#deep carbon observatory

[honourablejester]

Deep Carbon Observatory (Remastered) (OSR)

I was idly watching youtube reviews for various OSR modules (because honestly some of the adventure ideas are bonkers), and I was so fascinated by the description of one particular module that I went and bought it.

That module was Deep Carbon Observatory (Remastered) by Patrick Stuart & Scrap Princess. And. Look. I’m going to burble about this in extremely spoilery fashion under the cut, because this dungeon? Is fantastic, and the concept behind it is eating my brain.

The basic concept of the module is that you start in a badly flooded town downstream of a titanic ancient dam built by a civilisation no one knows or remembers that lived upriver somewhere around 2000 years ago. The dam has recently broken, flooding out everything below it between it and the sea, and emptying what used to be the reservoir lake above it to expose an entrance to … something. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to venture upriver, racing other teams of explorers all the while, through the flooded Drowned Lands below the Dam, somehow through the barrier of the Dam itself, and then through the strange alien landscape of the Profundal Zone, where the lake used to be, to find out what lies in that strange, newly-exposed Pit.

There are people with theories, prophets and scholars, who have ideas. There are some indications in the Dam and in the lake valley as you go. But the final dungeon, the Deep Carbon Observatory itself, is …

I love it. I love the concept of this dungeon so much. It’s so imaginative in a way that I really vibe with. If you like geology, caving, Deep Time, archaeology, it’s so good.

SPOILERS. The Deep Carbon Observatory is, as it sounds, an observatory. Hanging upside down across a pair of linked stalactites in the roof of an incomprehensible cavern over the vast blackness beneath. And the lens of said observatory, formed of extra-solar minerals that fell to earth in a meteorite, allows you to see through stone.

The Deep Carbon Observatory is a massive observation point, trading post and treasure vault that allowed an ancient civilisation to see into and trade with the vast strange empires in the stone underneath the world. There is a clock, in one of the rooms of the Observatory, that shows a cut-away hemisphere of the world and what lies within it, and I’m just going to quote it, because it’s amazing:

“The south wall holds a gigantic semi-metallic hemisphere showing the onion-rings of the world.

It starts at the iron core, home of the serious hells, then shows the outer core where the terrestrial sub-plains of fire reside, then the mantle with the numerous lesser hells.

Next is the Mohorovičić discontinuity, placed there in ages past by the Lich-Saint Hans Mohorovičić to separate the normal world from the threats below.

After that, the hemisphere shows the crust with continents and subducted plates, the Isles of the Imprisoned Moon, the Nightmare Sea, the Veins of the Earth, the Parliament of Orphan Moons, the inter-penetrating dungeon zones and then a smear of blue for the oceans.

The clock is moving, just incredibly slowly.”

This is … such an amazing pile of world-building to build directly into the concept of your dungeon. It does have treasure, some absolutely spectacular treasure, but the point of this dungeon is knowledge. Knowledge of an ancient civilisation and what killed it (more on this later), knowledge of the history and geology of the world, and current information on the goings on of the civilisations beneath the stone. Because the lens is, at least for a little while, still active. You can use it.

The dungeon is laid out across two stalactites dangling into the abyss, with some rooms above both of them linking to the surface. If you descend through one of the stalactites, you eventually reach the mechanisms and the lens of the observatory itself. If you descend through the other, from the massive winch-hall at the top through the trade halls beneath, following the massive Nightingale Chain, you’ll eventually penetrate out into that abyss, and can venture into the strange dark realms beneath. The Chain used to operate a trade elevator for that purpose.

It's so cool. There are such strange things in this ancient abandoned observation post, such eldritch things, because the things down there are weird, and these people brought some of them up here. And, um. Would you like to guess why this ancient, decadent, opulent, slave-owning society of underworld traders abruptly locked their observatory and flooded the whole damn valley above it to make sure nothing could get in or come out ever again? And were so damaged by the effort that they vanished so completely that 2000 years on no one knows who the hell they were anymore?

Yeah. There are several weird things down here, and one very particular large thing down here that, uh. Would very much like to kill you and everything above you until its finally sated. So.

But. The concept of this dungeon. I’m going slightly insane about it. It’s so scientific, in such a bonkers fantasy fashion. There are treasures and monsters, yes, things to kill and raid, but behind all that there is science. There’s an observation point that lets you see into the earth. There is information, maps and instruments and geological samples and eldritch information storage. The dungeon is not a tomb or a fortress, it’s an observatory. Dangling inside a stalactite above a vast Deep Time abyss of stone and fantasy and hells. It’s a scientific station. It has rock cores of nightmare fossils, it has a magical map that tracks the subduction of continents, it has an eldritch lens that lets you see through stone to vast subterranean cities and nations and biomes. It has a chain that would let you expedition downwards.

One of the first books I ever read for myself, gotten out of the library at seven years old, was Jules Verne’s ‘Journey to the Centre of the Earth’. Okay? This dungeon is like a high-grade drug to me. What a concept.

