Festive Musings, and why The Future is Now

I've been tweaking this post since Boxing Day, in the vain hope that I will suddenly become excited about something.
Gazing outside (there is a small window in this shed) , I notice how un-seasonal the landscape is .
It's really not conducive to the festive feeling.
The festive feeling manifests in many different ways -
One of my brothers, ensconced in a world of 24 / 7 sun and fun, sends photos of Santa hats and champagne on the beach , but whereas that normally conveys a sense of irony, this year, it is lost.
This year has no festive feeling.

There are no snowmen.
There is no frost on the ground.
It's not even proper bloody cold.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not overly attached to sub-zero temperatures and breath freezing in the air and scraping the ice from car windscreens.
But it makes a mockery of the seasonal cards with wrapped - up people scurrying through blizzards of snow , heading home, no doubt for a warming glass of festive punch .
I haven't even seen a robin, so normally associated with Xmas here in Blighty.

Robin pic from here     ©Andy Hay

With a sigh, I turn back to the pile of papers and printouts which litter my desk in the shed.
A piece about the new Star Wars film briefly catches my eye, as it is pinned by a dart to the noticeboard.
I shrug, doubting that my opinion would make a dent on the fannish slavering that surrounds the re-vamped franchise.
Best stick to what I usually do, then.
Perhaps if I wore a silly hat from a cracker, I'd feel more festive.


Seating myself before my trusty old Remington, I lean back, stretch, and crack my knuckles.
And so it begins...

As we head towards the end of 2015, fantastical research abounds all around us.
From a sci-fi app to predict future crimes  (shades of Philip K Dick) to the creation of matter from light ,we are spoiled for moments of wonder.
It's almost enough to melt my cynical heart.
Of course, there is no light without darkness, so this piece cautions against the Fitbit obsession.

We also have the ongoing Ceres and Comet 67p images arriving regularly and New Horizons still dutifully downloading images from the Pluto flyby in July 2015, some of which are being painstakingly fashioned into 3-d anaglyph images , courtesy of the dedicated people at planetary. org
I also hear rumblings of a projected meeting of quantum and relativity branches of physics.
As they are apparently in contradiction, hopefully any meeting will be on neutral territory.
Except, by dint of appearing in the area, it will no longer be neutral.
Oh well...

Space x returns !

On the practical level, I was pleasantly reminded that the future is now,  when I watched the footage of the first successful landing / return of a spacecraft  (okay, just a returning thruster, but even so - in one visual display, the commercial viability of re-usable rockets was displayed.)


Meanwhile back in the Inner Solar System...

On the auspicious date (well, Stateside ) July 4th 2016, the NASA  probe 'Juno' will enter orbit around Jupiter after a five year journey (New Horizons reminds us that it travelled for ten years before arriving at Pluto) - and butting in from somewhere out in inner space, the Japanese probe Akatsuki reminds us that it had to wait five years in limbo before it could retry its Venus insertion (pause for mildly offensive double entendre).

China continues to send data from Jade Rabbit, or Yutsu. still sampling lunar regolith  , from a new-ish crater in the area known as Mare imbrium (new-ish meaning 3 billion years old instead of 4).
The diversity of mineral content  tells us a tale of evolution beyond our own, apparently - ( the general assumption being that the moon was once part of Earth but separated when Earth was struck by a wandering planet about the size of Mars.)
It also tells us that large quantities of Titanium and Hydrogen 3 exist on the moon, so it has the potential for mining fuel for rockets.

Suddenly I am distracted by the sound of happy banter nearby, and I turn away from my musings on outer space.
It's not actually happy banter - it's more of a heated debate.
Specifically , it's the neighbours arguing about the sheer impracticality of hoovering up pine needles as opposed to the benefits of an artificial tree.
I sigh, and switch on the S.A.D. light.
'Tis the Season, after all...

The Smell Of Space and a Magic journey...

The Horsehead Nebula is some 1500 light years away, and is instantly recognisable.
It is a nursery for new stars, and as such, contains many unusual features including unknown molecules - one recently discovered was so alien that it cannot exist in a stable form on Earth (although scientists at the University of Cologne did manage to create a sample that was stable for a few seconds, proving that the theoretical particle could exist).

