No, a Chinese Rocket is Probably Not Going to Fall On Your Head

Yes, China needs to do something about massive 5B boosters falling back to Earth in an uncontrolled manner.

No, it's unlikely it will land on your head.

There is a fairly high chance, though, that it will land somewhere in the U.S. The debris will reenter the atmosphere on...well, some time on Saturday, or maybe Sunday. That's the real issue. We don't know.

It could also land in Africa, India, Brazil...

But the risk of it landing on your head is far, far lower than the risk of being struck by lightning. Please ignore the Daily Mail.

(Actually, always ignore the Daily Mail. Except to mock them).

Underground, Overground, Wombling free...

 ...the Wombles of Wimbledon Common are we.

If you aren't familiar with those lyrics, then you're probably not a Gen-X Brit. First aired in 1973, The Wombles was a stop motion cartoon based off of a series of books by Elizabeth Beresford. It ran for only two seasons (but 60 episodes because they were short)...but was re-run many times.

The cartoon featured a group of pointy-nosed, fluffy (vaguely hedgehog-like) creatures who lived beneath Wimbledon Common by collecting and recycling litter. It had a not at all subtle "Reuse and recycle" message, a catchy theme song, and a narrator.

The Wombles didn't even have voice actors. All of the characters were voiced by one man. Sadly, the show is not currently available to watch legally and appears to be out of print in DVD. Britbox, come on, you're falling down on the job. A couple of additional episodes were made in 2016 with actual voice actors, but it doesn't appear to have gone anywhere.

So, why am I dredging up this nostalgia-fest?

The one man who did all the voices for The Wombles was Bernard Cribbins. He started his career on the stage at the age of 14.

He ended it in the Doctor Who 60th Anniversary special where he was seen reprising Wilfred Mott in a wheelchair.

He was also well known for narration work in the long running series Jackanory (in which the wombles were first introduced) and played a role in several of the Carry On movies. He was even in a couple of episodes of The Avengers and played bit parts in the 1967 Bond parody Casino Royale. He was in one of the forgotten Doctor Who Dalek TV movies.

Bernard Cribbins did the 60th anniversary in a wheelchair and died today at the age of 93. I do believe that was a fine note to go out on for an actor who is not nearly as well known as he deserved.

Making good use of the things that we find

Things that the everyday folks leave behind

We Just Found Where To Put Our Moon Colonies

 There are apparently pits and caves on the moon where the temperature stays at about 63 degrees. You know, comfortable for humans.

And some of them may have caves that could also be a stable temperature. This also indicates that it would be easy to build habitats with similar characteristics.

One of the issues with the moon is wild temperature swings. These pits and caves fix that.

It's Not Aliens...Right?

 Right.

A meteorite found in Diablo Canyon in 1891 has been analyzed and turned out to contain an interlocking form of graphite and diamond, never seen before, that forms a layered pattern with stacking faults.

And if we can duplicate this in the lab we can create a material that's light as a feather, strong as a diamond, transparent, highly conductive, and has adjustable electronic properties.

That's so useful one has to wonder about the origin of this meteorite.

It's probably not aliens. It may well only have formed when the meteorite hit.

But this could be used for targeted medicines, tiny tiny electronics with fast charging speeds and bendier screens.

Want a smart tattoo?

RIP David Warner

 We just lost an icon. I think that's the best word, because let's just list some of David Warner's performances:

Alpha in Men In Black: The Series

Spicer Lovejoy in Titanic

Lord Agon in Beastmaster III

Archmage in the Gargoyles series

Ra's Al Ghul in the 1990s animated Batman series

Chancelor Gorkon in Star Trek VI

St. John Talbot in Star Trek V

The Evil Genius in Time Bandits

Ed Gillinger/Sark/Master Control Progam in TRON

Duke Richard of Lionsgate in The Legend of Prince Valiant

Jack the Ripper in Time After Time

He also played at least three kings of England (George III, Edward II and Henry VI) and showed up at least once in so many places: The Omen, Remington Steele, Perry Mason, Twin Peaks, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, The Lost World, Tales From The Crypt, Captain Planet and the Planeteers, Star Trek: TNG, Murder, She Wrote, Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, Babylon 5, the Beastmaster movies, Freakazoid!, the 1990s Spider-Man animated series, Winnie the Pooh, Total Recall 2070, The Outer Limits, the 1990s Superman animated series (as Ra's, so it was presumably a crossover), Star Wars, Baldur's Gate, Batman Beyond, Buzz Lightyear, Planet of the Apes, Scooby Doo, the Hogfather movie, Doctor Who, Midsomer Murders, Penny Dreadful, Mary Poppins, Teen Titans...