This is an OSR module, designed for early D&D clone systems, but if someone ran a 5e conversion, I so want to go down there as like …

I want to say a warlock? I want Eyes of the Rune Keeper so badly. I want to be able to read all this scientific information, and the language of the Dam-Builders, while there are NPCs who have some grasp of it, is still a barrier to understanding. So. Possibly a warlock. Or a knowledge cleric or wizard with Eldritch Adept. It’s for a party of level 3-5 in OSR terms, not sure how that’d map to 5e, but assuming somewhere around 4th level? I want to build a full archaeologist type character.

One of the suggested hooks for your character, by the way, is the following: “Hollow Earth Theorist. THE WORLD IS A HOLLOW SPHERE! YOUR THEORY PROVES IT! Yet you have received only mockery in response. You believe final proof lies in the mountains somewhere upriver of Carrowmore. You WILL penetrate the Hollow Earth!!!” Which. Yes. Yes I will.

I love the concept here. I love seeing a dungeon that isn’t just a retread of ‘necropolis complex’ or ‘enemy fortress’, that is something bonkers and scientific and cool. And, like. This carries over. The treasures you can find in here are weird and cool and quite a lot of them will do ill-advised and interesting things to your character’s brain. But it’s fine! Who doesn’t want to go mad in pursuit of knowledge?! Live a little!

I love this. Just to summarise here, to finish up. I love this dungeon. The concept is pitch-perfect. Absolutely no notes. Excellent idea is excellent.

[cover-art-showdown]

Round One, Match XXVI

Deep Carbon Observatory (Patrick Stuart), False Machine Publishing 2014. Cover by Scrap Princess.

The Fall That Saved Us (Tamara Jerée), Rainbowcrate 2024. Cover by Elaine Ho.

[spacetimewithstuartgary]

Some minerals seen on Mars today may have formed in liquid CO₂ instead of water

Dry river channels and lake beds on Mars point to the long-ago presence of a liquid on the planet's surface, and the minerals observed from orbit and from landers seem to many to prove that the liquid was ordinary water.

Not so fast, the authors of a new Perspectives article in Nature Geoscience suggest. Water is only one of two possible liquids under what are thought to be the conditions present on ancient Mars. The other is liquid carbon dioxide (CO2), and it may actually have been easier for CO2 in the atmosphere to condense into a liquid under those conditions than for water ice to melt.

While others have suggested that liquid CO2 (LCO2) might be the source of some of the river channels seen on Mars, the mineral evidence has seemed to point uniquely to water. However, the new paper cites recent studies of carbon sequestration, the process of burying liquefied CO2 recovered from Earth's atmosphere deep in underground caverns, which show that similar mineral alteration can occur in liquid CO2 as in water, sometimes even more rapidly.

The new paper is led by Michael Hecht, principal investigator of the MOXIE instrument aboard the NASA Mars Rover Perseverance. Hecht, a research scientist at MIT's Haystack Observatory and a former associate director, says, "Understanding how sufficient liquid water was able to flow on early Mars to explain the morphology and mineralogy we see today is probably the greatest unsettled question of Mars science. There is likely no one right answer, and we are merely suggesting another possible piece of the puzzle."

In the paper, the authors discuss the compatibility of their proposal with current knowledge of Martian atmospheric content and implications for Mars surface mineralogy. They also explore the latest carbon sequestration research and conclude that "LCO2–mineral reactions are consistent with the predominant Mars alteration products: carbonates, phyllosilicates, and sulfates."

The argument for the probable existence of liquid CO2 on the Martian surface is not an all-or-nothing scenario; either liquid CO2, liquid water, or a combination may have brought about such geomorphological and mineralogical evidence for a liquid Mars.

Three plausible cases for liquid CO2 on the Martian surface are proposed and discussed: stable surface liquid, basal melting under CO2 ice, and subsurface reservoirs. The likelihood of each depends on the actual inventory of CO2 at the time, as well as the temperature conditions on the surface.

The authors acknowledge that the tested sequestration conditions, where the liquid CO2 is above room temperature at pressures of tens of atmospheres, are very different from the cold, relatively low-pressure conditions that might have produced liquid CO2 on early Mars. They call for further laboratory investigations under more realistic conditions to test whether the same chemical reactions occur.

Hecht explains, "It's difficult to say how likely it is that this speculation about early Mars is actually true. What we can say, and we are saying, is that the likelihood is high enough that the possibility should not be ignored."

IMAGE: At left: Steel is seen to corrode into siderite (FeCO3) when immersed in subcritical liquid carbon dioxide (LCO2). At right: Samples of albite (a plagioclase feldspar) and a sandstone core are observed to form red rhodochrosite (MnCO3) when exposed to supercritical CO2 in the presence of a water solution with potassium chloride and manganese chloride, with particularly strong reaction near the interface of the two solutions. In both experiments, water saturation is provided by floating LCO2 on the water. Under the lower pressure conditions characteristic of early Mars, the water would float on the LCO2. Credit: Todd Schaef/PNNL (left) and Earl Mattson/Mattson Hydrology (right)

[collabs-bunny]

I saw your recent video essay/3 hour ttrpg understanding extravaganza and just. DAMN!