Horsehead Nebula                          NASA.gov

The molecule is C3H+ ,  and has been detected through the wonder of radio astronomy.
Specifically the IRAM telescope in the Sierra Nevada.
They have isolated the wavelength on which this molecule transmits (89.957 gigahertz).
They can even tell you what it smells like - it is in the benzene family...
On that note, there was a news piece a few years ago where they announced the smell of space.
Apparently it's a mixture of seared steak and hot chrome.
Space smells like a cosmic motorbike parked up at a roadside barbeque.

The fact that they essentially deduced the nature of this molecule via the radio wavelength it transmits on, makes my brain ache.


In other news, a recent burst of gamma rays from distant galaxy PKS 1441+25 took scientists by surprise.
Because these powerful gamma rays had been travelling in a straight line for 7.6 billion years, which is half the age of the known universe.
Approximately.
These gamma rays set out from a supermassive black hole at the centre of PKS 1441+25 some 7.6 billion years ago, and have travelled in a straight line, uninterrupted by cosmic debris or radiation (I wish my wi-fi was that good) through untold events and timelines (including the creation of our world , 2 billion years into the journey) , kept travelling forward through time and space ( meanwhile, we had five mass extinctions and an ice age leading to the rise of mammals and humans ) and eventually reached our solar system on the outer edge of the milky way,  travelled past the Oort cloud and Pluto and Neptune and Uranus and Saturn and Jupiter and Mars and our moon and finally reached our  humble planet where the signals were picked up by Fermi and an array of radio telescopes that only started operation 3 years ago - how's that for timing ?
Specifically, the signals arrived in April 2015.
Quite a catch for a set of data from high energy particles ejected from a black hole 7.6 billion light years away...

Artists impression of Fermi 

This is where my rudimentary understanding of science breaks down.
Now that these incredibly powerful particles have been interrupted by noting them, is their journey at an end?
Or do they continue to travel as invisible particles through the Earth and onwards?
Do they end up in the furnace of our sun, their energy transmuted by alchemy into another form ?
Are we into quantum territory, where their observation means that they cease to be gamma rays at all ?
And why all the questions ?

The science behind all this leaves me deeply impressed, but the clincher for many, in this Age of Acronyms, is surely that the Earth based telescopes which detected the particles , are known as the Major Atmospheric Gamma Imaging Cerenkov  telescopes , or MAGIC .
A name to conjure with,..

On that note, I shall take my leave, and bid you

 A Very Merry Festive Holidays to All !

Final Vinyl ? Everything Is Retro !

I decided to write this after reading a comment on an article which basically rubbished the current resurgence of vinyl records.
The main thrust of the piece was that the resurgence of love for vinyl recordings was driven by ' men of a certain age' reliving their halcyon days, and the piece pointed to examples such as boxed sets of Pink Floyd and the like.
Personally, I find it restores my faith in humanity to see records and cover sleeves back again - okay, disclosure - I am a man of a certain age , but I know many people, including millenials, who love the thrill of vinyl.
It's sad that most of the little indie record shops I used to frequent have gone the way of all things, especially with the encroaching 'homogenisation' of our high streets.
I give thanks for every indie shop that still trades , especially now.
It would also be too easy to bemoan the sudden interest in vinyl records by the supermarket chains, for instance - after all, they only ever stocked the top twenty and a dull array of reliable 'oldie' favourites (and let us not forget the Pick of the Pops albums which offered fairly bland cover versions of mainstream hits...)
Rather than decry the beginnings of a resurgence in old style music love , we should embrace it - and accept that here, in the 21st © , everything is retro.
It's just - weird to see the revival of what, until fairly recently, was the normal...

In the style of the old 'Dansette' players...

As the u.k. charts began to fill with novelty records and acts throughout the Eighties / Nineties , pop began to paint itself into the corner*, and when the Top of the Poppers had started covering punk songs, you knew the writing was on the wall.
And it wasn't graffiti .

In the UK, we can also blame shows like TOTP, with forced miming and bad choreography (although my rampant adolescent hormones were very forgiving).
There were many more issues as the industry grew top heavy with hangers - on and self-appointed 'taste-makers' (hello Mr Cowell).

Ribald and risque outside, nearly but not quite covers inside...

