I’m glad someone told me that plastic fishing pole carriers make good poster tubes.
Physics, Astronomy, Space engineering U.S., New Zealand Global Space Enablers Network (GSEN)
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I’m glad someone told me that plastic fishing pole carriers make good poster tubes.
John Connolly is great at defining the trade space of Moon and Mars mission architectures. His workshops at ISU are fantastic.
New Zealand is different than the U.S.
I used to think that @harvard.edu name meant something. Now it is just another Trump University.
Awesome visualization! This really illustrates the asteroids in 3D!
Shocking that while we are horrified at the illegal tactics used by the anonymous armed gangs claiming to be “ICE” - Republicans in Congress just voted to fund ICE at $150B - about $1000 per taxpayer - to create more armed gangs and concentration camps.
Another PET scan this morning to check on my thyroid cancer. Which means another few hours of me at home emitting 511 keV gamma rays from electron-positron annihilation. Fascinating technology. Better health through anti-matter.
A fantastic illustration of the asteroid discoveries from the first hours of observation with the Rubin Observatory. Watch this wonderful 1 minute video!
A nice day to walk around the SkyTower in Auckland NZ
Went to a reception honoring Sir Peter Beck and the accomplishments of RocketLab. Met Sir Peter and the NZ Prime Minister Chris Luxon, and reconnected with the NZ space community, including Jess Covich.
Wow! Is there a prediction for the date of the next flare from these supermassive black holes?
FAA statement re Starship IFT-8 and IFT-9.
NEW: Facing a significant increase in the number of SpaceX launches, British officials detailed their concerns about the safety of Turks and Caicos and other Caribbean territories after debris from an earlier failed launch littered beaches and roads. By @heathervogell.bsky.social
I would love to read about this - but I cannot take that ad filled clickbait site you always point to @georgetakei.bsky.social
DOGE, FAA, NASA, and SpaceX..
Unfortunate - given the history of CACI in conducting torture under government contracts. www.hrw.org/news/2024/11...
The threats to free speech and the First Amendment are coming from the White House and the Trump Regime. Stand up to those who would subvert the Constitution.
Thanks to Sarah Horst @planetdr.bsky.social for sharing this paper on a potential (nonbiological) source. ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2024ApJ....
Thanks for posting a paper with this alternative (nonbiological) chemical explanation.
Yes, this difficult observation needs to be confirmed, and alternate chemical sources need to be ruled out, but.. For decades people have said ‘we are searching for biosignatures as evidence of life’ - and now here is a biosignature. I think this qualifies as initial evidence of life.
An intriguing observation of potential life on a planet around another star - and all social media offers are lame jokes.
Seems a very cynical view of astronaut impressions of viewing Earth from space. In contrast to all the reported positive experiences, the author just suggests (without evidence) that indigenous people might be upset by seeing Earth from space. And then blames any corporate error on space advocates.
Fantastic visualization of all the spacecraft monitoring the Sun! I had not realized the inclined elliptical orbits of the Stereo missions gave those ‘bouncing’ relative motions.
More details of the stupidity
Right now the Republican controlled Congress is trying to use lies about the deficit as an excuse to cut Medicare and (pointlessly) Social Security (which is outside the budget).
Thank you @ricksteves.bsky.social !
Donald's babysitters must have been *extra-busy* today keeping that thin-skinned toddler from seeing pics of all the thousands of people throughout America taking to streets to say they are OVER Trump and Musk and the chaos/destruction they bring.
Thank you @aoc.bsky.social for everything you are doing to stop this moron!
No one in this administration understands tariffs or economics. They just want to please Trump.
I prefer the version of Drake’s equation that includes space ‘settlement’ - or at least self-replicating interstellar robots. (Could not find an easy reference.) Though this makes the Fermi paradox even harder, since you can sweep across the Galaxy in only 10^7 to 10^8 years. ‘Where are they?’
Read this excellent piece by @sciguyspace.bsky.social about how bad things got with Starliner last summer. And be thankful for the skill, commitment, and bravery of the people behind U.S. spaceflight* *notwithstanding some major fuckups by Boeing arstechnica.com/space/2025/0...
Will Trump/Musk kill Artemis? Abandon the Moon? With all the illegal and stupid things they are doing, we would not be surprised. Just another stupid move, and another slap at those Musk promoters who thought this regime would be good for space. open.substack.com/pub/douglasm...
