There are so many reasons why we ought to refuse and reject the propaganda-against-confidence, out there. A better-than-expected economy? Dropping crime rates? A working vaccine against malaria and looming extinction for both the Guinea worm and polio? Uneven but steady, incremental steps toward justice… and even progress toward saving the planet!
Please look at these! https://www.abundance360.com/ and https://futurecrunch.com/goodnews2023/
But above all, incredible science! So today let’s deal with the science that’s actually above it all. In space!
== Let’s live up to Ingenuity ==
The little Mars helicopter that could. It’s mission is now officially over, due to damaged blades. This may not be the very last hurrah. But still… hurrah little guy.
Meanwhile Japan’s SLIM lunar lander bots – a mostly successful ensemble! Though one little pike on top coulda prevented the showoff headstand…. Some of the design concepts emerged from studies funded by NASA’s Innovative & Advanced Concepts program – (NIAC).
== Looking out there ==
The Webb Telescope took spectra as a sub-Neptune planet passed in front of its star, letting Webb detect the presence of methane and carbon dioxide in the exoplanet atmosphere, which supported the theory that K2-18 b could indeed be a Hycean (highly oceanic) world… plus evidence of the rare molecule dimethyl sulfide, which might be a strong indicator for the presence of life. On Earth, dimethyl sulfide is created solely as a byproduct of life, most commonly by marine bacteria and phytoplankton.
An infant star! A new image from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has captured what Earth’s sun may have looked like when it was only a few tens of thousands of years old. Enhanced images of this newborns are gorgeous!
Also from Webb: carbon, an essential component of life on Earth, is also present within Europa, Jupiter’s ice-covered moon that’s believed to hold huge oceans of liquid salt water beneath its icy surface.
The riches pouring from the Webb are amazing: a cornucopia! For example, Tellurium, an element rarer than platinum on Earth, was just found in the aftermath of a violent cosmic kilonova 1 billion light-years away, thanks to Webb.
See the James Webb Space Telescopes’s views of galaxy M51. And again wow. YOU are a member of a civilization that does this sort of thing. Yet you dare to wallow in gloom and killed confidence? Look at this! You helped pay for the wonder, the competence, the wisdom. Do more…
Source: CONTRARY BRIN: Yet more Space News! And reasons for us to have some confidence.
