#micrometeorite

[inwokewetrust1981]

The Moon Landing Hoax Exposed: Did we go to space? (Documentary 2022)

The Moon Landing Hoax Exposed

[sepdet]

Unfortunately NASA doesn't have the budget for an ISS… it was only possible during a brief window when multiple countries, including Russia and China, were willing to collaborate.

NASA has its chain continually yanked by Congress and presidents changing its goals and missions every 4-8 years. That'a why it's sunk so much into planetary probes with short-term missions it can stretch instead of ambitious, long-term missions subject to cancellation.  Once a probe's left Earth, it seems wasteful not to use it.

And it's not just Congress. News media, regular people, even Tumblr posts are always asking — why space? when there's so many problems that need addressing right here on Earth.

People don't know that space research has yielded

a heck of a lot of medical imaging and remote tech from programmable pacemakers to modern breast biopsy digital imaging to heart pumps to fetus monitors

materials and tech from modern firefighters' clothing to space blankets to water purification technology to rechargeable hearing aids to vacuum sealed food to autonomous drone navigation

TONS of educational opportunities and science inspo, both thanks to astronauts spending countless hours talking to classrooms or recording demos/experiments, sometimes suggested by students, and thanks to contests letting schools send mini-experiments into space

prep for humans working off Earth on the Moon, Mars, and asteroids, which should become important for mining (we'd much rather the materials in our phones and gadgets be mined from lifeless rocks than the Earth)

Monitoring and documenting major historical events from 9/11 to volcanic eruptions, typhoons and tsunamis from space

Gathering millions of hours of footage of auroras and clouds/thunderatorms which can be used to study space weather and unusual, hard-to-monitor phenomena like sprites

And much more. This is just stuff I know as a NON scientist, because my grandmother and dad were a planetarium director and rocket scientist.

TL;DR: Space matters. But it's not enough for us to say, "Isn't it a shame a thirty year old space station is due to deorbit, and right now there's no plan to replace it." We have to educate lots of people about WHY it matters. We have to convince people it's still worth the money.

It's not enough to lament an era's passing, as I did in 1975 when I upset my dad by complaining I'd been "born after the space age" (ie the Moon missions). How do we fight for its future?

We have to lobby not just the capricious US government, but the EU, Japan, and Canada (who were ISS partners last time), the UK once it pulls its thumb out of its ass, New Zealand and Australia, INDIA whose space program has really taken off, and... hey, let's not forget Africa and South America this time, OK? They've sent up some astronauts, but I doubt they had much input on the current ISS.

The ISS was never going to last forever, any more than my beloved space shuttles which constructed it. (It was originally planned to come down in 2025, I think?) The next one could be even better by being MORE international. Then it wouldn't be dependent on western companies like Elon Musk's. he whose damned Starlink satellites are wrecking astronomy by painting light streaks on long exposures from every kind of telescope from backyard Dobsonians to the Hubble.

There are powerful corporations who want the era of publicly-funded, independent science and journalism to die. We have to push back loud, hard, and en masse to overcome their lobbying, and make politicians hear us.

I feel like nobody on Tumblr knows that the international space station is being discontinued.

Did you know that? In less than a decade it will be gone

CNN Link from above screenshot

More detailed article by Space.com

[foone]

We keep finding space stations, and we don't know why yet.

Most are in orbit around planets, but plenty more are orbiting moons, stars, the odd black hole, or just floating in deep space.

Their age varies, some are so old that just getting close enough to dock makes them shatter like glass, others are so recently constructed that the lights are still on and the reactors are still fueled. All are empty of any life or robots smarter than a roomba.

The ones orbiting planets are orbiting dead worlds, or living worlds where nothing on them is smart enough to launch a space station.

The stations in deep space are weirder. The most information came from the one by Epsilon Eridani. A massive installation, it had docking rings for hundreds of vessels, all empty. It was in remarkable shape for how old it was (from the unrepaired micrometeorite impacts, we estimate it has been abandoned for about 3000 years), so we were able to access a lot of information from its main computer. We found the coordinates of several home planets, and visited them all. All were dead, empty, or in one case, simply missing. The star was still there, the other uninhabitable planets mentioned in the databanks were there, but their homeworld? Gone. No debris or expanding gas cloud, it's just missing.

And that's the thing: if we found space stations along with abandoned ruins of ground-based installations, that'd make sense. If we met dozens of living races, amongst a few empty satellites of long dead races, that'd also be expected. But this is all the evidence we're not alone in the universe we've found.

We've sent probes to over half the stars in this galaxy and visited hundreds in crewed spacecraft, but the empty space stations are the only evidence of alien life. Every planet is either a sterile husk, a gas giant, or a vibrant living world with nothing smarter than a giraffe living on it. Oh, there's strange life forms of every kind! But none of them seem sapient, certainly not sapient enough to build a space station.

Where is everyone? We've been asking that question since we first understood the Drake Equation and the Fermi paradox, but the question has taken on a new form as we've gone to the stars and found endless empty houses in the sky.

It's the difference between looking at an empty desert and walking through an abandoned city. In both cases, there's a silent emptiness, but in the latter case, it seems to contain a sinister element. This place is empty, but it shouldn't be. Something made it empty, and we haven't found out why yet.

We keep looking, and keep listening to the echoes of our own footsteps in the silent habitats.

[internationaldayoflight]

Light, Cameras and Life.

