JWST Provides More Questions

 As I hoped, the JWST is starting to show us what we didn't know.

And one of the things has to do with the universe's earliest galaxies. According to Hubble, these were small, slightly chaotic and misshapen.

JWST is showing us large, well-organized galaxies, demonstrating that Hubble's results were limitations in the instrumentation.

What does this mean? One possibility is that the universe is older than we thought and these galaxies aren't that early.

Another possibility is that we're overestimating the age of these galaxies because dust and debris is messing with the red shift values we use to calculate them. This seems to be the most likely, but a more exciting explanation may yet exist.

We've Seen This Movie

 Chinese scientists have created the first mammal with a different number of chromosomes. And apparently some of their earlier attempts had "weird behaviors."

Fortunately, they're mice.

But then they bred them. With normal mice.

Guys, this is how we get Pinky and the Brain.

Then again, I might welcome our new rodent overloads.

(They're sub-fertile, at least).

A true water world may exist

 Monobiome worlds are an annoying staple of science fiction. Tatooine is not entirely infeasible (Look at Mars). Hoth might also be possible. But when that's all your characters visit...

And it seems that we may have found a world entirely covered with water.

TOI-1452b orbits one of two stars in a binary system about 100 light years away, and is slightly larger than Earth. It's in the Goldilocks zone.

And it's considerably less massive than it should be, which has led researchers to think it may be entirely covered by...water. Enceladus is also a water world, but being much further out, the ocean is frozen.

On TOI-1452b it would be liquid. Water may make up as much as 30% of its mass. James Webb may be able to test the hypothesis.

So, an entirely ocean covered planet. With two suns. Who might make that their home? There are plotbunnies resident for sure.

7 million years...

 That's how long we've been...walking on two legs. Sahelanthropus, the oldest known hominid, appears to have walked on two legs when not climbing in trees. They were about the same size as a chimpanzee, but had a more human-like face (did we lose our muzzle because it made it harder to see our feet when navigating difficult terrain?). They had chimp-like arms, with powerful forearm muscles.

We now think that a primarily bipedal gait is the thing which separates hominids from apes. But at the same time they could still climb trees, something adult humans find challenging.

(Young children, as we all know, have retained the ability and desire to climb trees. No doubt this helped keep them safe from predators during our lower tech history).

Planetary Defense is...

 ...close to go. No, we don't mean protection from little green men.

We mean protecting ourselves from ending up like the dinosaurs.

On Monday, September 26, a test will be performed in which NASA will attempt to use a robot spacecraft to deflect an asteroid by ramming it. The asteroid concerned poses no threat to Earth and is far enough away that there's no risk of us making the situation worse.

This is essentially a proof of concept...does it work and are we getting the math right...that will start the preparation for deflecting an actual threat.

I have my fingers crossed.

In Space Nobody Can Hear...

 ...well, actually, some parts of space do have enough matter for sound to propagate.

Which is how we have this. A sonification of the black hole at the center of the Perseus galaxy cluster.

It sounds like whalesong.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/08/23/nasa-black-hole-sound/

Yes, this is heavily processed. But...definitely whalesong!

(My dad would start up about the music of the spheres being real, see, at this point).

Technological Mammals

 I just found this Wired article and have to take issue with it.

It's an analysis of the chances of a replacement species evolving if humanity becomes extinct. They argue the chances are low.

They also state multiple times that it requires the evolution of mammals!

Guys...guys...stop being so parochial. Of the second tier species that would be most likely to take our place, well, here's the list:

Chimps/other great apes (yes, mammals)

Elephants (also mammals)

Cetaceans (also mammals)

Corvids. HOLD UP. Not mammals! They'd probably be insulted.

In order of likelihood for who would take over, though?

We can pretty much dismiss cetaceans for technological civilization. It's hard to use advanced tools when aquatic and by the time they had come back out of the sea... Also no manipulative appendages.

Elephants have the problem of being so large and their manipulative appendages are pretty weak sauce. They're possible.

Chimps? They have all the physical advantages we do, but I'm placing them second because there aren't that many great apes.

The most likely species to develop a technological civilization out of our ruins?

It's the crows.

They are everywhere and are capable of making tools, have the knowledge of trade, can even handle concepts like water displacement. They hold funerals. They visit their parents.

It's the crows, people.

Dear Wired author, stop. Think. And set aside your mammal prejudice.

So, what should we grow on Mars?

 We've got those pesky perchlorates, salty soil, and no helpful microbes. What will grow?

The first crops on Mars would be soil creators. And the key crop is...alfalfa.

Alfalfa is a fodder crop typically grown to feed livestock. What you do is grow alfalfa, then plow it back in and grow turnips, radishes and lettuces. It will grow in  simulated Martian regolith as long as we flush out the perchlorates (we need something which eats perchlorates, dang it).

