Space Thread

[spaminator]

Ashes of Vancouver Star Trek fan set to go to space alongside famous stars
Prices range from a few thousand dollars up to $13,000

Author of the article:Canadian Press
Canadian Press
Ashley Joannou
Published Jan 01, 2024 • Last updated 13 hours ago • 4 minute read
Gloria Knowlan
Gloria Knowlan CPL
VANCOUVER — Gloria Knowlan never dreamt of boldly going where no one had gone before and was content to leave the journey to the “Star Trek” actors she came to love, but 12 years after her death, her family has ensured the final frontier will be her ultimate resting place.


It seemed a fitting tribute for the Vancouver mother of eight, whose love of Trek prompted her to collect replica starships and deck out her Christmas tree each year with a homemade alien spacecraft known as the Borg cube, complete with working lights.


A small quantity of Knowlan’s ashes will be among approximately 250 capsules of human remains, DNA samples and other memorials set to be launched into space later this month aboard a rocket. Launch organizers are hoping it will wind up approximately 330 million kilometres from Earth, roughly past the orbit of Mars.

The flight will see Knowlan, who was 86 at the time of her death, joining some of her favourite stars. The rocket is also set to carry remains or DNA samples of “Star Trek” creator Gene Roddenberry, his wife Majel Barrett Roddenberry and Original Series stars Nichelle Nichols, DeForest Kelley and fellow Canadian James Doohan.


Rod Knowlan said he thinks his mom would be “just tickled” by the idea that a part of her remains were going to space alongside some of the people she saw on TV.

He said after his father died in 2002 his mother dove headlong into things she loved, including the show.

“She was a fan of ‘Star Trek,’ of the concept, from the outset,” he said in a telephone interview. “She was a fan of Gene Roddenberry’s and she loved whatever work that he did.”

Gloria Knowlan’s final journey will take place through American company Celestis Inc., which has been offering what it calls “memorial space flights” for more than two decades.

For prices ranging from a few thousand dollars up to $13,000, the company will take small capsules of ashes to space and either return them, drop them in Earth’s orbit or even take them to the moon as a memorial for lost loved ones.


Co-founder and CEO Charles Chafer said the rocket carrying Knowlan’s remains, set to take off from Cape Canaveral, Fla. on Jan. 8, will mark the first time the company has offered a trip that will go into “deep space” meaning the capsules won’t eventually fall to Earth. The journey has been dubbed the enterprise flight, he added.

“I believe it’s an awful lot like why people choose to be scattered at sea. There’s a calling there. There’s something about the sea that either interests them or attracts them as a location for a memorial service,” Chafer said.

“We are more and more in this country, and in other countries, focusing less and less on the traditional and more and more on the personal when it comes to, ‘how do I want my life celebrated?”‘


The capsules will be taken into space by the commercially-owned, and aptly named, Vulcan rocket.

Chafer said the main purpose of the trip is for the rocket to test its capabilities to become the first commercial spacecraft to land on the moon, and his company’s cargo is being brought along to serve a “secondary” purpose.

He said some capsules onboard are being left at the moon, while those that are part of the enterprise trip will travel further afield.

He said they’ll travel for “at least a few months” before arriving at their final orbit location.

Ashes belonging to many of the “Star Trek” stars have already been part of earlier Celestis flights, but Chafer said he promised Majel Barrett Roddenberry in 1996 that he would eventually take some of the couple’s ashes and fly them on a “forever mission.”


“And of course, being 28 years old, and not having any better idea than ‘I think we can do it,’ I said yes.”

Chafer said trips like the ones Celestis offer only became possible recently thanks to evolving technology, adding family members and friends of the other Trek stars quickly bought into the idea.

Ashes belonging to Doohan, best known as chief engineer Montgomery “Scotty” Scott, have gone to space aboard previous Celestis flights as well as to the International Space Station.

His widow, Wende Doohan, said being in space is something he always wanted.

“If anybody had offered him a seat on the space shuttle, he would have jumped at it. But he was too old to somehow finagle a seat on one of those things that went into space,” she said.