To commemorate the International Day of Light convened by UNESCO annually, NASE proposes to all its participants and instructors to carry out a simple experience but of great educational interest. Although the day of light is May 16, it is proposed to all participants to do it throughout the half year, from the March equinox to the September equinox. It is not limited to May 16 because, as is well known, this day falls within the rainy season in some countries. For this reason, interested teachers can be carried out with their students for half a year. We request that you send us some testimonial photos and the data in the observations obtained during the development of the experience. The table in the introductory material to read to prepare for the experience. Good luck and have a cloudless day or night to do so.

This is a NASE’s proposal for the International Day of Light and consists in Introducing Astrobiology in Schools by means of an activity based in looking for micrometeorites any day between March 20 and September 23, 2023. NASE, Network for Astronomy School Education. Light, Cameras and Life.

[rintezukas]

i actually cry a lot thinking about the golden record like the naivety of it, the tiny golden plate bolted to a satellite floating in an empty space bigger than anything else anywhere, more unfindable than a specific pebble dropped in the ocean by orders of magnitude, more an art project than any real, practical attempt to contact alien life and compromised beyond that by being a product of the United States Of America but also the fact that its like. its physical its not ephemeral like all our other attempts have been. its sitting out there and one day some people we cant even imagine might pick it up, might physically touch it, and even if they cant understand literally anything about it, even if the grooves are worn away by micrometeorites and even if any surviving audio or pictures are completely incomprehensible to their alien psychologies, theres a chance they might treasure it in some way and in their doing that the important part - the gift - will have gotten across

[togglesbloggle]

🔥The ice giants

Oh, this one's tricky. Do people have strong enough feelings about the ice giants for opinions about them to be unpopular? Even NASA doesn't care enough about them to send a spacecraft more than once in a blue moon. I think I'll try to weasel out of this one with the opinion 'all planets are interesting, even Neptune,' on the grounds that uninterestingness is itself the dominant opinion.

The midcentury explorations of the solar system were, in retrospect, kind of crushing for the human imagination. We went from totally unbounded speculations about the diversity of worlds- imagining robust ecosystems on Venus and Mars as late as the 50s and early 60s- to a series of photographs showing cratered, dead, atmosphere-less worlds. And 'realism' became accepting these photographs, building a story of the cosmos that is not just sterile but quite simple, treating the solar system as conforming closely to low-complexity models of planetary formation. Gravity collects micrometeorites and gas particles in planetoids and moons according to the ratios predicted by temperature and distance from the center of the accretion disk; terrestrial worlds close in, gas giants further out, ice giants further still. The planets sort themselves by density, with interior deformation or sortition based on thermal gradients, radioactive decay, magnetic forces; moons find a stable orbit or don't, and that's that.

But the thing is, once you actually get past that superficial Voyager flyby-photograph, these worlds all tend to have dramatic and exciting particularities of their own. Look at Pluto! Look at Titan! Look at Enceladus! Look at Ceres! Probably the most boring and well-studied planet I can think of is Mercury, and even that has cool stuff like solid ice at the surface.

Part of this is just noticing over time that the interface between planets and space (that is, their surface) is not always or even usually the most interesting part of them, and assumptions to the contrary are an understandable but misleading form of Earth-chauvinism.

And a larger share of it, I think, is just that once you get something substantially larger than an asteroid, the combined influence of so much volume, so much mass, and so much time just tends to amplify the variance of your system incredibly far beyond what you'd expect from your 'terrestrial, gas giant, ice giant' template. The model is actionably useful, don't get me wrong, and worlds rarely vary so much that they outright break their category. But nothing the size of a moon or planet is actually simple, and nothing on the scale of four billion years is actually stable. And so each of these things, no matter how straightforward the template, will gradually tilt and totter its way within an unfathomably large space of possibilities to something that is practically speaking unique, and which reveals something new about the cosmos that you can't find anywhere else.

If the ice giants seem simple, it's a reflection of our methods and our technological limits, not the planets themselves. We are, generally speaking, absolutely terrible about investigating gaseous worlds on their own terms- and maybe we simply don't have the right tools or the right questions yet to figure out what makes Neptune and Uranus special. But it's only a matter of time.

[danshive]

Anyone trying to sell you on Mars colonization is either very ignorant of the many hurdles that would be faced once actually there, trying to sell you something, or both.

There's a myriad or problems that go beyond even getting there, including, but very much not limited to, freezing temperatures, radiation, micrometeorites, lack of water, toxic soil, cabin fever, and probable infertility due to low gravity.

There's SO much that needs to be figured out that hasn't been yet. Building rockets that get people there is a relatively minor concern. When it comes to rocket science, we're really advanced. It's survival once actually getting there that we are NOT ready for AT ALL.

[spacetimewithstuartgary]

Can Life Exist on an Icy Moon? NASA’s Europa Clipper Aims to Find Out

With a spacecraft launching soon, the mission will try to answer the question of whether there are ingredients suitable for life in the ocean below Europa’s icy crust.

Deep down, in an ocean beneath its ice shell, Jupiter’s moon Europa might be temperate and nutrient-rich, an ideal environment for some form of life — what scientists would call “habitable.” NASA’s Europa Clipper mission aims to find out.

