AkaSci 🛰️

SatCom Scientist
Writing occasionally about science, space missions, astronomy, planetary science, satellites, Democracy and human rights.
He/Him
#science #space #technology #astronomy #satcom #Democracy

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npub1lxl7hdr6erhr2l4cr3ulj3fld7ej5yyxmul7lv7k8wchua2d4x5qkls3x9

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akasci_at_fosstodon.org@momostr.pink

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relay.momostr.pink

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Last Notes

2026-02-24 02:20:07 UTC

ICE whistleblower Ryan Schwank:
"For the last 5 months, I watched ICE dismantle the training program, cutting 240 hours of vital classes from a 584 hour program, classes that teach the Constitution, our legal system, firearms training, the use of force, lawful arrests, proper detention and the limits of officers’ authority.
ICE is teaching cadets to violate the Constitution, and they were attempting to cloak it in secrecy by demanding that I lie about it.”
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5751455-ice-officer-training-whistleblower/
#UsPol
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2025-11-01 11:34:02 UTC

According to this Economist/YouGov poll, 8% of adult Americans say they participated in a No Kings protest on October 18. That is about 21 million protesters, not 7 million.
😲
Even if we discount it a bit, that's still would be lot more than 7 million.
Lot more polls at https://today.yougov.com/politics/articles/53277-new-second-term-low-donald-trump-job-approval-government-spending
#UsPol
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2025-10-10 02:31:35 UTC

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Here is the trailer of the 1994 film Sátántangó.
Directed by Béla Tarr.
Based on the 1985 novel Sátántangó by László Krasznahorka, winner of the 2025 Nobel Prize in Literature.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=npqnKe8O0dE
The full 7:20 hour film can be viewed at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90ms8z6jBEM
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2025-10-10 02:28:33 UTC

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László Krasznahorka's 1985 novel Sátántangó, also known in English as Satan's Tango, was turned into an epic critically acclaimed 7:20 hour film in 1994, by Hungarian filmmaker Béla Tarr.
"Everyone in the novel is waiting for a miracle to happen, a hope that is from the very outset punctured by the book’s introductory Kafka motto: ‘In that case, I’ll miss the thing by waiting for it.’"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satantango_(novel)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%C3%A1t%C3%A1ntang%C3%B3
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2025-10-08 13:17:22 UTC

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Omar M. Yaghi, Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2025, U of California, Berkeley.
Born: 9 Feb 1965, Amman, Jordan
"I grew up in a very humble home and we were a dozen of us in a
small room sharing it with the cattle that we used to raise.
I was born in a family of refugees (from Palestine) and my parents barely could read or write.
So it's quite a journey and science allows you to do it. Science is the greatest equalizing force in the world."
⚛️🧑‍🔬
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wC9H9r543xQ
https://news.berkeley.edu/2025/10/08/uc-berkeleys-omar-yaghi-shares-2025-nobel-prize-in-chemistry/
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2025-10-08 12:19:54 UTC

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The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2025 has been awarded to -
Susumu Kitagawa, Kyoto University, Japan
Richard Robson, Univ of Melbourne, Australia
Omar M. Yaghi, Univ of California, Berkeley, USA
“for the development of metal–organic frameworks”
"Metal–organic frameworks contain large cavities in which molecules can flow in and out. Researchers have used them to harvest water from desert air, extract pollutants from water, capture carbon dioxide and store hydrogen."
https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/chemistry/2025/popular-information/
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2025-10-06 04:24:54 UTC

Judge temporarily blocks California National Guard from deploying to Oregon/
Judge Karin Immergut: That's what I'll do. Prohibit federalization or deployment of any NG troops into Oregon. For all reasons in prior opinion. Deployment of federalized military is ultra vires and contrary to law, violating Title 10, section 12406. I also find it's likely that defendants violate 10th Amendment.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2025/10/05/chicago-portland-protests-trump-national-guard/
Also, see https://fosstodon.org/@npub10jq…d8xd/115324947930260376
#Politics
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2025-10-06 01:36:12 UTC

