on after the trial last year, admitted to “serious issues” and asked the judge to vacate the officers' felony convictions.
He said his office does not agree with all of the allegations but said errors were made.
“There were pretty obviously serious issues that affect our ability to go forward” defending the convictions or seeking a new trial, Ko told the judge, according to the San Diego Union-Tribune.
Andrew Haden, acting U.S. Attorney for the Southern California District, reiterated that in a statement after the hearing.
“As stated in court, we do not agree with all the allegations or characterizations in the motions or in court," Haden said. “We recognize and regret, however, that errors were made, and we have an obligation to ensure fairness and justice. The resolutions of these defendants’ cases reflect that.”
Haden added that it "is also significant that the four officers who stood before the court today admitted for the first time, under oath, that they broke the law and are guilty of crimes related to their official duties.”
The officers — former Capts. David Newland, James Dolan and David Lausman and former Cmdr. Mario Herrera — were previously convicted by a federal jury on various counts of accepting bribes from foreign defense contractor Leonard Francis, and his company, Glenn Defense Marine Asia, or GDMA.
On Wednesday three of them pleaded guilty to one count each of disclosing information to Francis, and Lausman pleaded guilty to a charge of destruction of government property, for smashing a hard drive with a hammer.
Defense attorney Todd Burns, who represented Dolan, said his client was relieved to have this behind him. He and defense attorneys for the three other men had filed hundreds of pages outlining how the monthslong trial was rife with misconduct from prosecutors hiding evidence, ignoring false testimony and concealing facts that questioned the credibility of key witnesses.
“The government has a massive amount of power to coerce things, and that power is still evident in this context,” Burns said.
He said his client agreed to plead guilty to a misdemeanor after a decade of fighting the allegations against him, “bleeding legal fees” and enduring stress on his family.
“These four guys were facing what was going to be sentences by the original prosecutors that were going to be absolutely devastating financially and custody-wise,” he said. “Then they were offered a deal to plead to a misdemeanor and a $100 fine to walk away and end this brutal chapter.”
The men spent more than a year asking for a retrial. Theirs was the only case to go to trial out of the more than two dozen defendants charged. The jury deadlocked and reached no verdict on charges against a fifth defendant, retired Rear Adm. Bruce Loveless, and prosecutors later dropped those charges.
Nearly two dozen Navy officials, defense contractors and others have been convicted and sentenced on various fraud and corruption charges.
Several others are awaiting sentencing next month. It's not clear if this could jeopardize those cases.
Francis admitted to buying off dozens of top-ranking officers with booze, sex, lavish parties and other gifts. Prosecutors say he bilked the Navy out of more than $35 million.
Three weeks before the Malaysian defense contractor faced sentencing last year, Francis made a stunning escape, snipping off his ankle monitor and fleeing the San Diego residence where he had been under house arrest.
The escape was also seen by some as a misstep by the prosecution for allowing him to not be held behind bars. He was later captured in Venezuela, where he remains.
The four former officers had served in the Navy’s 7th Fleet in the Eastern Pacific, where Francis' company supplied ships for decades.
Francis was arrested in a San Diego hotel in September 2013 as part of a federal sting. Investigators say he and his company, Glenn Defense Marine Asia, bribed officers so he could overcharge for supplying ships or charge for fake services at ports he controlled in Southeast Asia.
The case, which delved into salacious details about service members cheating on their wives and seeking out prostitutes, was an embarrassment to the Pentagon. The U.S. attorney’s office handled the prosecution, offering independence from the military justice system.
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China is considering a ban on clothes that ‘hurt the feelings of the Chinese people’
China’s legislature is considering revisions to a law that could result in fines and jail time for individuals who offend the government through their clothing or speech.
About the potential revisions: The proposed changes outlined by the Standing Committee target behavior deemed “detrimental to the spirit of the Chinese people and hurt the feelings of the Chinese people,” without specifying the exact offenses.
Offenders could face detention for up to 15 days or fines of up to 5,000 yuan (approximately $680).
China’s broader crackdown: The potential revisions reflect a broader crackdown on civil liberties under Chinese leader Xi Jinping. In recent years, such crackdowns include the detention of a woman for wearing a kimono in public due to historical tensions between China and Japan, as well as recent incidents involving individuals wearing rainbow-themed shirts or LGBTQ+ flags on university campuses.
Netizens’ concerns: Chinese social media users expressed concerns about the legal changes, questioning how authorities would determine when Chinese sentiments are hurt. Some believe that the proposed law could lead to arbitrary punishment.
“Shouldn’t the spirit of the Chinese nation be strong and resilient?” one person asked. “Why can it be easily damaged by a costume?”
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