I don't know what to think.
Here's some UAPs stuff (UFOs to some).
I do not feel that my commentary and preamble will add anything useful to what follows.
http://davidbrin.blogspot.com/2021/05/more-marvels-from-space-starting-with.html
Sunday, May 23, 2021
More marvels from
space -- starting with this UFO crap, then real wonders.
Okay, let's get the
damned UFO stuff out of the way first.
No living human is
better qualified to talk about alien life (I assert). I consult on innovative
and advanced spacecraft design projects. I have spent almost 40 years as a
leading investigator on SETI matters. My doctorate dealt with organic dust from
comets, a possible source of 'panspermia.' Oh... and there's the science
fiction, lots of that, constantly exploring concepts of 'otherness' - including
a book by that title. (See my new "Best of David Brin" collection!)
So when I call bullshite it
is not from some stodgy unwillingness to imagine the unusual! To the
contrary, I have always found most (not all) UFO stuff to be shockingly
unimaginative and dull. I mean, look at purported
UFO behavior! The universe is athrong with space-twerps?
Only now... Omigosh! The US Government
now admits that there are sometimes reports and even blurry frootage
of wildly veering and swerving "tictac" blobs! Not in any way saying
it's aliens, but Unexplained Aerial Phenomena. Gosh-a-roony!
Okay, let's get my
response-and-theory out of the way before we go on to real wonders of
space! All this brouhaha (ha ha ha?) is blatantly over a freaking obvious cat
laser.
Cripes, I've been
quiet about it because the ones messing with Navy pilots and the rest of us may
have had some reasons for some confidentiality. But this has gone too far and
someone has to point out the obvious. Look up the words cat and laser
on YouTube, and tell me you don't see it!
Here is just one
example of how the US Navy itself has developed ways to create distracting blob spots in the open air.
And this doesn't even use the far better, more compact and agile method that I
know they know about. (I mean if *I* know it...)
OMG you'd rather
believe in aliens with 'ships' that break every law of physics and
optics in order to mess with us, all of it while maintaining 1950s levels of
blurriness when there are MILLIONS of times as many cameras, now, than there
were then?
The list of absurd
claims goes on and on. One of them might make a good sci fi tale. TWO
make a decent cult belief. But all parts of this outrageously dumb
scenario?
Sure, aliens
may be waving the cat laser! But other wielders are far more plausible.
Looking further out...
“The most distant
Solar System object, Farout, has lost its crown after just two years. As
Inverse reports, astronomers have confirmed that the planetoid Farfarout is now the
farthest known Solar System object. It's currently 132AU, or about
12.3 billion miles from the Sun (Farout is 'just' 120AU away), and its
elongated orbit will take it 175AU away. For context, Pluto is 34AU from our host
star...”
A nice talk by David Jewitt about the Asteroid Belt and
what a large fraction of the half-million+ belt roids are sublimating water,
suggesting they are more primitive carbonaceous chondrite types breaking up via
thermal stress... though he also discusses exemplars of asteroid-like comets
and at 48’ he lays out the theory that I first presented in my doctoral
dissertation (1981). I think he may have missed a few
things. But a truly enlightening talk.
Another truly
wonderful Hubble image, this time from a star-forming
nebula around 4,900 light-years away in the constellation of Gemini.
Farther out, but still
in our ‘neighborhood.’ Fascinating article offers TWO amazing
results from the EU's Gaia craft that tracks the parallax of over a billion of
the Milky Way's closer (to us) stars. (1) An embedded video shows the projected
paths of thousands of the nearest of these stars across our sky across then
next few thousand years. Note longer-faster streaks will be close passages! (2)
a corrugation spur of super-hot/big OB type blue giant stars will likely erupt
with supernovae across the next million years or so and some of them maybe
soon. And (3) YOU are a member of a civilization that does stuff like this.
Which is the greatest
of those three wonders?
Spectacular polar lightning shows on Jupiter!