NASA now is targeting launch no earlier than Monday, Oct. 14, on a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Europa Clipper’s elongated, looping orbit around Jupiter will minimize the spacecraft’s exposure to intense radiation while allowing it to dive in for close passes by Europa. Using a formidable array of instruments for each of the mission’s 49 flybys, scientists will be able to “see” how thick the moon’s icy shell is and gain a deeper understanding of the vast ocean beneath. They’ll inventory material on the surface that might have come up from below, search for the fingerprints of organic compounds that form life’s building blocks, and sample any gases ejected from the moon for evidence of habitability.

Mission scientists will analyze the results, probing beneath the moon’s frozen shell for signs of a water world capable of supporting life.

“It’s important to us to paint a picture of what that alien ocean is like — the kind of chemistry or even biochemistry that could be happening there,” said Morgan Cable, an astrobiologist and member of the Europa Clipper science team at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, which manages the mission.

Ice Investigation

Central to that work is hunting for the types of salts, ices, and organic material that make up the key ingredients of a habitable world. That’s where an imager called MISE (Mapping Imaging Spectrometer for Europa) comes in. Operating in the infrared, the spacecraft’s MISE divides reflected light into various wavelengths to identify the corresponding atoms and molecules.

The mission will also try to locate potential hot spots near Europa’s surface, where plumes could bring deep ocean material closer to the surface, using an instrument called E-THEMIS (Europa Thermal Emission Imaging System), which also operates in the infrared.

Capturing sharply detailed pictures of Europa’s surface with both a narrow and a wide-image camera is the task of the EIS (Europa Imaging System). “The EIS imagers will give us incredibly high-resolution images to understand how Europa’s surface evolved and is continuing to change,” Cable said.

Gases and Grains

NASA’s Cassini mission spotted a giant plume of water vapor erupting from multiple jets near the south pole of Saturn’s ice-covered moon Enceladus. Europa may also emit misty plumes of water, pulled from its ocean or reservoirs in its shell. Europa Clipper’s instrument called Europa-UVS (Europa Ultraviolet Spectrograph) will search for plumes and can study any material that might be venting into space.

Whether or not Europa has plumes, the spacecraft carries two instruments to analyze the small amount of gas and dust particles ejected from the moon’s surface by impacts with micrometeorites and high-energy particles: MASPEX (MAss SPectrometer for Planetary EXploration/Europa) and SUDA (SUrface Dust Analyzer) will capture the tiny pieces of material ejected from the surface, turning them into charged particles to reveal their composition.

“The spacecraft will study gas and grains coming off Europa by sticking out its tongue and tasting those grains, breathing in those gases,” said Cable.

Inside and Out

The mission will look at Europa’s external and internal structure in various ways, too, because both have far-reaching implications for the moon’s habitability.

To gain insights into the ice shell’s thickness and the ocean’s existence, along with its depth and salinity, the mission will measure the moon’s induced magnetic field with the ECM (Europa Clipper Magnetometer) and combine that data with measurements of electrical currents from charged particles flowing around Europa — data provided by PIMS (Plasma Instrument for Magnetic Sounding).

In addition, scientists will look for details on everything from the presence of the ocean to the structure and topography of the ice using REASON (Radar for Europa Assessment and Sounding to Near-surface), which will peer up to 18 miles (29 kilometers) into the shell — itself a potentially habitable environment. Measuring the changes that Europa’s gravity causes in radio signals should help nail down ice thickness and ocean depth.

“Non-icy materials on the surface could get moved into deep interior pockets of briny water within the icy shell,” said Steve Vance, an astrobiologist and geophysicist who also is a member of the Europa Clipper science team at JPL. “Some might be large enough to be considered lakes, or at least ponds.”

Using the data gathered to inform extensive computer modeling of Europa’s interior structure also could reveal the ocean’s composition and allow estimates of its temperature profile, Vance said.

Whatever conditions are discovered, the findings will open a new chapter in the search for life beyond Earth. “It’s almost certain Europa Clipper will raise as many questions or more than it answers — a whole different class than the ones we’ve been thinking of for the last 25 years,” Vance said.

TOP IMAGE: This artist’s concept (not to scale) depicts what Europa’s internal structure could look like: an outer shell of ice, perhaps with plumes of material venting from beneath the surface; a deep, global layer of liquid water; and a rocky interior, potentially with hydrothermal vents on the seafloor. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

LOWER IMAGE: The puzzling surface of Jupiter’s icy moon Europa looms large in this reprocessed color view made from images taken by NASA’s Galileo spacecraft in the late 1990s. The images were assembled into a realistic color view of the surface that approximates how Europa would appear to the human eye. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SETI Institute

[darsynia]

I'm gonna let you pick the Marvel man (just not anyone you've done xReader for, lol - you gotta pick someone out of your comfort zone) and do xReader for: 80. crashing your lips together during an argument

I definitely wrote out of my comfort zone here! Peter Quill/f!Reader

Summary: Ever since Peter Quill and his crew rescued you from your dying ship, the man has been an absolute menace. You wish you could get the upper hand, but somehow he's always one step ahead of you, and ogling you the whole time.

Warnings | Length: Swearing/GotG typical banter | 1,574

Bet Your Ass

“What is your problem, Quill? By the Gods!”

The guy’s been chapping your ass since you were rescued, and you’re completely over it. Sure, he’s got arms, and that face, and those thighs, but by Lumesta, you’re going to need him to shut his mouth pretty soon or you don’t know what you’ll do! It’s been three days, and every time he’s laid eyes on you, he’s made a comment about how he would have rather rescued one of your crewmates.

