The rover spotted a blurry object on the horizon. It’s “cube shaped” only insofar as a blurry single image can depict a cube.
I feel confident in stating “it’s a rock.” Still, go take a look. The moon is rocks. You went to the moon to look at rocks; that one is as good as any other. One likely blasted out of the ground by a meteorite impact is likely to be fairly interesting.
These here videos looks nice on a laptop monitor. They look astonishing on a big screen high def TV.
Let’s see “other ways of knowing” produce *anything* a tenth as cool, awesome and inspiring as this. Bring it!
Neato!
This area is nowhere near as photogenic as Utah was… but then, few places are. It has its moments, though.
The transonic flight regime can be one of the most difficult for aircraft. Drag goes up nearly exponentially as you approach Mach 1, which is why it’s expensive to fly at or just below the speed of sound; in principle, it can be more fuel efficient to fly *faster* than sound. And some low-supersonic transport designed were studied back int he 70’s and thereabouts, designed to move at up to about Mach 1.4 But as with every Really Cool Thing, the additional costs and complexities (including sonic booms rattling the suburbs below) ended up trashing the idea of slightly-supersonic transports.
The interesting thing is… a distinctly subsonic aircraft can move, at least in part, faster than the speed of sound relative to the air going by it. An airplane with an air speed of, say, Mach 0.8 needs to shove air out of the way. Air needs to flow around fuselages, wings and engine nacelles; by flying around these structures, the air – relative tot he structure – has to speed up… and then slow down again as the structure tapers off. This can often mean that air is flowing at or even beyond the speed of sound in localized regions. if you know what to look for, and if the lighting conditions are just right, you can actually make out the standing shock waves from airflow that has been shoved past Mach 1.
“Real world” shockwaves are difficult to see. They can be seen far more clearly in wind tunnels where the lighting can be carefully controlled.
A pretty snazzy SIMULATED (*) 360-degree view of Mars at night as seen by the Perseverance rover is available here:
https://www.360cities.net/image/mars-at-night
Unsurprisingly, the seeing is pretty good.
*Ah, I got suckered. Drat.
A photo taken from the first stage of a Saturn I showing the second stage’s six RL-10 rocket engines firings, boosting the S-IV stage towards orbit. Also visible are four orange-yellow exhaust plumes from ullage rockets… solid rockets that provide just enough acceleration to the stage to settle the liquid propellants at the bottoms of the tanks (otherwise the turbines might suck down vapor rather than liquid and that would be a Very Bad Thing).
Photo was from a 1965 magazine advertisement for Pratt & Whitney, manufacturer of the RL-10 engine. The full rez scan of the ad has been made available at 300 DPI to all $4/month patrons/subscribers in the 2021-10 APR Extras folder at Dropbox. If you would like to help fund the acquisition and preservation of such things, along with getting high quality scans for yourself, please consider signing on either for the APR Patreon or the APR Monthly Historical Documents Program.
One of the more visually remarkable examples of gravitational lensing spotted so far. Another win for STEM.
Speedbump and Buttons are pals. But Banshee *hates* Buttons. So even on those nights when it gets cold and cats form themselves into a fuzzy high volume to surface area lump, getting all three together just doesn’t happen.
If you contributed to my SAC Museum SR-71 photographic trip, you should by now have access to the relevant Dropbox folders with the photos. For those who contributed $10, this includes the “Best of” folder with 94 photos at 1.15 gigabytes. If you contributed at $30 or more for “All The Photos,” you should have access to:
ALCM: 47 photos, 546 megabytes
B-36: 159, 1.99Gigabytes
B-45: 85, 1.05 Gb
B-47: 168, 2.09 Gb
B-52: 179, 2.22 Gb
B-57E: 79, 1.00 Gb
B-58: 283, 3.48 Gb
Misc: 191, 2.36 Gb
SR-71: 280, 2.44 Gb
XF-85: 22, 282 Mb
You should have received a notification from Dropbox of your access to these folders. If you have just the regular personal account or no Dropbox account at all, most of these are too large for them to be allowed to sit on *your* Dropbox account… but you will still be allowed to download the photos, either individually or as a complete folder ZIP file. The description Dropbox gives is a little vague in that regards.
Also, because why not, I’ve added some “bonus” folders including photos taken during previous visits. For those who contributed $50 or more, you should have:
B-47: 75 photos, 89 megabytes
B-52: 53, 204 meg
And for those who contributes $100, you should have:
B-36: 60, 315 meg
B-58: 78, 304 meg
If you’re interested in the photos, or helping me pay for this trip (which included not only car repair/preparations, but also cat food, because *everything* includes cat food), or to help me work on the next couple of books and projects that this trip was in aid of, you can still sign on:
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Note: Amazon still has my SR-71 book, but, jeez, it’s a bit pricey just now at $39. Did it sell out? Dunno. I *guess* that’s a good sign?