 I've written before on the subject , so I'm not going there again, but I'm genuinely pleased to see this resurgence of actual records , and a new appreciation of them.
After all, it can only be for the greater good - more vinyl pressing plants means more cover art so more print / repro places, more graphic designers, more jobs in record sales / distribution...basically more opportunities in an increasing creative market.

I don't consider myself an audiophile, and I won't slavishly buy everything committed to vinyl - not even by one artist, as I'm not a completist.
The medium is the message, though , and vinyl is tactile and real in a way that an mpeg will never be.

For me, the interest is in seeing how long the integrity is maintained - i.e., without the payola and coke - fuelled distortion that accompanied big music corporate f..kovers.

At the present time, it seems to be in the hands of those who remember the simple pleasures of album covers and their sleevenotes, which often added to the experience.
Of course, there is still the mainstream, with its dwindling côterie of ' stars' , a revolving parade of mix 'n' match personalities feted by brands.
Whether it's Miley or Gaga or RiRi or Taylor or Bieber or Murs, it's all a bit meh , if you ask me.
If anything, the current trend for the revival of stars from yesteryear keen to prove themselves outside of the rarefied corporate environs, is a welcome antidote.

Recent plugs have appeared in my newsfeeds showing excellent quality packages, in which the artwork is as much part of the experience as the music.. .
So let's hear it for hearing it , loud and proud.

 P. S....I know I said I'm not an audiophile, but I am worried about the heavy arms of the new decks - rumour has it that the Crosleys of this world will gouge your grooves, man.
So dig out the old school decks.
- and keep music live.

Lots of live stuff... pic© Uncut / M. Hunt, probably

* I realise that this is a shallow summary of a very complex thing, but this is not a dissertation.
 As I said at the beginning, this piece was 'inspired' by the negative comments of a troll on social media .
It's not supposed to be definitive, but it's my defence of the burgeoning trend for vinyl records.
Let's take them beyond the 'hipster' fad.

Newsflash! Ceres Resolved ...Or Not

False colour image to heighten drama...    ©NASA/JPL/Caltech

This is just a fast post to tie in with the official news from NASA that reveals the bright lights on Ceres are - salt.
Far be it for me to question  NASA , but is that it ?
I'm sure I saw another release that said it was a mixture of a salt (magnesium sulfate) and dirty ice thrown above ground by a collision - or multiple collisions.

In a nutshell, Ceres could provide a new source of  health-giving spa waters...

The assertion is that it derives from some form of subsurface ocean (quite a common theme in our moons and smaller worlds , these days).
Estimates say that Ceres is approximately 25% water, most of which is locked in as subsurface ice, allegedly.
There seems to be a lot of discussion about the incredible refractive index (let's not forget that some of these areas are 6 miles across and glowing...)

So there we have it, and thank you for resolving the mystery, NASA.
Of course, this is not a full and defintive answer...

130 'spots' have been identified...

Atomic Clocks , Bucky Balls and Another Dawn

The ubiquitous 'they' have discovered that time moves forward , even at a quantum level.
This makes for vaguely depressing news for anyone seeking an elixir of eternal youth, in that you can't reverse the flow of the ageing process.
They are however, closer to identifying the mysterious trigger that sets this process in motion.
I love such tantalising information.
It holds a vague promise of greater understanding.
The very carrot that, when dangled before our nose, keeps us moving forward...
In the meantime, back to the anti-aging creams and Botox.

In the never ending attempt to control time, a new material has been created, using  Fullerene, also known as 'Bucky balls,' : in this case, carbon molecules containing nitrogen atoms.
The new variation can be used in atomic clocks, reducing their size and increasing timing accuracy.
Boffins at Oxford University have developed it, and media spin has declared it as 'the most expensive material' ever, at  £ 200 million a gram.
Emperors new clothes then - after all, at that price...

On which note , as we approach the festive season of 2015, how is your world shaping up ?
Personally, I had high hopes for the discovery of alien life in the inner solar system, and a resultant celebration of new technologies as we join our spacefaring companions in an era of endless,blissful, advancement.
Sadly, this has not proven to be the case, but I have cleared a path in the snow on my driveway for any wayward ufos.
Combined with the ufo landing pad on my roof , this should clearly notify any approaching aliens of my welcome.

