NASA has selected a new space mission that will help astronomers understand both how our universe evolved and how common are the ingredients for life in our galaxy's planetary systems. The Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization and Ices Explorer (SPHEREx) mission is a planned two-year mission funded at $242 million (not including launch costs) and targeted to launch in 2023.
"I'm really excited about this new mission," said NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine. "Not only does it expand the United States' powerful fleet of space-based missions dedicated to uncovering the mysteries of the universe, it is a critical part of a balanced science program that includes missions of various sizes."
SPHEREx will survey the sky in optical as well as near-infrared light which, though not visible to the human eye, serves as a powerful tool for answering cosmic questions. Astronomers will use the mission to gather data on more than 300 million galaxies, as well as more than 100 million stars in our own Milky Way.
"This amazing mission will be a treasure trove of unique data for astronomers," said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for NASA's Science Mission Directorate. "It will deliver an unprecedented galactic map containing 'fingerprints' from the first moments in the universe's history. And we'll have new clues to one of the greatest mysteries in science: What made the universe expand so quickly less than a nanosecond after the big bang?"
SPHEREx will survey hundreds of millions of galaxies near and far, some so distant their light has taken 10 billion years to reach Earth. In the Milky Way, the mission will search for water and organic molecules - essentials for life, as we know it - in stellar nurseries, regions where stars are born from gas and dust, as well as disks around stars where new planets could be forming.
Every six months, SPHEREx will survey the entire sky using technologies adapted from Earth satellites and Mars spacecraft. The mission will create a map of the entire sky in 96 different color bands, far exceeding the color resolution of previous all-sky maps. It also will identify targets for more detailed study by future missions, such as NASA's James Webb Space Telescope and Wide Field Infrared Survey Telescope.
NASA's Astrophysics Explorers Program requested proposals for new missions in September 2016. Nine proposals were submitted, and two mission concepts were selected for further study in August 2017. After a detailed review by a panel of NASA and external scientists and engineers, NASA determined that the SPHEREx concept study offered the best science potential and most feasible development plan.
The mission's principal investigator is James Bock of Caltech in Pasadena, California
As Joni Mitchell sang and wrote:
There'll be new dreams maybe better dreams and plenty
Before the last revolving year is through
And the seasons they go round and round
And the painted ponies go up and down
We're captive on the carousel of time
We can't return we can only look
Behind from where we came
And go round and round and round
In the circle game
Before the last revolving year is through
And the seasons they go round and round
And the painted ponies go up and down
We're captive on the carousel of time
We can't return we can only look
Behind from where we came
And go round and round and round
In the circle game
In the meantime, Lee Roop (AL NEWS) reports:
There were no coolly logical Mr.
Spocks at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California Wednesday when
the space agency declared its Opportunity rover’s mission to Mars
“complete” after it gave “no response” to a final signal from Earth.
The rover landed on Mars almost 15 years ago for a 90-day mission and
kept exploring the planet’s surface until an epic Martian dust storm
apparently choked off life last summer.
Scientists took turns talking about
Opportunity’s legacy in an auditorium at the center where it was
built. Repeated themes were pride, perseverance and the joy of working
with people who could keep a rover going on another world against almost
all odds. “It’s an emotional time,” said one
team member.
Opportunity’s big discovery was finding strong evidence that liquid, drinkable water existed on the Martian surface in the distant past. It’s biggest contribution to NASA was “changing the way we think about doing planetary science,” scientists said. Its direct legacy is in the way NASA is building rovers now for future exploration leading to a human landing on Mars.
Opportunity has a real legacy. So will Curiosity.
And the seasons they go round and round
And the painted ponies go up and down
We're captive on the carousel of time
We can't return we can only look
Behind from where we came
And go round and round and round
In the circle game
And the painted ponies go up and down
We're captive on the carousel of time
We can't return we can only look
Behind from where we came
And go round and round and round
In the circle game
"Iraq snapshot" (THE COMMON ILLS):
Thursday, February 14, 2019. Nearly 16 years of corporate media promoting war in Iraq.
What might seem like a passing moment of poor taste becomes an eternity of proof as a result of filming your stupidity and then deciding to post your stupidity to social media.
What might seem like a passing moment of poor taste becomes an eternity of proof as a result of filming your stupidity and then deciding to post your stupidity to social media.
US soldier in #Iraq mocking the call to prayer...
He doesn't realize he is in someone else's country occupying it,if the adhan irritates him he should go back to his own country
"So they have indeed denied, then the news of what they mocked at, will come to them." #QURAN 26:6
"And the evil of what they did will appear to them, and they will be completely encircled by that which they used to mock at!" 45:33
May these Filthy USA terrorists burn in Hell!
Jokes on him...he'll probably end up killing himself when he's back home cos of PTSD, like most Iraq vets. We'll see who mocks who then.
He doesn't know that ignorance leads to hell fire.
Poor guy doesn't know. He is under pressure being in a place that he shouldn't be but to be with his family and nation.
his need hidayah insaallah doa
One day you will regret for this
The dogs of hell!!
that is wahhabi khawarij haha
Idiot just idiot
IS this what you call democrazy and you are expecting to happen in Iraq ??