Wende Doohan said her husband would have enjoyed the fact that this trip includes fans like Knowlan.

“He loved his fans. He loved hearing their stories. He enjoyed chatting with them,” she said.

She said she decided to include a sample of her DNA on the flight and plans to be at the launch in person.

She said sending her husband’s ashes into deep space and knowing that they will never return makes this experience feel different than previous flights.

“To me, that kind of illustrates the poignancy of Star Trek, you know? Going where no man has gone before,” she said.

“And it just kind of feels like it’s emulating that journey, in a way.”

Celestis: Memorial Spaceflights – Send Ashes Into Space

Celestis makes the dream of spaceflight a reality by launching a symbolic portion of cremated remains into near-space and even beyond.

celestis.com

Ashes of Vancouver Star Trek fan set to go to space alongside famous stars

The rocket is also carrying remains or DNA samples of Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry, Nichelle Nichols, DeForest Kelley and James Doohan

torontosun.com

 

[spaminator]

word limit

 

[spaminator]

How long we will see total solar eclipses - before the moon ditches us
Author of the article:Washington Post
Washington Post
Kasha Patel, The Washington Post
Published Jan 05, 2024 • 4 minute read

For at least 5,000 years, Earthlings have been awestruck by total solar eclipses. But the phenomenon may some day become folklore – well, in 600 million years, give or take.


Every 18 months or so, the moon completely blocks the sun’s light somewhere on Earth to create a total solar eclipse. One is even coming up in April in the United States, when tens of millions of people will be able to experience the phenomenon.


Savor it while you can, because the moon is creeping away from Earth – at about 3.8 centimetres (1.5 inches) each year, according to NASA. That’s the rate fingernails grow. When the moon’s average distance from Earth increases by an additional 14,600 miles, it will be too far to fully cover the sun from Earth’s perspective.

“3.8 centimetres a year may not mean a lot to anyone,” said Noah Petro, a lunar scientist at NASA. “When you add it up over a lifetime, over thousands or millions of years, it adds up.”


Total solar eclipses are a celestial marvel. The sun’s diameters is about 400 times as big as the moon’s, but it is coincidentally 400 times farther from Earth than the moon. These eclipses occur when the moon’s angular size (the amount of space it takes up in your view) largely matches the sun’s. As the moon moves farther way, its angular size will appear smaller.

Assuming the moon will continue to pull away at its current rate – which is a big assumption, Petro said – the moon will travel 23,000 kilometres in about 600 million years. But given that the sun is expected to grow in that time, total solar eclipses may vanish slightly sooner.

Scientists uncovered this slow drift by experimenting with reflecting panels, made of mirrors, left on the moon from the Apollo missions. Over the course of decades, they aimed a beam of light at the reflectors and timed how long it took for the light to come back to Earth. They found the laser’s journey lengthened slightly each year, meaning the moon was inching farther into space.


As it turns out, Earth is pushing the moon away.

The rotation of Earth, the orbit of the moon and the rotation of the moon are all linked, making up the angular momentum of the Earth-moon system, said physicist Richard Olenick. Angular momentum remains constant for such fairly isolated systems as Earth and moon; therefore, if the rotation of Earth changes, then the orbit of the moon will also change. (Think of how the angular momentum of a figure skater is conserved when she pulls her arms in and spins faster.)

Earth’s rotation is slowing down because of the moon’s gravitational forces (although it’s decreasing only at about 1.4 milliseconds per century). That’s because the moon yanks on Earth’s tides and causes the planet’s oceans to bulge out toward it. These tidal bulges create drag and slow down Earth’s spin.


To compensate for the slowing down of Earth’s rotation, the moon’s orbit is becoming larger, said Olenick, a professor at the University of Dallas. The moon also casts a smaller shadow on Earth.

“Because of the tides pulling on the moon a little bit differently, one of the ways that energy goes into the moon is by it slowly moving further away,” Petro said.