Your ship had sustained the most unlucky micrometeorite damage ever, and you know you’re lucky to be alive. Two ships showed up to your captain’s distress call, and your three-man crew split up, as the medical ship the other two ended up on was almost at capacity as it was.

To hear Quill bitch about it, he’s brought on a completely useless slave girl, not a mechanic who’s already upped the efficiency of his weird little ship by 4%. It’s all ‘what use does a medical ship have with two renowned fighters’ and ‘we always get stuck with the girls.’ The blue-skinned cyborg woman whose name you struggle with had actually punched him after that one.

Drax has been leaning up against the wall, and after you turn away from snapping at Peter, he nods at you. “He likes your boobs.”

“Oh, here we go!” Quill groans, throwing a food wrapper toward the garbage can. It comes nowhere close.

“I am Groot.”

“I’m getting it, I’m getting it!”

“I am Groot.”

You don’t understand what Groot says, but everyone else does. It’s a disadvantage, but an amusing one, usually. This time, it’s clear the two statements are about very different things-- Quill has straightened in the process of picking up the garbage (which is a shame, because those pants of his hug that ass), so he can look askance at the teenaged tree.

“I am not dignifying that with a response,” he snaps back. “I mean, if we’re going to nitpick, the neckline of her shirt is a little low, but just because it’s eye-catching doesn’t mean--”

You cannot believe this. “Wait, so we went from Drax saying you like my boobs to you objecting to them?”

“Hey! I do not objectify. I’m very respectful!”

“You’re looking at her boobs right now,” Rocket says sardonically from the doorway.

“Weren’t you checking Cleavage Girl’s work? Scram, I’m trying to have an argument here,” Peter says loudly. He actually makes a ‘shoo’ gesture.

“Okay, that’s it. I’m calling you Tight-ass from now on,” you say, crossing your arms over your breasts. You know from experience (as in, pretty much every time you do it) that Quill won’t be able to pull his eyes away.

You’ve made a calculated error, though. Up until now, you’ve left your appreciation of his physique to yourself, and now the man is laser focused on this discrepancy.

“I knew you were staring at me!” Quill crows, strutting over. “That’s why you’re all sulky sexy, you secretly want me, and it’s killing you!”

“I am GROOT.”

Drax points at Peter with the piece of fried food he’s eating. “He’s right. You’re accusing her of what you are doing.”

“Cleavage Girl is new, why are you all on her side??”

Groot shrugs. “I am groot.”

“Woah, speak for yourself!” Rocket yells, making a grossed-out face.

“He’s not wrong. I would enjoy watching them,” Drax smiles.

“Well, now I’m just horrified,” you say, shoving away images in your mind of what the others might be picturing between the two of you. You spin on your heel and start toward the door, but your forward progress is halted suddenly, like you’ve caught your jacket on something. You yank angrily, but though you get free of whatever it was, you only have a few seconds before you’re pinned boobs-first against the wall of the room, with the familiar bulk of Peter fucking Quill pressed up against you.

“Okay, I take it back. You definitely have muscles,” he says, lips close to your ear.

“Get off,” you say, but your heart rate is up, your skin tingling with the pheromone your people give off when you’re attracted to a potential mate.

“Oh, I’d love to. I didn’t think you were into me,” he says infuriatingly. You hadn’t realized the double meaning of what you’d just said, and you rest your forehead on the bulkhead in frustration.

“I’m not,” you lie, shoving back with your hips. You’ve got enough leverage on the wall that he flies back a ways, so you spin around, dropping to a fighting stance.

“Hey, hey, I’m just responding to the signals you’re giving off,” Peter says, but you can see something in his eye; respect, perhaps? Something has shifted since your display of physical dominance. He’s looking you in the eyes, not the boobs.

“You couldn’t handle me anyway,” you snap back without thinking. Instantly, Quill’s face suffuses with an interested grin, and his eyebrows go up lasciviously.

There’s a loud crinkling noise only feet away, as Drax dumps out the rest of his snack into his open mouth. “Go on, I’m not even here,” he says.

“I am Groot!”

“I do not need tips from you on how to get her to want to kiss me!” Peter shouts, clearly affronted.

“Oh, I’ll kiss you,” you say impulsively. “But you have to promise to always look at my face, not any other part of my body.” You cock your hip and arch your back in an overt challenge.

“What if I’m behind you?” he asks, crossing his own arms. The muscles on his exposed arms look so good you wouldn’t mind trying your teeth on them, for multiple reasons.

“If that happens, you have to turn around,” Rocket says. You’d thought he’d left the room, and so did Peter, because both of you look around until you see that he’s sitting faced away in the captain’s chair, which hides his whole body from behind.

“I am Groot.”

Everyone just looks at Groot, and Peter’s eyes go wide.

Their reactions freak you out. “What?”

He shakes his head.

“What?” you press, walking forward. Quill isn’t answering so you decide to remind him that you do, indeed, have strength he respects, even if it’s not your strength of character. You grab the front of his shirt, but his response is to fist pump.

“He said you want me and you’d prove it by coming over to drag me to my quarters… and--” Quill looks down at his own chest and smirks.

You let go right away and groan. “This ship is infuriating! I give up, I wish I went on the med ship, okay? You win!”

