Jupiter in Stunning Infrared
Infrared image of Jupiter from the Gemini North observatory shows heat welling up from the planet's interior, blotted out by cold clouds up top. Just amazing! Via Corey Powell.
“Gemini Gets Lucky and Takes a Deep Dive Into Jupiter’s Clouds”: https://www.gemini.edu/pr/gemini-gets-lucky-and-takes-deep-dive-jupiter-s-clouds
Originally posted on Twitter.
When the Kids Grow Up
Artemis Lander Partners Announced
From NASA: “Big News! The #Artemis generation is going to the Moon to stay. I’m excited to announce that we have selected 3 U.S. companies to develop human landers that will land astronauts on the Moon: @BlueOrigin, @Dynetics & @SpaceX.”
More information here: https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-names-companies-to-develop-human-landers-for-artemis-moon-missions
Originally posted on Twitter.
Photobomb
Week 6 of Quarantine: Time to move and reorganize the space/sci-fi/inspiration bookshelves! Photobomb by a Princess in desperate need of a haircut.
Friday Quarantine INVERSION Excerpt
Is it Friday again already? The calendar says it is, and here we all STILL ARE. 😶 At last, there are some lights at the end of the tunnel that hopefully don't herald another oncoming train, and Colorado is scheduled to dip its toes into the "re-opening" pool starting next week.
But that's next week. As promised, here's a third excerpt from INVERSION to brighten your weekend - and this one should help ease the minds of those of you worried about a certain character after the end of Continuum.😇
Caveat 1: Spoilers for CONTINUUM follow. *FOR SERIOUS ALSO THIS TIME.* If you haven't finished reading it yet, bookmark this post for later.
Caveat 2: Editing is still ongoing. A few words will likely change before release.
With that, enjoy!
💫💫💫
Debris particles hung in the air on a twisting wind, and the ground rattled every other second from the tumbling of distant and not-so-distant buildings. An unidentified roar throbbed beneath it all like the slow heartbeat of Tartarus rising.
The smoke had grown so thick Grant could barely see across the street, so he switched to hybrid infrared. Faint and weakening heat signatures dotted the landscape—the dead or dying. One shape, however, still burned brightly—more brightly than a healthy Asterion, in fact. The Human girl.
“She’s across the street and twenty-two degrees to the east. I’m going to make a run for her, and I need you two to provide cover fire.”
Ava scoffed. “I’ve got all the cover fire you need. Joaquim, go with him.”
“Fine. Let’s move—now!”
Grant sprinted out into the haze, keeping his focus on his target, not searching around for looming Rasu bipedals or swooping vessels. The sound of collapsing buildings and distant screams in every direction was the worst thing he’d heard since a lost battle seven hundred thousand years ago, and he swiftly shut down the resurgent memory.
An explosion a few dozen meters away roiled the street beneath his feet, and he hurtled forward, throwing his arms out to brace himself. He crashed hard on the sidewalk, sending jarring pain shooting up his left arm into his shoulder.
“Get up, man.” Joaquim crawled toward him, blood trickling out of one ear.
Grant nodded weakly and checked his location. He’d landed almost on top of the heat signature, and he killed the infrared as he scrambled over to the young woman.
Marlee’s eyes were closed, one arm was pinned at an ugly angle under her body and blood had pooled beneath her, but a quick scan detected a pulse and a strong heartbeat. He’d figure out what injuries might be patchable later, somewhere safer. Hopefully such a place existed.
He wound his arms underneath her and lifted her up, ignoring the protestations in his shoulder. Her head lolled against his chest, and a nonsensical murmur escaped her lips.
He peered across the street and spent two seconds evaluating the return trip.
Joaquim leveled his weapon to the left, then swept it to the right. “I’ve got our backs. Let’s run for it.”
***
Originally posted on Facebook.
Happy 30th Anniversary, Hubble!
