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Cunk on Colbert
Here is Philomena Cunk (Diane Morgan) with a clip from her new show “Cunk on Life” in an interview with Stephen Colbert. Cunk admits that 99% of her Cunk character is actually really her own personality (“we’re the same person, she says), with the other 1% involving her having to develop social skills to get along with others. She seems to be somewhat of a hermit and doesn’t mind being rude!
By now most people interviewed by Cunk know that it’s comedy, but that wasn’t the case when she began her interview career talking to academics and intellectuals. Those were the days! But it’s still great to hear her talk here about her relationship with Philomena. And that Bolton accent. . . .
Oh, and listen to her reveal the name of the person she most wants to interview!
h/t: Barry, Ursula
NASA is Sending a Vacuum Cleaner to the Moon
By the end of this decade, NASA, the Chinese National Space Agency (CNSA), Roscosmos, and other space agencies plan to establish a sustained human presence on the Moon. A crucial aspect of these plans is using local resources (particularly water) to lessen dependence on Earth, a process known as in-situ resource utilization (ISRU). Hence why NASA plans to establish a base of operations around the lunar south pole, a heavily cratered region where water ice exists in abundance in permanently shadowed regions (PSRs).
To harvest water ice and other resources successfully, NASA is investing in technologies that will enable cost-effective sample collection, in-situ testing (with or without astronaut oversight), and real-time data transmission to Earth. One such technology is the Lunar PlanetVac (LPV), a sample acquisition and delivery system designed to collect and transfer lunar regolith to sample containers without reliance on gravity. The LPV is one of 10 payloads that will be flown to the lunar surface as part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program.
Developed by Honeybee Robotics, a Blue Origin company, LPV is a pneumatic, compressed gas-powered vacuum cleaner designed to work in low gravity and the near vacuum of space. Once the lander reaches the lunar surface, the LPV sampling head will use its supply of compressed gas to stir up the lunar regolith, which will then be funneled into a transfer tube via the payload’s secondary pneumatic jets and collected in a sample container. The regolith will then be sieved and photographed inside the container, and the findings will be transmitted back to Earth in real-time.
The operation will be entirely autonomous and is expected to take just a few seconds. NASA also claims the operation will be conducted in accordance with planetary protection protocols. According to Dennis Harris, who manages the LPV payload for the CLPS initiative at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, the LPV has the potential to be a game changer. As he stated in a recent NASA press release:
“There’s no digging, no mechanical arm to wear out requiring servicing or replacement – it functions like a vacuum cleaner. The technology on this CLPS payload could benefit the search for water, helium, and other resources and provide a clearer picture of in situ materials available to NASA and its partners for fabricating lunar habitats and launch pads, expanding scientific knowledge and the practical exploration of the solar system every step of the way.”
The LPV will be flown to the Moon aboard the Blue Ghost 1 lunar lander (developed by Firefly Aerospace) no sooner than January 15th. The other payloads include technology demonstrations that will investigate regolith adherence, Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) abilities, radiation tolerant computing, and dust mitigation using electrodynamic fields. The lander will also investigate heat flow from the lunar interior, plume-surface interactions, crustal electric and magnetic fields, and take X-ray images of the Earth’s magnetosphere.
Further Reading: NASA
The post NASA is Sending a Vacuum Cleaner to the Moon appeared first on Universe Today.
“Cats: Predators to Pets” at the Field Museum
by Greg Mayer
A traveling exhibit from the Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle (Paris) is now on display at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago. Entitled “Cats: Predators to Pets“, it is sure to be of interest to WEIT’s many ailurophiles, not least of all PCC(E). The entrance shows a large scale phylogenetic tree of the living cats
“Cats: Predators to Pets”, Field Museum of Natural History.
including Jerry’s favorite species of wild cat, Pallas’s cat,
“Cats: Predators to Pets”, Field Museum of Natural History.
and then opens into a broad hall with representatives of all the living species. (The whole exhibit is very dark, making photography difficult.)
“Cats: Predators to Pets”, Field Museum of Natural History.
Interestingly, they’re arranged geographically, which as someone very interested in zoogeography, I rather liked. Here are some of the Asian cats (some American cats are in the background to the left). How many can you identify? (Put answers in the comments.)
“Cats: Predators to Pets”, Field Museum of Natural History.
Here are some African cats. In this and the preceding photo, you’ll notice that some species are represented by life size photos, rather than specimens.