You're an excellent mind to listen to discuss a topic so near and dear to my heart. I'm a ttrpg designer with a couple little games; what's your reading list for ttrpg design as a topic? what books, videos, podcasts etc have shaped how you think? because i love the way you think, and would love to know more

Well hello, thank you for my first tumblr ask of all time. 😅 Congrats on tracking this blog down, and I'm glad you liked the video.

First of all, read Luke, Jared and Snow's blogs. Just read whatever strikes your fancy (https://lukegearing.blot.im/, https://jared.blot.im, nerves.games). Snow's most recent post is actually a reading list, I livestreamed a bunch of Luke's posts, and Jared is Jared. If Jared's ideas and opinions sound declarative, that's his voice. I think he dislikes half-committing to ideas, or couching his thoughts, and he has big opinions, so they can come off uh... standoffish? Unfriendly? But he's a big softie, I love him.

For proper philosophy, read Against Procedurality by Miguel Sicart (blog post: https://gamestudies.org/1103/articles/sicart_ap), and his book "Play Matters." His ideas on appropriation and playfulness have literally changed the way I move about the world in my day-to-day. Not every chapter is a banger, but it's good. The Forms and Fluidity of Play by Thi Nguyen is also great (https://gamephilosophy.org/pcg2014/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/C.-Thi-Nguyen-2014.-The-Forms-and-Fluidity-of-Game-Play-PCG2014.pdf), as is Cybertext: Perspectives on Ergodic Literature, even if it was written in the 90's. It's very readable, which is important, but also full of excellent ideas.

I'd also recommend um... just reading a lot of adventures. There's a lot of bad ones, but I trust you to form opinions! I'm currently reading Luke Gearing's Wolves Upon The Coast and loving it for different reasons than I loved his adventure The Isle. I'm a big fan of Mothership's instant classics Dead Planet and Pound of Flesh, and I hear the Warden's Manual in the upcoming Mothership boxed set will have some good practical advice. Dread Manse by Micah Anderson was a recent read I liked a lot. I also love/hate/love Orbital Intelligence, but buyer beware: it's a weird as fuck bibliography. XD Dip a toe in as a treat, and treat all of them (including Crapland) at least a little bit seriously.

Also go watch my Zedeck Siew video and pick up a copy of whatever you think sounds coolest. Spy in the House of Eth is a good start, alongside Lorn Song of the Bachelor and of course Reach of the Roach God (which I haven't read yet, but is available at spearwitch.com). This one's a bit sad because of some recent drama, but the books are still good. Oh, and go listen to the Adventure Tourism podcast, and if my episode on Deep Carbon Observatory sounds cool, go read the original (NOT THE REMASTER).

I will say: Don't read any rulebooks for context. Vanilla Game is alright, but people (including me) have said some really Forge-y stuff about Mothership's mechanisms, DCC is huge and its spells aren't especially fun to read, Best Left Buried is... like, I don't want to say anything bad about it because I was (under)paid to edit it, but ehh.

I say that because a lot of those adventures are for """"OSR"""" games, which people say are inherently high-lethality. This is almost always parroted and twisted to be More Forge Bullshit. The rules don't matter. Most of them are D&D clones in lipstick. I recommended adventures (not rulesets) because they're easily appropriated. Just ask how you would use any piece of them at your table, or how you would change them to fit you or your table. It's a good way to play! It's an inherent part of play. I've said it a million times, but my Mothership home game is 2% Alien, 98% Cowboy Bebop, because fuck the rulebook. I don't like the stress and panic rules anymore. Sorry, Sean!

Let me know if this is coherent or helpful at all, and thanks again for the ask. :)

[doctorslippery]

d100 Rumors for Deep Carbon Observatory

Link Here

[cucumber-pictures]

Looking into 2025

2024 is coming to an end,so I would like to tell you 20 different things, the good and the bad.

The Good

1. All television will start to become internet based.

2. Many cities are banning fossil fuel-powered vehicles.

3. Human brain-scale simulations are becoming possibles

4. First light for the Vera C. Rubin Observatory.

5. Sample return mission from Kamo’oalewa.

6. Direct flights from Sydney to London and New York

7. Pixar will release Ellio.

8. Advances in medicine will improve.

9. Humanity will continue experiments in deep space.

10. Toy Story will turn 30.

The Bad

1. Donald Trump runs for four more years. (And then eventually extends his presidency according to The Simpsons.)

2. The US will start to become more authoritarian, no longer making it a free country.

3. Inside Out 2 will win for best animated film, making Inside Out, Pixar’s second animated franchise to win more than one Oscar.