The moon has probably been drifting from the beginning of its existence. The moon is popularly thought to have formed from debris after a large Mars-size object collided with a young Earth about 4.5 billion years ago. Modeling predicts that the moon could have been as close as 24,000 kilometres after it formed, Petro said. Ever since that moment, the moon has been slowly moving away, although the rate probably fluctuated throughout history as Earth and its gravitational pull changed.


“It’s happening so gradually. It wouldn’t be like someone wakes up one day and is like, ‘Whoa, wait a minute. What happened here?'” Petro said.

If there are human generations still on Earth 600 million years later, they will see only “ring of fire” or annular eclipses, when the moon passes the sun but doesn’t completely cover it. The moon may also appear slightly smaller, probably how we see the moon now at its furthest point in orbit.

As the moon moves away, the “length” of an Earth day will also change slowly over time, Petro said. Olenick said the angular velocity of the moon should also slow down, implying the moon will take longer to go through its phases. Earth’s tides will also be smaller because the moon’s gravitational pull will be weaker.

And maybe objects would look a little different from the moon, too.

“I’d like to think that 600 million years from now, we’ll have people on the moon, as well, looking back at the Earth,” Petro said. “And so the Earth will be ever so slightly smaller.”

This article is part of Hidden Planet, a column that explores wondrous, unexpected and offbeat science of our planet and beyond.

How long we will see total solar eclipses - before the moon ditches us

For at least 5,000 years, Earthlings have been awestruck by total solar eclipses.

torontosun.com

 

[spaminator]

Moon landing attempt by U.S. company appears doomed after ’critical’ fuel leak
Author of the article:Associated Press
Associated Press
Marcia Dunn
Published Jan 08, 2024 • Last updated 1 day ago • 4 minute read
The brand new rocket, United Launch Alliance's (ULA) Vulcan Centaur, lifts off from Space Launch Complex 41d at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Cape Canaveral, Florida, on Jan. 8, 2024, for its maiden voyage, carrying Astrobotic's Peregrine Lunar Lander.
The brand new rocket, United Launch Alliance's (ULA) Vulcan Centaur, lifts off from Space Launch Complex 41d at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Cape Canaveral, Florida, on Jan. 8, 2024, for its maiden voyage, carrying Astrobotic's Peregrine Lunar Lander. PHOTO BY CHANDAN KHANNA /AFP via Getty Images
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — The first U.S. moon landing attempt in more than 50 years appeared to be doomed after a private company’s spacecraft developed a “critical” fuel leak just hours after Monday’s launch.


Pittsburgh-based Astrobotic Technology managed to orient its lander toward the sun so the solar panel could collect sunlight and charge its battery, as a special team assessed the status of what was termed “a failure in the propulsion system.”


It soon became apparent, however, that there was “a critical loss of fuel,” further dimming hope for what had been a planned moon landing on Feb. 23.

“We are currently assessing what alternative mission profiles may be feasible at this time,” the company said in a statement.

The problem was reported about seven hours after Monday’s predawn liftoff from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan rocket provided the lift for Astrobotic’s lander, named Peregrine, putting it on a long, roundabout path to the moon.


A propulsion system problem “threatens the ability of the spacecraft to soft land on the moon,” the company said. The lander is equipped with engines and thrusters for maneuvering, not only during the cruise to the moon but for lunar descent.

Astrobotic was aiming to be the first private business to successfully land on the moon, something only four countries have accomplished. A second lander from a Houston company is due to launch next month. NASA gave the two companies millions to build and fly their own lunar landers.

The space agency wants the privately owned landers to scope out the place before astronauts arrive while delivering tech and science experiments for the space agency, other countries and universities as well as odds and ends for other customers. Astrobotic’s contract with NASA for the Peregrine lander was $108 million and it has more in the pipeline.

Before the flight, NASA’s Joel Kearns, deputy associate administrator for exploration, noted that while using private companies to make deliveries to the moon will be cheaper and quicker than going the usual government route, there will be added risk. He stressed that the space agency was willing to accept that risk, noting Monday: “Each success and setback are opportunities to learn and grow.”