Happy 30th Anniversary to the Hubble Space Telescope! Hubble has done more than any mission or instrument to bring the wonder and majesty of space to generations of people. The JWST is going to have a lot to live up to if it wants to ever match Hubble's legend.🌟🌟🌟
"NASA is celebrating the Hubble Space Telescope's 30 years of unlocking the beauty and mystery of space by unveiling a stunning new portrait of a firestorm of starbirth in a neighboring galaxy.
In this Hubble portrait, the giant red nebula (NGC 2014) and its smaller blue neighbor (NGC 2020) are part of a vast star-forming region in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy of the Milky Way, located 163,000 light-years away. The image is nicknamed the "Cosmic Reef," because it resembles an undersea world."
Download a hi-res version at the link.
“Hubble Marks 30 Years in Space with Tapestry of Blazing Starbirth”: https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2020/hubble-marks-30-years-in-space-with-tapestry-of-blazing-starbirth/
Originally posted on Facebook.
A Rhapsody of Black Holes
A symphony of black holes merging, you say? Maybe even a...rhapsody?🎶✨🎶
"On 12 April, 2019, the song from a pair of merging black holes swept over the Earth. And, for the first time, we detected them singing in tune.
Or, for a more prosaic description: Two black holes of very different sizes merged, shaking the fabric of spacetime in sympatico. They — oh wait. That's still a little poetic, isn't it? OK, let me try this then:
Across the Universe, two black holes of unequal masses spiraled into each other, sending out harmonic waves of gravitational wave energy, their resonating vibrations merging into a chord that — oh nuts. <sigh> I did it again."
“To Black Holes Merged into One, Singing in Tune the Whole Time”: https://www.syfy.com/syfywire/two-black-holes-merged-into-one-singing-in-tune-the-whole-time
Originally posted on Facebook.
100K
Huh. Who knew THAT was going to be the scene that brought Inversion to life in brilliant technicolor? 🤔 Wearing a big, excited smile right now. ☺️
Oh, and cruised past 100K words while I was at it, with a lot more to go.
Originally posted on Facebook.
Sunday Night Game Night
INVERSION Snippet
On this, day 4,882 of our captivity, I want to give you all a present--a reward for hanging in there and not murdering your family and pets or burning down your neighborhood--and there's really only one kind of gift I have to offer. I can't get INVERSION into your hands any faster, but I can give you a little glimpse at it!
If we're still hanging out in our homes next Friday (and let's face it, we will be), come back for a second snippet then.
Caveat 1: Spoilers for CONTINUUM follow. If you haven't finished reading it yet, bookmark this post for later.
Caveat 2: Editing is still ongoing. A few words will likely change before release.
With that, enjoy!
💫💫💫
A Savrakath in military field attire stopped in front of Malcolm’s cell with a hiss. “You are awake. We thought you might die. A surprise that Humans are so frail and fragile.”
“I might still die if you don’t treat this wound. It’s infected.”
“Infection is good for the soul. It tests the body. Strengthens it, if it can pass the trial.”
“Well, I’m not Savrakath, so I’d as soon skip the trial. I’m also no good to you dead. A little antiseptic would go a long way toward keeping me alive.”
The Savrakath sniffed the air. “Prove your worth to us. Give us the name and location of an important but soft Concord target, and we will treat your wounds.”
Prove your worth to us. They didn’t know who he was? Because he’d been on the assault team like a complete moron*, they must have assumed he was just a ground-pounder.
His presence here, in their custody, gave them a more valuable bargaining chip in the conflict with Concord than any hordes of intel he could (but never would) provide, but they didn’t know what they had.
An image of Mia flashed into his mind, stunning in a white silk robe, her long raven hair whipping around her face on the balcony of the suite they’d rented for their unofficial anniversary three months earlier. The urge to utter a meager few words overwhelmed him, and only his Marine training stilled his tongue. Provide his name and rank, and he’d become a high-stakes bargaining chip—and also the best-treated prisoner housed in whatever gulag this was. His wound would be treated post-haste, because the Savrakaths would no longer risk him dying.
But Concord would need to weaken their position in the conflict to trade for him, and he couldn’t allow that to happen. Duty and honor before self. Semper fidelis.