4. More bad Simpsons predictions will come true.

5. The Doomsday Clock will tick closer to midnight.

6. Global carbon emissions will increase.

7. Average world temperatures will increase relative to 2024.

8. Disney will buy Alvin and the Chipmunks, instead of Nickelodeon buying it.

9. The US will walk out of the Paris Agreement again.

10. AI would get worse

[snizx]

my DM really came to me on this, the day of my emotional F1 season finale, and smacked me with the Deep Carbon Observatory giant

[sunaleisocial]

Liquid on Mars was not necessarily all water

New Post has been published on https://sunalei.org/news/liquid-on-mars-was-not-necessarily-all-water/

Liquid on Mars was not necessarily all water

Dry river channels and lake beds on Mars point to the long-ago presence of a liquid on the planet’s surface, and the minerals observed from orbit and from landers seem to many to prove that the liquid was ordinary water. 

Not so fast, the authors of a new Perspectives article in Nature Geoscience suggest. Water is only one of two possible liquids under what are thought to be the conditions present on ancient Mars. The other is liquid carbon dioxide (CO2), and it may actually have been easier for CO2 in the atmosphere to condense into a liquid under those conditions than for water ice to melt. 

While others have suggested that liquid CO2 (LCO2) might be the source of some of the river channels seen on Mars, the mineral evidence has seemed to point uniquely to water. However, the new paper cites recent studies of carbon sequestration, the process of burying liquefied CO2 recovered from Earth’s atmosphere deep in underground caverns, which show that similar mineral alteration can occur in liquid CO2 as in water, sometimes even more rapidly.

The new paper is led by Michael Hecht, principal investigator of the MOXIE instrument aboard the NASA Mars Rover Perseverance. Hecht, a research scientist at MIT’s Haystack Observatory and a former associate director, says, “Understanding how sufficient liquid water was able to flow on early Mars to explain the morphology and mineralogy we see today is probably the greatest unsettled question of Mars science. There is likely no one right answer, and we are merely suggesting another possible piece of the puzzle.”

In the paper, the authors discuss the compatibility of their proposal with current knowledge of Martian atmospheric content and implications for Mars surface mineralogy. They also explore the latest carbon sequestration research and conclude that “LCO2–mineral reactions are consistent with the predominant Mars alteration products: carbonates, phyllosilicates, and sulfates.” 

The argument for the probable existence of liquid CO2 on the Martian surface is not an all-or-nothing scenario; either liquid CO2, liquid water, or a combination may have brought about such geomorphological and mineralogical evidence for a liquid Mars.

Three plausible cases for liquid CO2 on the Martian surface are proposed and discussed: stable surface liquid, basal melting under CO2 ice, and subsurface reservoirs. The likelihood of each depends on the actual inventory of CO2 at the time, as well as the temperature conditions on the surface.

The authors acknowledge that the tested sequestration conditions, where the liquid CO2 is above room temperature at pressures of tens of atmospheres, are very different from the cold, relatively low-pressure conditions that might have produced liquid CO2 on early Mars. They call for further laboratory investigations under more realistic conditions to test whether the same chemical reactions occur.

Hecht explains, “It’s difficult to say how likely it is that this speculation about early Mars is actually true. What we can say, and we are saying, is that the likelihood is high enough that the possibility should not be ignored.” 

[jcmarchi]

Liquid on Mars was not necessarily all water

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/liquid-on-mars-was-not-necessarily-all-water/

Liquid on Mars was not necessarily all water

Dry river channels and lake beds on Mars point to the long-ago presence of a liquid on the planet’s surface, and the minerals observed from orbit and from landers seem to many to prove that the liquid was ordinary water. 

Not so fast, the authors of a new Perspectives article in Nature Geoscience suggest. Water is only one of two possible liquids under what are thought to be the conditions present on ancient Mars. The other is liquid carbon dioxide (CO2), and it may actually have been easier for CO2 in the atmosphere to condense into a liquid under those conditions than for water ice to melt. 

While others have suggested that liquid CO2 (LCO2) might be the source of some of the river channels seen on Mars, the mineral evidence has seemed to point uniquely to water. However, the new paper cites recent studies of carbon sequestration, the process of burying liquefied CO2 recovered from Earth’s atmosphere deep in underground caverns, which show that similar mineral alteration can occur in liquid CO2 as in water, sometimes even more rapidly.

The new paper is led by Michael Hecht, principal investigator of the MOXIE instrument aboard the NASA Mars Rover Perseverance. Hecht, a research scientist at MIT’s Haystack Observatory and a former associate director, says, “Understanding how sufficient liquid water was able to flow on early Mars to explain the morphology and mineralogy we see today is probably the greatest unsettled question of Mars science. There is likely no one right answer, and we are merely suggesting another possible piece of the puzzle.”