Coming up this week - The Nobel Prizes.
PHYSIOLOGY OR MEDICINE – Monday, 6 Oct, 11:30 CEST
PHYSICS – Tuesday, 7 Oct, 11:45 CEST
CHEMISTRY – Wednesday, 8 Oct, 11:45 CEST
LITERATURE – Thursday, 9 Oct, 13:00 CEST
PEACE – Friday, 10 Oct, 11:00 CEST
ECONOMIC SCIENCES – Monday, 13 Oct, 11:45 CEST
https://www.nobelprize.org/
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2025-09-25 23:11:25 UTC

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Sagittarius B2 is located ~300 light-years from the supermassive black hole (SMBH) at the center of our galaxy.
Here is an image of the center of our galaxy, ~1,000 light years wide, taken in radio wavelengths by the MeerKAT array of 64 radio dishes in South Africa.
At the center lies the SMBH Sgr A*. It is surrounded by various molecular clouds, arcs and filaments.
https://phys.org/news/2022-02-image-galactic-center-radio-meerkat.html
Credit: Photo: Ian Heywood (Oxford U.), SARAO; Color Processing: [@astro_jcm](https://mastodon.online/@astro_jcm )
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2025-09-25 22:50:19 UTC

Here are 2 newly released images taken by the NASA/ESA/CSA Webb Telescope of Sagittarius B2, a massive and active star-forming region located ~300 light-years from the supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy.
The 2nd image, by the MIRI instrument, reveals thick glowing cosmic dust heated by very young massive stars.
Sagittarius B2 is the most productive molecular cloud in the region; with 10% of the galactic center’s gas, it produces 50% of its stars.
https://science.nasa.gov/missions/webb/nasas-webb-explores-largest-star-forming-cloud-in-milky-way/
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2025-09-20 21:09:22 UTC

OTD in 1954, John Backus and his team at IBM successfully ran the first FORTRAN (Formula Translation) program.
The spec for the language was developed during 1954 and published on Nov 10, 1954.
A Programmer's Reference Manual was published on October 15, 1956.
The compiler was developed in 1955-56 and released in early 1957.
We presume, on Sep 20, 1954, the program was manually converted to machine language and executed on an IBM 704.
https://www.softwarepreservation.org/projects/FORTRAN/paper/p165-backus.pdf
https://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/text/Fortran/102679231.05.01.acc.pdf
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2025-09-07 03:24:41 UTC

U.S. Open orders broadcasters to censor reactions to trump, who will be in attendance for the Men's Final on Sunday afternoon, where he will certainly get boo'd and jeered.
They cannot handle the Truth. So they suppress it.
https://www.benrothenberg.com/p/us-open-donald-trump-mens-final-attendance-visit-appearance-censorship-tv-booing-protest-jannik-sinner-carlos-alcaraz
#Politics #USOpen
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2025-09-03 22:11:10 UTC

Another win for the rule of law. For now.
Judge orders Trump administration to unfreeze nearly $2.2 billion in federal grants to Harvard Univ.
Federal Judge Allison Burroughs wrote -
"Defendants used antisemitism as a smokescreen for a targeted, ideologically-motivated assault on this country’s premier universities, and did so in a way that runs afoul of the APA, the First Amendment and Title VI."
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/judge-orders-trump-administration-unfreeze-nearly-22-billion-federal-g-rcna228926
https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.mad.283718/gov.uscourts.mad.283718.238.0.pdf
#Politics #Education
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2025-09-02 21:41:46 UTC

Here is the 459-page review written by 85 scientists in response to the DOE Climate Working Group report. The DOE report was published on July 29 and mocks climate science, extols the virtues of higher CO2 levels and argues for expanded use of fossil fuels to meet energy needs.
Home website with links to docs - https://sites.google.com/tamu.edu/doeresponse/home
#Climate #DOE #Science
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2025-08-26 12:25:31 UTC