The last time the U.S. launched a moon-landing mission was in December 1972. Apollo 17’s Gene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt became the 11th and 12th men to walk on the moon, closing out an era that has remained NASA’s pinnacle.

The space agency’s new Artemis program — named after the twin sister of Apollo in Greek mythology — looks to return astronauts to the moon’s surface within the next few years. First will be a lunar fly-around with four astronauts, possibly before the end of the year.

Highlighting Monday’s moonshot was the long-delayed initial test flight of the Vulcan rocket from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. The 202-foot (61-metre) rocket is essentially an upgraded version of ULA’s hugely successful workhorse Atlas V, which is being phased out along with the company’s Delta IV. Jeff Bezos’ rocket company, Blue Origin, provided the Vulcan’s two main engines.


ULA declared success once the lander was free of the rocket’s upper stage, nearly an hour into the flight and before the spacecraft’s propulsion system malfunctioned and prevented the solar panel from properly pointing toward the sun.

Landing on the moon has long been a series of hits and misses. The Soviet Union and the U.S. racked up a string of successful moon landings in the 1960s and 70s, before putting touchdowns on pause. China joined the elite club in 2013 and India in 2023. But last year also saw landers from Russia and a private Japanese company slam into the moon. An Israeli nonprofit crashed in 2019.

Next month, SpaceX will provide the lift for a lander from Intuitive Machines. The Nova-C lander’s more direct one-week route could see both spacecraft attempting to land within days or even hours of one another.


Besides flying experiments for NASA, Astrobotic drummed up its own freight business, packing the 6-foot-tall (1.9-metre-tall) Peregrine lander with everything from a chip of rock from Mount Everest and toy-size cars from Mexico that will catapult to the lunar surface and cruise around, to the ashes and DNA of deceased space enthusiasts, including “Star Trek” creator Gene Roddenberry and science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke.

The Navajo Nation recently sought to have the launch delayed because of the human remains. saying it would be a “profound desecration” of a celestial body revered by Native Americans. Astrobotic chief executive John Thornton said the December objections came too late but promised to try to find “a good path forward” with the Navajo for future missions.


One of the spaceflight memorial companies that bought room on the lander, Celestis, said in a statement that no single culture or religion owns the moon and should not be able to veto a mission. More remains are on the rocket’s upper stage, which was boosted into a perpetual orbit around the sun reaching as far out as Mars.

Cargo fares for Peregrine ranged from a few hundred dollars to $1.2 million per kilogram (2.2 pounds), not nearly enough for Astrobotic to break even. But for this first flight, that’s not the point, according to Thornton.

“A lot of people’s dreams and hopes are riding on this,” Thornton said days before the flight.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1744258330472726830

Moon landing attempt by U.S. company appears doomed after ’critical’ fuel leak

The first U.S. moon landing in over 50 years appears to be doomed after a company’s newly launched spacecraft developed a fuel leak.

torontosun.com

 

[Tecumsehsbones]

I figure this incident will fuel criticism of the private space launch industry.

 

[spaminator]

I figure this incident will fuel criticism of the private space launch industry.

 

[spaminator]

U.S. company abandons moon landing attempt due to fuel leak
Author of the article:Associated Press
Associated Press
Marcia Dunn
Published Jan 09, 2024 • 1 minute read
In this image released by Astrobotic Technology, an image from a mounted camera shows a disturbed section of insulation on the Peregrine lander, while on its way to land on the moon, Monday, Jan. 8, 2024.
In this image released by Astrobotic Technology, an image from a mounted camera shows a disturbed section of insulation on the Peregrine lander, while on its way to land on the moon, Monday, Jan. 8, 2024. PHOTO BY ASTROBOTIC TECHNOLOGY VIA AP /The Associated Press
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — A crippling fuel leak forced a U.S. company on Tuesday to give up on landing a spacecraft on the moon.


Astrobotic Technology’s lander began losing fuel soon after Monday’s launch. The spacecraft also encountered problems keeping its solar panel pointed towards the sun and generating solar power.


“Given the propellant leak, there is, unfortunately, no chance of a soft landing on the moon,” Astrobotic said in a statement.

