Spaaaaace

Just barely missed it here in Chicago area.

Picture is about four hours post-event

Here are some better pictures!
https://spaceweathergallery2.com/

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Late Qualcomm cofounder teleports $200M into SETI to bankroll hunt for alien life

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The late physicist and engineer left behind a legacy of technological innovation that includes 378 granted and pending patents, and his philanthropic work wasn’t limited to the search for alien life. Last month, the non-profit Summer Science Program announced Antonio had left behind another $200 million to help it grow the program for exceptional high school students, of which he was an alumnus.

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Wrong side of the world from me, and it was cloudy here anyway. Very cool, but.

ETA: what did you use to snap that pic?

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Just my camera’s phone. This was right before sunrise so the sky is all washed out

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NASA’s Lucy probe scores a threefer as it flies by first target in 12-year mission

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Qualcomm and Iridium’s satellite link-up loses signal

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Amazon’s Project Kuiper thrusters deliver Prime orbit adjustments

Amazon’s custom thrusters are performing well on its prototype Project Kuiper satellites following a series of tests to check if the Hall-effect electric propulsion system works as expected on orbit.

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That reactor system is expected to split the atoms in uranium fuel, and use the resulting heat to drive Stirling engines connected to generators to produce between between six and 20 kW of electric capacity. That electricity can then be used to power the craft’s onboard electronics and electric Hall thrusters for propulsion. Hall engines work by using a magnetic field to accelerate ions to produce thrust.

This is on top of any power that can be generated from any attached solar panels; when there’s not enough light, this atomic system ought to be highly useful.

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bookstore now has rocket…

this was not on my bingo card.

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Holy crap.

My emphasis:

ETA: the nearest “big” galaxy is the Andromeda galaxy, about 2.5 million light years away. This one burst was roughly one thousand times further than the Andromeda galaxy, and it set off instruments on the surface of the Earth.

Gamma bursts are like every other radio signal, governed by an inverse-square law of intensity to distance. Meaning if you were half as far away (a billion light years), the signal would be four times stronger. If it popped off in the Andromeda galaxy, the intensity on Earth would be around a million times stronger. :exploding_head:

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