Paul Krugman:
"Trump’s attempt to fire Cook has nothing to do with allegations of fraud. Her real crime, in his mind, is that she isn’t an obedient minion (oh, and that she’s a black woman.) The goal of his attempt to fire her is to replace independent Fed officials with lackeys who will take Trump’s orders — not just by getting rid of Cook but by intimidating everyone else.
The real message here is “If you get in our way we will ruin your life.”
"
https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/in-the-matter-of-lisa-cook
#Politics
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2025-08-25 22:00:45 UTC

OTD Aug 25, 1989, the NASA Voyager 2 spacecraft made a close flyby of Neptune, after traveling for 3 years and 7 months since its encounter with Uranus.
Voyager 2 passed 4,950 km above the north pole of Neptune.
V2 is the only spacecraft to visit Uranus and Neptune and study up close their moons, rings, magnetic fields and atmosphere.
This composite image of Neptune was taken from 7 million km distance, 4 days and 20 hours before closest approach.
https://www.nasa.gov/solar-system/30-years-ago-voyager-2s-historic-neptune-flyby/
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2025-08-25 13:00:17 UTC

The ESA Juice (Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer) spacecraft is all set for a Venus gravity-assist flyby on Aug 31, one of the major steps on its long journey to Jupiter.
This follows a major anomaly and recovery of comms to the spacecraft, which was lost on Jul 16.
For several days. commands were sent to Juice, 11 light-minutes away, to reset its comms subsystem, until one succeeded. The root cause was traced to the age old logic problem - a timer counter rollover, sigh!
https://www.esa.int/Enabling_Support/Operations/Juice_team_resolves_anomaly_on_approach_to_Venus
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2025-08-25 11:18:28 UTC

"The Trump administration will move to pull the COVID vaccine off the U.S. market “within months,” one of RFK Jr.’s closest associates has told the Daily Beast.
Dr. Aseem Malhotra, a British cardiologist who has repeatedly claimed in the face of scientific consensus that the vaccines are more dangerous than the virus, told the Daily Beast that Kennedy’s stance is shared by “influential” members of trump’s family."
Ideology trumps science.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/donald-trump-and-robert-f-kennedy-junior-to-ban-covid-19-vaccine-within-months/
#Politics #Health
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2025-08-24 14:30:27 UTC

DHL Germany:
Due to new U.S. Customs regulations, after August 22, Deutsche Post and DHL Parcel Germany will temporarily suspend the acceptance and transport of business customer parcels to the U.S.
Packages and parcels that contain only gifts from individuals to individuals with a value of up to $100 and are declared as "gift," as well as documents, can continue to be sent as usual.
"
Many other countries have announced similar suspensions.
https://group.dhl.com/en/media-relations/press-releases/2025/new-us-customs-regulations-temporary-restrictions-on-postal-goods-shipping-to-the-us-for-private-and-business-customers.html
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2025-08-20 21:37:26 UTC

OTD, Aug 20, 1977, the venerable Voyager 2 spacecraft left Earth to explore Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and beyond.
Since Uranus is in the news this week, let's look at V2's close encounter of it in Jan 1986.
V2 is the only spacecraft to visit Uranus and study up close its moons, rings, magnetic field and atmosphere.
V2 discovered 11 previously unknown moons: Cordelia, Ophelia, Bianca, Cressida, Desdemona, Juliet, Portia, Rosalind, Belinda, Puck and Perdita.
https://www.nasa.gov/history/35-years-ago-voyager-2-explores-uranus/
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2025-08-12 23:58:48 UTC

Happy Birthday to the Parker Solar Probe (PSP), the fastest object ever built on Earth and the record holder for the closest approach to the Sun. PSP was launched OTD on Aug 12, 2018.
PSP became the first NASA spacecraft named after a living person, honoring physicist Eugene Newman Parker.
Next perihelion is on Sept. 10, 2025.
https://parkersolarprobe.jhuapl.edu/News-Center/Show-Article.php?articleID=176
https://parkersolarprobe.jhuapl.edu/
Check out these threads for more info on the PSP.
https://fosstodon.org/@AkaSci/113705015492853135
https://fosstodon.org/@AkaSci/114224523466715013
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2025-07-27 19:15:00 UTC