Astrobotic had been targeting a lunar landing on Feb. 23, following a roundabout, fuel-efficient flight to the moon. It could have been the first U.S. moon landing in more than 50 years, and the first by a private company. A second lander from a Houston company is due to launch next month.

This illustration provided by Astrobotic Technology in 2024 depicts the Peregrine lunar lander on the surface of the moon.
This illustration provided by Astrobotic Technology in 2024 depicts the Peregrine lunar lander on the surface of the moon. PHOTO BY ASTROBOTIC TECHNOLOGY VIA AP /The Associated Press
Only four countries have pulled off a successful moon landing.

The company said the new goal was to keep the lander operating as long as possible in space, in order to learn as much as possible for its next mission a year or so from now. Flight controllers managed to keep the spacecraft pointed toward the sun and its battery fully charged, with another 40 hours of operations anticipated.

The Pittsburgh-based company did not elaborate on why the Peregrine lander’s propellant system failed just hours into the flight.

NASA paid Astrobotic $108 million to fly its experiments to the moon on this mission, part of the agency’s commercial lunar program.

U.S. company abandons moon landing attempt due to fuel leak

A crippling fuel leak forced a U.S. company on Tuesday to give up on landing a spacecraft on the moon.

torontosun.com

 

[Blackleaf]

Galaxy ring discovery challenges thinking on universe​

 

[spaminator]

Are there 10-foot tall aliens on this Brazilian island?
Author of the article:Eddie Chau
Published Jan 12, 2024 • Last updated 1 day ago • 1 minute read
BEINGS
Ten-foot-tall "beings" are seen on Brazilian island with rumours believing they are aliens. PHOTO BY SCREENSHOT /Twitter
Even extraterrestrial beings need to get away from it all.

A video making its rounds on social media appears to show two large humanlike beings wandering along the hills of an island in Brazil with many believing that it’s aliens visiting our planet.


According to the New York Post, one of the beings, who appears to be about 10-feet tall, is walking around with another being standing nearby, on Ilha do Mel, an island located 3.2 km off the southeast coast of Brazil.

Locals say the “aliens” are roaming a portion of the hill that is difficult to get to as one would be up to their knees in shrubbery.



Onlookers in the 25-second video are seemingly convinced the beings aren’t from around these parts.

“Look at the way he moves, it’s really weird! Look at the size of those pasts, it’s very fast,” one said.

Some on social media aren’t convinced the beings are real.

“Looks fake,” one reacted.

“It looks like a tall guy trying to take a picture,” another stated.

“I want to believe, but I can’t be the only one who thinks the ‘giant’ looks like a whacky inflatable arm-flailing tube man?” another humourously stated.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1745375705742135501

10-foot-tall ‘strange beings’ seen traversing Brazilian island as alien rumors swirl

Even aliens need a tropical vacation.

nypost.com

Are there 10-foot tall aliens on this Brazilian island?

Even extraterrestrial beings need to get away from it all.

torontosun.com

 

[Blackleaf]

JO613+52: The galaxy with no stars

 

[spaminator]

The sun will be its most active in two decades
Solar flares, eruptions on the sun's surface and sunspots are expected to multiply and intensify throughout this year

Author of the article:Washington Post
Washington Post
Kasha Patel
Published Jan 15, 2024 • Last updated 2 days ago • 6 minute read

The sun’s 2024 resolution came in: Let’s get moving.


Solar flares, eruptions on the sun’s surface and sunspots are expected to multiply and intensify throughout this year, as our yellow star enters its most active period in two decades. For Earthlings, that could lead to more beautiful dancing aurora far and wide, but also radio blackouts and satellite disruptions.


“The level of activity here is the biggest it’s been since about 20 years, since about 2003,” said Mark Miesch, a member of the solar modeling team at NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center.

If the sun replicates its 2003 behavior, Earth could be in for a treat but also some issues. The Halloween Storms of 2003 brought dazzling green, red and purple aurora all the way to California, Texas, Florida and even Australia. They also disrupted more than half of all spacecraft orbiting Earth, damaged a satellite beyond repair and created communication issues for airlines and research groups in Antarctica.