And did lightning start life on Earth,
by releasing trapped phosphorus to help make a biosphere? Phosphorous
is the rarest ingredient in LIFE ™ And cheaply available Phosphorous
is getting used up fast from North America’s once vast deposits, leaving the
largest lodes in Morocco, Iraq and Iran. Lovely. (As depicted in my novel
EXISTENCE.)
And there may be a lotta wattah left under the surface of Mahz.
Seeking life farther
out… Panspermia is back, being discussed as astronomers catch up with science
fiction. It is stylish now to discuss how our sun’s cometary Ooort Cloud likely brushes against the
comet clouds of other stars, intermittently, exchanging (perhaps)
bio-materials that way, as bacteria exchange plasmid DNA… and as Gregory
Benford and I posited in the 1980s in HEART OF THE COMET.
And just prior to
getting into singularities… Supergiant stars like AG Carinae are rare:
less than 50 reside in our local group of neighboring galaxies garishly emitting a million times the output of our 70x less
massive Sun and racing toward inevitable supernova oblivion.
Kewl video.
== Singularities! We
got your black holes here! ==
A stunning new animation from NASA shows the entrancing
dance of two monster black holes in orbit around each other, each one’s titanic
gravity warping the other’s “Thorne Thimble”… the unique way that a
mammoth-hole’s glowing accretion disk appears to surround such monsters. (As
first predicted by my friend, Caltech prof and Nobelist Kip Thorne, for the
movie Interstellar.)
A single neutrino
began its journey some 700 million years ago, around the time the first animals
developed on Earth, when a doomed star came too close to the supermassive black
hole at the center of its home galaxy and was ripped apart by the black hole's
colossal gravity. That event was first detected by the Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF)
on Mount Palomar in California on 9 April 2019. Half a year later, on 1 October
2019 the IceCube neutrino detector at the South Pole registered an extremely
energetic neutrino from the direction of the tidal disruption event. "It
smashed into the Antarctic ice with a remarkable energy of more than 100 teraelectron
volts..." and its path led straight back to that crushed star’s death
throes. Wow. Ain’t we something?
The black hole at the
center of this galaxy – in the latest amazing Hubble and radio-VLA mashup –
is spewing million-light year jets. It's an elliptical galaxy that's
roughly 1,000 times larger than our own Milky Way. Same goes for the black hole
the galaxy formed around; it's also about 1,000 times larger than the one at
the center of our Milky Way, at around 2.5 billion solar mass. (Many galaxies
are believed to have formed around supermassive black holes.) "Emitting
nearly a billion times more power in radio wavelengths than our Sun, the galaxy
is one of the brightest extragalactic radio sources in the entire sky.”
With
this incredible, stunning image of a black hole - scientists have
mapped using polarized light, the magnetic fields around a black hole at
the center of galaxy Messier 87, which is located 55 million light-years
away. Astronomers are still working to understand how jets larger than the
galaxy itself are launched from the black hole within it, but these powerful
magnetic fields have a lot to do with it. (And my masters thesis
slightly advanced the theory of polarized light passing through anisotropic
media.). Just incredible. Look at this! And know you are
a member of a civilization that does stuff like this.
Even farther out,
toward the edge! Astronomers had found about 50 of "quadruply imaged quasars," in
which a foreground galaxy’s massive gravity has lens-warped the quaser’s image
into four parts. (There are many more known with just doubled images.) The
number of quads known has been grown by applying recent methods of machine
learning. Among many uses would be checking on the two somewhat different
estimates – local vs long range – for the expansion rate of the universe. “A
quasar-based determination of Hubble's constant could indicate which of the two
values is correct, or, perhaps more interestingly, could show that the constant
lies somewhere between the locally determined and distant value, a possible
sign of previously unknown physics.” Another use not mentioned is to see how
the quasar’s four images change with time, since distance traveled varies!
Cosmologists are
pressing rewind on the first instant after the Big Bang by simulating 4,000 versions of the universe on a massive
supercomputer, all with slightly different initial density
fluctuations. The researchers allowed these virtual universes to undergo their
own virtual inflations and then applied a reconstruction method to check them.
