Aug 1 2022 - Alien Species Far and Wide

 

Invasive species have travelled all over the planet in the form of plants, animals, fish.  The most impactful aliens travelling around are people and that has led to our new awareness of "colonization" behaviours.  But what about between planets - would we have alien species here now? The movies are focused on alien beings from space.  When rocks are brought back from the moon aren't they kept in isolation in case there are alien species that could come with them?  The idea of biological matter proliferating across the cosmos on rocks and ice is known as panspermia and is well studied. "Based on an experiment in 2015 on the International Space Station,  the bacteria Deinococcus radiodurans can survive at least three years in space. Akihiko Yamagishi, a microbiologist at Tokyo University of Pharmacy and Life Sciences who led the study, says the results also suggest that microbial life could travel between planets unprotected by rock." Scientists think that microbe spores could survive inside rock. That means that life could be transferred between Earth and Mars.  And then what?  They would have to survive re-entry into the other planet. That's likely a problem.   Although years-long trips are theoretically possible, scientists estimate that it can take up to several million years for matter to leave one planet and land on another within the solar system. What was the relevance of the study? “The relevance of this study is less in proving that massapanspermia or panspermia are possible,” says Cabrol. “But to me it shows that we have to be extremely careful with our contamination when we go to Mars.” Here we are again - we're the species everyone has to worry about. The article is HERE.  Here's the back view of Nelles Manor - at the left - and the small additional building straight ahead.  This "back" was originally the front of the house.  And then Main Street was re-routed and the back was now facing the street.  A new porch was put on to match the importance of the structure.  And the pretty-shaped  areas  around the bench are populated with that invasive species periwinkle.

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July 18 2022 - Space Pictures every day

Space this week and space every week.  Will there be pictures every week like those published in the last week?  The SPACE.com article says that astronomers were "starstruck" with the Webb telescope - more powerful than they could possibly imagine.  "It was an emotional day for scientists as they shared with the world the first science-quality images from NASA's next-generation observatory."  Here is the Flickr site with the most recent images. https://www.flickr.com/photos/nasawebbtelescope/albums This is an excellent gallery as it has no ads and is archival so one can see all the activities along the way. For example, it has engineering test imagines and pictures of staff involved in the deployment activities.   How many pictures would it take to photograph every person working on the James Webb Space Telescope?  More than 1,000 and in more than 17 countries.   That's a lot of people and countries. But the Webb telescope is focused on space and there's a lot of space to cover, so we likely can expect pictures every week.

It looks like the Caribbean to me, but its is one of the Grimsby gardens on the tour on Saturday.  Sitting on the lake edge, there's a little bunk down below.  Skyline viewing from there would be excellent.  Read more daily posts here: marilyncornwellblog.com Purchase works here: Fine Art America- marilyncornwellart.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.ca

Jan 24 2022- Lightning from Space

 

What made NASA put up a specialized science camera to track lightning?  It is attached to the International Space Station which circles the earth 16 times every day.   This NASA instrument has been cataloguing lightning strikes in the atmosphere since 2017. It is the second LIS to be launched after the first flew on NASA's Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite from 1997-2015. It is also the third dedicated lightning instrument NASA has put into space. The first was the Optical Transient Detector (OTD) on the OrbView-1 satellite, which circled Earth from 1995 to 2000. They now can identify the locations on Earth where lightning strikes the most - known as the Lightning Capital of the World.  It is now Lake Maracaibo in northwestern Venezuela.  At one time it was Lake Kivu on the border of Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo.  Africa remains the leader in the number of lightning hotspots. Lake Maracaibo's average flash rate is 389 per day.  The Lake Kivu location had 368 flashes per day.  But it can be thousands per night at its highest and about 300 nights per year, peaking in September.   And the reason why NASA tracks lightning?  To better help forecasters predict and alert the public to severe weather such as thunderstorms, tornadoes and hurricanes.  Here are two images that made me think of lightning.  Particularly the second one, found on the side of a dilapidated van.   Read more daily posts here: marilyncornwellblog.com Purchase works here: Fine Art America- marilyncornwellart.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.ca

Nov 22 2021 - Watching it on Pockocmoc

 