In the paper, the authors discuss the compatibility of their proposal with current knowledge of Martian atmospheric content and implications for Mars surface mineralogy. They also explore the latest carbon sequestration research and conclude that “LCO2–mineral reactions are consistent with the predominant Mars alteration products: carbonates, phyllosilicates, and sulfates.” 

The argument for the probable existence of liquid CO2 on the Martian surface is not an all-or-nothing scenario; either liquid CO2, liquid water, or a combination may have brought about such geomorphological and mineralogical evidence for a liquid Mars.

Three plausible cases for liquid CO2 on the Martian surface are proposed and discussed: stable surface liquid, basal melting under CO2 ice, and subsurface reservoirs. The likelihood of each depends on the actual inventory of CO2 at the time, as well as the temperature conditions on the surface.

The authors acknowledge that the tested sequestration conditions, where the liquid CO2 is above room temperature at pressures of tens of atmospheres, are very different from the cold, relatively low-pressure conditions that might have produced liquid CO2 on early Mars. They call for further laboratory investigations under more realistic conditions to test whether the same chemical reactions occur.

Hecht explains, “It’s difficult to say how likely it is that this speculation about early Mars is actually true. What we can say, and we are saying, is that the likelihood is high enough that the possibility should not be ignored.” 

[valkyries-things]

DR. LOUISE KELLOGG // GEOPHYSICIST

“She was an American geophysicist with expertise in chemical geodynamics and computational geophysics and experience in leading multidisciplinary teams to advance geodynamics modeling and scientific visualization. Kellogg was a Distinguished Professor at the University of California, Davis and director of the Computational Infrastructure for Geodynamics. She was also a major contributor to the Deep Carbon Observatory project of the Sloan Foundation.”

[sercorgi]

Scrap Princess and Patrick Stuart are a match made in heaven for evoking precisely why the Minotaur (or something Minotaur adjacent) is so so so evocative. From the Deep Carbon Observatory Adventure, relatively recently remastered

Dungeons & Dragons: Your character has contracted a disease which reduces your maximum hit points.

Heart: The City Beneath: Your character has contracted a disease which compels you to spend your downtime slots constructing a labyrinth; if the disease isn't cured before you finish building the labyrinth, a minotaur comes out of it and eats you.

[hobbyspacer]

ESO: Merger of 2 stars creates a magnetic star and a nebula

The latest report from the European Southern Observatory (ESO): Beautiful nebula, violent history: clash of stars solves stellar mystery

This image, taken with the VLT Survey Telescope hosted at ESO’s Paranal Observatory, shows the beautiful nebula NGC 6164/6165, also known as the Dragon’s Egg. The nebula is a cloud of gas and dust surrounding a pair of stars called HD 148937. In a new study using ESO data, astronomers have shown that the two stars are unusually different from each other — one appears much younger and, unlike the other, is magnetic. Moreover, the nebula is significantly younger than either star at its heart, and is made up of gases normally found deep within a star and not on the outside. These clues together helped solve the mystery of the HD 148937 system — there were most likely three stars in the system until two of them clashed and merged, creating a new, larger and magnetic star. This violent event also created the spectacular nebula that now surrounds the remaining stars. Credit: ESO/VPHAS+ team. Acknowledgement: CASU When astronomers looked at a stellar pair at the heart of a stunning cloud of gas and dust, they were in for a surprise. Star pairs are typically very similar, like twins, but in HD 148937, one star appears younger and, unlike the other, is magnetic. New data from the European Southern Observatory (ESO) suggest there were originally three stars in the system, until two of them clashed and merged. This violent event created the surrounding cloud and forever altered the system’s fate. “When doing background reading, I was struck by how special this system seemed,” says Abigail Frost, an astronomer at ESO in Chile and lead author of the study published today in Science. The system, HD 148937, is located about 3800 light-years away from Earth in the direction of the Norma constellation. It is made up of two stars much more massive than the Sun and surrounded by a beautiful nebula, a cloud of gas and dust. “A nebula surrounding two massive stars is a rarity, and it really made us feel like something cool had to have happened in this system. When looking at the data, the coolness only increased.” https://youtu.be/1pPnHX4YukE “After a detailed analysis, we could determine that the more massive star appears much younger than its companion, which doesn't make any sense since they should have formed at the same time!” The age difference — one star appears to be at least 1.5 million years younger than the other — suggests something must have rejuvenated the more massive star.