A suddenly bustling sun may sound worrying, but the sun’s magnetic activity naturally ebbs and flows in 11-year periods, known as the solar cycle. Almost halfway through its current solar cycle, the sun is expected to reach its peak activity between January and October 2024, but activity will probably still be high into 2025 or maybe 2026, according to Space Weather Prediction Center models.

And the upcoming peak should be a decent showing compared with recent cycles. The ramp-up to this “solar maximum” is already stronger than scientists thought, sending impressive punches of solar energy and particles to Earth in 2023 that brought rare aurora sightings to Arizona. It’s already produced more striking solar flares and eruptions than the last solar maximum in 2014.


Even so, scientists predict peak activity will probably be below or about average intensity compared with the long-term average – but it will still be exciting.

“We’ll see some fun stuff in the coming year or couple of years,” said Scott McIntosh, a solar physicist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo. “We’re probably going to get fireworks, whether they’ll be equivalent to Halloween [2003], I don’t know. We should be prepared.”

How do we know when the sun hits peak activity?
Solar maximum becomes obvious once it’s passed, and activity starts to dwindle. But observations of past solar cycles help scientists understand what to quantitively look for ahead of time.

One way to track the waxing and waning activity is by counting the number of temporary dark blotches on the sun’s surface, called sunspots. Sunspots make up “active regions” on the sun, often the source of large explosive bursts of energy known as solar storms. More sunspots generally spell more solar activity.


“Sunspots are connected with magnetic activity on the sun,” said Miesch, also a researcher at University of Colorado at Boulder. Specifically, he said they are locations where magnetic fields are passing from the interior of the sun (where they are generated) through the surface and into the atmosphere.

“We’ve known for about 150 years that the number of spots, if you look on the surface of the sun, it waxes and wanes on a period of about 11 years,” said Miesch. During this 11-year period, the sun’s north and south poles switch places to flip its magnetic field.

The beginning of the 11-year solar cycle has the lowest sunspot number and magnetic activity, known as the solar minimum. Activity ramps up in the middle of the cycle, known as the solar maximum, and eventually decreases back to the minimum.


The sun is currently in its 25th solar cycle since observations in the 1700s.

Across the past 24 solar cycles, the average sunspot number at solar maximum was about 179 sunspots in the peak month, said Miesch. (The last solar maximum in April 2014 peaked only about only 114 sunspots, with that solar cycle the weakest in a century.)

The current solar maximum is predicted to have between 135 to 174 at its greatest month, which is slightly below average, said Miesch, who helped model the current solar cycle and its progression.

But some think this is an underestimation. McIntosh and his colleagues predicted a maximum sunspot number within the average range in their models, which are independent of NOAA. He said the NOAA forecast is “getting closer” to the average number of sunspots, if you look within the error bars.


The peak is expected to hit in October 2024, said Miesch, but the solar activity and sunspot number are predicted to stay elevated through at least mid-2025, according to January NOAA models.

But forecasting the sun’s behavior can be trickier than a Houdini routine.

“We understand a lot of things about the sun, but predicting when the maximum is going to arrive still has a reasonable amount of error on it,” said Rachael Filwett, a space physicist at Montana State University who was not involved in solar cycle forecasts.

But rest assured: Even if this solar maximum ends slightly below average or arrives later, that doesn’t mean it will be boring.

Will we see a big storm?
Sky watchers got a sampler of the sun’s bustle in 2023, as solar storms brought rare aurora sightings to lower-than-usual latitudes and disrupted radio signals. Other recent solar activity even knocked out smaller communications satellites from space.


Solar storms, referred to as geomagnetic storms as they collide with Earth’s magnetic field, are ranked on a scale of G1 (minor) to G5 (extreme). At least one geomagnetic storm last year ranked as a G4, the most intense storm to hit Earth in years.

The question for this solar maximum is: Will we see a G5 storm? The dramatic Halloween Storms in 2003, coming out of a past solar maximum, ranked as a G5.

