Because I'm guessing that except for a couple of launch service providers, the industry has started Christmas break.
A Chinese-launched satellite came close to a collision with a SpaceX Starlink satellite
One of the nine payload satellites launched on December 9th from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in the Gobi Desert came "too close for comfort" to the SpaceX Starlink satellite.
"As far as we know, no coordination or deconfliction with existing satellites operating in space was performed, resulting in a 200-meter close approach between one of the deployed satellites and STARLINK-6079 (56120) at 560 km altitude. Most of the risk of operating in space comes from the lack of coordination between satellite operators — this needs to change," Michael Nicolls, vice president of Starlink engineering at SpaceX, said via X on Friday evening (Dec. 12).
Another article on the same site (Space.com) states that SpaceX launched their 10,000th Starlink into orbit around the middle of October. I think with 28 or 29 satellites per launch I've watched them add at least a hundred more to that total. Space.com goes on to say:
In 2020, for example, fewer than 3,400 functional satellites were whizzing around our planet. Just five years later, that number has soared to about 13,000, and more spacecraft are going up all the time.
Pardon me for the grade school-level arithmetic to follow, but I find this hard to believe. If we had 3,400 satellites in 2020 and five years later we have 13,000, that's pretty close to 10,000 in five years, which is what the previous link said about the 10,000th Starlink being launched. Either that or both numbers are wrong because they imply that no other country, company, or any entity has launched anything.
Starlink satellites avoid potential collisions autonomously, maneuvering themselves away from conjunctions predicted by available tracking data. And this sort of evasive action is quite common: Starlink spacecraft performed about 145,000 avoidance maneuvers in the first six months of 2025, which works out to around four maneuvers per satellite per month.
Atoms from Earth's atmosphere identified on the moon
New research has concluded that atoms and molecules from Earth's atmosphere have been traveling across space to settle on the moon for billions of years, solving a puzzle that has existed since the Apollo program.
In samples of lunar regolith brought back from the moon by Apollo astronauts, scientists have found puzzling amounts of volatiles, which in this case are elements such as water, carbon dioxide, helium, argon and nitrogen that have low boiling or sublimation points. Some of these volatiles are brought to the moon from the sun via the solar wind, but the abundances of these volatiles, particularly nitrogen, cannot solely be explained by the solar wind.
The puzzle of how these components ended up on the moon is a bit involved, but in the big overview, it was originally thought some of the volatiles have come from Earth, as particles leaking out from our planet's upper atmosphere when they receive a nudge from energetic particles riding the solar wind. It was believed, though, this could only have happened in the early days of Earth's history, before our planet had a chance to develop a strong global magnetic field. It was thought a strong field would block particles from escaping. This was eventually run through computer simulations which showed a strong magnetic field didn't stop the particles leaving Earth.
There are interesting details in the source (first link) but a bit long to lift and reproduce here. If you're interested, RTWT.
How atoms and molecules from Earth's atmosphere, knocked into space by the solar wind, are transported to the moon along magnetic field lines. (Image credit: University of Rochester illustration/Shubhonkar Paramanick)
Final words to space.com.
This means that the lunar regolith could still hold a very long-term record of Earth's atmospheric history, which in turn could teach us about how Earth's climate, environment and even life has changed over billions of years. Furthermore, the insights gained don't have to be confined to our planet.
"Our study may also have broader implications for understanding early atmospheric escape on planets like Mars, which lacks a global magnetic field today but had one similar to Earth in the past, along with a likely thicker atmosphere," said Paramanick. "By examining planetary evolution alongside atmospheric escape across different epochs, we can gain insight into how these processes shape planetary habitability."
So, we need to send analytical equipment to Deimos and Phobos, yes?
ReplyDeleteNo luck with Venus nor Mercury, darn it.
Your thoughts on the Kessler syndrome and the new CRASH clock? My opinion, just an intelligent guy and not a space flight career member, is that we'd better start figuring it out yesterday, or plans be damned, everyone is stuck on this rock permanently. EVERYONE.
ReplyDelete(side note...any benfotiamine news to report)
The biggest thing is that there are things in place to help satellite owners find out about known risks. Like the SpaceX VP said, "...Most of the risk of operating in space comes from the lack of coordination between satellite operators ... " There was no evidence that the Chinese company did any of that.
DeleteThey're not exactly open about what they do. I'm sure they're not the only ones.
The whole way they talk about this seems like they're trying to paint the worst picture possible. The easiest example is they say all the debris is moving at 17,000 mph - not exactly true but "rhymes with the truth" because it's a reasonable orbital velocity but orbital velocity doesn't matter. What matters is relative velocity. When the Blue Angels or Thunderbirds fly in formation alongside each other, they're flying the same velocity with respect to the ground, but at 1 or 2 mph relative to each other.
That 17,000 number means nothing. Basically, the vast majority of satellites in orbit are flying in formation largely west to east and don't intersect. Flying in different orbits, like polar versus sun-synchronous, is where the real risk is. But even that means they never can intersect with both going 17,000 mph like a head-on collision of cars causing a 34,000 mph relative velocity. Virtually nothing in orbit is going "backwards" - east to west.
I don't mean there's no risk, I mean it's overrated. The surface area of the earth is roughly 200 million square miles - the equivalent area at orbital heights is larger, because surface scales as radius cubed. So there are 20,000 satellites - that means one every 10,000 square miles. Which is wrong because most of the orbits are in belts smaller than the whole planet and don't all get near the poles. But the orbits aren't all the same altitude and don't all intersect.
Some place I read recently said there are nine million objects in orbit - which has to include things down to the size of a small screw. Think of a small piece of wood or metal hitting a semi truck on the interstate.
Benfotiamine: I could determine no difference at all from it, and after my bottle of 90 I stopped taking it. I've been tracking the number of "afib-like episodes" my FitBit watch tells me, and the appearance of the number per day plots on a spreadsheet definitely changed when I dropped it. The peak to peak got smaller. Hard to imagine that the vitamin made it worse, but taking the vitamin had no noticeable effect.
Spherical surface is a function of radius squared..........
DeleteSpherical surface is a function of radius squared. D'oh!
DeleteThanks! Didn't even notice I did that.
I asked two questions of "Perplexity" since Grok was too busy to answer:
ReplyDelete"benfotiamine benefits and side effects" and "benfotiamine benefits for the heart"
all other bovine products aside, the answer, in a nutshell:
"Practical implications
For people with diabetes or high cardiovascular risk, benfotiamine is best viewed as an adjunctive metabolic support, not a proven cardioprotective drug; standard risk‑reduction (blood pressure, lipids, glucose, smoking cessation) remains primary. Anyone with established heart disease, multiple medications, or upcoming surgery should review possible use of benfotiamine with a cardiologist or primary clinician before starting, since long‑term, high‑dose cardiac safety and outcome data are still incomplete."
last two phrases being the most important
I think Perplexity did a good summary. I met one or two people that had remarkable recoveries from their afib with the fat-soluble version of B1 and figured I'd try a small experiment as it didn't seem high risk. They were 300 mg of benfotiamine, but while it's called "fat soluble thiamine" they don't equate that to whatever the thiamine MDR is. I took the 90 pill bottle, 1/day, and then tossed it because I sure couldn't tell any effect of it.
DeleteWho had satellite dodgeball for late '25?
ReplyDelete