He mostly played villains and I think we will all remember how much scenery he consumed. I certainly won't forget his performance as Gorkon.

David Warner died this week at the age of 80.

I think we just found the Vortex

 

No, this isn't the new Doctor Who title sequence even if it does have a blue box in the center...uh oh.

We're...doomed.

Does Reality Exist?

Remember the old saw about if a tree falls in the forest and nobody's there, did it happen? (Bad example, because the trees are there, the various forest critters are there, a forest by definition can't be empty, but it's the one everyone likes).

Physicists in China have come up with a quantum parlor trick called the Mermin-Peres game that demonstrates that if you use a specific set of measurements, you will always win.

Measuring reality appears to create it.

Philosophically, this implies that the universe can't exist without observers and from what we know, observers have to be alive.

So, what was alive right after the Big Bang? Or are we...or some other sapient species...creating the universe by observing it even though we can't exist without the universe? Eek, quantum headaches.

(You could also use this as a reasonable argument for the existence of God...or at least of some kind of Prime Mover. But I don't think the system requires God).

Are You an Engineer?

 If so, NASA needs your help. They are tossing out a challenge to crowdsource the design of a starshade.

So, what this would do is block glare from stars, allowing a ground-based telescope to search for exoplanets. You know, one we have already built. This would be cheaper than another space telescope by a lot.

Details about the contest are here.

Solar Flare Time

 We're about to get hit by a fairly big one. It's not going to cause any damage.

However, if you are going anywhere unfamiliar today, you may want to get directions first. Today's storm is expected to cause some disruption to GPS systems, meaning your phone might not know where you are for a bit.

Be careful out there.

(And learn to read a map, dangit! I don't just say that because I'm a dinosaur!)

It's Not an Accident that Aspirin Kills Pain

 So, salicylic acid, which is the plant-based equivalent to aspirin, is produced by most plants. And now we know why.

Plants produce more salicylic acid when they are under environmental stress.

And we're starting to think plants may in fact feel pain.

So, plants evolved a natural chemical to regulate reactive oxygen species (things like sunburn) and now we copy it to treat our own stress-related aches and pains.

Is it aliens?

 No, it's a magnetar, but it's fascinating. It's a fast radio burst...that's about 1,000 times longer/slower than average with a clear pattern.

The signal itself had a heartbeat inside it. It's from a long way away. And it's peculiarly consistent.

What is it? A magnetar or pulsar that is, for whatever reason, rotating much more slowly than average. One day we'll understand how these things work. One day...

Childhood and Smarts

 Is intelligence a factor of absolute brain size? The crows say "Nope." How about brain/body ratio? Not really.

Turns out that what you need to be smart is...

...to take longer over developing your brain.

Intelligence is directly related to childhood. To an extended period of development dominated by play. It's true of the crows. It's true of parrots.

And the human brain takes over two decades to fully develop.

We still don't know everything, but if you're going to create an intelligent species, then it might be a reasonable assumption that it will have a long childhood.

Don't Worry, We're Not All Going To Die

 Scientists have now done the math as to how much a passing star would need to perturb the solar system to destroy it.

0.1 percent if it nudged Neptune. Said star would have to pass within 23 billion miles of us (Proxima Centauri is 24.8 trillion miles away). And it would start a slow process that might take, uh...billions of years.

So, no, we're not all going to die and those disaster movies don't really work.

(Although there's still a plot bunny here...)

I Know It's Everywhere...

 

...but I can't stop staring at it.

The six pointed things are stars.