There was a lunar eclipse a few days ago, and the Weather Network had a little video of it.  The video was courtesy of POCKOCMOC.   Who is that?  It is the Roscosmos State Corporation for Space Activities, commonly known as Roscosmos.  It is the Russian Federations state corporation for space flights, cosmonauts programs and aerospace research.   As the main successor to the Soviet space program, Roscosmos' legacy includes the world's first satellite, first human spaceflight, and first space station. Its current activities include the International Space Station, where it is a major partner. Do you know how many employees it has?  There were 170,500 employees in 2020.   Compare that with NASA, where there are 17,000 people working.   What would it be like to work at ROSCOSMOS?  I have no knowledge of Russian corporate culture.  I imagine it to be autocratic with a command and control style.  But that's just my imagination of how state-run organizations would work. I find out there are a lot of organizations in this area. I checked out the jobs at the space-careers.com website. It covers news such as the Russian ASAT Test blowing up a satellite and creating a debris field.  Back to the job market, there are Recruiters and Candidates sections.  It says there are 20,515 CVs in the system and 697 jobs listed.  The Latest CVS are listed with the job title, country, and last update - countries include USA, Italy, Spain, UK and Russia.  The current job, preferred job location, date available are indicated.  All personal data is withheld.  The Clients section has the alphabetical list of companies in the "Space Business."  There are many looking for employees.   We all know the top 3 biggest private space companies.  They've been in the news lately -  SpaceX (Elon Musk) has 9,500 employees. Blue Origin (Jeff Bezos) has 3,500 employees, and Virgin Galactic (Richard Branson) has 823.  What about the these organizations and their top executives. You can see the ratings of the CEOs of space companies HERE, with the CEO of Virgin Galactic having a 75/100 rating, Blue Origin's CEO has 71/100, and Elon Musk has 83/100. Out of the 10 shown, there are four in the over 70 range. The other six listed are in the 55 to 66 range.  We're not likely going to see a rating of the CEO of Roscosmos - Dmitry Rogozin.  There are stories of a big salary much higher than NASA's CEO, fancy cars, and a dacha.  The expose is HERE.  Here is the moon over Sunnylea Crescent.

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Oct 28 2021 - Space Tourism vs Space Colonization

 

There are two themes in the race to space.  The first is the space tourism race.  Titans of private industry are racing each other to space.  It sounds so fun and glamorous - take William Shatner's reaction:  “What you have given me is the most profound experience," an exhilarated Shatner told Bezos after emerging from the capsule. “I hope I never recover from this. I hope that I can maintain what I feel now." That sounds like a lot of money to be made to get a life experience like this. CNN says that the big three are "not the only players in the game, and they may not be the only space barons for very long. There are hundreds of space startups across the United States and the world focused on everything from satellite tech to orbiting hotels." Space race articles often compare the current one to the space race of the last century. Except it isn't Western governments racing Eastern governments in a cold war scenario for military dominance as expressed through scientific and technological superiority.  And these led to increased industry and profits and economic growth.  A double win for the countries. The second goal of the space race is colonization. That's Elon Musk's goal - colonization of Mars.   Colonization is something that humans know a lot about.  In our recorded history, there have been three waves of colonization from the 1400s to the late 1800s.  From Wikipedia:  "The first wave of European expansion involved exploring the world to find new revenue and perpetuating European feudalism. The second wave focused on developing the mercantile capitalism system and the manufacturing industry in Europe. The last wave of European colonialism solidified all capitalistic endeavours by providing new markets and raw materials."   I notice that Wikipedia has no mention of human impacts - they do that in the entry on colonialism. Interesting that we're trying to sort through colonialism in our current era. With this facing us, the question is being asked in advance in relation to Mars colonization:  Is it ethical to go to the red planet?  There's more emphasis on questions like:  how will we get to Mars, who will build the rocket, can we get astronauts, and how to build habitats and live in them.   The question around ethics was investigated in a CBC series:  People may contaminate Mars. We can bring our microbes there and contaminate the indigenous life that's there. This topic is discussed in a CBC series HERE.   Currently the concern is that the answer will come from the billionaires who will be the first to get to Mars. This is a very big topic.  I expect we'll be doing a lot more "soul-searching" on it in the months and years to come. Our image is named Rocket Ship Ride.  I found this decay on a guard rail.  It seems perfect - leaving the planet behind in a trail of dust.

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Oct 5 2021 - Captain Kirk in Space

 

Did you know that Captain Kirk is going to space on Bezos' Blue Origin next week?  That's William Shatner, the actor who is 90.  Doesn't that seem a bit strange to think that an actor who pretended he was in space, should go to space?  This isn't like the female astronaut who was denied the opportunity.  He was an actor - that's not in any way related to a scientist or astronaut.  The BBC report says he had a fear of flying so rejected an earlier offer by Branson.  Shatner says he rejected it because Branson wanted him to pay for the flight.   I would have thought this is all publicity for the launch of commercialized space tourism.  Is it, though? It appears that last year The Times revealed that the ashes of James Doohan, who played Montgomery "Scotty" Scott, were smuggled on board the International Space Station in 2008, three years after Doohan's death.   And this fact: while this will be Shatner’s first physical trip to space, his name was one of more than two million that were included on the InSight Mars rover by NASA in 2018. This seems like something else is going on. I consider this to be a leak in the "social time continuum" where we think that television and movies are real, and those episodes happened.   And then another issue: that question of whether actors become the characters they are playing is taken to its limit.  That means the Star Trek "crew" through all those decades, all want to go to space.  Isn't that a lot of people? These Cyclamen were at the Niagara Falls Botanical Garden on the weekend, hidden away under some trees.  There are beds of Autumn-blooming Crocus - Colchicum. The glorious colour is amazing and the sheer number of the flowers catches my attention.  Why?   These are expensive bulbs.

