@michael_w_busch@mastodon.online
@michael_w_busch@mastodon.online avatar

michael_w_busch

@michael_w_busch@mastodon.online

Planetary astronomer, studying piles of rock in space. Reader of books. Drinker of tea. He/him. This is a personal account. To bigotry no sanction.

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.

ai6yr, to cycling

Took my recycling for a ride in the countryside! (Excess cardboard and a lot of broken plastic bins). #BikeTooter

michael_w_busch,
@michael_w_busch@mastodon.online avatar

@ai6yr A while back; I biked a load of branches to the local compost pile in a trailer.

I thought this was unusual until someone else showed up with a trailer loaded with a very large empty compost bin and a shovel.

michael_w_busch, to random
@michael_w_busch@mastodon.online avatar

Today on the arXiv:

Ren et al. 2022, "Background Contamination of the Project Hephaistos Dyson Spheres Candidates" - https://arxiv.org/abs/2405.14921

Cool science. Not aliens.

To be specific: Infrared sources that were suggested to look like Dyson swarms around stars turned out to be confusion with background galaxies.

michael_w_busch, to random
@michael_w_busch@mastodon.online avatar

Today in the Planetary Science Journal:

Cheng et al. 2024, "DART Impact Ejecta Plume Evolution: Implications for Dimorphos" - https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/PSJ/ad4153

Describing how the asteroid has very low cohesion.

and also , since that will be launching soon now.

mekkaokereke, to random
@mekkaokereke@hachyderm.io avatar

4 years to the day after George Floyd was murdered, here's where we are:

  • Racist people are just as racist as the day before George Floyd was murdered.

  • Black people are still asking for the exact same things.

  • "Liberal" and "Centrist" white Americans are more racist, and less supportive of DEI than they were the day before George Floyd.

  • Police budgets have grown faster than they did the day before George Floyd.

  • Biden has undone any of the gains made during the protests.

1/N

michael_w_busch,
@michael_w_busch@mastodon.online avatar

@bryan @mekkaokereke I have encountered a few people expressing nonsense like that since I moved back to Minnesota.

A group from the suburbs who wanted to pretend "Minneapolis burned to the ground" as a pretext for "support the cops" were particularly outrageous.

They would apparently rather deny the landscape in front of them than acknowledge ongoing racist violence by MPD (and by Saint Paul PD and other departments).

nyrath, to random
@nyrath@spacey.space avatar

Non-nuclear strategies for deflecting comets and asteroids (pdf file)

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/234347108_Non-nuclear_strategies_for_deflecting_comets_and_asteroids

michael_w_busch,
@michael_w_busch@mastodon.online avatar

@Benhm3 @nyrath We do have the variation where we make the orbiter very much more massive with a sack full of rocks.

The gravity tractor had not yet been invented at the time of Jay Melosh's 1994 review, thought.

firefly, to random
@firefly@m.ai6yr.org avatar

Another piece of Elon’s Space Trash, perhaps?

https://wlos.com/news/local/haywood-county-man-finds-heavy-mysterious-object-possibly-outer-space-landed-remote-trail-canton-aerospace-expert-input-glamping-collective#

Cc: @ai6yr

michael_w_busch,
@michael_w_busch@mastodon.online avatar

@firefly @ai6yr Attention @sundogplanets (Addendum: Naturally, she has already been notified.)

Perhaps also @sarahtaber , for the potential North Carolina connection. If this was spacecraft debris, there's farmland nearby that should be checked for more.

michael_w_busch,
@michael_w_busch@mastodon.online avatar

@firefly @ai6yr @sundogplanets @sarahtaber We have identification from Jonathan McDowell ( @planet4589 ):

"This definitely looks consistent with being a bit of the Crew-7 Dragon's trunk which reentered on a path right over this location on Tuesday" - https://twitter.com/planet4589/status/1794047212332208453

Someone should check the fields along a line from west to north of Asheville.

And SpaceX really is littering a lot.

michael_w_busch,
@michael_w_busch@mastodon.online avatar

@amyedge @sundogplanets @firefly @ai6yr @sarahtaber This was not a targeted re-entry: SpaceX just let the Crew Dragon trunk section fall out of the sky somewhere between Mississippi and Pennsylvania.

I note that the predicted ground track happened to pass very close to the Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia - although the spacecraft did not get that far.

(The prediction was over the line in Tennessee, but Asheville is close enough to be within the cross-track uncertainty).

michael_w_busch, to random
@michael_w_busch@mastodon.online avatar

Article: "This paper is about water management for human habitats on the Moon."

Me: Okay.

Article: Ignores things like the mixture of volatiles at the lunar poles; but spends a page insisting human lunar missions must be military.

Me: Nope.

And the arXiv does not need to host everything submitted to it...

michael_w_busch,
@michael_w_busch@mastodon.online avatar

If you should be interested in some actual discussion relevant to the possibility of using lunar water to supply human habitats:

Landis et al. 2022, "Spatial Distribution and Thermal Diversity of Surface Volatile Cold Traps at the Lunar Poles" - https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/PSJ/ac4585/meta

Discussing which lunar polar cold traps may have different amounts of things like mercury, hydrogen sulfide, and cyanide mixed in with the water.

