Space Stories: The Milky Way, Super-Earths, and Anti-Satellite Tests

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Image (Credit): This annotated artist’s concept illustrates the new view of the Milky Way, along with other findings presented at the 212th American Astronomical Society meeting in 2008 in St. Louis, Missouri. The galaxy’s two major arms (Scutum-Centaurus and Perseus) can be seen attached to the ends of a thick central bar, while the two now-demoted minor arms (Norma and Sagittarius) are less distinct and located between the major arms. The major arms consist of the highest densities of both young and old stars; the minor arms are primarily filled with gas and pockets of star-forming activity. The artist’s concept also includes a new spiral arm, called the “Far-3 kiloparsec arm,” discovered via a radio-telescope survey of gas in the Milky Way. This arm is shorter than the two major arms and lies along the bar of the galaxy. Our sun lies near a small, partial arm called the Orion Arm, or Orion Spur, located between the Sagittarius and Perseus arms. (NASA/JPL-Caltech/R. Hurt (SSC/Caltech))

Here are some recent stories of interest.

—ScienceNews.org: “Passing Through the Milky Way’s Arms May Have Helped Form Earth’s Solid Ground“

Earth’s journey through the Milky Way might have helped create the planet’s first continents. Comets may have bombarded Earth every time the early solar system traveled through our galaxy’s spiral arms, a new study suggests. Those recurring barrages in turn helped trigger the formation of our planet’s continental crust, researchers propose August 23 in Geology.

—Phys.org: “Astronomers Discover Two ‘Super-Earths’ Orbiting Nearby Star“

An international team of astronomers reports the discovery of two new “super-Earth” exoplanets orbiting a nearby late-type M dwarf star. The newfound alien worlds, designated LP 890-9 b and LP 890-9 c, are slightly larger than the Earth. The finding has been published in Astronomy & Astrophysics.

—Space.com: “Germany and Japan Pledge Not to Conduct Destructive Anti-satellite Tests“

Germany and Japan have pledged not to conduct destructive anti-satellite tests that could create dangerous clouds of space debris in orbit. The announcements of these pledges were both made at the second session of the United Nations’ open-ended working group on reducing space threats, which is being held in Geneva from Sept. 12 to Sept. 16…Germany’s and Japan’s announcements follow similar pledges made by the United States, Canada and New Zealand in the wake of Russia’s irresponsible destruction of a satellite in November 2021 that created a massive cloud of space debris. 

Blue Origin Booster Mishap

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Image (Credit): Blue Origin’s NS-23 capsule returning to Earth after the mishap. (Blue Origin)

Delays and accidents are clear risks in the space industry, as we learned with the Artemis mission and now Blue Origin’s latest rocket launch. On Monday, a crewless New Shepard rocket launch (NS-23) went wrong, with the booster failing shortly after takeoff. Fortunately, the emergency system worked fine, indicating a crew would have returned safely in the capsule. In this case, the capsule was carrying a variety of experiments.

This same mission was scrubbed back on August 31st and September 1st due to weather issues. With this latest incident, future missions are on hold until the booster problem can be investigated by the Federal Aviation Administration. This was the first failure in the 23 New Shepard rocket missions launched to date.

Image (Credit): Blue Origin’s New Shepard suborbital rocket system. (Blue Origin)

Space Quote: A Return to the Space Race

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Image (Credit): Image from the earlier Space Race between the US and Soviet Union. (The Independent)

“Space will be the next great commons, a shared global resource like the oceans or cyberspace. History shows that these great commons are inevitably a source of competition and conflict, not voluntary cooperation. Whoever dominates space will determine the future of nations. We have to abandon the globalist fantasy that the U.S., China, and Russia will work together to keep space rules-based, free and open.”

-Arthur Herman, senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, in The Wall Street Journal editorial titled “How to Beat China in the New Space Race.” Mr. Herman is also author of To Rule the Waves: How the British Navy Shaped the Modern World.

Television: The Upcoming Star Wars Series Andor

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Credit: Disney +

Enough about Star Trek. It’s time to talk about Star Wars.

On September 21, Disney+ (the second Death Star of online content after the demise of Netflix) will be releasing its next Star Wars series called Andor. It’s a prequel to the movie Rogue One, starring Diego Luna as Cassian Andor five years before the events of the film. We learn more about how he went from a thief to a rebel against the evil Empire lead by Darth Vader and friends.

The trailer for Andor looks intriguing, with plenty of off planet action, something the series The Book of Boba Fett really needed. My favorite to Star Wars series to date is still The Mandalorian, with Obi-Wan Kenobi a distant second. I am just glad they are not making an Endor series. I had enough of teddy bears taking down the Empire.

I will let Disney+ give you the plot for the show:

In Andor, audiences meet Cassian Andor five years before the attack on the Empire takes place. The prequel series will cover the five-year period in two 12-episode seasons, focusing on Cassian Andor’s journey towards discovering his full power. Rogue One: A Star Wars Story showed a loyal and ruthless Andor who spoke of his long-standing fight against the Empire — one that began when he was just six years old. This narrative left a lasting impression on Diego Luna, making it easy for him to sign on for this series. Referring to Andor’s statements in Rogue One, Luna wanted to know what it all meant, saying, “Why would a six-year-old give up his childhood to join a fight? When he talks about a dark past and doing terrible things for the Rebellion, what is he referring to? I think that story matters. There’s a lot of material there for us to play with, and I was excited to go into this journey and give these answers.” The series concentrates on Andor’s progression, looking back into his childhood, the fighter spirit that was always inside of him, and what he faced in his homeland that ultimately brings him to the Rebellion’s front lines. Luna explained that he wanted to tell this story to show “what needs to happen for a revolutionary to emerge.”

I have high hopes for this series compared to the last two. While HBO and Prime are battling it out over dragons versus elves, I am tuning into the Star Trek versus Star Wars battle. Luckily, there is something for everyone.

Podcast: Should We Search for Extraterrestrial Life?

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Here is a podcast if you like the debate format so you can listen to both sides before settling on your own position. Intelligence Squared has great discussions involving experts on a multitude of topics, but few touch upon astronomy. Hence, this is an episode worth sharing.

Here is the set up for this debate:

For decades, scientists around the world have dedicated their lives — and research dollars — to one question: Is there anyone else out there? In the early 1970s, NASA joined the hunt with its own program to search for extraterrestrial life, or SETI for short. When that was defunded by Congress, private efforts took hold. But just what have decades of SETI brought us? And how should we approach the search in those to come? For SETI’s supporters, finding other intelligent life in the cosmos is a fundamentally human endeavor. It probes our understanding of the cosmos, what it means to live and survive on Earth and beyond, and just where our species fits into the greater universe. But others warn that SETI is a distraction from other scientific endeavors that, at best, diverts critical resources and, at worst, will open a can of worms humanity isn’t ready to deal with. Just what would happen if we actually find other beings? Are we mature enough as a society to respond? In this episode, we ask the essential extraterrestrial question: to search or not to search? 

The two experts debating this topic are:

  • Jill Cornell Tarter is an American astronomer best known for her work on the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. Tarter is the former director of the Center for SETI Research, holding the Bernard M. Oliver Chair for SETI at the SETI Institute.
  • Paul M. Sutter is a cosmologist and community outreach coordinator with the Department of Astronomy at Ohio State University. Sutter is also the chief scientist at the Center of Science and Industry in Columbus, Ohio.

I expect most of those visiting this page already have a strong opinion on this topic, but it is worth listening to the debate among these two experts anyway. Enjoy.