To your complete confusion, everyone, even the cyborg lady who was apparently eavesdropping from the hallway, walks in and shoves handfuls of credits at Quill, who looks incredibly smug.

“What the hell--” you start.

Groot walks over and pats your arm. “I am Groot.” Everyone else in the room starts leaving, and you’re still furious and confused.

“Quill--”

“I bet them I could get you to say you wished you were somewhere else,” he shrugged. “Easiest bet ever. All I had to do was stare at your body and be myself.”

All things considered, the man could have chosen far more miserable ways to win his bet, but you’re still het up and irritated. “Technically I won that bet for you. You should split it with me.”

“No can do, Cleavage Girl.” He folds his hands behind his back, bulging his arm muscles at you. 

You step forward to shove him onto his ass, but his arms come down lightning fast, one leg planted behind him to brace himself: he’d known you would do that, and now his lips are on yours, one hand cupping your cheek like you are lovers instead of two people who can barely stand to be in the same room together.

The thrill of contact takes you by surprise. It’s like adrenaline has chemically altered into pleasure with the addition of your anger, and suddenly you can’t get enough. The two of you wrestle across the room to the nearest wall, hands grasping at clothing, lips sucking, teeth biting, tongues swiping as if unable to trust the evidence of your attraction for longer than a few seconds.

Minutes later, he’s tracing the line of your shirt along the edge of your breasts when you finally catch your breath, and you realize what you have to do to best him.

“Oh, I’m sorry, your kiss privileges are hereby revoked.”

“What? No!” Peter groans, lifting his head. His lips are red, pupils blown, out of breath, a complete gorgeous wreck of a man.

“What did I say the conditions were?” you say implacably.

He thinks. Peter’s lips twitch to one side, then the other, and then his eyes pop open and he looks horrified. “You don’t mean that. I was kissing you there, that doesn’t--”

“It counts!” you say sadly. “You weren’t looking at my face.”

You have no idea how he’ll react to your bluff (it’s totally a bluff. That kiss was amazing. You have no idea what boring shit you’d have been subjected to on that medical ship, but you definitely won Best Rescue), but what you don’t expect is for him to narrow his eyes and smile.

“This calls for a new wager.”

“You bet your ass it does.”

[lonestarflight]

The crew of Skylab II deployed a collapsible parasol through the small scientific airlock to act as a sunshade. The micrometeorite shield was sheared off during the launch and with it the protection from the sun.

Date: May 31, 1973

source

[faytelumos]

Into the Black With a Matchstick, pt4

I'm going to be going through the previous three parts and adjusting some language and pronouns (if I haven't already done so by the time this is posted). It won't require anyone re-reading if they don't want to, but it should make things feel more consistent for first-time readers.

@c00kieknight, @hypersomnia-insomniac, @jxm-1up, @midnight--architect, @robinparravel, @thepotatoofnopes, @those-damn-snippets; @tildeathiwillwrite, @thelazywitchphotographer

first previous

allergens: some miscommunication, brief reference to sex

cw: description of a needle (non-threatening)

---

Paxie sighed again, breathing deeply in the shuttle. Klte's suggestion to rest and take off the helmet was a good one. They felt better now, having taken the moment to recuperate. The past two hours had been a flurry. They decided to get back to work, and they stuck their head back into their helmet, allowing the automatic clamp to reseat. Captain Eme would need a break soon, too, undoubtedly. So they should head back to the ship as soon as possible.

The shuttle was still cycling the atmosphere out when their earpiece chirped.

"Go ahead," they said.

"Admiral, we'd like to request a Ghost to come aboard," Kime said. Paxie tried to perk their ears, but the helmet kept them mostly in place.

"Is there something wrong with the Earthlings' vessel?" they asked, maybe a little too worriedly.

"There's an inconsistency in their comms systems," Kime explained. "They wanted to view a star map to reconcile the data, but can't use our devices."

"Ah," Paxie mused. They supposed it wasn't a bad idea. There didn't seem to be an abundance of digital technology in this ship, but it did sound like this matter could be handled with a Ghost's help. "Very well," they said. "I'll have Captain Eme dispatch our Ghost immediately."

"Very good. I'll… prepare the Earthlings for its arrival."

"Actually, Ensign, I'm almost done." The shuttle sounded more or less silent by now, most of the noise Paxie could hear coming from the body of the strange, small ship and up into their suit. "I'll let them know what to expect."

"Very good. Sergeant Klte and I will be sure to leave a path for you."

"Excellent, thank you."

Once the request had been sent along and the blue light shone to indicate the cycle was complete, Paxie opened the doors again. Most of the doorway was taken up by the outer hull of the ship. There was radiation fading on it, and the dings and pocks of micrometeorites. They shivered to think of how desperate this species must have been to leave their planet with such an unequipped vessel.

They lowered their head and squeezed into the open airlock. Since Paxie was too large to fit with both of the Earthling airlock doors closed, the doors had both been manually opened. Paxie wasn't worried about the Xoixe's technology failing to hold the seal from the outside. Even with the awkward shape of the small ship. But if it had been an issue the Earthlings had to solve with their own technology, well….

They hated to admit it, even to themselves. But they would not have felt safe.

Klte and Kime were both out of the hallway that lead to the bridge, allowing Paxie to get most of the way in. This room wasn't made to accommodate as many as The Water's Kiss' bridge. There were four…console stations, and what looked to be a command module in the middle. This is what Harrison and Ramirez were working on.