“Cats: Predators to Pets”, Field Museum of Natural History.
A closeup of the male lion.
“Cats: Predators to Pets”, Field Museum of Natural History.
If you think those canines are large, have a look at the saber-tooth!
Smilodon, “Cats: Predators to Pets”, Field Museum of Natural History.
Throughout the exhibit, an ordinary moggy is often inconspicuously lurking,
“Cats: Predators to Pets”, Field Museum of Natural History.
in this case demonstrating the stealthy approach used by his wild cousins.
“Cats: Predators to Pets”, Field Museum of Natural History.
“Predators” is not just part of the name of the exhibit: predation is shown in both several videos and mounted specimen groupings.
“Cats: Predators to Pets”, Field Museum of Natural History.
A caracal gets its dinner,
“Cats: Predators to Pets”, Field Museum of Natural History.
as does our cartoon moggy,
“Cats: Predators to Pets”, Field Museum of Natural History.
apparently because he’s been authorized by His Majesty’s Government.
“Cats: Predators to Pets”, Field Museum of Natural History.
I liked this demonstration, sort of from the inside, of how cats land on their feet.
“Cats: Predators to Pets”, Field Museum of Natural History.
These margay kittens won my vote for the cuteness award.
“Cats: Predators to Pets”, Field Museum of Natural History.
There was an explanation of how domestic cats evolved.
“Cats: Predators to Pets”, Field Museum of Natural History.
The following bit, however, was curiously equivocal as to how domestic cats got to the Americas– there’s no doubt they were brought here by man; it’s not just what “some historians believe”! Perhaps something was lost in the translation from French.
“Cats: Predators to Pets”, Field Museum of Natural History.
The latter part of the exhibit emphasizes cats in culture, including Bastet from Egypt,
Bastet, “Cats: Predators to Pets”, Field Museum of Natural History.
guardian lions from China,
“Cats: Predators to Pets”, Field Museum of Natural History.
and maneki neko from everywhere!
“Cats: Predators to Pets”, Field Museum of Natural History.
The biggest question posed by the exhibit is perhaps . . .
“Cats: Predators to Pets”, Field Museum of Natural History.
The popularity of Pusheen,
“Cats: Predators to Pets”, Field Museum of Natural History.
cat videos,
“Cats: Predators to Pets”, Field Museum of Natural History.
and cat stars of all sorts are explored.
“Cats: Predators to Pets”, Field Museum of Natural History.
Some of my favorites were Professor Cat
“Cats: Predators to Pets”, Field Museum of Natural History.
the original meme cat,
“Cats: Predators to Pets”, Field Museum of Natural History.
and, of course, Larry, from No. 10.
“Cats: Predators to Pets”, Field Museum of Natural History.
At the end of the exhibit, there’s a set of people-sized cat accessories– a scratching post, a mouse on a stick, a carpeted cat house. Here, a Field Museum colleague demonstrates how to remain alert for flying cat toys!
“Cats: Predators to Pets”, Field Museum of Natural History.
There’s a special “cat shop” just outside the exhibit. If you don’t already have your copy, you’ll want to get my friend and colleague Jon Losos’ book, The Cat’s Meow. Jerry reviewed it for the Washington Post, and also noticed it here at WEIT.
“Cats: Predators to Pets”, Field Museum of Natural History.
The exhibit is open till April 27. The exhibit has already been to the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto; I don’t know if it will continue its North American tour. So, to be safe, plan your visit to Chicago now!
The Skeptics Guide #1018 - Jan 11 2025
Good morning comments from a Kiwi, and a question about gender issues
I’ve been ssaving these, which were tendered by one “Cerry Joyne” on two different and random threads, the first on the ideological capture of scientists in New Zealand and the second on, of all things, a readers’ wildlife photo post.
Comment #1:
have you considered just fellating a shotgun instead of being a disgusting, transphobic cunt?
Comment #2:
hey jerry merry christmas, just wondering, along with all the other “new atheist” guys when it was that you became a delusional right-wing racist fuckwit?
Judging from the IP number, 60.234.105.217, it appears that this delightful person is a Kiwi:
Country:New Zealand
State/Region:Taranaki
City:Hawera
Needless to say, this Kiwi will post no more. This is only a sample of the (unposted and nasty) comments I have gotten since the KerFFRFle began. For some reason I cannot understand–and I invite readers to speculate—gender issues engender (pardon the pun) more hateful comments than any controversial topic I have ever discussed here. Suggestions?