Tom Lehrer (April 9, 1928 – July 26, 2025) — much admired mathematician, musician, singer, songwriter and satirist — died today at his home in Cambridge, MA.
Lehrer is best known for the pithy, humorous songs that he recorded in the 1950s and 1960s, mixing science, humor and political satire with mathematical precision.
Tom never finished his Ph.D. at Harvard, but spent ~30 years teaching math and musical theater at MIT, Harvard, Wellesley and UC Santa Cruz.
RIP.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Lehrer
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2025-07-22 22:54:04 UTC

This is a spectacular image of a Sprite taken by astronaut Nichole “Vapor” Ayers from the ISS on July 3, who wrote -
"Just. Wow. As we went over Mexico and the U.S. this morning, I caught this sprite.
Sprites are TLEs or Transient Luminous Events, that happen above the clouds and are triggered by intense electrical activity in the thunderstorms below. ... scientists can use these types of pictures to better understand the formation, characteristics, and ...."
https://eol.jsc.nasa.gov/SearchPhotos/photo.pl?mission=ISS073&roll=E&frame=281502
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2025-07-21 23:19:49 UTC

In an IEEE conf. last week, NASA engrs explained how they fixed the Juno spacecraft’s failing camera in late 2023 by heating and slow-cooling (annealing) its electronics.
After 8 years in Jupiter's radiation belts, some JunoCam parts suffered radiation damage.
Engrs suspected a damaged voltage regulator. JunoCam was heated to 77F and much higher in a later step. And the images got clearer!
Annealing can change the crystal structure of materials incl silicon chips.
https://www.nasa.gov/missions/juno/nasa-shares-how-to-save-camera-370-million-miles-away-near-jupiter/
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2025-07-17 15:28:35 UTC

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From the "researcher" who claimed that 1I/'Oumuamua was an alien ship on a scouting trip, here comes a paper grasping at straws to answer the question - "Is the Interstellar Object 3I/ATLAS Alien Technology?"
Among the wispy clues -
- 3I/ATLAS gets surprisingly close to Venus, Mars and Jupiter
- the low retrograde tilt of the orbital plane allows the object access to our planet with relative impunity
:eyeroll:
The authors note that this is a pedagogical exercise.
https://arxiv.org/pdf/2507.12213
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2025-07-14 15:16:47 UTC

The trump plan for the country - eat healthy by yourself, no carrot cakes or healthcare for you.
While the fat cats get tax cuts and all the hamburgers and fries (and cake) they can eat.
#Politics
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2024-12-01 12:15:54 UTC

From Thom Hartmann -
"Trump is taking off the mask, after lying to us for over a year about not knowing anything about Project 2025. Trump, who previously kept his distance from Project 2025, is now selecting its key architects for potential cabinet positions and wow, are they doozies.
The 900-page conservative policy blueprint, which has alarmed Democrats, appears to be moving from the sidelines to center stage in Trump's plans for a potential 2nd term."
https://www.rawstory.com/raw-investigates/donald-trump-mask/

2024-07-29 12:05:12 UTC

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This report from June 2023 from the Brennan Center for Justice has lot more detail on the rationale for term limits for Supreme Court judges.
It too recommends 18-year terms and periodic appointments every 2 years. Each president would have two, and only two, appointments during a four-year term.
Biden's proposals are based on recommendations by the Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court of the United States.
https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/policy-solutions/supreme-court-term-limits
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2024-07-29 11:20:34 UTC

President Biden Announces Bold Plan to Reform the Supreme Court and Ensure No President Is Above the Law.
1. Constitutional amendment - No Immunity for Crimes a Former President Committed in Office
2. Term Limits for Supreme Court Justices of 18 years, with new appointments every 2 years
3. Binding Code of Conduct for the Supreme Court
This will require Congress to pass appropriate bills.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2024/07/29/fact-sheet-president-biden-announces-bold-plan-to-reform-the-supreme-court-and-ensure-no-president-is-above-the-law/
Opinion piece behind paywall at https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/07/29/joe-biden-reform-supreme-court-presidential-immunity-plan-announcement/
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