#01

When mission control wakes you up in the middle of the night on the space station it's almost never good news. And that was the case when the three astronauts on board had to get out of bed to search for the source of a persistent air leak. Mission control was worried the leak was getting worse but there is good news. It turns out "a temporary temperature change caused the erroneous cabin air pressure reading." The leak has since been isolated to the Russian Zvezda module, and poses no imminent threat to the astronauts. 

Now that SpaceX's Dragon capsule is certified to transport people to space, the meaning of the word "astronaut" is about to change drastically as the company fills private slots. Recent bookings include a reality TV show which hopes to send someone on a 10-day trip to the space station, and Tom Cruise who is making plans for the first movie shot entirely in space. 

#02

Dust is everywhere. It floats through the air. It collects on coffee tables. It is found in every city and every countryside where there's enough wind to kick up a little dirt. And it even leaves its mark in the deep ocean where it stays for millions of years. Entombed in the dust are secrets that are now teaching scientists about the Earth's climate 100-million years ago. This only works if you get really far away from land though. Scientists in this study went all the way to Point Nemo, a region in the South Pacific that is further away from land than anywhere on Earth. (Where, paradoxically, they had to modify plans to avoid getting hit by a satellite. Turns out the isolation of the region makes it ideal for disposing of decommissioned spacecraft)

#03

NASA intends to return people to the moon in 2024 under the Artemis program. Unfortunately, it won't be cheap. Administrator Jim Bridenstine has notified congress that NASA will not be able to meet the deadline if the federal budget does not include an additional $3.2 billion in fiscal year 2021 for the development of a lunar lander. Bridenstine was clear though that even if Artemis is not fully funded, development will still continue with a landing date later in the decade.

#04

Evidence for liquid water buried deep within the Martian crust continues to mount. It started in 2018 when radar maps made of the planet's south pole region indicated liquid water under the surface. The newly published research seems to confirm the initial tentative finding and builds confidence that Mars does indeed harbor liquid water. Don't get too excited about future lakefront property though! Any liquid water would be buried more than a mile below the surface and is probably a salty brine mixed with sediment and rocks.

#05

Despite society's interest in creating artificial intelligence, I imagine that we might start finding consciousness in places we just hadn't thought to look before. A new experiment indicates that crows may possess a form of consciousness only found in humans and some primates up until now. The result is made more significant by the fact that birds and primates have completely different brain structures.

#06

Blue whales are not only the biggest animals alive today, but also the biggest animals ever to live on the Earth. They're also one of the loudest, with songs that can travel over hundreds of miles underwater. Researchers from the Monterey Bay Research Institute have started to understand what whales are singing about with a combination of undersea microphones and tags placed on individual animals. Over 5 years, large-scale seasonal patterns in singing seem to indicate foraging and migration behaviors, and "that is a really powerful and important way to keep an eye on this critically endangered species." (You can listen to a live feed of the microphone too!)  

#07

"More than 2,600 years since they were buried, archaeologists in Egypt said Saturday they had found at least 59 ancient coffins in a vast necropolis south of the country's capital" and a sealed door will probably lead to more mummies that haven't been disturbed in millennia. Based on all the movies I've seen about Egyptian archeology, I imagine this won't end well for the archeologists!

The Bookshelf

This newsletter tends to focus on events that happen in deep space or on the open sea, but Robert Macfarlane's Underland: A Deep Time Journey provides a refreshing take of what is hiding right under our feet. Macfarlane doesn't limit himself. He journeys to such diverse places as limestone caverns in the UK, coal mines under the English Channel, underground battlefields Italy, subterranean Paris, and even a nuclear waste disposal facility. Each one of these locations provides a unique perspective as to how humans relate to the underland. Sometimes it's for adventure and explorations, sometimes it's just to get rid of trash, but its always bound to be fascinating.

"When you're in a cave you get a feeling for what it felt like to stand on the moon for the first time. You're the first person ever to see it. There are very few things that can give you that sense of exploration anymore. Where you can go and find unknown land that nobody knew existed."

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This newsletter was produced as a private venture and not in the author's capacity as an employee of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory/California Institute of Technology or of Griffith Observatory. Any views and opinions expressed herein or on exploreandobserve.com are his own and not those of his employers.

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