This collection of panels shows three artist’s impressions depicting the violent event that changed the fate of the stellar system HD 148937; a real astronomical image is shown in the last panel. Originally, the system had at least three stars (top left panel), two of them close together and another one much more distant, until one day the two inner stars clashed and merged (top right panel). This violent event created a new, larger and magnetic star, now in a pair with the more distant one (bottom left panel). The merger also released the materials that created the spectacular nebula now surrounding the stars (bottom right panel).Credit: ESO/L. Calçada, VPHAS+ team. Acknowledgement: CASU Another piece of the puzzle is the nebula surrounding the stars, known as NGC 6164/6165. It is 7500 years old, hundreds of times younger than both stars. The nebula also shows very high amounts of nitrogen, carbon and oxygen. This is surprising as these elements are normally expected deep inside a star, not outside; it is as if some violent event had set them free. To unravel the mystery, the team assembled nine years' worth of data from the PIONIER and GRAVITY instruments, both on ESO’s Very Large Telescope Interferometer (VLTI), located in Chile’s Atacama Desert. They also used archival data from the FEROS instrument at ESO’s La Silla Observatory. “We think this system had at least three stars originally; two of them had to be close together at one point in the orbit whilst another star was much more distant,” explains Hugues Sana, a professor at KU Leuven in Belgium and the principal investigator of the observations. “The two inner stars merged in a violent manner, creating a magnetic star and throwing out some material, which created the nebula. The more distant star formed a new orbit with the newly merged, now-magnetic star, creating the binary we see today at the centre of the nebula.” https://youtu.be/DfYV0cZ9Ym0 “The merger scenario was already in my head back in 2017 when I studied nebula observations obtained with the European Space Agency’s Herschel Space Telescope,” “Finding an age discrepancy between the stars suggests that this scenario is the most plausible one and it was only possible to show it with the new ESO data.” This scenario also explains why one of the stars in the system is magnetic and the other is not — another peculiar feature of HD 148937 spotted in the VLTI data. At the same time, it helps solve a long-standing mystery in astronomy: how massive stars get their magnetic fields. While magnetic fields are a common feature of low-mass stars like our Sun, more massive stars cannot sustain magnetic fields in the same way. Yet some massive stars are indeed magnetic.

This wide-field view, created from images forming part of the Digitized Sky Survey 2, shows the rich star clouds in the constellation of Norma (the Carpenter’s Square) in our Milky Way galaxy. The beautiful nebula NGC 6164/6165, also known as the Dragon’s Egg, appears in the centre of the image. Credit: ESO/Digitized Sky Survey 2. Acknowledgement: Davide De Martin Astronomers had suspected for some time that massive stars could acquire magnetic fields when two stars merge. But this is the first time researchers find such direct evidence of this happening. In the case of HD 148937, the merger must have happened recently. “Magnetism in massive stars isn't expected to last very long compared to the lifetime of the star, so it seems we have observed this rare event very soon after it happened,” Frost adds. ESO’s Extremely Large Telescope (ELT), currently under construction in the Chilean Atacama Desert, will enable researchers to work out what happened in the system in more detail, and perhaps reveal even more surprises. Links - Research paper (preprint; for the final version of the embargoed paper, please check https://www.eurekalert.org/press/scipak/ or contact scipak@aaas.org while the embargo lasts) - Photos of the VLT/VLTI - Find out more about ESO's Extremely Large Telescope on our dedicated website and press kit - For journalists: subscribe to receive our releases under embargo in your language - For scientists: got a story? Pitch your research === Amazon Ads === Celestron - NexStar 130SLT Computerized Telescope - Compact and Portable - Newtonian Reflector Optical Design - SkyAlign Technology - Computerized Hand Control - 130mm Aperture ==== An Infinity of Worlds: Cosmic Inflation and the Beginning of the Universe Read the full article

[cover-art-showdown]

Tournament Results: Day 4

Illaberek v. The Faerie Hounds of York

Deep Carbon Observatory v. The Fall That Saved Us

The Tailor of Gloucester v. The Silver Tracks

The General Zapped An Angel v. The Honey Witch

The Truth v. Peter Pan in Scarlet

Strange Practice v. When the Angels Left the Old Country

The Rainbow Opera v. Mask of Shadows

The Weight Of Our Sky v. A Farewell to Arms

Covers moving on to the second round are collected under the cut.

[spacetimewithstuartgary]

Smoke Fills South American Skies

Intense fires burning in several South American countries draped large swaths of smoke across the continent throughout August and early September 2024. In Brazil and Bolivia, fire activity reached levels not seen since 2010 as a prolonged drought parched landscapes in both countries.

From about 1 million miles (1.6 million kilometers) away from Earth, NASA’s EPIC (Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera) imager on the DSCOVR (Deep Space Climate Observatory) satellite captured this view of smoke billowing from the blazes on September 3, 2024.

Smoke from fires in Brazil swept over the country’s capital city in mid-August and early September. For several days, São Paolo’s air was clouded with smog, and air quality was unhealthy for sensitive groups, according to AirNow. The smoke grounded flights and forced schools to close in the most populous city in Brazil, according to The Guardian.

The fire season in the southern Amazon, which generally ramps up in August and peaks in September and October, has been intense this year. According to the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS), a component of the European Union’s space program, emissions from fires have been exceptionally high in Bolivia and the Brazilian states of Amazonas and Mato Grosso do Sul.

CAMS estimates near-real-time wildfire emissions using its Global Fire Assimilation System (GFAS), which aggregates observations made by the MODIS (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) sensors on NASA’s Aqua and Terra satellites. Compared to the previous 21 years, these areas have registered their highest year-to-date total emissions, at 44, 22, and 13 million metric tons of carbon, respectively.

