M Thomas Apple Author Page

Science fiction, actual science, history, and personal ranting about life, the universe, and everything

Why Mars Shivers: The Explanation Behind Marsquakes

May 31, 2023
MThomas

The post Why Mars Shivers: The Explanation Behind Marsquakes first appeared May 30, 2023 on Science Recent – Your Daily Science Source.The human …

Why Mars Shivers: The Explanation Behind Marsquakes

Something else for future potential Mars settlements to consider….

Plume of water seen on Saturn’s moon

May 31, 2023
MThomas

The record-breaking plume reached nearly 6,000 miles into space – covering the distance between Ireland and Japan – and poured water into the void at an estimated rate of 300 litres a second.

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2023/may/30/astronomers-see-6000-mile-water-vapour-plume-blasting-from-saturn-moon

Note that the water jetted out into space nearly 40 times longer than the actual size of the moon (about 500 in diameter, or as the Gurdian puts it “500-mile-wide” for those who forgot the meaning of “diameter).

Enceladus is probably the best bet for life elsewhere in the solar system due to its water — and while whipping around Saturn once per day, which is likely the reason for underwater volcanos and other vents that may provide the proper chemistry for life.

Also the perfect place to trick an inexperienced asteroid hunter crew…

Only an hour to Manhattanhenge!

May 30, 2023
MThomas

Manhattanhenge, a portmanteau of “Manhattan” and “Stonehenge,” is a twice-a-year solar event when the sunset lines up directly with the city’s grid, casting golden rays down city streets. Several of the stones in Stonehenge, the prehistoric monument in Wiltshire, England, experience perfect alignment with the sun during the summer and winter solstices, which is why the event takes its name from the rock formation.

https://www.nbcnews.com/science/science-news/memroial-day-manhattanhenge-expected-light-new-york-city-streets-rcna86698

If you miss it today, don’t fret: it happens again in July during MLB’s All-Star Break.

And the next day after each “half-sun” event, you can still see the “full-sun” version. Anybody in NYC?

And today’s random writing prompt is…

May 22, 2023
MThomas

Have you ever broken a bone?

Depends on how you define “broken.”

I got two bone spurs, separated by two years, thanks to playing baseball in junior high school. Both were fingers on my left hand.

The first time was my left thumb first joint. The second time was my left hand ring finger second joint.

Both times, our local health clinic doctor put a metal splint on the finger, wrapped it in flexible bandage and sealed it off with a tiny metal clip.

And of course I stupidly went on playing baseball, because at age 15 guys think they are completely indestructible.

My ring finger stuck out when I batted. I’m lucky I didn’t get hit by a pitch in the hand (I did get hit on the knee, but that’s a whole ‘nother story).

Also, it inspired my baseball novel. So there was a silver lining!

Largest cosmic explosion ever witnessed

May 12, 2023
MThomas

Fireball ‘100 times the size of the solar system’ thought to have been caused by gas being sucked into supermassive black hole

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2023/may/12/astronomers-capture-largest-cosmic-explosion-ever-witnessed

Fortunately, this is about 8 billion light years away.

But it’s been going for over three years now.

Yow.

Another day, another rocket failure…

March 10, 2023
MThomas

With just over a minute to go before liftoff, a California aerospace startup opted to stand down from launching the world’s first 3D-printed rocket on its inaugural test flight.

https://www.nbcnews.com/science/space/worlds-first-3d-printed-rocket-set-make-inaugural-flight-rcna73868

At least unlike the spectacular self-destruction of JAXA’s H3 this past Tuesday (Monday, Japan time), the team testing the California rocket wisely decided that it’s not a bright idea to stick a billion dollar satellite on an untested rocket. Repeatedly.

I’m beginning to feel that using 3D printed parts may not be the way to go with rocket engines…

The real danger of unregulated AI

February 27, 2023
MThomas

“I’m less frightened by a Sydney that’s playing into my desire to cosplay a sci-fi story than a Bing that has access to reams of my personal data and is coolly trying to manipulate me on behalf of whichever advertiser has paid the parent company the most money.