Yep. A 60 meter asteroid is about half a million tons going 20 times faster than a bullet.
Impact energy of 60 m diameter asteroid would be in the 10 megaton range, more than 500 times the Hiroshima bomb. Could be much higher depending on the composition.
Senator Murphy gives a day by day summary of six weeks of corruption from the Trump regime. Unbelievable scale and scope of illegal activities.
Thanks for the great visualization of what it means to image so many galaxies in just a few arcminutes.
Photo by Tom Rae, in the Tasman valley near Mt Cook NZ nzastrocompetition.com/contest/nigh...
Much as I hate Elon Musk, I am not ready to switch to calling ‘evil’ everything that SpaceX does. Musk should not control Starlink - he should be removed from SpaceX. And SpaceX must act more responsibly with Starship launches. But the Starlink mega constellation has been acting responsibly so far.
Yes, I’m glad they got the image. They had to carefully balance the exposure levels. The full eclipse seemed to be too dark. Our NZ sunset is at the edge of the Earth in that image.
Maybe not for your husband but for others following this thread, I really love the Globe Museum in Vienna. All sorts of beautiful historic globes of the Earth and sky.
The Moon finally emerged from behind the clouds and we got a glimpse down at the Auckland waterfront. (Now I am hoping the Firefly lunar lander was able to get an image. 😉)
And here in NZ too (I hope) Need to check if there are low clouds.
Good to see George’s expertise being acknowledged. (Remember, decades ago, when all of Congress would act like this?)
Fantastic thread about the current knowledge of NEOs. Thank you.
Maxar posted that they supply images under contract to the U.S. government and partner governments (not Russia). The image access for Ukraine has been cut off by U.S. order. But it seems the images are being shared to Russia directly by the U.S. government. It all comes back to Trump.
Thanks. That was a very clear way to express the nature of PHAs. We have struggled to communicate this clearly for years.
Pretty! What program are you using?
Thanks for the detailed analysis in this report
From Don Pettit: “Time exposure using my orbital sidereal tracker from Dragon Crew 9 vehicle.… Nikon Z9, Sigma 14mm f1.4 lens, 10 sec, f1.4, ISO 12800…” www.reddit.com/r/space/s/Y8...
Good observations. With exponentially growing compute power, tech thinks they can ignore the past. But the people problems from history remain. Which is why Silicon Valley boys are such morons when it comes to scammers like Thanos, Elon, or Peter Thiel.
I am always glad when you summarize what is going on right now and also put it in accurate context. Your perspective is exactly what we need.
The Stardome planetarium in Auckland NZ has a good (live piloted) show “Beyond the solar system” which shows how the constellations change as you move light years from the Sun. The Digistar6 system is incredible at displaying correct 3D positions for millions of stars in the Gaia catalogue.
Sorry, as a U.S. citizen living in NZ, I’m afraid the U.S. has been taken over by the Trump regime - and they are violating international agreements and actively working for enemies of democracy. The current U.S. government cannot be trusted. Please protect democracy in NZ Australia etc.
I observed with (and climbed) the 300 foot dish in the 1980s. (It collapsed in 1988.) Just knowing it *could* move added excitement to being high on the structure. And that the previous operator had been fired for not noticing it moving due to high winds while their boss was at the focus.
I know the rings of SN 1987A have good explanations, but I like to use this image to illustrate zooming in on a patch of sky and finding unexpected patterns. To me it lets me imagine a day we discover artifacts and astroengineering. I am sure there are surprises in the Galaxy waiting to be found.
Project 2025 objectives are not ‘passed’ - they are ‘decreed’ - illegally. Trump violated his oath to the Constitution within hours of taking office.
I agree that artificial (spin) gravity is a vital experiment to perform. Gemini 11 only tested a short time at very low g. “..about 0.00015 g, by firing their side thrusters to slowly rotate the combined craft like a slow-motion pair of bolas.” en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gemini_11
Stop normalizing the criminal activity of Trump. Stop what *you* are doing.
No. We *would* have had those things if the idiots did not kill all scientific progress and democracy in 2025. All we will end up with now are NAZIs, nukes, and endless suffering. See you in the camps.
The U.S. now has a Gestapo.
February 19, 2025
Hope we get a better size estimate for asteroid 2024YR4 with JWST data in March. There is a large uncertainty now and that 8MT impact energy estimate is very uncertain. Even with a better diameter there will be a big uncertainty in the mass.