The Pantanal region—which straddles the Brazil-Bolivia border and is home to one of the world’s largest tropical wetlands—has been especially hard hit in 2024. Early and intense blazes spread over the wetlands in late May and continued into August. According to Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research (INPE), there were a record number of fire detections in the biome in June 2024, and fires have continued to burn at high levels since.

The false-color image above, acquired by the OLI (Operational Land Imager) on Landsat 8, shows fires near Ascensión de Guarayos, in the Bolivian state of Santa Cruz. The false-color image emphasizes the burn areas (brown) from several fires on September 3, 2024. Unburned vegetation is green. Near- and short-wave infrared bands help penetrate some of the smoke to reveal hot areas associated with active fires, which appear orange.

Through September 6, blazes tore through more than 10 million hectares of Bolivia, or roughly 9 percent of the country’s total area. Out of the 42 million metric tons of carbon emitted in Bolivia between May and August, 33 million metric tons came from fires in the state of Santa Cruz, according to Mark Parrington, CAMS senior scientist with the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF).

Large parts of South America have seen significant rainfall deficits over the past three months. According to ECMWF, this has led to “exceptional drought” (the highest drought ranking) over much of the central and northern parts of the continent. Brazil’s Natural Disaster Monitoring and Alerts Center noted on September 5 that shifted rainfall patterns from El Niño, increased temperatures from climate change, and reduced humidity from deforestation have all contributed to the drought.

NASA Earth Observatory images by Michala Garrison, using data from DSCOVR EPIC and Landsat data from the U.S. Geological Survey. Story by Emily Cassidy.

[wyrmfedgrave]

Pics:

1. Volume 1 of the "Annals of the Providence Observatory."

2. Inside Volume 1's inner title page.

3. Another Moon map - featuring names from Hevelius. From HPL's "Science Library."

(I guess Hevelius won the naming rights to the Moon!)

4. The Providence Observatory forecast sheet. And since only 1 exists, this might have been another publishing experiment by HPL...

Teen Lovecraft: 1904.

Life: Lovecraft was kept busy this year. He was going to high school, writing & Jellygraphing the "R.I. Astronomical Journal" as well...

There was a lot of work put into HPL's "Annals of the Providence Observatory."

Plus, Lovecraft was also finishing up his 9 volume "Science Library", was trying to get an astronomical club going & was dabbling in telescope observation forecasts...

A lot of all this work didn't last.

Output:

1. The "Providence Observatory Forecast" is a 1 sheet weather forecast for the night of April 5, 1904.

Quote: "Thursday, no clouds will cross the sky, excepting a few (at) sunset."

Wednesday's forecast, which followed Thursday's, was "Fair, with some floating clouds..."

This forecast was followed by some instrumental readings.

2. In "Annals of the Providence Observatory", HPL collected their accomplishments - of the year before! So, even though it was published in 1904, the info was almost a year old...

It covered Venus, which saw colored 'shadings' expand from it's terminator - to cover up the whole planet!

Also: Borrelly's Comet was 1st found; Eratosthenes crater was examined & there was another Moon map; Saturn & Jupiter observations were reported &, an Appendix mentioned an "Ephemeris", "Other Worlds Than Ours", etc...

Definitions:

1. Borrelly's Comet - Discovered on June 27 from Marseilles, France. It has a 2,500 day (6.8 year) orbit, which is modified by Jupiter.

The comet was visited by the Deep Space 1 probe in 2001. It's grey nucleus is some 5 miles long & it's made up of carbon & "organic compounds!!"

Last seen in 2022...

2. Eratosthenes crater - Named after a Greek mathematician & geologist. On the Moon's 'near' side, the crater was made by a deep impact, some 3.2 billion years ago!

(Most lunar craters date back to this time period as well. Once something hits the Moon, the impact is frozen in time. Barring, of course, any other hits in the same area...)

(On Earth, the opposite is true. All impact craters are, in time, smoothed out by weather 'events' & the crater itself becomes filled with dirt, dust, etc...)

3. Johannes Hevelius' naming system is used here. He was originally a sunspot observer, who spent 4 years charting the Moon's craters.

Hevelius is now known as the "Founder of Lunar Topography."

4. Ephemeris - A scientific table or data file which gives the positions of spacial objects in space, regularly & at specific times.

5. Topography - A map with the names & heights of a known area. Used, nowadays, for off road travel & motorcycle/trail bike racing.