"Captain Ramirez, Lieutenant Harrison," Paxie said. Both looked up, and Paxie bowed their head lower. "Please forgive my absence. But I do have some positive news."

"Good news is good," Harrison said. Their eyes got wider as they watched Paxie. Ramirez remained stoic as ever. Paxie licked the roof of their mouth.

"We are summoning a Ghost to come help with the technological gap," they announced. Both aliens looked towards Klte with slightly widened eyes. Paxie hesitated. That was a… strange reaction. Both looked back to them, and they kept talking, unsure of what else to do. "Its kind is often a bit… difficult for those who have not seen one before to grasp."

Harrison looked very uncomfortable. Ramirez glanced at them, then back to Paxie. But they also seemed uneasy. Paxie hesitated again. They looked to Kime, but she didn't seem to have any insight.

"Lieutenant Harrison? Do you need to rest?"

"I'm sorry," Harrison whispered. "I just… you work with ghosts?" Paxie tried to perk their ears, and Kime and even Klte seemed to hone in on Harrison.

"You know of them?" Paxie asked.

"We have… legends. Stories." Ramirez looked again to Harrison. They had changed color, going pale—

Klte lunged at the same time as Ramirez, and both of them grabbed Harrison and kept them from falling completely down. Paxie watched, momentarily stunned, as Ramirez took on the burden of Harrison's weight.

Had Harrison died?!

"What's happening?" Paxie barked. "Kime, vitals, we need—"

"I'm okay," Harrison rasped, dumbly grasping at Klte.

Paxie didn't know what to do. They were useless, clogging up the entire hallway, unable to move anywhere fast, watching as Ramirez labored to get Harrison to one of the consoles. They sat them down (what a strange sitting position) and crouched down in front of them. And Paxie struggled to even get near.

Harrison looked half dead. Ramirez had a hand on their neck, and was saying something quietly. The translation protocol couldn't pick it up. But it did hear Harrison.

"It's just a lot," they said. "It's a lot."

Ramirez stood and pushed down lightly on the back of John's head. They shifted, then rested their head on their knees. Bendy creatures, then. Xoixe certainly weren't so flexible.

"He's okay," Ramirez rasped. "He just fainted. It's…." They didn't speak for a moment, reaching into a compartment and getting something out. When they spoke, their voice was raspy. Wet. "Sorry. It's been a long day for us."

"I understand," Paxie soothed. They had felt the same way, and this had been a normal day until two hours ago. They couldn't very well imagine what it was like for these small aliens.

"Thank you," Ramirez rasped. They opened a small, thin container and pulled part of the inside of it out. They handed it to Harrison, who took it and held it loosely in one hand. Then they put their hand on his back and moved it in slow circles.

"What is fainting, Captain?" Kime asked. "Does he need medical attention?"

"No," Harrison groaned. "I'm… I'll be…."

"He's okay," Ramirez said again. "His emotions are very severe right now, and he's dehydrated and hungry. His body is taking in too much stimulus, and it overwhelmed his nervous system." They laughed, quiet and breathy. "His body threw a tantrum." Harrison laughed, too.

"This all sounds very severe," Kime said. Paxie definitely agreed.

"Do you have food?" they asked. "Did you bring any?" Ramirez laughed again.

"We have food and water, we'll be okay."

Paxie quirked their jaw. They didn't understand. Harrison was sick, so sick that his nervous system was… throwing a tantrum? Were these conglomerate creatures? They didn't have the markers for that. But Harrison had looked by all means to have died for a moment, and the two of them were laughing about it. Maybe laughter meant something different on Earth.

Either way, this kind of treatment of crew was unacceptable. Paxie could dismiss the cryogenics ship-wide, as that was a species survival tactic. But they would not tolerate gross neglect of subordinates.

"Captain Ramirez," Paxie ordered. Ramirez looked up, and Harrison followed their gaze groggily. "Your lieutenant is ill, and his needs have clearly reached a point of catastrophe. I demand you give him proper nutrients and rest at once."

The bridge was silent. Both aliens were staring at Paxie. They had their claws raised now, and they were grinding their jaw in agitation. Ramirez's eyes were wide. They were breathing hard, their chest swelling.

"Admiral," Ramirez said, their tone low. "I will yield to your command. But I promise you that my lieutenant's condition is completely survivable."

Paxie watched them both. They weren't sure now if they appreciated Ramirez's command style. Neglectful and dismissive of their crew's needs. Those were terrible leadership qualities.

"I'm okay, Admiral," Harrison said. He stood, slowly, and both Ramirez and Klte seemed ready to grab him if he faltered. To Paxie's shock… he didn't. "Your concern is… heartwarming." Paxie huffed quietly, resisting the need to raise their head, knowing now from experience the ceiling was too low. Ramirez motioned for Harrison to walk in front of them, and the two walked toward Kime. She backed up along the hallway to allow them in. "Don't judge me, but I think I have a crush," Harrison whispered as they left.

"Shut up, they can hear you," Ramirez whispered back. Paxie pinned their ears flat. If Harrison had an injury, especially a crushing one, then they wanted to know about it. They turned off their translator protocol.

"Ensign Kime. Make sure Lieutenant Harrison is getting the appropriate care."

"Yes, sir."