“Nor is it just advertising worth worrying about. What about when these systems are deployed on behalf of the scams that have always populated the internet? How about on behalf of political campaigns? Foreign governments? “I think we wind up very fast in a world where we just don’t know what to trust anymore,” Gary Marcus, the A.I. researcher and critic, told me. “I think that’s already been a problem for society over the last, let’s say, decade. And I think it’s just going to get worse and worse.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/26/opinion/microsoft-bing-sydney-artificial-intelligence.html

Shooting star over the English Channel

February 15, 2023
MThomas

Courtesy of @dlxinorbit – via @Marco_Langbroek

The agency earlier said the object was expected to “safely strike” the earth’s atmosphere near to the French city of Rouen.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-64621721

“Near to”? OK.

Anyway, “SAR2667” provided some cross-cultural entertainment for people living in England, France, Belgium, and the Netherlands. Lots of photos and videos online.

Interesting note from ESA: they were able to detect it and notify everyone exactly where and when it would disintegrate.

Since there are more than 30,000 of these things that orbit the Sun relatively close to Earth’s orbit, it’s a good thing we’re getting better at detecting them. Maybe we’d better up the ante on deflecting them

“Synthetic fuel”? We’ve heard this before…

February 6, 2023
MThomas

Not too terribly helpful if you can’t read Japanese, but you can probably figure out which is water and which is “radical water.”

From 11 to 17 January, the Demonstration Business Promotion Team Osaka along with Sustainable Energy Inc. ran trials on a synthetic fuel produced from water and carbon dioxide present in the air. If successful, this could become the first carbon-based and truly carbon-neutral fuel of its kind.

https://soranews24.com/2023/02/02/synthetic-fossil-fuels-made-from-light-water-and-co2-in-the-air-tested-in-osaka/

So basically this company in Osaka did some water 💧 experiments with “radical water” (water whose molecules were subjected to a kind of electrolysis⚡️ to ionize them), then a “seed fuel” (a fossil fuel like kerosene) was added to create synthetic fuel ⛽️ which in turn will create more CO2 that can be used to create more synthetic fuel.

And no, I didn’t have to insert goofy 😜 icons, but I’m on the train right now 🚊 so why not. 😝

Anyway, this all just sounds too good to be true. Surely it’s prohibitively expensive 💴 to constantly electrify water to the point where its unbound electrons can be available to bind with synthetic fuel electrons. Tidal 🌊 generators, wind 💨 turbines, solar sun ☀️ panels, and thermal heat from volcanos 🌋 all seem more likely a source of electricity to power EVs. 🚗

At any rate, there’s been nothing in the news 📰 about this, so I doubt the experiments worked. Or if they did, someone has a vested interest in continuing Japan’s reliance on Middle Eastern, Indonesian, and Russian fossil fuels.

OK I arrived, so I can stop it with the icons 🛑 ✋ for now.

🖖

Look! Up in the sky! It’s a bird! It’s an airplane! It’s…

February 4, 2023
MThomas

A Japanese telescope positioned on top of Mauna Kea, a dormant volcano on the Big Island of Hawaii, captured video of an eerie flying spiral in the night sky on Jan. 18.

In the video, a small bright spot appears and slowly gets brighter and starts to dissipate into a spiral before getting small again and disappearing.

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/japanese-telescope-captures-image-mysterious-180332172.html

In fact, it was the remains of a discarded Falcon 9 booster from the launch of a SpaceX satellite. And it isn’t the first time this has happened. Japanese TV talked about this, too (since it was a Japanese astronomy, at the Subaru Telescope, that first recorded it).

So, an Identified Flying Object!

Yay, more metallic junk.

(Thanks to Glen Hill for bringing this article to my attention.)

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