[spacenutspod]

This enhanced image of the Jovian moon Ganymede was obtained by the JunoCam imager aboard NASA’s Juno spacecraft during the mission’s June 7, 2021, flyby of the icy moon. Data from that pass has been used to detect the presence of salts and organics on Ganymede. NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS/Kalleheikki Kannisto (CC BY) This look at the complex surface of Jupiter’s moon Ganymede came from NASA’s Juno mission during a close pass in June 2021. At closest approach, the spacecraft came within just 650 miles (1,046 kilometers) of Ganymede’s surface.Image data: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSSImage processing by Thomas Thomopoulos (CC BY) Data collected by NASA’s Juno mission indicates a briny past may be bubbling to the surface on Jupiter’s largest moon. NASA’s Juno mission has observed mineral salts and organic compounds on the surface of Jupiter’s moon Ganymede. Data for this discovery was collected by the Jovian InfraRed Auroral Mapper (JIRAM) spectrometer aboard the spacecraft during a close flyby of the icy moon. The findings, which could help scientists better understand the origin of Ganymede and the composition of its deep ocean, were published on Oct. 30 in the journal Nature Astronomy. Larger than the planet Mercury, Ganymede is the biggest of Jupiter’s moons and has long been of great interest to scientists due to the vast internal ocean of water hidden beneath its icy crust. Previous spectroscopic observations by NASA’s Galileo spacecraft and Hubble Space Telescope as well as the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope hinted at the presence of salts and organics, but the spatial resolution of those observations was too low to make a determination. Processed data from the Jovian InfraRed Auroral Mapper (JIRAM) spectrometer aboard NASA’s Juno mission is superimposed on a mosaic of optical images from the agency’ s Galileo and Voyager spacecraft that show grooved terrain on Jupiter’s moon Ganymede.NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/ASI/INAF/JIRAM/Brown University On June 7, 2021, Juno flew over Ganymede at a minimum altitude of 650 miles (1,046 kilometers). Shortly after the time of closest approach, the JIRAM instrument acquired infrared images and infrared spectra (essentially the chemical fingerprints of materials, based on how they reflect light) of the moon’s surface. Built by the Italian Space Agency, Agenzia Spaziale Italiana, JIRAM was designed to capture the infrared light (invisible to the naked eye) that emerges from deep inside Jupiter, probing the weather layer down to 30 to 45 miles (50 to 70 kilometers) below the gas giant’s cloud tops. But the instrument has also been used to offer insights into the terrain of moons Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto (known collectively as the Galilean moons for their discoverer, Galileo). The JIRAM data of Ganymede obtained during the flyby achieved an unprecedented spatial resolution for infrared spectroscopy – better than 0.62 miles (1 kilometer) per pixel. With it, Juno scientists were able to detect and analyze the unique spectral features of non-water-ice materials, including hydrated sodium chloride, ammonium chloride, sodium bicarbonate, and possibly aliphatic aldehydes. “The presence of ammoniated salts suggests that Ganymede may have accumulated materials cold enough to condense ammonia during its formation,” said Federico Tosi, a Juno co-investigator from Italy’s National Institute for Astrophysics in Rome and lead author of the paper. “The carbonate salts could be remnants of carbon dioxide-rich ices.” Exploring Other Jovian Worlds Previous modeling of Ganymede’s magnetic field determined the moon’s equatorial region, up to a latitude of about 40 degrees, is shielded from the energetic electron and heavy ion bombardment created by Jupiter’s hellish magnetic field. The presence of such particle fluxes is well known to negatively impact salts and organics. During the June 2021 flyby, JIRAM covered a narrow range of latitudes (10 degrees north to 30 degrees north) and a broader range of longitudes (minus 35 degrees east to 40 degrees east) in the Jupiter-facing hemisphere. “We found the greatest abundance of salts and organics in the dark and bright terrains at latitudes protected by the magnetic field,” said Scott Bolton, Juno’s principal investigator from the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. “This suggests we are seeing the remnants of a deep ocean brine that reached the surface of this frozen world.” Ganymede is not the only Jovian world Juno has flown by. The moon Europa, thought to harbor an ocean under its icy crust, also came under Juno’s gaze, first in October 2021 and then in September 2022. Now Io is receiving the flyby treatment. The next close approach to that volcano-festooned world is scheduled for Dec. 30, when the spacecraft will come within 932 miles (1,500 kilometers) of Io’s surface. More About the Mission NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of Caltech in Pasadena, California, manages the Juno mission for the principal investigator, Scott Bolton, of the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. Juno is part of NASA’s New Frontiers Program, which is managed at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, for the agency’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The Italian Space Agency (ASI) funded the Jovian InfraRed Auroral Mapper. Lockheed Martin Space in Denver built and operates the spacecraft. More information about Juno is available at: https://www.nasa.gov/juno News Media Contacts DC AgleJet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.818-393-9011agle@jpl.nasa.gov Karen Fox / Alana JohnsonNASA Headquarters, Washington301-286-6284 / 202-358-1501karen.c.fox@nasa.gov / alana.r.johnson@nasa.gov Deb SchmidSouthwest Research Institute, San Antonio210-522-2254dschmid@swri.org Marco GallianiNational Institute for Astrophysics+39 06 355 33 390Marco.galliani@inaf.it 2023-157