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July 13 2021 - Billionaire Branson Blasts into Space

 

I was scrolling past the Branson headlines yesterday to find out about banana slicers.  what did Branson do? He 'soared more than 50 miles above the New Mexico desert.'  He was joined by SPCE.N employees - who unstrapped themselves and floated in and out of cabins with bezerkly goofy grins.     "We’re here to make space more accessible to all," an exuberant Branson, 70, said shortly after embracing his grandchildren following the flight. "Welcome to the dawn of a new space age." The race was on between Branson and Jeff Bezos, according to the Globe and Mail on the weekend. There are lots of headlines on 'the feud' getting petty. This is a highly publicized rivalry with fellow billionaire Jeff Bezos, the Amazon (AMZN.O) online retail mogul who had hoped to fly into space first aboard his own space company's rocket.  There are tweeted comparisons of Bezos' "better" rocket vs Branson's. There was a congratulations on Instagram. Bezos said on Instagram. "Can’t wait to join the club!" The flight was moved up to occur before the Bezos flight scheduled for July 20th. A big party was held afterwards with space industry executives, future customers and other well-wishers  Joining the reception was another billionaire space industry pioneer, Elon Musk, who is also founder of electric carmaker Tesla Inc Branson says 600 wealthy would-be citizen astronauts have also booked reservations, priced at about $250,000 per ticket for the exhilaration of supersonic flight, weightlessness and the spectacle of spaceflight. Branson has said he aims ultimately to lower the price to about $40,000 per seat as the company ramps up service, achieving greater economies of scale. Colglazier said he envisions eventually building a large enough fleet to accommodate roughly 400 flights annually at the spaceport. I wonder what the reviews will look like. I am still thinking about the banana slicer.   At the bottom of one of the articles is a "Litter-Robot" ad for automated cat litter collection.  I don't know if this is a comedic video or an ad. The cost is $660. It is at litter-robot.com and has 8,247 reviews.  Here we are at reviews again.  I scrolled through a few - my estimate is that out of this enormous number of reviews under 10% have correct grammar, spelling or even make sense.  If I pick out the silliest, this could be a rival to the banana slicer. Our picture today - ripe tomatoes. This is a tomato year at Lilycrest Gardens.  There are around 40 - 60 plants in the field.   Each is staked and pruned perfectly.  This picture comes from Cole's Garden Centre where tomato plants this year showed up with a full crop.

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Time Flows Downhill

We often think of time passing they way we read a book - we read it from left to right from the beginning to the end. There is a remote New Guinea tribe where time flows uphill.  The article is in the New Scientist here.  For this tribe, if they were facing downhill and talking about the future, the person would gesture backwards.  How interesting compared to us - we have a few standard notions of time's spacial orientation.   “HERE and now”, “Back in the 1950s”, “Going forward”… Western languages are full of spatial metaphors for time, and whether you are, say, British, French or German, you no doubt think of the past as behind you and the future as stretching out ahead. Time is a straight line that runs through your body." A standard memory pattern is to recall the past looking up to the left, and imagine the future looking up to the right.  You can find out if this is your internal process by considering a daily activity - e.g. brushing one's teeth.  First recall brushing your teeth yesterday, and the day before, etc.  Next imagine brushing your teeth tomorrow, the next day, etc.  You will likely 'see' an image of yourself placed in front of you to the right and the left.  Today's image is a weathered piece of wood on a St. Augustine dock, with the title "Time Flows Downhill".  How would we interpret this title compared to our New Guinea tribe?

Winter Blues

I did some indoor photography yesterday with cyclamen.  Indoor work lets you sit down, change the colour of the sky, the amount of light, the position of the flowers.  These are the portraits.




"Winter Blues"
Indoor cyclamen looks out to the blue winter sky, longing for the warm summer days outside.

"Spring Longing"
Indoor cyclamen sees the blue winter skies outdoors, filled with frost and snow. It feels alone and wonders if it will ever see Spring, despite the company of its Kin.