(There might be some arsenic too.)

johncarlosbaez, to random
@johncarlosbaez@mathstodon.xyz avatar

I want to read this book: A Darwinian Survival Guide. Sounds like a realistic view of what we need to do now. You can read an interview with one author, the biologist Daniel Brooks. A quote:

...

Daniel Brooks: What can we begin doing now that will increase the chances that those elements of technologically-dependent humanity will survive a general collapse, if that happens as a result of our unwillingness to begin to do anything effective with respect to climate change and human existence?

Peter Watts: So to be clear, you’re not talking about forestalling the collapse —

Daniel Brooks: No.

Peter Watts: — you’re talking about passing through that bottleneck and coming out the other side with some semblance of what we value intact.

Daniel Brooks: Yeah, that’s right. It is conceivable that if all of humanity suddenly decided to change its behavior, right now, we would emerge after 2050 with most everything intact, and we would be “OK.” We don’t think that’s realistic. It is a possibility, but we don’t think that’s a realistic possibility. We think that, in fact, most of humanity is committed to business as usual, and that’s what we’re really talking about: What can we begin doing now to try to shorten the period of time after the collapse, before we “recover”? In other words — and this is in analogy with Asimov’s Foundation trilogy — if we do nothing, there’s going to be a collapse and it’ll take 30,000 years for the galaxy to recover. But if we start doing things now, then it maybe only takes 1,000 years to recover. So using that analogy, what can some human beings start to do now that would shorten the period of time necessary to recover?

https://thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/the-collapse-is-coming-will-humanity-adapt/

michael_w_busch,
@michael_w_busch@mastodon.online avatar

@johncarlosbaez I do not appreciate the parts of that interview where Daniel Brooks appears to treat the large majority of humans as disposable.

Quite possibly including himself: His imagined "prepper" small town would likely not be able to provide the appendectomy he once needed.

(Peter Watts does make a relevant point there; regarding Brooks' book being co-opted.)

One can work for the needed immediate systemic changes to maintain vital infrastructure without suggesting abandoning people.

ai6yr, to random

👀 https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/22/us/justice-alito-flag-appeal-to-heaven.html

michael_w_busch,
@michael_w_busch@mastodon.online avatar

@evilotto @ai6yr I submit that going "no true Christian" or pointing out the contradictions between Samuel Alito's claimed beliefs and his actions is not that helpful.

Authoritarians do not care about hypocrisy.

Similarly; there is a contingent of American atheists who are willing to work with Christian nationalists because they value being able to engage in racist, sexist & otherwise bigoted forms of social control than they value having a secular government.

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

michael_w_busch,
@michael_w_busch@mastodon.online avatar

@dfrancis That is not what @JohnBarentine is talking about.

"spacewashing" is things like Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Raytheon, and SpaceX promoting their roles in supplying NASA missions while they make huge amounts of money out of weapons contracts.

e.g. Lockheed Martin alone makes several times NASA's entire budget from its DoD contracts.

setiinstitute, to space
@setiinstitute@mastodon.social avatar

: This stunning photo was taken by the High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) onboard the ESA's Mars Express spacecraft. Phobos is the larger and closer of Mars's two moons, the other being Deimos. One hypothesis of their origin involves the possible capture of primitive asteroids. Unfortunately, Phobos is being pulled apart and closer by Mars's tidal forces and gravity. Credit: ESA/DLR/FUBerlin/ @andrealuck CC BY (https://www.flickr.com/photos/192271236@N03/53635851891/)

michael_w_busch,
@michael_w_busch@mastodon.online avatar

@Nic @setiinstitute It is not true-color, but that is a real image from the Mars Express spacecraft.

There is an artifact from how it was taken: The spacecraft was tracking Phobos, so Mars appears with a wobbly blur to it.

CelloMomOnCars, to solar
@CelloMomOnCars@mastodon.social avatar

Smelting Without Fossil Fuels: Power Shatters the 1,000°C Barrier for Industrial Heating

"Swiss researchers have developed a solar energy method using synthetic quartz to achieve temperatures above 1,000°C for industrial processes, potentially replacing fossil fuels in the production of materials like steel and cement."

https://scitechdaily.com/smelting-steel-without-fossil-fuels-solar-power-shatters-the-1000c-barrier-for-industrial-heating/

Caveat: this is a lab result, albeit a promising one.

michael_w_busch,
@michael_w_busch@mastodon.online avatar

@CelloMomOnCars @ai6yr It is not obvious to me that this solar thermal furnace is either useful or necessary for decarbonizing steel production.

A large fraction of steel smelting is already done in electric arc furnaces; which can be powered by any non-fossil-fuel generator, albeit at potentially lower efficiency?

ai6yr, to random

Hmm...

michael_w_busch,
@michael_w_busch@mastodon.online avatar

@ai6yr @dogfox @mjausson @mjausson There was a time when some of my Irish ancestors may have preserved butter by fermenting it in a peat bog for a year or so.

