Space Quote: Everything Normal Here, Please Get Back to Work (In the Office, Of Course)

Posted on by onespaceman2000

“President Trump recently issued a Presidential Memorandum (PM) titled “Return to In-Person Work,” the text of which is included below. NASA intends to fully comply.

‘Heads of all departments and agencies in the executive branch of Government shall, as soon as practicable, take all necessary steps to terminate remote work arrangements and require employees to return to work in-person at their respective duty stations on a full-time basis, provided that the department and agency heads shall make exemptions they deem necessary.‘

…Please continue to remain focused on the mission. Right now, we have dozens of spacecraft studying different aspects of our solar system and the distant universe. We have four American astronauts living and working in space, with several crew members on Earth training for upcoming missions. And we have engineers and researchers working on technology development that will advance the future of flight and space exploration.”

-Information emailed to NASA staff on January 24, 2025 from NASA’s acting Administrator Janet Petro (see below). This follows a message earlier in the week shutting down all diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts. The earlier email also asked employees to report on one another if DEI appeared anywhere. This latest email orders everyone back to work and then is nice enough to remind them that they left four astronauts in space who still need tending to. Not exactly a good week a NASA workforce that “already exceeds…expectations.”

Image (Credit): Email to NASA staff on January 24, 2025 from the acting administrator. (NASAWatch)

Mark Your Calendar: Kennedy Center Earth to Space Festival

Posted on by onespaceman2000

If you are looking for a different type of event, the Kennedy Center has an idea. Come for its Earth to Space Festival, being held from March 28 to April 20.

What is it, you ask? Here is what the Kennedy Center has shared:

For three weeks, EARTH to SPACE: Arts Breaking the Sky will fill the Center with musicians and astronauts, poets and researchers, visual artists and engineers, actors and environmentalists, architects and astronomers, dancers and scientists, film makers and space designers. It is our conviction that insights into the marvels of the universe can inspire action to protect our own planet, and that the arts can stimulate fresh thinking about the challenges that confront us.

Some of the speakers include astronaut Chris Hadfield, physicist Kip Thorne, and astrophysicist Mario Livio. The full list is available on the Kennedy Center site.

Starmus has been holding such festivals since 2011, with this one in Washington, DC being the eighth. Last year’s festival was held in Bratislava, Slovakia. Astronomy magazine called last year’s event “a smashing success all the way around.”

You may want to add the event to your calendar. It sounds like a fun way to combine astronomy and the arts.

Pic of the Week: The Glow of Cassiopeia A

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): Cassiopeia A supernova remnant. (NASA/CXC/SAO (x-ray); NASA/ESA/STScI (optical); NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI/D. Milisavljevic et al., NASA/JPL/Caltech (infrared); NASA/CXC/SAO/J. Schmidt and K. Arcand (image processing))

This week’s image was taken by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) and highlighted in Scientific American magazine. It shows a colorful supernova remnant called Cassiopeia A, which is about 350 light-years away.

The magazine article notes:

The recent photographs are helping scientists answer some of their most pressing questions about supernovae, such as which types of stars explode in which ways and how exactly those outbursts unfold. “There is a lot of complicated but beautiful physics in understanding how this explosion takes place,” says Purdue University astronomer Danny Milisavljevic, who led the team behind the JWST images…

Astronomers will keep studying Cassiopeia A, although their success makes them eager to turn JWST’s eyes toward some of the other roughly 400 identified supernova remnants in our galaxy. Getting a larger sample will help researchers connect differences in how remnants look and evolve to differences among the stars that produced them.

NASA Gets to Work Under the New Administration by Shutting Down DEI

Posted on by onespaceman2000

Almost the first words the NASA employees heard from their acting administrator was the end of the diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts within the agency.

In an email earlier today, Acting NASA Administrator Janet Petro stated, in part:

Notice the use of “Radical” in the executive order and the Office of Personnel Management email address including “truth,” favorite words of the incoming administration. Are we using federal dollars for this latest “witch hunt” (to use more of the favorite words)? None of this will help to calm the fears of hard-working NASA employees trying to focus on space missions rather than the political silliness in Washington, DC.

It does make you wonder what is coming down the road. For example, the Artemis mission on NASA’s website is pretty clear in terms of what it hopes to accomplish:

Will the goal of landing the first woman, person of color, and international partner be seen as encouraging too much diversity? The Artemis II crew, shown below, already meets the mission profile, but maybe that will change with the Artemis III crew that lands on the Moon. At this point, it would not be too surprising ito find the Artemis III crew consists of four white billionaires using a rover as a golf cart to hit balls across the lunar surface.

We’ll see what happens, as they say.

Image (Credit): NASA’s Artemis II mission crew (left to right): NASA astronauts Christina Hammock Koch, Reid Wiseman (seated), Victor Glover, and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen. (NASA)

Space Stories: Farewell to Bill Nelson, an Unpredictable Universe, and Ponds and Lakes on Mars

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Image (Credit): Bill Nelson appearing before the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation on April 21, 2021 as the nominee to be the 14th administrator of NASA. (NASA/Bill Ingalls)

Here are some recent stories of interest.

—WESH.com: “NASA Administrator Bill Nelson Writes Letter to Next Leader, Reflects on Legacy and Future of Space Exploration“

In a heartfelt letter addressed to the 15th Administrator of NASA, Bill Nelson expressed his admiration for the agency’s workforce and the immense honor of leading the organization dedicated to space exploration. Nelson, who has a rich history with NASA, having flown on the Space Shuttle Columbia and served as a U.S. Senator from Florida, emphasized the exceptional nature of the NASA team. He noted that the agency embodies a “can-do spirit” that exemplifies American ingenuity and leadership in space.

—Duke University: “Dan Scolnic Shows that the Universe Is Still Full of Surprises“

The Universe really seems to be expanding fast. Too fast, even. A new measurement confirms what previous — and highly debated — results had shown: The Universe is expanding faster than predicted by theoretical models, and faster than can be explained by our current understanding of physics. This discrepancy between model and data became known as the Hubble tension. Now, results published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters provide even stronger support to the faster rate of expansion. “The tension now turns into a crisis,” said Dan Scolnic, who led the research team.

—Caltech: “Signatures of Ice-Free Ancient Ponds and Lakes Found on Mars“

Researchers have discovered two sets of ancient wave ripples on Mars, signatures of long-dried bodies of water preserved in the rock record. Wave ripples are small undulations in the sandy shores of lakebeds, created as wind-driven water laps back and forth. The two sets of ripples indicate the former presence of shallow water that was open to the Martian air, not covered by ice as some climate models would require.