So another thread on..... Mars, this time the early years of the space age

#CountdowntoMars #Mars #Perseverance

As we bid farewell to 2020, while it has been a difficult year for so many, one positive has been the steps forward we have made in space exploration.

Here is my top ten..

1/ @SpaceX launched astronauts to space for the first time on May 30.

@AstroBehnken and @Astro_Wheels became the first two astronauts to ride aboard Crew Dragon.

It was also the first time that @NASA astronauts had launched from US soil since July 2011.

@AstroBehnken @Astro_Wheels @NASA 2/ NASA’s Perseverance rover was launched to Mars.

Due to land on the Red Planet on Feb 18 2021, the mission – hunting for past signs of life- will last a year and also has the first helicopter to ever be flown on the planet!

@AstroBehnken @Astro_Wheels @NASA 3/ Phosphine gas was claimed to be detected on the planet of Venus.

This could be exciting as it could mean simple life might exist on the planet.

But there is still a lot of debate around this

@AstroBehnken @Astro_Wheels @NASA 4/ Water ice was confirmed on the surface of the Moon.

Studies also showed it is more common than first thought, with water ice identified on the Moons sunlit surface.

Potential here is huge for future Moon explorers.

Saturn in Aquarius-Thread

Saturn will be in Aquarius until March 7, 2023.
Saturn is now in a diurnal, air, fixed domicile.
Aquarius is associated with the myth of Ganymede, the youthful cup-bearer of the Gods. This is a nuanced form of servitude; to hold that which is true

and unattainable by humanity in your cup, but to hold a juvenescence that is coveted by our lords of time.
This tension of above and below, in a diurnal sign, is far from figurative language. This dimensionality, the divide of space and time, is preferred by the essential and

inherent beingness of Saturn. This is, indeed, the geometry of time. For as where Saturn in Capricorn holds the intimacy of placing one’s feet on the ground strategically; Saturn in an air sign holds the intelligence of negative space, of borderlands, of crossing between reality

I turn to a Japanese concept of “Ma” when I think of Saturnian mastery in Aquarius, “The existence of ma in an artwork has been interpreted as "an emptiness full of possibilities, like a promise yet to be fulfilled",

and has been described as "the silence between the notes which make the music"

⚡️⚡️ THREAD

⚡️⚡️ THE SPACE HOAX ⚡️⚡️

I. Going Nowhere since 1958...

⚡️⚡️ THE SPACE HOAX⚡️⚡️

II. Earth...🤔🧐😬😬

⚡️⚡️ THE SPACE HOAX ⚡️⚡️

III. Mars & Jupiter...🤔🤔🧐🧐

⚡️⚡️ THE SPACE HOAX⚡️⚡️

IV. Satellites...😂😂😂🤣

⚡️⚡️ THE SPACE HOAX ⚡️⚡️

V. Spatial Oversights... 🧐🧐😂😂

Good morning America! You all seem thrilled about Biden’s moon rock. Its symbolism, of the scientific and exploratory achievements that have been made – and will ideally soon be surpassed – certainly hits home.

What you might not know is that rock has an *epic* backstory. 1/x

This rock is known as Lunar Sample 76015,143 - an unromantic name for one of the geologic treasures brought back from the Moon during the Apollo era. This was scooped up by the Apollo 17 astronauts, including Harrison Schmitt, the only professional geologist sent to the moon. 2/x

But that’s not where our story begins. The rock's sage starts 4.5 billion years earlier.

I don’t know if you know this, but you should: the Moon is a hole-punched volcanic crypt, a place sculpted by huge impacts and strange, epic effusions of lava. 3/x

We don’t know how the Moon formed. But the leading theory, partly because it’s the simplest, is that a Mars-sized protoplanet slammed into a magma ocean-covered baby Earth. The impact debris formed an orbiting disk, and it clumped together. Et voilà. 4/x

A whole bunch of cool stuff happened after that. But our moon rock comes into the picture around 600 million years later, around the time giant space rocks were pelting the Moon, Marco Inaros-style. They left some epic scars, mostly on the nearside for some unknown reason. 5/x

I’d like to share this photograph of Earth from Saturn’s orbit, taken by the Cassini probe in 2013.

Earth is that tiny point to the right & down from the center.

Carl Sagan’s “Pale Blue Dot”, a reflection on a photo of Earth taken by Voyager 1 in 1990, comes to mind:

“Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it, everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. ⬇️

The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, ⬇️

every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there--on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam. ⬇️

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. ⬇️