Water on Mars will need to be desalinated.

Alfalfa could also be used to feed livestock, but only two major livestock species are feasible due to their size: Rabbits and guinea pigs. Sorry, Martian colonists, if you want meat you'll have to eat Thumper.

Other food crops could be grown hydroponically if we can get the water desalinated.

Would People Please Stop Copying Hollywood Movies?

 Apparently, trying to tunnel into a bank vault is not a good idea. This group of Italian clowns failed to appropriately shore up their vault tunnel.

It collapsed on them. Three of the four escaped, but one poor schmuck had to be dug out by firefighters, which took six hours. He's apparently going to survive to face charges.

They are not saying that was what was going on, but it appears that's what was going on. "We don't know for sure that they're thieves."

In other words, shore up your vault tunnel.

Or just don't try to do movie stunts. Sigh.

Is the SLS Ready to Go?

 Maybe! NASA hopes to launch one before the end of August. It's 320 feet long, significantly more powerful than the Saturn V, and five years behind schedule.

Let's hope it doesn't experience a "catastrophic failure." Which is engineer speak for blowing up...and rockets on their maiden flights do have that habit.

The current launch window is on August 29, but of course weather, technical issues, range safety concerns, etc, could delay it.

But if all goes well you will be able to watch it live on NASA TV at 8:33am EST on August 29.

Schrodinger's Galaxy?

 No, it's not a galaxy that may or may not exist.

It's a galaxy that may or may not be a very long way away (which also means a long time ago).

The culprit is CEERS-1749. We may be seeing it as it was around 220 million years after the big bang, based off of red shift.

Except it may be in a cluster with two galaxies that are about 12.5 billion years ago...much, much younger. Meaning the red shift is some kind of illusion, likely caused by a lot of dust or being what we call "redshift quiescent" - that is that star formation ceased early in development.

The universe keeps getting weirder.

Mammoth steaks?

 Personally, no. But there's talk about bringing back mammoths (which, by the way I don't actually agree with).

And, of course, talk about eating them.

I have a line I draw, and that is that if it passes the mirror test or demonstrates abstract thought, no. Cows, while fairly smart, do not have this capability. Neither do horses, although I prefer not to eat horse as it feels like I'm breaking an agreement with the ones I ride.

Elephants, however, do. If mammoths are as smart as elephants...then no, I won't eat them.

(By the way, the tl;dr on why I don't like it is because we need elephant mothers to birth elephants, not mammoths, and any mammoths we make will be culturally...elephants...there will be differences. Mules are culturally horses, but still show cognitive differences. But...we can't actually bring back mammoths because we can't restore their culture).

We've seen this movie...

 Scientists have inserted human genes into yeast. Ack! Yeast monster!

Actually, yeast cells operate remarkably like human cells, which is probably part of why food fermented with yeast is so important to us.

In this case, it's human muscle genes.

This is something that's being worked on, and it allows us to analyze a single process. The most recent one involves a mechanism that is involved in some cancers, so we could use it to study tumor processes safely.

But I can't help but think of the sourdough starter familiar from Kingfisher's A Wizard's Guide to Defensive Baking.

Top Scientist Pranks the World

 A French scientist released a close up of a slice of chorizo and claimed it was a JWST image of Proxima Centauri. It was, of course, a prank. He posted it to see who would notice and to make a point about not believing anything you see in the galaxy.

I didn't see it at the time, but I would like to think I would have noticed. Mmm...chorizo.

Why are some meteors green?

 A green meteor burned up in the sky over New Zealand. This might sound weird, but it's actually fairly common.

If a meteor is traveling fast enough, it can get so hot that the iron and nickel in it glow green. And if you are close to the poles, green meteor tails can also be caused by the same magnetic phenomenon that creates auroras.

Which is why New Zealand gets more of them.

No aliens. Sadly.

So many pretty pictures...

 

Image from NASA.

That is the Cartwheel Galaxy. It is 500 million light years away.

It's a composite from the JWST's two infrared cameras. The red light is from MIRI and the blue from NIRCam. (Most of these kinds of astronomical images are false color).

Those thin spokes are dust. Lots and lots of dust. This galaxy formed in a merger, so...

The data associated with this image will tell us more about how stars form.

Why is the Earth in Such a Hurry?

 June 29th was the shortest day since we invented atomic clocks in the 1960s. In general, the Earth is slowing down, so why did this happen?

The answer appears to be related to the Chandler wobble, which is the typical small irregular movement of the geographical poles. From 2017 to 2020 it stopped, for reasons that presumably have to do with shifts deep in the Earth's core.

If it speeds up further we may have to institute a negative leap second to keep civic time with solar time. Let's hope not...because I can hear every IT professional groaning from here.