Some Nooz
Here’s some quick morning news before I hightail it to the ideology-in-science meeting:
*The meeting yesterday was good, highlighted by a superb opening talk given by Jonathan Rauch, echoing the themes of his equally great book, The Constitution of Knowledge: A Defense of Truth. The quality of the talks was in general high, with just a few clunkers. Props to Anna Krylov, who was the uber-organizer of it all.
Lee Jussim gave a passel of examples of censorship in science, as did Lawrence Krauss (via Zoom), the latter concentrating on physics. Krauss also excoriated the National Academy of Sciences for political correctness, especially its explicit attempts to equalize membership equity, bypassing merit and apportioning extra new membership slots to sections of the Academy that have more ethnic and gender diversity, as well as geographic diversity. (He explicitly quoted the NAS’s policy which you can see here; it’s also quoted by Krauss in his WSJ piece here.)
But Marcia McNutt, President of the National Academies, was also at the meeting. When it was the turn of her panel (she talked about the geology of western North America), she briefly struck back at Krauss in an addendum, saying that she was talking about her own area of geological expertise and that Krauss, who “wasn’t a member of the NAS,” shouldn’t speak outside of his area of expertise. That was an unfair remark on her part, especially since Krauss quoted her own organization. Since when are you disqualified from criticizing how an organization based on merit places merit in second (or third) place when selecting members–just because you don’t belong to that organization? It may not be pleasant for the NAS to hear this, but people have every right to call out such a policy.
*Back in the real world, the LA wildfires are slowly coming “under control” as they say, but not all of them (article archived here):
The mammoth Palisades fire was roaring closer to residential areas of Los Angeles early Saturday, forcing a new round of evacuation orders and dimming hopes that a brief drop in wind speeds would help firefighters tame Southern California’s devastating blazes.
The desert winds that have stoked the fires are expected to pick up again Saturday afternoon. But even without high winds, the most destructive wildfires in Los Angeles’s history expanded overnight across the region’s bone-dry terrain.
The Palisades fire, the largest of them, tore east, chewing up parched vegetation as it raced up the ridges of Mandeville Canyon. The authorities issued mandatory evacuation orders for an area including parts of the Brentwood and Encino neighborhoods, as well as the Getty Center, one of Southern California’s cultural jewels.
The blaze, which has burned through 21,600 acres and razed stretches between Santa Monica and Malibu since it broke out on Tuesday, was only 8 percent contained, according to Cal Fire. To the east, firefighters had contained 3 percent of the 14,000-acre Eaton fire, near Altadena and Pasadena. The blazes, which have killed at least 11 people and destroyed thousands of structures, now rank among the five most damaging in California’s history.
With many people still unaccounted for, officials have said the death toll could rise.
Los Angeles announced a curfew from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. for areas under mandatory evacuation orders. National Guard units have been deployed to secure evacuation zones.
Here’s what we’re covering:
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Water shortage: After reports emerged that a critical reservoir was offline when the fires started, California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, said he was ordering an independent review to determine why firefighters ran out of water early on, calling the situation “deeply troubling.”
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The victims: Those who have died include a man in his 60s who lived in his childhood home and drove a bloodmobile; a retired aerospace engineer and an active church deacon; and a retired pharmacy technician whom neighbors called “an angel.” Read more about the fires’ victims.
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Scale of destruction: The combined area burned by this week’s fires is larger than the city limits of San Francisco, Pittsburgh, Boston or Miami. As of Saturday morning, more than 100,000 people were under evacuation orders, and some 160,000 electricity customers were without power.
That is a huge area. I can’t see the destruction from USC, but after the meeting is over I’ll venture out for a couple of days, coming near the burned area. I’m not a gawker and have no desire to see people’s destroyed homes, but two friends live close to the burned area and I’m visiting them. Another friend lost his beloved home and studio in the woods.
If you’re a celebrity-follower, or one of those who are delighted when the rich get a comeuppance (I’m not one of those, either), here’s a WSJ map of celebrity homes destroyed in the Palisades fire:
*Reader Norm sent this headline (click to read). Wouldn’t you know that those pnefarious Jews were responsible for the California wildfires? Oy! The article is by Vered Weiss from the World Israel News (h/t Norm):
A quote:
Code Pink: ‘When US taxes go to burning people alive in Gaza, we can’t be surprised when those fires come home.’
Anti-Israel groups took to social media to blame Israel for Los Angeles wildfires.
