Planetary Noiz

There is something comically poignant about the idea of "a line in space" as being meaningful. Even metaphorically, it suggests thinking in one dimension too few.

Serious questions as one who fully supports 100% renewables: Of the objections of cognoscenti I know, the biggest 2 are that the storage problem for intermittent sources is unresolved, & that renewables are not up to the task of spike demands or sustained ebbs (e.g. cloudy mid winter-time heating).

I'm shocked you stopped at one hole.
Unless you didn't

Always loved that version, too

What a goob. That's a song, not a band.

Sketch by JT Keane of a talk at 2025 LPSC (True Polar Wander of Venus as an explanation for misaligned parabolas). Impacts on Venus loft material into the atmosphere. As the material falls back through the atmosphere, winds push it downrange — forming a parabola. This parabola should point west... but old parabolas aren't. Perhaps Venus reoriented! Parabolas are effectively paleo-west indicators. Old, misaligned parabolas might record TRUE POLAR WANDER.

Our new survey of parabolas on Venus, and evidence for True Polar Wander at ~1°/Myr is now published! (TLDR @jtuttlekeane.bsky.social was right. nananana BAT region) agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/...

technologically advance a band

The Bipropheads

So many people forget that the first country the Nazis invaded was their own.

It’s only a quote from a superhero movie, but for me it’s one if the most memorable lines from any of those. Especially these days as the invasion is happening here in real time under different flags.

technologically advance a band

AI Feel Love

Human rating- no
In-space refuel- no
Uncrewed lunar landing- no
Moon-earth round trip with earth landing- no

Starship won’t land humans on the moon by end of ‘27. Or ‘28, or ‘29.
And Musk will kill astronauts before any successful lunar mission happens.

In the world of unsurprising news, this is one of the most unsurprising.

Musk will *never* land live humans on Mars.
And I still lay odds 90% he will kill astronauts before landing humans on the Moon.

I read this with interest - my first encounter with your writing. Is it not that this particular wizard is inscrutable because its processes are proprietary? The AI business model requires keeping the box black. There is a non-virtuous motivation preventing us from *actually learning* from AI.

We do have a a fair amount of pretty clouds, and the atmospheric science from Venus Express and Akatsuki. If only VERITAS and DAVINCI actually fly (I'm less worried about EnVision).

Well, no coverage of Venus surface other than radar is plentiful - and the best of that is over 30 years old.

Khrushchev was wrong. We buried ourselves.

The delusion here is so strong it's painful to read.

Safe landing of Starship from orbit
In-space refueling
Uncrewed landing on the Moon
Human rating for Starship
All undemonstrated.

We'll be lucky if even 2 of those succeed in '26, much less all in time for a '27 launch.

This is no race.

Tom Tom Club

It is kind of weird thinking about how I just stopped doing that somewhere along the line.

I gave up when undergrads became younger than my children

Exactly. When atrocities fade from living memory, the risk of repetition, especially when learning history is shunned, rises.

Jupiter in Infrared with superimposed caption "This is not the look of a planet content to let you live."

He’s a Richard Hoagland colleague iirc. I don’t know which is sadder - the rubes who rube for these charlatans, or these particular charlatans grasping at thinner and thinner straws. I suppose it’s the grift that keeps on grifting

“Three intertwined strands”: Persecution complexes by persecutors, accusation of waste by wastrels, and fragile hostility toward facts and evidence that disagree with opinions and desires.
Coddling the belligerent, bullying ignorance that seeks to destroy science will do the opposite of saving it.

Hypothesis: The mice built a sauna next to/beneath/over your lab.

In ~5 years, we as a species are on track to embark on an incredible era of discovery, unlocking the secrets of the planet Venus. The missions @ESA_Envision, DAVINCI, and VERITAS will reveal Venus as we have never seen her before. But why should YOU care about our sister world?

Advocacy Action Center The Planetary Society is organizing a new space constituency that is educated, empowered, and loud.

If you are interested in supporting NASA science and exploration, and saving it from capricious budget cuts, here's one thing you can do: sign this petition being sent to Senate and House members of their respective appropriations committees. Two days left to sign!

www.planetary.org/advocacy-act...

Same same except Chicken Molé

Ah! I never got through ENT - a mild regret, as I *did* like what I saw of their treatment of the Andorians. I do intend to watch that arc someday.
But I'm no arbiter of taste. I still think TOS Klingons are the best version.

Their revamp of the Gorn is absolutely their biggest misstep. The rest, meh. TOS had Specter of the Gun, A Piece of the Action, Patterns of Force, and more. SNW is the best Trek in decades.