M. Thomas Apple's Blog, page 20

Betelgeuse! Betelgeuse! Betel…

Betelgeuse, the closest red giant to Earth, has long been understood to move between brighter and dimmer in 400-day cycles. But from late 2019 to early 2020, it underwent what astrophysicists called “the great dimming”, as a dust cloud obscured our view of the star.

Now, it is glowing at 150% of its normal brightness, and is cycling between brighter and dimmer at 200-day intervals – twice as fast as usual…It is currently the seventh brightest star in the night sky – up three places from its usual tenth brightest.

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2023/may/26/its-new-territory’s-why-is-betelgeuse-is-glowing-so-brightly-and-behaving-so-strangely?

Betelgeuse is the closet red giant Star to our solar system, one of the shoulders of the Greek constellation of Orion.

The cultural information in the linked article was actually more interesting than the phenomenon observed. For instance, the fact that an Aboriginal people in Australia saw it long before the Greeks did was something I didn’t know.

(Although ancient humans in what is now Germany apparently carved an image of it around 32,000 years ago…)

And that the Greek name comes originally from the Arabic “bat al-jawzāʾ” meaning “giant’s shoulder.”

And all three cultures saw the star as connected with fire held by a giant hunter of some sort.

And so have ancient Babylonians, Egyptians, and probably everyone else, too. We just can’t help personifying even the stars.

The kicker?

When it does eventually explode, it could – over the course of a week – grow so bright that it will be visible during daylight, and cast shadows at night.

Now that’s something I’d like to be around to see. Hmm. If only I could manage to live for another 10- to 100,000 years…

And today’s random writing prompt is…

Have you ever broken a bone?

Depends on how you define “broken.”

I got two bone spurs, separated by two years, thanks to playing baseball in junior high school. Both were fingers on my left hand.

The first time was my left thumb first joint. The second time was my left finger second joint.

Both times, our local health clinic doctor put a metal splint on the finger, wrapped it in flexible bandage and sealed it off with a tiny metal clip.

And of course I stupidly went on playing baseball, because at age 15 guys think they are completely indestructible.

My ring finger stuck out when I batted. I’m lucky I didn’t get hit by a pitch in the hand (I did get hit on the knee, but that’s a whole ‘nother story).

Also, it inspired my baseball novel. So there was a silver lining!

Cancel your asteroid insurance – for the next thousand years

Does anybody remember Spirographs?

Of all the asteroids they modeled, the one with the largest risk of impact was a kilometer-wide asteroid known as 1994 PC1. Over the next thousand years, the probability that 1994 PC1 will cross within the orbit of the Moon is a paltry 0.00151%, hardly worth worrying about.

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/cancel-asteroid-insurance-earth-declared-150002866.html

Thanks to Glen Hill over at Engagin’ Science (formerly Scientia, which apparently was far too Latin- and science-esque for search engines to handle) for bringing this (not-so Earth-shattering) info to my attention.

Sorry, folks. Hollywood was once again wrong (sigh).

Largest cosmic explosion ever witnessed

Fireball ‘100 times the size of the solar system’ thought to have been caused by gas being sucked into supermassive black hole

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2023/may/12/astronomers-capture-largest-cosmic-explosion-ever-witnessed

Fortunately, this is about 8 billion light years away.

But it’s been going for over three years now.

Yow.

A taste of Scientia

The word has just come in that a fellow traveler has set up his own blog about science.

It’s called Science.

(In Latin, Scientia.)

Glen is a good friend of mine, and not only is he a good scientist, he’s also a good writer. His avowed goal is to raise science literacy and share his love of science with the world.

We may even steal posts from each other from time to time. Or photos (like the one above ).

Check it out: https://scientiameansscience.blogspot.com

fMRI, GPT-1, and your brain

Scientists have found a way to decode a stream of words in the brain using MRI scans and artificial intelligence.

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2023/05/01/1173045261/a-decoder-that-uses-brain-scans-to-know-what-you-mean-mostly

While not perfect, this is some seriously scary stuff.

FWIW the researchers themselves did recognize this…

Although it’s nowhere near being able to decode spontaneous thoughts in the real world, the advance raises concerns that, with improvement, the technology might mimic some type of mind reading. “Our thought when we actually had this working was, ‘Oh my God, this is kind of terrifying,’” Huth recalls.

https://www.science.org/content/article/scientists-use-ai-decipher-words-and-sentences-brain-scans

Participants have to consent to being “read,” and there are ways to prevent the software from figuring out even the “gist” of what they were thinking.

Still, imagine if some nefarious criminal group (or governmental agency, if there is a difference) decided to force someone to consent to have their thoughts read.

Long distance.

Permanently.

It’s getting harder and harder to distinguish scifi from reality.

Another “hard landing”?

Artist’s depiction of what will never happen now

“We have to assume that we could not complete the landing on the lunar surface,” Hakamada said.

https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2023/04/25/ispace-moon-landing-watch-live.html

Or…

…Ispace engineers observed that the estimated remaining propellant was “at the lower threshold and shortly afterward the descent speed rapidly increased.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/25/science/ispace-moon-lander-japan.html

Or as the New York Times reporter succinctly puts it: “In other words, the spacecraft ran out of fuel and fell.”

Another “hard landing on the lunar surface.”

I.e., it crashed onto the Moon and went kablooie.

So much for private company based space exploration.

Spaceships are having a difficult week…

JUICE it ESA!

Led by the European Space Agency (ESA), the mission will orbit the largest planet in the solar system and explore its icy moons, which scientists think could support living organisms.

JUICE will explore three possible ocean-bearing moons – Europa, Ganymede and Callisto. Under their icy surfaces are thought to be huge oceans of water – a crucial ingredient for life as we know it.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/4/13/explaining-juice-mission-to-jupiter-and-its-moons

The “Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer” is the first time an ESA-headed project will visit another moon.

If it launches successfully, of course.

Lift off in less than seven hours from French Guiana!

Great job by Alzajeera, although “Earth is about 4.1 times the size of Europa and is believed to have a young and active surface that may vent water vapour to space via plumes and geysers.” is a bit misleading (Europa, not Earth, is believed to have…)

Copy editor!

Yet another high school prompt

Describe something you learned in high school.

I learned in high school how much I wanted to graduate and never come back.

Another day, another JAXA failure

The bankruptcy filing by Richard Branson’s Virgin Orbit Holdings Inc (VORB.O) has dealt a blow to Japan’s hopes of building a domestic space industry, with plans for a Kyushu-based spaceport designed to attract tourism on hold for lack of funding.

https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/virgin-orbit-bankruptcy-casts-shadow-over-japans-space-dreams-2023-04-07/

Granted, this news is from four or five days ago.

Still, it’s jarring to see TV news about JAXA and NASA doing “joint” explorations of Mars, and then see a constant failure of JAXA to do anything based in Japan.

Something is seriously wrong with this space agency. And I suspect it has nothing to do with the scientists or astronauts.