Bob Siederer
24 March 2025
Hello again Science fans!
June 5, 2024 was the day Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams left Earth on their way to a planned, 8 day visit to the International Space Station. Due to issues with the propulsion system of their Boeing spacecraft, their short trip turned into a 286 day mission aboard the Space Station.
They finally returned to earth this past Tuesday in a SpaceX spacecraft. What are the effects of such a long time in zero gravity and what sort of rehabilitation process do the astronauts go through now that they are back?
While both of them have insisted that they weren’t stranded, conflicting claims and stories about the process of getting them back continue in the political arena.
We’re just glad they are back on Earth!
NASA was also in the news with the launch of two missions, SPHEREx and PUNCH, this week. SPHEREx will survey the entire sky in 102 wavelengths of infrared light, while PUNCH will study the solar wind.
Results from the DESI survey, conducted at the Kitt Peak National Observatory in Arizona, have thrown a wrench into the prevailing theories regarding the expansion of the universe. This study shows that the rate of expansion might very over time. This is an excellent example of why the Scientific Method works. First you develop a theory, then you develop experiments to test your theory. Either you get confirmation that you were right, or you revise the theory if the results of the experiment don’t match what you expected, as is the case here.
The moon was full on March 14 and, if you were in the right place, you were treated to a total lunar eclipse. Despite forecasts here, the sky cleared and the eclipse was visible from most of the Bay Area. But there was another eclipse going on at the same time…a total solar eclipse. You had to be on the moon to see it though. The same physics that caused the total lunar eclipse, caused a total solar eclipse when viewed from the Moon. Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost spacecraft captured the event from the Moon.
On Mars, the Perseverance Rover fired its Laser Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy instrument at some interesting rocks in Jezero Crater. The rocks contain kaolinite, a soft clay material, that requires temperate, wet conditions to form, the same conditions conducive to supporting life. This discovery is another piece of the puzzle that is the Mars origin story, and whether life was part of that story.
March 16 marked the 5th anniversary of the “shelter in place” orders in seven Bay Area counties in response to the COVID-19 virus. I was on my way to Home Depot in East Palo Alto when I heard the news. Where were you? CalMatters kept a time line of significant milestones related to the disease in California. It is worth reminding ourselves just how much life changed for all of us. What worked, and what didn’t as local, state, federal and international government agencies tried to address the growing panic this disease caused.
This coming November, the COP30 climate conference will be held in Belém, Brazil. Around 50,000 people are expected to be hosted by the city, including many world leaders. Belém isn’t the easiest place to get to, so someone came up with the bright idea to build a new four-lane highway through the Amazon rainforest, one of the most sensitive environments on the planet, to make access easier. You can’t make this stuff up!
Our science-denying administration has fired tens of thousands of government employees, including scientists working on health, the environment, climate change, astrophysics, humanities and social sciences. A university in France let it be known that they would offer safe harbor to American scientists fleeing the crackdown on their work, and so far at least 40 have taken the university up on it.
Lastly, what happens when scientists inserted a human language gene into mice?
My picks for this week include:
- Are We Smart Enough to Curb AI’s Environmental Impacts? – 03/24/2025 06:00 PM in San Francisco
- The Hubble Deep Field 30 Years Later – 03/25/2025 07:30 PM in Santa Cruz
- Cuts at NIH: What Is at Stake? – 03/26/2025 07:15 PM in San Rafael
- The Physics Show – Three Performances – 03/29/2025 10:00 AM, 1:00 PM, and 3:30 PM in Los Altos. Also on Sunday.
Have a great week in Science!
Bob Siederer
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