“The key thing is the complexity of the [active] regions that are produced. It’s not about the number of spots,” said McIntosh. If the strong geomagnetic storms in 2023 are a harbinger, McIntosh said it looks “pretty good” to see more large storms.

When a large storm will happen is hard to pinpoint. Statistically speaking, McIntosh said it’s normal to see G4 and G5 events as the sun is coming out of its solar maximum. Some of the largest storms to ever hit Earth occurred during the declining phase of the cycle.


“Earth tends to see the opportunity for more direct hits as we’re coming down off of solar maximum because there are more sunspots at lower latitudes, closer to Earth’s location,” said Delores Knipp, a space physicist at the University of Colorado at Boulder.

Sunspots at the declining phase can be more complex, too, said Knipp. As the sun transitions into a solar minimum state, its sunspots migrate from its mid-latitudes to lower latitudes. Some research, she said, suggests this migration can cause crosstalk between the two hemispheres and create more magnetically complex eruptions on the sun.

That’s good news for aurora chasers because the chance of experiencing a large storm extends beyond the solar maximum – whether it occurs in 2024 or later – for another year or two.

Aside from auroras, the solar maximum will also provide unique opportunities for the upcoming total solar eclipse on April 8. Scientists say the sun will have many more particle streams coming from its outermost atmosphere (the corona) during totality, which eclipse watchers may be able to see.

“It’ll be a much, much more elaborate corona that we’ll see for the April eclipse,” said Miesch.

EARTHLINGS TAKE NOTE: The sun will be its most active in two decades

Solar flares, eruptions on the sun's surface and sunspots are expected to multiply and intensify throughout this year

torontosun.com

 

[55Mercury]

a little perspective..
2 decades ago Y2K hysteria was the doomsday greatest threat ever known to man's survival.

 

[Ron in Regina]

a little perspective..
2 decades ago Y2K hysteria was the doomsday greatest threat ever known to man's survival.

A whole lot of money and time and effort went into making that the joke that it is today. Big money was spent and lots of time was spent to make that not be the issue that it could’ve been.

 

[55Mercury]

A whole lot of money and time and effort went into making that the joke that it is today. Big money was spent and lots of time was spent to make that not be the issue that it could’ve been.

of course the hyperbole was all mine
;?)

 

[Tecumsehsbones]

A whole lot of money and time and effort went into making that the joke that it is today. Big money was spent and lots of time was spent to make that not be the issue that it could’ve been.

It might have been the very start of the modern upswing of faith in magic bullets. Everybody was wailing about how we needed a magic bullet to fix Y2K.

Nope, we needed tens of thousands of programmers going through and fixing millions of lines of code.

 

[55Mercury]

there's a whole lot more fear to be had from a world full of pissed off people than some future imagined demon like globull worming(sic)(ikr?)

 

[Tecumsehsbones]

there's a whole lot more fear to be had from a world full of pissed off people than some future imagined demon like globull worming(sic)(ikr?)

Yep, that's why global warming is fake news.

 

[Taxslave2]

Are there 10-foot tall aliens on this Brazilian island?
Author of the article:Eddie Chau
Published Jan 12, 2024 • Last updated 1 day ago • 1 minute read
BEINGS
Ten-foot-tall "beings" are seen on Brazilian island with rumours believing they are aliens. PHOTO BY SCREENSHOT /Twitter
Even extraterrestrial beings need to get away from it all.

A video making its rounds on social media appears to show two large humanlike beings wandering along the hills of an island in Brazil with many believing that it’s aliens visiting our planet.


According to the New York Post, one of the beings, who appears to be about 10-feet tall, is walking around with another being standing nearby, on Ilha do Mel, an island located 3.2 km off the southeast coast of Brazil.

Locals say the “aliens” are roaming a portion of the hill that is difficult to get to as one would be up to their knees in shrubbery.



Onlookers in the 25-second video are seemingly convinced the beings aren’t from around these parts.