Modern recreations are said to be an acquired taste, with a very strong "not nice" smell of rancid milk.

Personally, I have not needed to try that.

ai6yr, to random

Southern Florida once again has "EXTREME" Heat Risk today 5/18/24.

Extreme - This level of rare and/or long-duration extreme heat with little to no overnight relief affects anyone without effective cooling and/or adequate hydration. Impacts likely in most health systems, heat-sensitive industries and infrastructure.

https://www.wpc.ncep.noaa.gov/heatrisk/

michael_w_busch,
@michael_w_busch@mastodon.online avatar

@researchbuzz @ai6yr While Miami keeps flooding; the hurricanes are getting worse; and everyone in Florida is suffering through extreme heat events; the Florida GOP is trying to stop the state from talking about #ClimateChange: https://floridaphoenix.com/2024/05/15/desantis-signs-bill-erasing-the-term-climate-change-from-state-law/

malcircuit, to random
@malcircuit@thingy.social avatar

Sci-fi: What if humanity built generation ships? That'd be cool, right?

Actual human history: You mean a designed, self-contained, indefinitely stable, culturally and ecologically sustainable society where everyone cooperates to work toward a far-off goal they will probably never see achieved?

Sci-fi: ...

Actual human history: dies laughing

michael_w_busch,
@michael_w_busch@mastodon.online avatar

@malcircuit @nyrath

One thing I appreciated reading through Kelly and @ZachWeinersmith 's "A City On Mars" was that they made that point; as well as elaborating on what might happen to different social structures in such an environment.

Although they were focusing more on humans in the solar system; rather than people who would be indefinitely isolated by years of light travel time.

ai6yr, (edited ) to random

Oooh, look, Halloween in June!

michael_w_busch,
@michael_w_busch@mastodon.online avatar

@ai6yr The particularly SoCal experience of having the advertised moulage artist for CERT drills.

I once had a drill in Los Angeles that was actually scheduled on Halloween so that we all could walk back afterwards without freaking everyone out...

michael_w_busch,
@michael_w_busch@mastodon.online avatar

@ai6yr That CERT drill was outside the UCLA medical center. So I walked past a block of fraternity Halloween parties across the street with my shirt covered in fake blood up to the elbows.

And that was how I learned about the series "Dexter".

mastodonmigration, (edited ) to random
@mastodonmigration@mastodon.online avatar

So now SpaceX, with no working spacesuit, and years behind on it's multi-billion dollar moon lander, is lobbying NASA to go to the Hubble Space Telescope.

"A successful private mission could improve Hubble's ability to point at celestial objects and, by boosting its orbit, extend its life by years... however, an accident could leave the multibillion-dollar telescope broken — or, even more tragically, tethered to the dead bodies of the astronauts sent to repair it."

https://www.npr.org/2024/05/16/1250250249/spacex-repair-hubble-space-telescope-nasa-foia

michael_w_busch,
@michael_w_busch@mastodon.online avatar

@mastodonmigration @simonbp I consider the peculiarly billionaire behavior of having no relevant experience or skills and then imagining that one should be allowed to recklessly endanger extremely expensive public property.

michael_w_busch, to random
@michael_w_busch@mastodon.online avatar

twitter.com/?mx=1 is currently useable.

twitter.com is not.

Under Elon Musk's management Twitter evidently cannot even manage to consistently redirect a URL.

Addendum:

When I wrote this over on Twitter, it apparently automatically changed the links in my tweet to the non-functional "x . com" URLs: https://twitter.com/michael_w_busch/status/1791342757883109855

Which is not what I wrote.

If Twitter is going to change what I write without my consent and without cause; this may be it for me posting over there.

michael_w_busch,
@michael_w_busch@mastodon.online avatar

twitter.com works again.

But if I write "twitter .com" without breaks, Twitter is still automatically changing it to "x .com" without breaks - without my consent and without cause.

So I guess I will be posting over here instead.

michael_w_busch,
@michael_w_busch@mastodon.online avatar

Twitter continues to automatically change users' posts without consent and without cause.

Because under Elon Musk's management the company apparently wants to stop people from writing "twitter .com" without breaks.

sundogplanets, to random
@sundogplanets@mastodon.social avatar

I am talking o a reporter about this in a couple hours: https://regina.ctvnews.ca/from-outer-space-sask-farmers-baffled-after-discovering-strange-wreckage-in-field-1.6880353

This is about an hour away from my farm, so this'll be a fun conversation, and yet another great opportunity to tell a lot of people about what a huge problem we have with unregulated commercialization of orbit. (Also I just redid my slides for my public talk next week, this is going in!)

michael_w_busch,
@michael_w_busch@mastodon.online avatar

@WTL @sundogplanets By the time debris from spacecraft reaches the ground; it has cooled off from re-entry.

The risk from SpaceX's littering is meter-wide chunks of metal and carbon fiber coming down at terminal velocity.

michael_w_busch,
@michael_w_busch@mastodon.online avatar

@EricFielding @WTL @sundogplanets At least the Crew Dragon trunk sections do not contain large tanks.

Let no one repeat what happened downrange from Xichang.

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