The fires have destroyed hundreds of buildings and prompted the evacuation of tens of thousands of California residents.
On Instagram, Code Pink created a tenuous connection between the fires and Israel’s war in Gaza.
Code Pink wrote, “When US taxes go to burning people alive in Gaza, we can’t be surprised when those fires come home.”
The Anti-Zionist group Jewish Voice for Peace wrote, “Instead of putting resources toward making our country livable, our government is putting billions toward Israel’s genocide of Palestinians in Gaza.”
Fatima Mohammed, head of anti-Israel group Within Our Lifetime posted, “The flames of Gaza will not stop there.”
“Dropping hundreds of thousands of bombs on Gaza, turning it into a blazing inferno, has consequences,” she said. “There are climate consequences that will find us all.”
Commentator Mehdi Hasan asserted that aid to Israel was interfering with funding LA’s fire department.
However, Hasan failed to recognize that Israeli military aid is federal and funding for the fire department is from the City of Los Angeles.
I mean, is that so hard to believe? After all, wasn’t it Marjorie Taylor Greene who, four years ago, blamed California wildfires on Jewish space lasers? Meanwhile, the Palestinians are celebrating the devastation (h/t Malgorzata):
Palestinians celebrate and gloat as the Los Angeles fires rage in the Hollywood hills, while their fans in the UK try to identify which of the victims in California deserve it because they are “Zionists.” pic.twitter.com/fMFTQHbgO8
— Saul Sadka (@Saul_Sadka) January 9, 2025
*Two pair of lynx have been captured in Scotland—in Cairngorms National Park in Scotland. Lynx do not exist in the wild in Scotland, and it’s not clear if these are Eurasian lynx (Lynx lynx; h/t Jez)
A second pair of lynx have been captured after being found near Kingussie in the Cairngorms National Park.
Two other lynx, released illegally, were caught in the same area on Thursday.
Staff from the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland caught all the animals by baiting a series of humane traps in the area to entice them.
The RZSS confirmed that the latest pair had been captured at about 18:30 near the Dell of Killiehuntly, where the two other lynx were also successfully caught.
The latest lynx, believed to be larger than the other two cats, were first spotted at about 07:10 on Friday.
Dr Helen Senn, head of conservation at RZSS, said: “I’m sure that everyone in the community will be happy and relieved to know that the second pair of lynx have been safely captured.
“Early reports are that they appear to be in good health, which is the most important thing.
“It’s been a rollercoaster 48 hours, with people working throughout the day and night, in some extremely challenging conditions, but I’ve been so impressed by the efforts of our own staff as well as partners, and members of the local community to ensure that the outcome is a positive one.”
She added that the lynx would be taken to the Highland Wildlife Park before being moved to Edinburgh Zoo to quarantine for 30 days – as has happened with the first pair found on Thursday.
It’s not clear if they will be released if they are given a clean bill of health, for Scottish naturalists would dearly love to have the species back where it once roamed.
*Today I’ll post four instead of the usual three items stolen from Nellie Bowles’s weekly news summary in the Free Press, called this week, “TGIF: Hellfire.”
→ The Gulf of America: Trump announced that he’ll be renaming the Gulf of Mexico. Now it’ll be the Gulf of America. Here was Trump on Tuesday:
We’re going to be changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America, which has a beautiful ring, that covers a lot of territory. The Gulf of America, what a beautiful name, and it’s appropriate.
I love that Trump is framing this as the normal way countries negotiate with each other. Tariffs? Yes. Sanctions? Sure. Change the name of a universally agreed-upon ocean? Absolutely. That is how real statesmen operate: Force your adversaries to relabel their maps. It’s also an incredible PR tactic. Shipwreck in the “Gulf of Mexico”? Don’t know what you’re talking about. New oil field discovered in the Gulf of America? Cha-ching!
Trump is going to release a whole new world map by the end of the year. Canada will be labeled “Area 51.” China renamed CHY-na. Ukraine? You’re thinking of “Little Russia.” New Mexico will, of course, become New America, Florida is D.C., and we’re throwing Connecticut to Elon Musk, who has decided to rename it X!12-ZZ Infiniti.
→ News for the Jews: In more news relevant to Jews (other than world domination), the head of Within Our Lifetime explained that there’s obviously no two-state solution: “As long as Israel exists, it is a genocide against the Palestinian people.” Remember when the whole thing was ceasefire and #peace? Funny how that shifts.