Every other dot or streak in that image is a galaxy. Don't try to rub the smudge near the center from your screen.

That smudge is caused by gravitational lensing. We are literally looking at gravitational lensing, which was theoretical not all that long ago.

The image is a test image. Remember the first Hubble Deep Field image? This is the same part of the sky, which is intentional.

It's 4.6 billion years old. This is fossil light. This is the universe as it was. Makes me wonder how many civilizations rose and fell before we even left our oceans.

Note that this image is all in the infrared, hence why everything is red and orange. It's been digitally processed to fall within the human visual range.

More images will be released in an hour or so. This is it.

The JWST is ready to do science.

Japan, You Are Either Awesome or Overcomplicating Things

 A Japanese team has designed "artificial gravity living facilities" that would spin on other planets to equal Earth gravity.

I get why they would want to do this, because we evolved for 1G and our bones don't like not having the resistance.

But here are the very real issues:

1. The one for the moon would spin every 20 seconds. Even with no outside cues, can we be sure this won't create vertigo? Maybe even knowing it would make you throw up!

2. How do you get in and out.

Oh, and they are also pipe dreaming about...an...interplanetary space train that will generate its own gravity. They want to put bullet trains in space, because of course they want to put bullet trains in space.

This sounds more like the plot for an anime than real scientific research, but it would be kind of neat if they can pull it off.

Ball pit asteroid?

 It appears that the surface of Bennu, the asteroid we got a sample from two years ago, more resembles a ball pit than anything solid.

In fact, NASA said that if OSIRIS-REx had tried to stay on the asteroid it would have sunk in.

There's a massive plot bunny there. Somebody tries to land on the wrong kind of asteroid, gets stuck, and has to be rescued.

More Pretty Pictures!

 Could I get any more excited about the JWST?

Probably, but not much at this point. This beautiful fine guidance sensor test image is on SciTechDaily.

The things with the pointy ends are stars. The other things in the image? Those are galaxies. Space is awfully big.

We can't be alone. We can't.

Pretty Pictures

 A little stressed today, so I'm just going to redirect everyone to these pretty pictures.

These are the finalists for Astronomy Photographer of the Year.

I'm particularly fond of the Iceland one. The comet is also really cool. Oh, and one of them has the Clifton Suspension Bridge!

No, Tabloids, We're Not All Going To Die

This time it's The Sun saying that the Mars sample return mission will unleash an alien virus and, of course, we're all going to die.

So, here's a few reasons to relax:

1. All samples will be studied in a full biosafe facility. They can't be sterilized before returning them because that would destroy the stuff we're looking for.

2. It's highly unlikely anything in the samples will be alive anyway, due to the heavy radiation. Any remaining life on Mars is going to be pretty deep underground.

3. Anything that evolved on Mars, even if it had a common ancestor with Earth life, is going to be far enough away from us that it is highly unlikely it will be pathogenic.

So, no, not much chance of a Space Plague <tm>, as much as SF authors love them.

Capstone is On Its Way

 The Capstone satellite, which will map out orbits for Lunar Gateway, has broken Earth orbit and is heading for the moon.

Oh, and even more fun, they still have some fuel in the tank of the orbital transfer vehicle that put it on its course. They now have to decide what to do with it, because we can't waste rocket fuel, right? ;).

Mr. Nobody's Rocket

 Many years ago I worked as a part time admin assistant at the National Institutes of Health. I was working lab-adjacent (never actually went into the lab because, ya know, bio-control).

One day I discovered a mouse in my office. This mouse was clearly a lab mouse, of a strain used primarily for gene knockout research.

"Who lost a mouse?"

Not a single scientist on that floor was willing to admit to having lost a mouse. And we never did recapture Mr. Nobody's Mouse. It eventually disappeared. (Threats to bring in a cat were made).

Mr. Nobody's Mouse is probably still a story there. It's certainly one of mine.

Now we have Mr. Nobody's Rocket. Because the rocket that slammed into the moon?

Nobody wants to admit to having launched it.

It made a double crater too, which is really weird.

Maybe it's aliens?

More likely it's somebody's spy satellite launch gone very, very wrong.