And while we’re going
cosmic… this paper asserts that the whole dark matter
thing may be based on an oversimplification of the gravitational models of a
rotating galaxy, leaving out general relativity effects or “gravito-magnetic” influences.
The authors assert motion curves now fit without any need for a possibly
mythical Dark Matter component. Okay. Mind you that while I have my
astrophysics union card -- a member of the priesthood, so to speak-- I am more
of a Franciscan (I model orbits and spacecraft and comets and such… or did)…
and this is real Jesuit stuff. Above my pay grade. Still….
Posted by David Brin at 7:21 PM
http://davidbrin.blogspot.com/2021/05/back-to-moon-and-on-to-venus-mars-and.html
Saturday, May 15, 2021
Back to the Moon? And
on to Venus, Mars and the asteroid belt
Are
we finally entering the golden age of spaceflight we originally expected (way
prematurely) in the 1970s?
Mars
mission successes - including China's impressive lander - are adding up.
Samples are being returned from asteroids (the likely source of major riches.)
The new generation of space telescopes is already revealing wonders, even
before the Webb goes up. SpaceX has upturned launch economics with levels of
re-use that forced panicking Lockheed/Boeing/ULA to run, desperately to Blue
Origin to save them...
...and
Sen. Shelby is no longer able to bully Congress into forcing the "Space
Launch System (SLS)" down NASA's throat, a wasteful boondoggle so typical
of Shelby's corrupt party... as the Spacex "starship," if fully
successful, promises the possibility that another boondoggle - sending
"American footprints back-to-the-Moon!" - won't be the calamitous
distraction that is seemed bound to be (details below)...
...and
new satellite comms constellations may soon deliver world access to underserved
people, all over the planet. And much more. We are still a civilization that
does stuff. And even more important stuff down here, on Earth.
== We're Explorers! ==
A
while back I linked you to the announced Phase One awards given by NIAC --
NASA's Innovative & Advanced Concepts program (I am on the advisory
council). Great, pioneering projects! Some of them bordering on science
fiction. Now come the Phase II and III announcements! Projects
that proved themselves to have at least an on-paper or preliminary plausibility
to dramatically change our access and future out there in the cosmos!
In case you missed
it... here is the descent and landing video from the wonderful
Martian arrival of Perseverance. Forget the audio thing! Watch the collated 3
minutes of incredible beauty and stunning competence during arrival. I did NOT
expect my breath to catch at the sight of a parachute deploying, or my heart to
race at footage of dust blowing from a rocky plain.
More crucially, the
"Sky Crane" landing system is now no longer a 'miracle," but a
reliable system, proved repeatable. A routine miracle.
Again, we are a people
who do such things. Stop letting mafiosi undermine our
confidence.
Nearly 11 Million Names of Earthlings are on Mars Perseverance...’
Ooooh, I did warn
about this is a short story called “Mars Opposition!”
And if you want to be
scared out of your britches, give it a read in The Best of David Brin!
== Back to the moon?
==
I've been a lonely
dissenter on the notion of U.S. astronauts rushing back to the dusty/useless
lunar plain, when humanity for sure will be going there anyway, in
the form of Apollo-wannabe tourists, eager for their coming-of-age ritual. The
US+Japan+Europe can accomplish vastly more bypassing that playpen/sandbox,
doing things only we can do. And yet... if Elon truly can pull off his next
prodigious leap, not just perfecting Starship but especially the super-heavy
BFR to launch it out there, and do the refueling thing, then I might change my
mind.
But Jeff B and
Dynetics should still develop their landers... to sell to those tourists!
(While keeping techs proprietary!)
What stands out is
that NASA still intends for astronauts to ride to the moon aboard the SLS...
there and back via Orion capsule. Using the SpaxeX ship ONLY as a lander! But
of course that will happen twice... to use up the SLS monsters in the pipeline.