Which brings us to the equally stultifying news that SETI may be a wholly inappropriate 'listening mode' for intelligent life, given that radio frequencies are inefficient and the maths involved in accurately detecting any signal from a distant star would be wishful thinking to say the least.
Personally, I'm not convinced that any intelligent race would be prepared to spend the time and ludicrous amounts of energy needed to send a signal a thousand light years away on the remote chance of someone intercepting it. .
The recent discovery of Fast Radio Bursts from beyond our galaxy which turned out to be a microwave in the next room , serves to remind us of the frighteningly mundane reality in which we operate (and almost certainly led to a fair amount of egg on the face of the astronomers concerned) .
I particularly like the fact that the mysterious FRB signals could not be detected - unless someone actually opened the microwave , interrupting the power cycle.
Alien contact - or half - heated breakfast?
You decide!
In fairness, all serious arrays of sky watching telescopes are situated far from population centres with their inevitable sources of light pollution: this, combined with extreme boredom and cabin fever might have the inevitable result of even the smallest stimuli  having a disproportionately huge effect.

Akatsuki orbits Venus                                  © JAXA

On a farewell note, the Japanese probe Akatsuki* has finally settled into orbit around Venus (after a delay of five years),  and is now connected to the 'Deep Space Network'.
Ensuing science based on atmospheric conditions may clear a path for proposed Venusian cloud cities...



* Akatsuki literally means ' Dawn'. So now we have Dawn orbiting Ceres , and Dawn orbiting Venus.

From the lights of Ceres to the plains of Pluto

Ceres Occator crater - closest view yet...

The indefatigable Dawn explorer is dropping (slowly, the Ion engines are fragile) to its closest point in orbit around the dwarf planet Ceres, and hopefully a final solution to the true nature of those baffling lights.
We are told it will be in place for mid-December, so anytime now
From an orbit of 915 miles, it will drop to 230 miles , hopefully providing us with a final definitive moment when we can collectively nod knowingly, saying -'So that's what it is, hmmm'.
I suspect we'll still be none the wiser, but even so, it is a truly fascinating thing.
And to think it's on our nearest dwarf planet.
The closer we get, the more I am convinced that they are subsurface, molten sources, probably of intense heat, too.
If you check out the other images of Ceres, you can see many examples of similar, brightly coloured ejecta around the cratered surface.
I think it's a natural phenomenon of some kind - if it is an alien city, it's the equivalent of putting on every light in the city and shouting ' Here we are! Come and get us!'.
Which would be foolish on a cosmic scale.
Of course it could be a double bluff, and they want us to explore what appears to be a dead city...


Whilst entertaining such wild ideas, scientists have apparently proven that our reality is not a hologram, so - yeah, sorry to all the Matrix-philes and existentialists out there, but apparently reality is not an illusion.
Well, not a holographic illusion.

Meanwhile, Pluto continues to surprise with the latest high definition image downloads from New Horizons...

I'm amazed that this is a strip of land on a planet over 3 billion miles away...


Back on Earth...

'Nudol', Russian anti-satellite system

Russia has successfully tested its first anti- satellite missile.
The image above allegedly came from a Russian site - I especially like the blending of the hardline military vehicle with fluffy clouds and golden crops.
Seems almost peaceful...
This is proof that we are in a new era of space war - or at least the paranoid defence of our satellite capabilities.
This article makes for sobering reading.
For myself, I tend to think of satellites as GPS and mapping and such things - of course it's far more than that. Many nations are dependent on satellite functionality - business, military, communications, weather - so this is the beginning of overhead powerplay...groan.
Okay, so it's not the beginning - the U.S. already have ASAT, their own missile system ready - it's just that Russia and China have entered the fray.

This being the case, I just hope that the joint US / Russian Venus mission goes ahead, along with the proposed ESA/ Roskosmos moon mission - just to remind us all that we can work together and do constructive, forward looking things...

In other revelations this week, it is mooted that there was no Big Bang, and infact the Universe has existed forever . Whether I find this cheering or depressing is uncertain at present - the illustration of the man blowing up the expanding balloon / universe says it all , I think.

  So the universe expands, like a balloon - but who's inflating it - and what's out there?

Distant Galaxies and Nearby Nuts

M60 galaxy, with M60-UCD1 inset.      pic ©NASA,ESA, J. Seth

Far away, on the edge of our galaxy lies a teeny tiny other galaxy - except that this one (M60-UCD1) has a humongous black hole to outshine (in a dark sense) any other.
It has a mass of 21 million suns.
But fear not, it won't be devouring Earth anytime soon - it's 50 million light years distant.
On the other hand, we also know that the light we see from M60-UCD1 is showing us how it was 50 million years ago, so it could already be gone.
And the bottomless time distorting maw of the black hole could be looming ominously overhead, even as we speak.
Which is cheerful.
Sorry...

 Our night sky (viewed away from big cities and their light pollution), contains 4000 stars.
Which is quite a lot, if you ask me - but M60-UCD1 contains 140 million stars, of which 1 million  are visible simultaneously (if there was an Earthlike world there, and you looked to the night sky).

This is an artists impression of the galaxy M6 UCD1

On the similar but opposite end of the spectrum, we have Triangulum II , a really tiny ghost galaxy with a paltry 1000 stars - but the largest detectable quantity of dark matter.


To put the old space race in perspective, there was a nuclear powered spacecraft that was considered for travel to Saturn - in 1958 . It was known as the Orion project, and would have been propelled by exploding hundreds of atomic bombs ....

Oddly enough, the current craft for Mars is also known as the Orion, although its proposed use of nuclear fuel is a little less dynamic...
NASA have revealed their reluctance , however, to engage in deep space travel -
which, given the proposed 2030 manned landing on Mars gives cause for concern - personally I think the journey will be made by a commercial firm - SpaceX and Blue Origin seem capable, although almost certainly with a rather more cavalier attitude towards health and safety...
Recent announcements state the terrible risks involved, apart from issues like loneliness and 'cabin fever', the very real threat of meteor impact, cancer and fatal irradiation.

Recent revelations tell us that the humble water bear or Tardigrade has no less than 17.5 % of  its DNA adapted from other species ; the process by which it does so is unknown, but it surely makes them the prize candidates for deep space travel , with their resistance to extremes of temperature and lethal doses of radiation - they have already been to space (and seem decidedly alien after all) ...
On the other hand, shouldn't we be concentrating on Terraforming, right now ?
Certainly the Moon needs a makeover, what with all that greyness and corrosive moondust.

There is a new mission called Luna 27 which aims to establish a presence in the lunar South Pole  in 2020, so we should spruce it up a little...at least a shiny shopping mall or two.
Perhaps with Holsts Planet Suite as piped muzak.
I'm joking of course, but seriously - recent laws passed Stateside allow for the mining and possession of minerals occuring in asteroids.
This piece of unilateral granting of rights strikes me as a tad premature.
Do we know of any other body perhaps laying claim to mining rights or even ownership of our asteroid belt ?
I'm getting into Hitchhikers Guide to The Galaxy territory here, but let me pause to show this -

Bill passed recently in the U.S.A.

In my slightly naive way, I'm amazed that this is a real document .
Funny how reality is mimicking fiction on an almost daily basis now.
Just this morning , I was ruminating on the fact that we live in a world where The Man In The High Castle is a popular media show.

Original edition cover . Fair Use is invoked.

That such an obscure work by Phillip K. Dick should be fêted, restores my faith in humanity.
Then I get a rude awakening with endless news from the GOP rallies in the US, and I think how bizarre that reality Trumps fiction - in a cartoon way, almost.

To my mind, the evil spectre of modern Nazism was effectively lampooned in the film Iron Sky, in which a thinly veiled Sarah Palin - lookalike aims to lead the exiled Nazis from their hidden moonbase , on a warpath back to reclaim Earth.
Which was darkly funny.
Because it would never really happen...


Meanwhile, back in space...

The buzz at the moment seems to be around black holes - what they look like, how they grow, their potential for swallowing entire planetary systems, that sort of thing.
With this in mind, I share this download and print DIY  black hole game!
Fun for all the family - unless you lose the game and have to watch 'Event Horizon', with its grand guignol horrors , in which deep space exploration invokes a hellish reality . .literally.

In Closing...

 I am UK based and have been attempting to ignore the encroaching 'Black Friday' consumer thing - but Cards Against Humanity won the day for me, with their 'Nothing' sale, in which they sold absolutely nothing at five dollars a go, and raised over $70, 000 !
An admirable response to the lure of pure consumerist greed , except that I am also annoyed at my own failure to see the potential wealth inherent in exploiting irony. dammit.