@JohnBarentine@astrodon.social
@JohnBarentine@astrodon.social avatar

JohnBarentine

@JohnBarentine@astrodon.social

Astronomer. Historian. Author. Small business owner. Arizona native. Proud LGBT American. 🏳️‍🌈 Retiring to asteroid 14505. Questioning everything; occasionally getting in trouble for it. Toots about #Astronomy, #LightPollution, #DarkSkies, #Satellites, #SciencePolicy, #History and more.

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JohnBarentine, to random
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The Department of Motor Vehicles and nonprofit group Friends of Nevada Wilderness have unveiled the first license plate in the U.S. Proceeds from sales of this plate will go towards dark sky monitoring and related programs in rural Nevada.

More info: https://www.nevadawilderness.org/friends_announces_nevada_s_new_save_starry_skies_license_plate

JohnBarentine, to Hawaii
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"More than 150 people turned out at the Kihei Community Center on Wednesday for a public scoping meeting about a proposed telescope project on the summit of . The testimony was overwhelmingly against the project."

https://www.civilbeat.org/2024/05/the-air-force-wants-to-build-7-new-telescopes-on-maui-to-track-space-debris/

JohnBarentine, to Astronomy
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This pause resulted in no small part because of the comments submitted by McDonald Observatory, the Center for Biological Diversity and DarkSky International, among others. But: "Everything we’ve seen from CBP suggests that they’ll continue to build destructive walls and blast harmful lighting into some of the border region’s wildest places as soon as they get the chance."

https://www.tpr.org/border-immigration/2024-05-23/border-agency-pauses-plan-for-high-intensity-lighting-in-west-south-texas-amid-legal-fight

#Border #BorderPolicy #CBP #Astronomy #DarkSkies #LightPollution #Wildlife

JohnBarentine, to Astronomy
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@esa_euclid to @nasawebb: "Hold my beer..."

'ESA's Euclid celebrates first science with sparkling cosmic views'

https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Space_Science/Euclid/ESA_s_Euclid_celebrates_first_science_with_sparkling_cosmic_views

Here, Euclid captures NGC 6744, one of the largest spiral galaxies beyond our local patch of space. Euclid’s large field-of-view covers the entire galaxy, revealing not only spiral structure on larger scales but also capturing exquisite detail on small spatial scales, and at a combination of wavelengths. This detail includes feather-like lanes of dust emerging as ‘spurs’ from the spiral arms, which Euclid is able to image with incredible clarity.

JohnBarentine, to Amazon
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The #Amazon #Kuiper project prototype #satellites have been actively deorbited after what the company describes as "a 100% success rate across our key mission objectives".

https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/innovation-at-amazon/amazon-project-kuiper-deorbit-satellites

#Space

JohnBarentine, to conservative
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“The darker your yard, the more likely are to flock to it.” (via @washingtonpost)

https://www.washingtonpost.com/home/2024/05/23/advice-attract-fireflies-to-yard/

JohnBarentine, to Illinois
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The Responsible Outdoor Lighting Control Act has been passed by the state Senate and House of Representatives. Now it's on to @govpritzker for his signature.

Full details: https://www.ilga.gov/legislation/BillStatus.asp?DocNum=3501&GA=103&DocTypeID=SB&LegId=153201&SessionID=112

JohnBarentine,
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@mgarraha Unfortunately its provisions were eroded away until all that's left is rules that apply only to new installations on lands managed by the Illinois Department of Natural Resources. But it's a point of entry to future negotiations. There are some existing state laws that made it through legislatures (see, e.g., https://www.ncsl.org/environment-and-natural-resources/states-shut-out-light-pollution). Right now there are bills at least in NY and MA, not as sure about others.

JohnBarentine,
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@mgarraha Although it didn't happen this year, there is a movement afoot to re-run California AB 2382 from the 2022 session (https://legiscan.com/CA/text/AB2382/id/2599697) which the California Assembly passed but Gov. Newsom vetoed as an unfunded mandate. Maybe next year.

JohnBarentine, to Astronomy
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It's ! In 1754 the English botanist and author John Hill proposed a new constellation he called "Testudo" (the Tortoise). It didn't catch on with astronomers, but under dark night skies it can still be seen. Read more about it: https://unchartedconstellations.com/

JohnBarentine, to random
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A new Nature Reviews article by Linares Arroyo et al. gives a comprehensive overview of global light pollution distribution and trends, and efforts to measure and monitor it.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s43017-024-00555-9

JohnBarentine, to til
@JohnBarentine@astrodon.social avatar

that fortunately someone has already invented a term that was on my mind but for which no word seemed to already exist.