Then Frankenshuttle can quietly fade away.
SpaceX has built and
tested a functioning prototype of the elevator that Starship
would use to lift and lower astronauts to and from the lunar surface. In
blazing speed. This despite getting the least development funding from NASA’s
program to incentivize private companies to make lunar landers. “Known as the
Human Landing System (HLS) program, NASA selected three providers – a Blue
Origin-led consortium, Dynetics, and SpaceX – to build prototypes and compete
for one or two follow-on contracts back in April 2020. SpaceX’s Starship
offering was deemed the riskiest solution and the company received a middling
$135 million to Dynetics’ ~$250 million and the “National Team’s” ~$570
million. For their ~$820 million investment, it’s unclear what exactly NASA has
gotten from its two best-funded teams aside from paperwork, a few completed
design reviews, and two low-fidelity mockups mostly made out of cardboard,
foam, and wood. Meanwhile, in the ten months since SpaceX received its $135
million, the company has built no less than eight full-scale Starship
prototypes, performed a dozen or more wet dress rehearsals and static fires
with said prototypes, and performed two powered hops and two high-altitude test
flights.” ... Oh... the image in this article looks straight out
of a 1950s Wiley Ley/Bonestall envisioning!
While I am on record
dissing the notion of the U.S. dropping more ambitious and rewarding ventures
farther out, in favor of a rush to put more footprints on a dusty-useless lunar
plain (yawn! leave that to the kiddies!) I am fine with helping US companies
develop landers they can sell or rent to those Apollo-wannabe tourists!
== And on to Venus and
Mars ==
The Parker Solar Probe (the author of Sundiver is an official ‘mascot) in one of
its swings by Venus looked down on the dark night side... and could see through
the clouds to heat-revealed surface features! And more from
Parker! NASA’s Parker Solar Probe captured the first complete view of Venus’s dust ring, a band
of particles that stretches for the entirety of the planet’s path around the
Sun.
Okay, as said above, I
am still giddy over the success JPL/NASA had in landing Perseverance on Mars!
Only, now that they are sure of the landing system and can optimize its weight
parameters, then next time – a suggestion? Next time, LAND the darn descent stage after it finishes delivering the rover! And
why not? a weather station? Seismic station? Practice?
Speaking of landers:
the commercial lunar vehicle Peregrine, if successful this coming July,
would be the first-ever commercial American lander on the moon — and the first
United States spacecraft to touch down at all since Apollo 17 in
1972. The same company will then target 2023 to land VIPER, a vastly
more sophisticated water-surveying rover near a lunar pole, conveyed moonward
by a SpaceX Heavy and brought gently down by a GRIFFIN lander.
And it’s a
moonrush! Japanese lunar robotics company ispace will deliver a rover built by the United Arab
Emirates (UAE) to the moon in 2022, via a SpaceX Falcon 9
rocket. The Japanese startup says it supply the lander that transports the
rover from the moon's orbit to the lunar surface.
Okay, like we needed
this? How about a space hurricane in our planet's upper atmosphere --
made up of swirling plasma and "rained" electrons... a 620-mile-wide
(1,000-kilometer) plasma mass swirling above the North Pole. It had spiral arms
and lasted for nearly eight hours. An amazing image.
== The Sky is For The
Rich? ==
A fine review of a new book - Test Gods: Virgin Galactic and the Making of a Modern
Astronaut, by Nicholas Scmidle - about the New Space Race, in
which whole nations - China, India, Russia and even NASA - struggle to keep
pace with the upward momentum of a clade of billionaire dreamers and do-ers...
Musk Bezos, Branson, and several you likely haven't heard of. Heinlein
predicted such an era in positive terms. I portrayed plusses and minuses,
in EXISTENCE. And Wil McCarthy's book Rich Man's Sky depicts worrisome, downside
trends toward owner-feudalism in future space..