→ Funeral side-eyeing: At President Jimmy Carter’s state funeral yesterday, Kamala, who was seated in front of the formers (Trump, Obama, Clinton, my sweet little George), turned around as Trump and Obama chatted. She quickly looked away, took a deep breath, and pursed her lips. She pretended to read the bulletin like there were secrets in there. And for a moment, I felt her pain. George W. even gave Obama a little tap on the stomach. My favorite part of presidential funerals—yes, I have a favorite part—is getting to watch all these characters interact with each other. It’s like watching the most awkward reunion of The Real Househusbands of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
→ Sex is back: I don’t mean sex-sex. I mean males and females existing. That’s what a federal Kentucky judge decided when this week he struck down one of Biden’s signature policies: remaking Title IX to say that students can self-ID as whatever sex or gender they feel, play on any sport team they identify with, and enter any locker room. If schools didn’t go along with it, they would face the full force of the federal government. Now it’s over. What a strange journey we’ve gone on. Did that really happen?
Yes, indeed, Nellie, yes indeed it did.
After a break, Andrew Sullivan is back with The Weekly Dish. His column this week is called “The Price of Orthodoxies“. The theme is how orthodox opinion can blind us to not only the truth, but to horrible truths. His example are the Pakistani/Bangladeshi “rape gangs” (also called “grooming gangs”) in the UK. (And yes, I know there were some white rape gangs, too.) Excerpts:
The more intense the horror, the more powerful the instinct to doubt when you first hear of it. The sex-abuse scandal in my own church first numbed and incapacitated me. It took some time for me to see the totality of what had happened, and how deeply it had destroyed Catholic moral authority. Again, when I first read about, say, the Catholic school for deaf children where a priest had picked his victims among those whose parents did not know sign language, the feeling of horror was almost too much to process at all. And as with the Bush administration’s torture policy, it took even more time to grasp how this moral rot had been enabled by the very top.
This is why, I think, the scandal of Britain’s Pakistani rape-gangs, and the institutional negligence toward tens of thousands of underage victims over several years, has had a second burst of life. A serious national inquiry on the scandal was conducted years ago (its recommendations not yet implemented). But several towns with the worst records were omitted from that inquiry; and the sheer scale and depravity of what happened has finally begun to sink in. The precipitant was Elon Musk pontificating about the scandal on X, as part of his campaign to bring down Keir Starmer.
The details are hard to absorb. Think of the hideous abuse suffered by that extraordinary French woman, Gisèle Pelicot, sedated and raped by dozens of French men, organized by her husband. Now think of that kind of organized gang-bang — but make it close to ubiquitous in some towns and the victims under-age girls: raped, brutalized, mutilated, beaten, their lives destroyed. Yes, it was that bad. Tens of thousands of rape victims across the country. . .
Why was this allowed to go on for so long? For the same reason the Catholic Church covered up child rape for decades, and Dick Cheney covered up torture. Because the orthodoxies of Catholicism, of the American military, and, in this case, the multicultural experiment were respectively involved. These orthodoxies were sacred, their cultural power extreme. Catholic Boston, conservative America, and elite liberal Britain therefore defended their own orthodoxies for a very long time. And with every successful deflection of responsibility, the number of victims increased.
The truth damns the multicultural project in Britain. Rather than integrating these men of Pakistani heritage, insisting that they adopt the laws and mores of the native population, and treating them like everyone else, the UK elites celebrated cultural difference, enabled the siloing of these populations, bemoaned their own white working-class populations, and forbade any criticism of Islam. So if you called out this stuff, you were instantly called racist. After all, to accuse a non-white minority of raping white girls was a trope right out of white-supremacist fever dreams. And yes, it is a hideous racist trope — from the depths of the American South. But sometimes the trope is the truth.
In all the major cases, I’ve found no reported evidence of Pakistani or Muslim girls being groomed and raped — only poor, white natives.The justification among the rapists, moreover, was that these non-Muslims were sluts who were asking for it and beneath contempt. Racist insults were common as these girls were brutally abused. These were not just rapes, but hate crimes of a grisly sort.
It’s not true that the Brit media ignored the scandal. But it is also true that the space they gave it was trivial compared with, say, coverage of the George Floyd murder, thousands of miles away. And ask yourself: if it had been discovered that there were gangs of white nationalists singling out Pakistani-heritage girls for rape and abuse, with racist and Islamophobic slurs added for good measure, what would the media response have been? The question answers itself.