Thank you, Urban Dictionary: https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Spacewashing

JohnBarentine,
@JohnBarentine@astrodon.social avatar

@dfrancis I'm not sure I understand your comment. "Spacewashing" is about the way activities in space are represented in terms of their aims or objectives versus what affects they actually have. What you wrote seems to have more to do with the cost of the space program and/or defense versus other kinds of government spending. Am I reading it wrong?

JohnBarentine,
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@dfrancis We are talking about different things.

JohnBarentine, to Florida
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It’s one thing to light up bridges at night (which is already problematic for myriad environmental reasons). But it’s another to use that lighting for partisan reasons to express the state’s position toward a politically disfavored group.

This is using light at night as a tool of political warfare, and it’s wrong.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2024/05/21/florida-bridges-rainbow-lights-pride/

JohnBarentine, to space
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New NASA cost-benefit of tracking/mitigating orbital debris finds that propulsive deorbiting and improved tracking of large debris have the best C-B ratio, while tracking of cm-size debris and removing mm-sized debris is less beneficial.

https://www.nasa.gov/organizations/otps/nasa-study-provides-new-look-at-orbital-debris-potential-solutions/

JohnBarentine,
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@skyglowberlin While I don't know for sure, my naive guess is that it's the longest reasonable baseline over which a simulation can be performed until the "known unknowns" become so large that the results are no longer realistic. Or maybe that's when stochastic influences take over and the picture is no longer predictable anymore.

I'll reach out to some debris folks and see if they can explain why the baseline is only 30 years.

JohnBarentine,
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@skyglowberlin "What we're currently doing" is already unsustainable without the need to do any further research to demonstrate that.

JohnBarentine,
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@skyglowberlin There are just too many uncertainties to produce anything that I would believe beyond a time horizon of ... weeks? months? The potential for huge and totally unexpected systemic perturbations is just too great.

JohnBarentine,
@JohnBarentine@astrodon.social avatar

@skyglowberlin Yes, correct on that point. Explosions and collisions (intentional and otherwise) cause sudden jumps in the amount of debris. You have to suddenly recalculate your models with new initial conditions. A real fear is that we're just one major event away from the onset of an uncontrolled debris-generating cascade, which is so nonlinear that all models are only speculative.

Oh and we have no idea about the smallest particles because we can't track them from the ground.

JohnBarentine,
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@skyglowberlin A more or less direct collision between two intact satellites of considerable size (e.g., the 2009 Iridum-Kosmos collision) in LEO would generate thousands of pieces of trackable debris (and myriad more smaller fragments) that would imperil everything near them for weeks or months, until atmospheric drag brought them down. There's now enough stuff at those altitudes that secondary collisions/fragmentations are expected. Probability only goes up as LEO gets more crowded.

JohnBarentine, to Argentina
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“The sky shows us the way and the ancestors watch over us. And the stars remind us that they will continue to take care of us as long as we are on this Earth.” (by @megoizzy for BBC Travel)

https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20240521-the-remote-argentinean-community-that-is-saving-the-stars

JohnBarentine, to space
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"'The history of humanity is where there are military advantages, the military will operate. People will try to neutralize those advantages and try to exploit those advantages. And space is no different.'"

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/17/us/politics/pentagon-space-military-russia-china.html

JohnBarentine, to random
@JohnBarentine@astrodon.social avatar

Results of a recent lighting survey in Rome showed that "walking comfort was affected by mean luminance of whole scene, of sidewalk, of lateral wall and of human body; luminance also influenced the perception of street lighting intensity and uniformity and, to a lesser extent, the visibility of other people and of background."

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13574809.2024.2351914

JohnBarentine, to random
@JohnBarentine@astrodon.social avatar

Lights Out Connecticut and the Menunkatuck Audubon Society are jointly hosting a webinar called "Humans and The Night Sky: Our Lost Heritage" on Tuesday, 4th June at 7 PM EDT (2300 UTC). Register for the event on: https://www.mobilize.us/audubon-chapters/event/628205/

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