“Look at the way he moves, it’s really weird! Look at the size of those pasts, it’s very fast,” one said.

Some on social media aren’t convinced the beings are real.

“Looks fake,” one reacted.

“It looks like a tall guy trying to take a picture,” another stated.

“I want to believe, but I can’t be the only one who thinks the ‘giant’ looks like a whacky inflatable arm-flailing tube man?” another humourously stated.
View attachment 20754

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1745375705742135501

10-foot-tall ‘strange beings’ seen traversing Brazilian island as alien rumors swirl

Even aliens need a tropical vacation.

nypost.com

Are there 10-foot tall aliens on this Brazilian island?

Even extraterrestrial beings need to get away from it all.

torontosun.com

Sasquatch needs a warm vacation too.

 

[spaminator]

Lexington, Kentucky beams tourism campaign to outer space
Author of the articleostmedia News
Published Jan 16, 2024 • Last updated 2 days ago • 2 minute read
This photo illustration shows an unidentified flying object with a light source beaming down.
This photo illustration shows an unidentified flying object with a light source beaming down. PHOTO BY PHONLAMAI PHOTO / ISTOCK /Getty Images
A Kentucky city’s out-of-this-world tourism campaign is not expected to be seen nor heard for nearly four decades.

And the message may not even reach its target audience.


But that didn’t stop the Lexington Convention and Visitors Bureau and a team of local scientists and scholars from launching an ad campaign to attract alien life forms to the city of 300,000.

The tourism bureau put together a travel package about the city including black-and-white photos of the state’s bluegrass hills, songs by a local blues musician and bitmap illustrations of humans and horses. They beamed up their message using lasers in the fall.


They concentrated their efforts on an area of space approximately 40 light years away called TRAPPIST-1. Astrobiologists believe the seven planets orbiting a small red star in the area are potentially conducive to life.

“Many previous transmissions have employed the language of mathematics for communication, and our team did, too,” Robert Lodder, a University of Kentucky professor and a champion for the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, told Popular Science.

“But we decided that extraterrestrials might be more interested in things unique to planet Earth than universal truths like mathematics, so if we seek to attract visitors, it would be best to send something interesting and uniquely Earth.”


Assuming the aliens are able to decode the message and immediately begin their 378-million-kilometre journey to Earth, the earliest year of arrival would be 2103. That estimation is based on the approximately 40 light years it would take for the message to reach TRAPPIST-1 and the 40 light years it would take for the extraterrestrial beings arrive, if they have that technology.

Lodder believes some parts of the message will be able to reach TRAPPIST-1, but said it would be difficult to know if the space creatures are able to decode what is received.

“The alien receiving technology could be worse than ours, or much better,” Lodder said.

However, Jan McGarry of the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland and her retired colleague John Degnan say the message sent to outer space using a laser is unlikely to survive the long distance.


“The distance to the nearest star is two light years away or many orders of magnitude farther than the edge of our solar system (Pluto). Since the strength of a laser communications link is proportional to 1 divided by the distance squared, it is highly unlikely that a laser system would be able to transfer any meaningful amount of information over that distance let alone one 20 times farther away where the signal would be 400 times smaller.”

Lexington, Kentucky sent a tourism ad to 'extraterrestrials' with a DIY laser rig

The city hopes any potential aliens in the TRAPPIST-1 system will learn bourbon, horses, and bluegrass are worth the 40 light-year journey, although the message might not survive the trip.

popsci.com

The World's First Interstellar Tourism Campaign

VisitLEX and a team of Lexington scientists and scholars used an infrared laser to beam a coded invitation toward potential extraterrestrial travelers in the TRAPPIST-1 solar system 40 light years away. The message was sent from the Kentucky Horse Park in Lexington, Kentucky. So far, no unusual...

visitlex.com

ALIEN EXPEDITION? Lexington, Kentucky beams tourism campaign to outer space

A Kentucky city's out-of-this-world tourism campaign is not expected to be seen nor heard for nearly four decades.

torontosun.com

 

[Tecumsehsbones]

The aliens responded "You shouldn't fuck your close kin."