"Sergeant Klte, be sure to be available of he needs help."

"Aye, sir."

---

John kept his head down on the table. He'd managed to finish the new hydration pouch, too. Adina still couldn't stomach the idea of putting anything more than water in her face. And even then, she'd barely been managing to sip her pouch.

"You should really get a hydration pouch," John whispered. "You need the electrolytes."

"I don't want to waste it if I throw up again," Adina breathed.

"You're more likely to throw up if you don't."

She knew he was right. But her tongue was tingling, her back itched all over, her head was throbbing, and every limb felt hollow and staticky. And now ghosts were real and part of this… space federation. On top of everything else.

Adina glanced around the galley again. It was small, only made for up to eight, but the nightmare creature was sharing the space with them. Actually, it probably wasn't nice for Adina to call it that. It had tried to save John's fall, after all. And Adina got the distinct feeling it was watching her to protect John. Because now the admiral of the alien fleet just outside thought she was a heartless bitch who didn't care about her lieutenant.

"Hey," John muttered, looking up. Adina looked back to him. He was still pale, and his eyes were painfully red, and he nodded his head delicately towards the bridge. "Be honest," he breathed, and Adina noticed the nightm—the cave mantis' suit didn't repeat him. "Do you think I have a shot?"

Against her will, Adina pictured John in nothing but an environment helmet and boots, looking at a condom the size of a tube sock with apprehension.

She burst into laughter, splitting her head with pain and laying over the table. John laughed, too, rasping and hysterical, and they both filled the metal room with a cacophony. When the laughter died down, Adina had both arms over her head, squeezing her skull against the cold, plastic table and whimpering.

She was shaking. She knew if she opened her eyes, she wouldn't even be able to see. She took long breaths, but they were somehow shallow. She felt like her body was falling apart.

"Am I dying?" she whispered. John's hand came down on the back of her neck, cool and heavy.

"You survived the wakeup process," John whispered back. "That's where everything goes wrong."

"I feel like shit," she whimpered. "I've never felt like such absolute shit like this."

"I'm sorry," he whispered, and he smoothed his hand over her shoulder. "Maybe we should just get you an IV."

"We don't have time for that," Adina rasped.

"The aliens haven't killed us yet," John uttered. He sounded like he was smiling. Grinning, actually. "Besides, they like me enough. I'll put in a good word and get you twenty minutes to close your eyes."

"My hero," Adina droned. John laughed, then stood.

"C'mon, let's get you hydrated," he said, and he stepped around the table and gently took her by the arms. She rose carefully, keeping her eyes closed, and let him lead her to the med bay. The cave mantis followed behind with minimal noise, but she could still hear it. He helped her sit and then lay back in one of the beds, then started rummaging for the proper fluids.

"What is wrong with Captain Ramirez?" Kime asked.

"She's badly dehydrated," John said for her. She wasn't eager to talk at the moment, and she appreciated his answering for her. "We'll put some fluids in her, and then we can keep trying to figure this out."

Adina eventually opened her eyes when John made some noise from right beside her. The room was a bit blurry, but it was manageable. John set the IV on a small hook in the wall, then tied a length of rubber around her upper arm.

"What is this for?" Kime asked. She was in the doorway now, trapping Adina, John, and the cave mantis in the room. It was as close to the bed as the big alien could get.

"These fluids are going to re-hydrate me," Adina said, and she sat up slightly. She started forming and relaxing her fist repeatedly once John had the band tied across her bicep. "I'm increasing the pressure of the blood vessels in my arm right now, to get a large vein to push against my skin so he can put a needle into it."

The room was very quiet as John bent low, swiping an alcohol pad over the inside of Adina's arm. It burned just a little, and then he gently touched her skin with one hand and lined up the needle with the other. She watched him push it into her, impressed with the steadiness of his hand. He untied the band and stepped back, and she laid her head back with a sigh.

"I'll get something for your head in there, too," he said.

"Thanks."

"C-Captain Ramirez," Kime uttered. Adinia looked up sharply, jarring her head badly, surprised to hear the alien sounding so... scared? She was looking directly at Adina through the domed helmet of her environment suit, but Adina just couldn't read her expression. "Can you not drink water? Are you malformed?" Adina blinked. Then she took another look at the scales on Kime's face. Had the Xoixe never heard of injections? Of intravenous fluids?

"I, my body can't stomach the fluids I need right now," Adina explained. "So I have to bypass my stomach." Kime and the cave mantis exchanged looks.

"You mean to say that you do not require your stomach?" Adina glanced at John, who looked a little bit amused at the disconnect as he injected medicine into the top of the bag.

"I do," Adina explained. "But my stomach isn't doing what I want it to right now. So I'm, uh, removing it from the equation right now. So that I can get back onto my feet."

"Why do you not simply rest?" the cave mantis hissed. Its voice was a bit frightening, halfway between a snake and the chirp of a bat. It made her want to turtle her neck.

"We have too much to do," Adina said, reluctantly meeting its big, black eyes. "I can't afford to take the time right now."

"But your body is failing," Kime said.

"Well, I mean, it might if I kept going like this," Adina relented. "But by doing this, I'm able to stave that off."

"I don't understand," the cave mantis hissed. "You're dying."

"No, I wouldn't say that—"

"Then you do not require water or your stomach to live."

"Well, okay, I do—"

"It's a bit more complicated than that," John said.