February 18, 2025
Government does important work — but not if DOGE can prevent it paulkrugman.substack.com/p/our-govern...
And, Mr Trump, no president has ever landed on Venus. You could be the first!
Another effect of the Musk-Trump coup. Lots of new Facebook ads like this one in New Zealand. And friends asking how they can move to NZ.
In a month, when the U.S. defaults on its debt. Soon after, Greenland can buy the U.S. 🫤
And those long-period comets can be big! Glad they only get one shot. (We get tiny clues about those Earth-crossing long orbits from faint meteor showers.)
Don't just ask how Musk/Trump actions serve their supposed purposes. Ask how they aid the attempt to seize power paulkrugman.substack.com/p/autogolpe
#2024YR4 - the current uncertainty (0.022 for impact) and ~1% of the track passing over Lagos Nigeria (~25M pop) or Mumbai India (20M), the averaged risk (insurance sense) is about 10,000 fatalities. Better observations will likely rule out an impact. But the risk is worth paying attention to.
Great to hear that you able to use JWST to observe asteroid #2024YR4 ! What a lucky alignment of the shifting JWST observational zone. Good job making the request for the observing time.
The reentry of 4-5 Starlink satellites per day is concerning and should be studied in detail. This 1.3 t each day adds about 3% to the natural meteorite background of about 44 t per day.
Perfect for these days
“2025: The End of U.S. Democracy” 🫤
Even if the FBI and U.S. Marshals are compromised, I wish these politicians would bring the Capital Police or DC police to arrest Musk. This is a crime in progress and the building guards are aiding this crime. Keep Musk in jail while this goes through the courts.
This is an AI image of young girls around Trump. No real crowd of young girls could stand the smell of his diaper.
I thought what was happening was already illegal - why do we need another law passed? If the FBI and U.S. Marshals will not act - use the DC police. Arrest Musk.
Shut down the Senate until this coup is over. The fascist takeover is happening now. Today.
With potential asteroid impacts, you can calculate where on Earth they might impact if they do hit Earth - for this one it is somewhere on this line.
We need the local DC police to stop this illegal cybercrime and arrest Elon Musk and his college student criminals. If he resists arrest, use force. This is under the jurisdiction of DC police as well.
The Senate Democrats should stop all confirmation hearings and all other Senate business until this coup is stopped.
February 2, 2025
Indivisible is urging people to visit their senators' local offices between now and Thursday to demand that they use every tool—including denying a quorum and blocking unanimous consent—to fight the confirmation of Project 2025 architect Russell Vought for head of OMB docs.google.com/document/d/1...
I want to spell out the basic reason it’s so dangerous for Elon to have control of the U.S. payments system. It may seem like a technical matter, but the dynamics are simple. 1/x
I forgot about the precovery observations - they are fantastic at improving the orbit knowledge. B612 had some good results with broad automated searches of the archives of observations, didn’t they?
Is there any chance for improved observations of 2024 YR4 before the close approach around 2028? Or do we just have to wait?
It is a global competition. Which is why the USA is racing as fast as it can to make a more repressive government than China. The detention camps are being built and all legal protections are now ignored.
The U.S. will not survive all the damage Trump is doing.
Block morons like @the-sequel
Heather Cox Richardson had a good summary on her Facebook post www.facebook.com/share/19zbBe...
Seems naive about Trump. I think it will be worse for the U.S. than we imagine. And all international relations (like U.S.- NZ) will be based on threats and extortion from Trump. I would love to be wrong, but I fear the U.S. is as bad as Germany in the 1930s. (I’m a U.S. citizen living in NZ)
It is embarrassing that they will not tell the on-air commentators anything to share with the public.
Other efforts include the Frontier Development Lab (fdlaustralia.org) work on AI models of bushfire/wildfire behavior. And several efforts at building dedicated sensors in GEO to improve fire detection over the current weather satellite sensors.
There are two moon landers in this photo.
Two missions to the Moon getting ready for launch in a few hours
Especially since immigrants (both legal and undocumented) commit less crime than people born in the U.S.
Newsom ain’t taking any of Fox News’ bullshit. gavinnewsom.com/california-f...
You got it. This is just another of Trump’s “Small Penis Policies” ( #small-pp ) intended to distract from his shortcomings. We are going to see a lot more of these #small-pp in the future.