And if a white Brit had been found guilty of organizing the brutal gang-rape of a Pakistani 12-year-old girl, it’s hard to imagine him receiving a sentence of just three years. To get a sense of why the British public is pissed, it’s worth noting that last year, a white Brit was sentenced to a longer 38-month sentence for writing a social media post. More punishment for a white man’s inflammatory speech than for a non-white man’s gang-rape of a child: a near definition of wokeness. And you wonder why they call him Two-Tier Keir.
Yes, some readers think this is a confected scandal by conservatives aiming to depose the Labour Party and its Prime Minister. I do not agree with them in the sense that it is not made up, and it is a scandal involving disproportionate numbers of Pakistanis and Bangladeshis.
Finally, a few of us went to Anna Krylov’s (conference organizer) and her partner Jay’s lovely house for dinner the other night. They had been given an evacuation warning, and packed their car, but fortunately the warning was rescinded. I forgot to take photos of the food which was delicious (grilled chicken and a variety of Russian-style sides), but I did get one of the dessert. Also, I was promised that I would get to pet one of their two cats: Mishka (“bear” in Russian), a beautiful gray English shorthair. Here they are:
Mishka (he is somewhat standoffish):
Dessert:
I’ll try to get more photos today, but I doubt the picture of the venue (a large auditorium) or of the box lunches (delicious but unphotogenic) will thrill you.
Saturday: Hili dialogue
Meanwhile, in Dobrzyn, Hili is getting some self-care:
A: What are you doing?
Hili: I’m getting depressed.
A: And now, what?
Hili: As a part of the therapy I will turn to the wall.
In Polish:
Ja: Co ty robisz?
Hili: Wpadam w depresję.
Ja: I co teraz?
Hili: W ramach terapii odwrócę się od ściany.
Is There a Fifth Force of Nature?
Could a new, fifth force of nature provide some answers to our biggest questions about dark matter and dark energy? We’re working on it.
The Standard Model is, for all intents and purposes, the supreme accomplishment of modern physics. It describes four forces of nature, a zoo of particles, and how they all interact. It is perhaps the most successful scientific theory of all time.
And it’s fantastically incomplete.
It turns out that the Standard Model is able to account for less than 5% of all the matter and energy in the cosmos. Another 25% or so is Dark Matter, an unknown kind of matter that is for all intents and purposes invisible. The rest is known as Dark Energy, a mysterious entity that is causing the expansion of the universe to accelerate.
One of the first things astronomers noticed when they first discovered dark matter and dark energy was their apparent similarity. Why in the world are the two dark components of our universe roughly the same strength? I know, 25% and 70% don’t sound very similar, but when it comes to astronomy – and especially cosmology – they’re basically the exact same number.
Maybe it’s just a coincidence that they have about the same strength, and we’re overthinking it.
Or maybe it’s something else. Clever physicists have proposed connections within the “dark sector” of the universe, where dark matter and dark energy talk to each other. This would allow them to follow each other’s evolution, ensuring that they have roughly equal contributions to the energy budget of the universe for long periods of time.
To make them talk to each other, you need a force. But this force can’t be any of the known ones, otherwise dark matter and/or dark energy must also interact with normal matter, and we would have seen more directly evidence of them already.
So it has to be a new force, a fifth force of nature, completely different from electromagnetism, gravity, strong nuclear, and weak nuclear. While ideas like this remain only in the realm of hypothesis, some of the ideas already have names.
One name is quintessence, the fifth essence of the universe. Another is dark photons, a particle that travels the cosmos like a photon but is, as its name suggests, dark.
To test these ideas we have to turn to the cosmos for answers. If a fifth force exists, it must be very subtle. Stronger manifestations of the fifth force have already been ruled out by observations of galaxy clusters, the expansion of the universe, and even the behaviors of neutron stars. So we have our work cut out for us – it will take a truly massive amount of data to tease out some signal that differs from expectations.
The post Is There a Fifth Force of Nature? appeared first on Universe Today.
It's Time for Sustainable Development Goal for Space
In 2015, the United Nations adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development—the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)—a universal call to action to protect the planet for future generations and ensure that all people will enjoy peace and prosperity. These 17 goals included the elimination of poverty, hunger, and inequalities, the promotion of education, and the promotion of sustainable development worldwide. With the rapid development in Low Earth Orbit (LEO), there are growing concerns that an 18th SDG should be adopted for space.