Those are actually some of the kinder reactions to that video.
Aziz Ahmad (NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS) offers an essay this morning about how ISIS is increasing violent attacks in Iraq. He notes:
For the next two hours, Abu Samya laid bare his transformation from a laborer in a mixed, well-to-do suburb to an inmate in
Camp Bucca, the US-run prison that came to define an era of the
American occupation of Iraq. The journey took him from political
disillusion to ideological commitment, and back again, shaping his
values, then shattering them within a decade.
During our discussion, he reflected on a prewar era when
sect or ethnicity barely mattered. “We lived in peace,” he said. He
pulled back a sleeve to reveal a scar that he claimed was caused by an
electric drill used in torture by Shia militiamen after sectarian
tensions exploded during the civil war unleashed by the US invasion.
That scar has since been both a constant reminder and a visceral
incentive for revenge.
“I started to hate them and the government,” he said.
Abu Samya proceeded to tell me his story in unabashedly sectarian terms. Though just one man’s account, it could
easily have been a collective statement about a society blighted by
fifteen years of war and deprivation, often on a family-by-family basis.
His sense of disenfranchisement led him to the
Islamic State, or ISIS, the terrorist group whose claim to address the
grievances of Iraq’s Sunnis acted as a rallying call for many who were
not attracted purely by ideology.
In the article, Ahmad offers a list of three things that need to be done. It seems an honest attempt at coverage. There's no honesty to be found in Chloe Cornish and Aime Williams' piece for THE FINANCIAL TIMES OF LONDON which offers 'historical insight' like the following:
In Baghdad, Mr Shanahan sought to mend fences. Mr Trump had initially riled Iraqi leaders by making a Christmas visit to American troops in the country without paying any courtesy calls on senior officials in Baghdad. Then the president caused more upset this month by saying he might want to maintain the US’s “unbelievable and expensive” military bases in Iraq beyond their anti-Isis mission in order to monitor Iran. “I want to be looking a little bit at Iran, because Iran is a real problem,” he said. The comment enraged many Iraqi lawmakers, who had already accused Mr Trump of violating Iraqi sovereignty, and fuelled demands from some that American troops be withdrawn.
The Iraq War did not start with Donald Trump becoming president. Nor did calls for US troops to leave Iraq start with his presidency. An ongoing illegal war is reduced to five minutes to misdirect and flat out lie. The war is illegal and should not have ever started. It did start but it continues thanks to outlets like THE FINANCIAL TIMES OF LONDON.
16 years of coverage and 16 years of poaching journalists from other outlets and what great report has THE FINANCIAL TIMES OF LONDON ever assembled on Iraq?
How sad and how telling.
What Donald Trump did?
It angered the pampered puppet government. The Iraqi people have long called for US troops to leave their country. The leaders need them to stay in power because they are not popular with the Iraqi people. The US installed Iraq's current president as well as the current prime minister. And they're the ones offended.
Because of death and destruction?
No because Donald didn't visit with them on his visit to Iraq.
Oh, what a horrible snub to their image!!!!
And the nonsense about watching Iran? Turkey gets so much from the US government because Turkey gave up land for a CIA outpost in southern Turkey for the US to spy on Iraq (specifically to spy on northern Iraq). That's not a new development. We covered it back when it was, over 13 years ago.
This is about wounded egos.
And if wounded egos get US troops out of Iraq, great. But let's not pretend like this is a real issue or something that won't be paved over with money at some point. Puppets have collapsable spines.
They are nothing more than private dancers.
You keep your mind on the money
Keeping your eye on the wall.
THE FINANCIAL TIMES piece, like so much of what passes for coverage these days, has a subtext that argues for the war to continue. In this case, these leaders, these poor leaders (elected by whom?), are victims of Donald Trump! We must overcome Donald! We must stay in Iraq!
That's the subtext to this b.s. Crap like this is why the Iraq War will hit the 16 year mark next month.
Iraq remains one of the most corrupt countries in the world. And this detail somehow always disappears when corporate media wants to sell continued war. They play as though it didn't happen or, if they admit it happened, they play as though no one's sure how it happened.
The non-responsive, Baghdad-based government is a creation created by the US government. The same US government created the process by which there is no direct vote of Iraq's top leaders.
And when you don't answer to the people, when the US picks you and installs you, you grow ever more corrupt.
ISIS is a problem, yes.
The answer to that is not troops on the ground. That's never the answer to terrorism. The only way to stop terrorism is to take away any legitimate gripes terrorists may have.
The government of Iraq does not take care of the people and allows huge numbers to be persecuted. That is what breeds terrorism. As one puppet after another installed as prime minister has failed to address that, the situation in Iraq has grown worse. If that shocks you or surprises you, you're the perfect audience and foil for corporate media which has a highly pronounced estrangement from the truth.
The corporate press spends forever and a day justifying continued war. They do not call out the corruption in the Iraqi government, they do not call out the refusal of the Iraqi leaders to meet the demands of the people. But then again, the Iraqi people have always demanded an end to US occupation so the corporate press has long been against them.
The following sites updated:
