Europa Clipper is on its way

It's a busy week for space enthusiasts (have you spotted Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS?). The long-anticipated Europa Clipper mission is officially underway. The craft launched Monday morning on a Falcon Heavy rocket, bound for that most beguiling of icy Jupiter moons, Europa. It will arrive at its destination in 2030 (!?! We seriously need faster spacecraft engines pronto - or engines that use much less fuel, thus are able to take more fuel and travel faster....)

Once there, Europa Clipper will hunt for organic chemicals on the icy surface, as well as other signs of a habitable environment and evidence for the ingredients of life. It will also characterize Europa's ice shell in detail. This work could identify good spots at which a life-hunting lander could touch down and operate - BUT IT WILL ATTEMPT NO LANDING THERE.

...not yet.

Starship and the Future of Rapidly Reusable Rockets

In an absolutely incredible feat of engineering, SpaceX has caught Starship's Super Heavy booster in the Mechazilla arms on the first try! What a sight.

After a succesful launch and orbit, Starship itself completed a planned soft splashdown in the Indian Ocean as well. All in all, a hugely successful 5th test flight of Starship.

One day soon, this will all be routine. Like we do now with the hundreds of Falcon 9 launches and booster landings, we'll go, "Oh, did Starship launch again today? Another moon trip, maybe?" And I look forward to that day.

But for now, WOW.

Aurora-palooza

It was quite a week for aurora watching in the U.S. (and in many other parts of the world, I believe). The first wave hit here at my house Monday night, and I was so ecstatic to get to see them in person for the first time in my life! I stood in my front yard and took a couple of really terrible photos that I won’t share here, because….

A stronger solar flare let loose later in the week, and Thursday night was a show for the ages. Family and friends back home in Georgia even got to see them. I’d done a bit of reading on how to take better pictures, but honestly, they were so much stronger and more dramatic, I didn’t have to do much work.

These are still horribly amateurish photos, taken with my phone without a tripod, but they’re mine. :D

Did you get to see the northern lights this week? I’d love to see any pictures you took!

A New Abode

Wait, this is not Montana...is it? I mean, there ARE mountains. But why is there a lake? And far less wood paneling? A thread in which I answer these questions and more.

Tl;dr: We've moved down the road to Coeur d'Alene, Idaho! (If you subscribe to my Buy Me A Coffee program and watch my livestreams, you already know this, but it’s new info for the rest of you).

The rest of the story: Actually, we moved a year ago. But we were camping out in an apartment while we built a house, and that was just so very uninteresting, I didn't mention it. But now things are exciting again.

First, why the move? A couple of reasons, but to encapsulate them, a beautiful view does not a life make (who knew?).

While wandering the woods was lovely, after a while I chafed against the isolation and lack of access to the trappings of modern life. #MrJennsen sucks at early retirement and, after two years chopping trees while wearing flannel , decided he was bored and wanted to get back in the engineering game. A series of frustrations when too much snow and impassable roads kept me from getting to the (distant) airport to travel for some family medical emergencies brought the problems into sharp relief.

Luckily, just a few hours down the road existed the equally lovely (if less wild) city of Coeur d'Alene. It, too, has mountains, rivers and lakes (Lake CDA is one of the most beautiful I've ever seen). But guess what it also has? Coffee shops and boutiques and theaters and a Best Buy and, well, people!

So here we are.

Now for a tour of the pictures!

1) My working space. The desk is a motorized standing desk, so I don't turn into a sloth while writing. No blinds? It's okay, they're getting installed tomorrow. That banner is just ridiculous, isn't it? #MrJennsen insisted on hanging it there. Swearz.

2) What I see when I'm *standing* at my desk. Gaming, comics, collectibles, science/space books, duplicates of some scifi books and, in the bottom right corner, a bit of a TBR stack. (Note: the rest of the scifi books will be going in the library - more on that soonish.)

3) The view out the window by my desk.

4) The bookcases on one wall of the main living room. I made a solar system out of my solar system glasses. :) (Close one, thermostat nemesis, but no dice! )

5 & 6) The view about 15 minutes down the road. I think it speaks for itself.

7) The patron saint of our home. Wherever Alex and Caleb live (in books), Akeso watches over.

Is this a good move? No, it's a WONDERFUL move. I have a feeling we'll stay this time.

Is Consciousness A Quantum Phenomenon?

Is consciousness a quantum phenomenon?

"A silent symphony is playing inside your brain right now as neurological pathways synchronize in an electromagnetic chorus that's thought to give rise to consciousness." Not going to lie, the musical terminology caught my fancy straightaway.

Consciousness - defining it, measuring it, even proving it exists - has continued to stymie researches. It's a "whole is greater than the sum of its parts," je ne sais quo, "I know it when I see (feel) it" phenomenon. And pinning down its nature would revolutionize how we think about nearly everything.

The possibility that quantum mechanisms may be involved has always been rejected because quantum activity is very delicate and fragile, and our brains are hot and messy. But what if biology has figured out how to do something we haven't? It wouldn't be the first time....

https://www.sciencealert.com/quantum-entanglement-in-neurons-may-actually-explain-consciousness

The Universe Within Update

And the first draft of THE UNIVERSE WITHIN is complete!!

It clocks in at 64,451 words, which is a hefty chunk considering all the [skipped scenes] and [vague notes and instructions] and [half finished chapters], lol. *motions at Alex and Caleb and all those rich, fully formed worlds and stories that burst to life wherever they go*

I don't think a story has come together this quickly since Abysm, which is really saying something. But boy, do I have a ton of work ahead of me. I was flinging brackets left and right as fast as I could type them, just to get the plot out of my head and onto the page.

So, yeah. Time to grab the fire extinguisher..

Cartwheel Galaxy

The latest from the Webb Telescope:

“NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has peered into the chaos of the Cartwheel Galaxy, revealing new details about star formation and the galaxy’s central black hole. Webb’s powerful infrared gaze produced this detailed image of the Cartwheel and two smaller companion galaxies against a backdrop of many other galaxies. This image provides a new view of how the Cartwheel Galaxy has changed over billions of years.”

https://www.nasa.gov/universe/webb-captures-stellar-gymnastics-in-the-cartwheel-galaxy/

Note: There are 3 versions of the image. The composite from Webb’s Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) and Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) and the MIRI-only image are shown in the article, and the NIRI-only image is shown below and in this NASA tweet.

The Future Is Going to Be Weird

Well OF COURSE brain chips are going to replace phones. One of my safest "predictions," to be honest. And I love that the future is going to be weird!

““The Future is Going to Be Weird.” Elon Musk Predicts Brain Chips Will Eventually Replace Phones”: https://thedebrief.org/the-future-is-going-to-be-weird-elon-musk-predicts-brain-chips-will-eventually-replace-phones/

The Search for the Anti-Aging Holy Grail

Faster, please! None of us here are getting any younger....

Important finding: the mice didn't just live 25% longer - they were healthier in virtually every respect for that extended lifespan.

Still partially in mouse trials, but the drug is already being tested in humans for other purposes. This one may be more real than most?

Slightly click-baity headline: “Experts create anti-aging holy grail drug that extends life 25% and prevents cancer and gray hair” https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-13644081/Experts-anti-aging-extends-life.html

“In just 25 weeks following the therapy, the animals had a lower risk of cancer, no gray hair, improved vision and better muscle functionality. The treated mice had fewer cancers, and were free from the usual signs of ageing and frailty, but we also saw reduced muscle wasting and improvement in muscle strength.”

“Anti-IL-11 treatments are currently in human clinical trials for other conditions, potentially providing exciting opportunities to study its effects in ageing humans in the future.”

Professor Cook told the BBC that while the trial is not yet completed, the data has suggested that the drug is safe for humans.” 

Saturn's Rings

It’s your periodic Cassini Appreciation Post (no, Cassi, it’s not about you!).

From Jason Major: “Here's a view of Saturn's rings made from images captured with Cassini on July 4, 2008. Prometheus is visible inside the F ring at the bottom; the even smaller Atlas is on the left along the outer edge of the A ring. Saturn's shadow falls across the rings at upper right.”

Directly Imaging Exoplanets

What's that giant blue blob in the bottom left quadrant? It's an exoplanet. I haven't done the digging to confirm, but it feels like this is the highest quality direct imaging of an exoplanet we have achieved so far.

The Nancy Grace Roman Telescope, launching in 2027, is going to bring another huge leap forward in finding and imaging exoplanets, but this is already really impressive. Being able to see these planets is going to change everything.

"This image from ESO's Very Large Telescope (VLT) shows the newly discovered planet HD95086 b, next to its parent star. The observations were made using NACO, the adaptative optics instrument for the VLT in infrared light, and using a technique called differential imaging, which improves the contrast between the planet and its dazzling host star. The star itself has been removed from the picture during processing to enhance the view of the faint exoplanet and its position is marked. The exoplanet appears at the lower left.

The blue circle is the size of the orbit of Neptune in the Solar System."

https://www.eso.org/public/images/eso1324a/

(Going to Need A) Bigger Coffee Mug

New hobby: collecting coffee mugs. In order to make the cut, a mug must meet two criteria: (1) it must be quirky or geeky, and (2) it must be giant - I am not sipping espresso over here.

My first acquisition was this awesome mug of one of my most favorite movies since I was a child! (I also have Jaws socks....) The size isn't conveyed very well by these pics, but it just might hold the big man himself.