This goal calls for the sustainable use of Earth’s orbit by space agencies and commercial industry and the prevention of the accumulation of space junk. This has become a growing problem in recent years thanks to the deployment of satellite mega-constellations and the “commercialization of LEO.” In a recent study led by the University of Plymouth, a team of experts outlined how the lessons learned from marine debris mitigation could be applied to space so that future generations can live in a world where space truly is “for all humanity.”
The study was conducted by an international collaboration of experts from the International Marine Litter Research Unit (IMLRU) at the University of Plymouth, the Aukland Space Institute and the Centre for Putaiao at the University of Auckland, the School of Earth and Climate Sciences (SECS) at the University of Maine, PBLWorks Ltd., the Arribada Club, Science StoryLab Ltd., the Centre for Aeronautics at Cranfield University, the Zoological Society of London (ZSL), NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and many other universities, institutes, and commercial space companies.
Graph showing how the number of unregistered objects (red) in space has increased in recent years. Credit: ESA/UNOOSAAccording to the ESA’s Space Debris Office (SDO), there have been 6,740 rocket launches since the beginning of the Space Age in 1957. The number of satellites these rockets deployed close to 20,000 satellites in orbit, about 13,230 are still in space while about 10,200 are still operational. These satellites have immensely benefited society, providing global communications, high-bandwidth internet, and other services used by billions of people worldwide. They’ve also enabled Earth observation science, allowing scientists to monitor ecological systems, forest fires, natural disasters, and climate change.
However, these launches have also left LEO littered with spent rocket stages, inoperable satellites, and debris from explosions or collisions. According to the SDO, there are currently 40,500 space debris objects greater than 10 cm (~4 inches) in LEO, and over 100 million measuring from 1 mm to 10 cm (~0.04 to 4 inches). This could lead to a scenario known as Kessler Syndrome, where the accumulation of debris increases the likelihood of more collisions, creating a vicious cycle that poses a significant hazard to active satellites and operations in space.
“It’s important because space is a finite resource in dire need of environmental protection, and it’s been neglected thus far because it hasn’t been universally accepted as such. Our collective actions are leading us to a tragedy of the commons,” said co-author Moriba Jah, a Professor of Aerospace Engineering & Engineering Mechanics at the University of Texas at Austin.
In 2009, Kessler wrote that attempts to model the orbital debris problem indicated the debris environment had already become unstable. With the number of launches dramatically increasing annually, it is clear to many that the time for action is now. Dr. Imogen Ellen Napper, a Visiting Research Fellow with the IMRLU, led the study that recently appeared in One Earth. As she said in a University of Plymouth press release:
“The need to protect and connect our natural environments, from the ocean to Earth’s orbit, has never been more urgent. Both are vital to the health of our planet, yet increasingly under threat from the pressures we place on them. There is growing recognition that marine litter knows no international boundaries, and the same applies to space debris. A UN-backed agreement would be a crucial step in safeguarding Earth’s orbit for the future.”
Their work builds on a previous article titled “Protect Earth’s orbit: Avoid high seas mistakes,” authored by Dr. Napper and many of her colleagues who contributed to this latest paper. In the article, the team cited how insubstantial maritime governance has led to overfishing, habitat destruction, deep-sea mining, and plastic pollution. They further called for a legally binding treaty to ensure that the future expansion of the global industry does not irreparably harm Earth’s orbit. Said co-author Dr. Thomas Dowling, a lecturer in Remote Sensing & Geospatial Science at the University of Auckland:
“Not so long ago, our oceans were regarded as infinite resources to plunder and infinite sinks for our waste. We now know that view was grossly mistaken – many marine environments are now barren wastelands and more than eight million tonnes of plastic debris is estimated to enter the ocean every year. Earth’s orbit is a similar finite environment to the ocean, and mindlessly exploiting the orbital environment is repeating the mistakes of the past.
“It’s time to create policies to regulate what we’re putting in space, and we need to ensure objects entering orbit are safe, sustainable, and serving essential – or at least important – purposes for significant numbers of people around the world.”
“Just like plastic pollution and climate change, space junk is an issue that transcends borders,” added co-author Professor Heather Koldewey, the ZSL’s Head of Ocean and FAIRER Conservation. “Our ongoing efforts to protect the ocean highlight how important UN-backed agreements are for managing this crisis. It’s key we learn from the challenges and solutions in tackling marine debris and act now to protect our planet’s orbit.”