"But rather than sleeping and resting your body and mind," the mantis continued, "you are instead piercing your body and adding an outside substance to your flesh, so that you may continue your activities without... sacrificing the time?"

Adina blinked, and she could see John staring at the thing, too.

"It sounds pretty metal when you put it like that," John said.

Everyone in the room flinched when the two aliens' suits made a loud, sharp noise.

"Code black, code black!" another Xoixe voice called over both enviro suit speakers. "Hostile ship spotted, Skel-type destroyer, weapons hot and locked onto the Earth-type explorer! Approaching at factor 3, ten minutes until interception!"

Adina looked directly at Kime, her entire body suddenly seeming to fade away. She was numb all over, and the drugs still in her veins seemed to rev up for a second round. Time slowed. The Xoixe seemed to pale beneath its scales. Part of Adina tried to convince the rest of her it didn't mean the same thing on them that it meant in humans. That the alien's body was reallocating blood flow to muscles out of anticipation of a fight. Out of fear.

"All ships!" Admiral Paxie's voice boomed over both speakers and from down the hall. "Spool FTL drives and make heading for nearest fallback position! Defensive power allocations! Ready automated fighters to scramble!"

---

next

[livingforstars]

The First Explorer - February 10th, 1996.

"The first US spacecraft was Explorer 1. The cylindrical 30 pound satellite was launched (above) as the fourth stage of a Jupiter-C rocket (a modified US Army Redstone ballistic missile), and achieved orbit on January 31st, 1958. Explorer 1 carried instrumentation to measure internal and external temperatures, micrometeorite impacts, and an experiment designed by James A. Van Allen to measure the density of electrons and ions in space. The measurements made by Van Allen's experiment led to an unexpected and startling discovery - an earth-encircling belt of high energy electrons and ions trapped in the magnetosphere - now known as the Van Allen Belt. Explorer 1 ceased transmitting on February 28th of that year but remained in orbit until March of 1970."

[witchpassing]

Did you hear, did you hear? They put a doll on the moon!

It is pleasant to know that something will be taking care of it, at least until its mechanisms wear down.

and that will take quite some time; they build those aerospace dolls to last, you know! extra-strong micrometeorite plating, souls optimised for mathematics and longform patience, the very prettiest radiation shielding the witching mind may devise... i hope it looks down at the earth sometimes and knows how its humbler sisters admire it.

(is it sad to build a doll with the intention of saying goodbye to it forever, or is there only witch-pride at knowing one's creation may outlast the earth? though this one may ensorcell lesser dolls and perhaps even play at donning the hat, it cannot truly know the heart of a maker and re-maker of living things.)

[kaiyves-backup]

On the roof of Canterbury Cathedral, two planetary scientists are searching for cosmic dust. While the red brick parapet hides the streets, buildings and trees far below, only wispy clouds block the deep blue sky that extends into outer space.

The roaring of a vacuum cleaner breaks the silence and researcher Dr Penny Wozniakiewicz, dressed in hazmat suit with a bulky vacuum backpack, carefully traces a gutter with the tube of the suction machine.

“We’re looking for tiny microscopic spheres,” explains her colleague, Dr Matthias van Ginneken from the University of Kent, also clad in protective gear. “Right now, we are collecting thousands and thousands of dust particles, and we hope there will be a minuscule number that came from space.”

Most of the extraterrestrial dust that bombards Earth each year vaporises in the atmosphere – some models suggest that 15,000 tons reach Earth’s atmosphere (the equivalent of about 75 blue whales). But about 5,200 tons of micrometeorites fall to Earth, based on an estimate from Antarctica. These particles, which most likely come from comets and asteroids, are tiny, between 50 microns to two millimetres in diameter.

“You have to be a bit of a detective,” says Van Ginneken. The extreme heating on atmospheric entry changes many of the minerals and “you have to figure out the nature of the original particle based on the limited information you have”.

[apurbopulok]

Thousands of tons of cosmic dust are estimated to reach the Earth's surface every year, with most grains having a mass between 10−16 kg (0.1 pg) and 10−4 kg (0.1 g). The density of the dust cloud through which the Earth is traveling is approximately 10−6 dust grains/m3.

The best spots to look for and find the extra-terrestrial dust particles are surfaces with little vegetation and erosion, where, once landed, they remain collectable for a long time: for example on ice surfaces in the Antarctic or on the seabed. Researchers from the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin and the Freie Universität Berlin now want to tap a new source of the scientifically very valuable material. They are counting on the active support of Berlin citizens.

Cosmic crumbs

“We want to collect micrometeorites, they are usually less than one millimetre in size, from Berlin roofs,” says project manager Lutz Hecht. The idea has already proven successful: The researchers extracted 63 micrometeorites from many kilogrammes of dust from a roof area of around 5000 square metres. They are now identifying further roofs, which could be good places to find more due to their location and nature.

At the selected locations, the material is swept together and the particles from 0.1 to 0.8 millimetres in size are sifted out. Magnetically reacting particles are then extracted from these. The yield is washed, light particles discarded and the remaining material is dried and examined under microscopes. “This is a very time-consuming task that requires the help of volunteers who help us picking out the interesting objects,” says Hecht.

Whether the interesting objects actually are micrometeorites will be checked with an electron microscope. The museum’ geochemical and microanalytical laboratories are equipped for analysis