💫💫💫
*Yes, Malcolm joins everyone in the known universe in thinking he was a moron for going.
Meet the Newest Mars Rover: Vengeance
Vengeance will be ours, Mars! #OppyForever
NASA Launches Vengeance Rover To Pay Back Mars For Killing Opportunity Back In 2018 (via The Onion)
Satire, obviously - but only barely.
Haze on Jupiter
This planet, you guys....😍💖
"NASA’s Juno mission captured this look at Jupiter’s tumultuous northern regions during the spacecraft’s close approach to the planet on Feb. 17, 2020.
Some notable features in this view are the long, thin bands that run through the center of the image from top to bottom. Juno has observed these long streaks since its first close pass by Jupiter in 2016. The streaks are layers of haze particles that float above the underlying cloud features. Scientists don’t yet know exactly what these hazes are made of or how they form. Two jet streams in Jupiter’s atmosphere flank either side of the region where the narrow bands of haze typically appear, and some researchers speculate those jet streams may influence the formation of the high hazes."
https://www.nasa.gov/image…/…/high-altitude-hazes-on-jupiter
Originally posted on Facebook.
The Little Things
Picard Review
PICARD! Immensely, supremely enjoyable. CBS All Access is free until the end of April, so if you enjoy Star Trek, I highly recommend watching it.
More random, spoiler-free thoughts:
It doesn't always feel like "Star Trek" (in fact, it frequently felt like The Expanse). Never fear, many Star Trek species and a number of our favorite characters are present and accounted for, but the show comes with neither an Enterprise-style starship* nor all the StarFleet structural trappings. In DS9, we didn't have a starship (for several seasons), but we still had StarFleet; in Voyager, we had a starship but no StarFleet. Both shows stumbled on occasion for the removal of one pillar. Here, we have neither pillar - and Picard doesn't stumble for it, but it means the show doesn't always feel like Star Trek.
*There is a kick-ass ship; it's just not a StarFleet one.
I wasn't expecting to get so many Mass Effect vibes (albeit with a twist), but here we are. To say more would definitely involve spoilers.
So why was it good? The same reasons all good tales are so: entertaining, engrossing storytelling brought to life by memorable characters who make you care about them. Were there flaws? Certainly, but the characters were compelling enough that I'm happy to let them slide. It handled the AI issue with nuance and appropriate moral quandaries on both sides.
Finally, Seven was absolutely fantastic and utterly badass. #MrJennsen wholeheartedly agrees with this assessment.🙄
Originally posted on Facebook.
Proud Propaganda
Check it out - I found an inch of free wall space for my fictional governmental organizations promotional/propaganda banners.
...(FGOPBs? FiGOBs? FiGoProps? I'm in need of a good acronym here.)
And by "found" I mean "callously took down the perfectly lovely Ansel Adams art that was in that spot."
See all the banners on the Wiki: https://www.notion.so/…/Organizational-Banners-a8b5fb1984c3…
Originally posted on Facebook.
Happy Book Birthday to STARSHINE
Happy SIXTH Birthday to STARSHINE! 💫
Six years and 14 books later, this last week I have never been more grateful and humbled to be able to do this for a living. In the face of the Covid-19 crisis, my daily life has thus far changed very little. I get to keep on writing the next book while helping new readers find the first 14, cozily ensconced at the same desk from where every book has come to life. I'm lucky, and I know it.
But many millions of people are facing personal upheaval, uncertainty, anxiety and in some cases grave illness. As I give thanks for my personal situation, I'm thinking of all of you. I hope you stay safe, healthy and continue to find both solace and joy in stories.
Originally posted on Facebook.
One INVERSION First Draft - Done
New Amaranthe Swag
I got new swag to keep me company during my social isolation! Stickers are going on EVERYTHING.
If you're interested, you can get swag, too.🤗 The stickers are 4.5 x 2.7 inches and come in sets of 4. The keychain is 2 sides of the same keychain - one side is black, the other white - and it's quite lovely.🥰
https://www.zazzle.com/store/aurorarisingapparel/products?dp=0&cg=196071985589797182