In their article and study paper, the team argues that SDG18 should draw direct inspiration from an existing goal—SDG14: Life Below Water, which calls for a commitment to “conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development.” While several organizations have begun to recognize the need for action, the authors say an additional SDG could be the means through which a global call to action could be made. The necessary mechanisms could be developed and enforced.
They also argue that SDG18 would complement the existing SDGs that emphasize how space technology will support an improved understanding of global issues. This includes Earth Observation (EO) satellites for tracking climate change, organizing disaster relief, and providing geolocation through the Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS). However, the UN acknowledges that space-based research contributes to economic growth, increased food production, medical advances, access to research facilities, and connecting remote and isolated communities to services.
If this study emphasizes one thing above all, it is the interconnected nature of humanity’s efforts in space and life here on Earth. At the same time, it highlights the need for proactive measures and legal frameworks to address issues of global importance before they become unmanageable. Lastly, it reminds us that if humanity is to achieve the “Great Migration” and become an interplanetary species, we need to avoid making the same mistakes in space that we have on Earth.
The study was conducted with funding provided by the National Geographical Society.
Further Reading: University of Plymouth, One Earth
The post It's Time for Sustainable Development Goal for Space appeared first on Universe Today.
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A New Industrial Megaproject Threatens the View of the World’s Best Observatories
Astronomers have been battling threats to their clear skies on all fronts lately. One of the most notable battles, which we have reported on repeatedly, is the one against Starlink and other mega-constellations of satellites, which, while they offer high-speed internet in the most far-flung places, also disrupt observations by sensitive telescopes due to their reflectivity and fast movement speed. They also pose a global problem, whereas a more down-to-earth issue is cropping up at one very special observatory. A vast industrial plant threatens the European Southern Observatory’s Paranal telescope planned only a few kilometers from the site.
The ESO recently released a statement calling on the government of Chile, where Paranal is located, to consider moving the project elsewhere. Currently, AES Andes, a subsidiary of AES Corporation, an American power utility, recently submitted a proposal for the environmental review of a 3000-hectare industrial area that includes hydrogen and ammonium factories, electricity-generating machinery, and, importantly, a lot of lights.
Lights are part and parcel of any large industrial project, but they pose a particular threat to Paranal. In a recent study, it was found to be the observational site with the least amount of light pollution. Any significant increase to that baseline over only about .1% of the generic background level could have a massive negative impact on the capabilities of the telescope located there.
Levels of light pollution at observatories around the world.Credit – ESO, modified from Falchi et al
That telescope has been an essential part of the astronomical community and contributed to research such as the Nobel Prize-winning 2020 studies into the Sgr A*, the supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy. It also represents billions of dollars of investment from the European Southern Observatory member states.
When thinking about natural resources, a clear sky might not come to someone’s mind, but it certainly is for Chile. In addition to Paranal, two other Chilean observatories are in the top three least light-polluted major astronomical observatories – Armazones and Tokyo Atacama. It also has four more in the top 15, making it one of the best contributors in the world to this type of astronomy.
That contribution is planned to grow with the ESO’s ongoing development of the Extremely Large Telescope not far from the Paranal site. While the light pollution from the planned industrial facility might not reach as far as what will be the biggest telescope of its kind in the world, any precedent by the Chilean government to approve projects that would undercut investment by ESO and other astronomical bodies would be detrimental to the long-term outlook of observations in the country.
The night sky over Paranal.Credit – ESO YouTube Channel
Since the AES Andes proposal is still in the environmental impact assessment phase, it’s still early enough to provide feedback for a potential alternative. ESO’s letter shows support for the project in concept but suggests moving it to a different location so as not to negatively affect the telescope. Whether or not that is feasible and whether or not the Chilean government will support it at all remains to be seen. But this threat to one of the world’s great observatories shouldn’t be ignored.
Learn More:
ESO – World’s darkest and clearest skies at risk from industrial megaproject
UT – The ESO Releases the Most Detailed Infrared Map of our Galaxy Ever Made
UT – Existing Telescopes Could Directly Observe ‘ExoEarths…’ with a Few Tweaks
UT – The Paranal and the Shadow of the Earth
Lead Image:
Touching the Arc of Space – taken at the Paranal Observatory.
Credit – ESO / P. Horálek
The post A New Industrial Megaproject Threatens the View of the World’s Best Observatories appeared first on Universe Today.
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