This article starts
with an image of Branson's Virgin Galactic mother ship based at New Mexico's
Spaceport America, which gets to use the USG's White' Sands tracking
facilities, but is, in consequence, way out east of the town of Truth or
Consequences, NM. Those buying tickets on Virgin's deluxe space
super-experience will have to leave their luxury jets and ride an air
conditioned bus for 40 minutes. Along the way, they will be entertained by an introductory
video of yours truly, explaining in advance what they are about to
see. Fiorty minutes of me blabbing about the spaceport> That alone is
worth the price!
Perhaps that's the
closest I will get, to riding the torch. But WTH. We are doing
these fine things. That is, if we do all the fine things,
including saving the planet, species, civilization, justice and a decent,
worthy enlightenment.
Posted by David Brin at 3:03 PM
Are we alone?
While UFOs continue to swirl in the popular culture, scientists are trying to answer the big question that is raised by UFOs: Are we alone?
Astronomers have discovered over 4,000 exoplanets, or planets orbiting other stars, a number that doubles every two years. Some of these exoplanets are considered habitable, since they are close to the Earth’s mass and at the right distance from their stars to have water on their surfaces. The nearest of these habitable planets are less than 20 light years away, in our cosmic “back yard.” Extrapolating from these results leads to a projection of 300 million habitable worlds in our galaxy. Each of these Earth-like planets is a potential biological experiment, and there have been billions of years since they formed for life to develop and for intelligence and technology to emerge.
Astronomers are very confident there is life beyond the Earth. As astronomer and ace exoplanet-hunter Geoff Marcy, puts it, “The universe is apparently bulging at the seams with the ingredients of biology.” There are many steps in the progression from Earths with suitable conditions for life to intelligent aliens hopping from star to star. Astronomers use the Drake Equation to estimate the number of technological alien civilizations in our galaxy. There are many uncertainties in the Drake Equation, but interpreting it in the light of recent exoplanet discoveries makes it very unlikely that we are the only, or the first, advanced civilization.
This confidence has fueled an active search for intelligent life, which has been unsuccessful so far. So researchers have recast the question “Are we alone?” to “Where are they?”
The absence of evidence for intelligent aliens is called the Fermi Paradox. Even if intelligent aliens do exist, there are a number of reasons why we might not have found them and they might not have found us. Scientists do not discount the idea of aliens. But they aren’t convinced by the evidence to date because it is unreliable, or because there are so many other more mundane explanations.
Modern myth and religion
UFOs are part of the landscape of conspiracy theories, including accounts of abduction by aliens and crop circles created by aliens. I remain skeptical that intelligent beings with vastly superior technology would travel trillion of miles just to press down our wheat.
It’s useful to consider UFOs as a cultural phenomenon. Diana Pasulka, a professor at the University of North Carolina, notes that myths and religions are both means for dealing with unimaginable experiences. To my mind, UFOs have become a kind of new American religion.
[Deep knowledge, daily. Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter.]
So no, I don’t think belief in UFOs is crazy, because some flying objects are unidentified, and the existence of intelligent aliens is scientifically plausible.
But a study of young adults did find that UFO belief is associated with schizotypal personality, a tendency toward social anxiety, paranoid ideas and transient psychosis. If you believe in UFOs, you might look at what other unconventional beliefs you have.
I’m not signing on to the UFO “religion,” so call me an agnostic. I recall the aphorism popularized by Carl Sagan, “It pays to keep an open mind, but not so open your brains fall out.”
- New note - On 1807.06, I ceased daily transmission of my Hey Mom feature after three years of daily conversations. I plan to continue Hey Mom posts at least twice per week but will continue to post the days since ("Days Ago") count on my blog each day. The blog entry numbering in the title has changed to reflect total Sense of Doubt posts since I began the blog on 0705.04, which include Hey Mom posts, Daily Bowie posts, and Sense of Doubt posts. Hey Mom posts will still be numbered sequentially. New Hey Mom posts will use the same format as all the other Hey Mom posts; all other posts will feature this format seen here.
