MARS MISSION

India Joins Exclusive Club of Deep Space Research by Launching Mars Mission
India made a historic leap in space research as Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) launched the country's first satellite into Mar's orbit in early hours of September 24, 2014, thus joining the exclusive club of USA, Russia and European Space Agency. What startled academics and policymakers about Indian achievement was that the Indian mission, known as Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM), was made completely based on indigenous technology and resources at a cost of around $75 million while USA's much larger Mars mission, known as Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution Mission, or Maven, cost almost 10 times, or $671 million.

Presence of Methane in Mar's Atmosphere Rekindles Hope for Life's Presence in the Planet
A year after all but rejecting the presence of Methane in Martian atmosphere, scientists found new evidence of significant presence of Methane in the planet based on the data collected by the NASA's Curiosity rover. The gas might have been generated in recent times as sunlight and chemical reactions would break up the molecules within a couple of centuries. There are two major ways, according to the most of the scientists, methane might have been created in the Martian atmosphere:

* Serpentinization: It's a geological process that requires both heat and liquid water to create Methane
* Microbial Process: Methane is created as a form of waste from microbes, also known as methanogens

It's the second process that tantalizes the scientific community although even the first process, or serpentinization, would also provide indirect evidence of life in the planet. The finding was reported in the journal Science and reported by media on December 16, 2014.

NASA Presents Strongest Evidence of Presence of Water on Mars
NASA scientists on September 28, 2015 provided some tantalizing evidence based on photographs taken by Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) that water might exist in liquid form on some Martian slopes. In 2008, NASA said that evidence had pointed toward presence of frozen water. However, the recent evidence from MRO implies rivulets about 12 to 15 feet wide and 300 feet or more long. They apparently consist of moist soil, not standing water. The water in the rivulets contains salts--not ordinary table salt, but magnesium perchlorate, magnesium chlorate and sodium perchlorate.

Russia-Europe Collaboration on Mars Mission
Despite the most tense and turbulent time defining the bilateral relations between Russia and Europe since the end of Cold War, both parties have been leaping ahead with space exploration program rivaling America's. On March 14, 2016, European Space Agency's ExoMars spacecraft will be launched on the top of a Russian Proton rocket from the steppes of Kazakhstan. After a seven-month journey, ExoMars will enter Martian atmosphere. Three days prior to entering the Martian atmosphere, two components of ExoMars will separate out from each other. The lander component,  Schiaparelli, named after the 19th century Italian astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli, will hurtle toward Martian surface at a speed of 13,000 mph and quickly decelerate as it will approach the surface. After the touchdown, Schiaparelli's battery will last for three or four days. The primary objective of Schiaparelli is to test the viability of its landing system as in the last time ESA's Beagle 2 spacecraft that had accompanied with Mars Express Orbiter failed to deploy its landing system successfully in 2003. Beside testing its landing system, Schiaparelli will also carry related equipment to measure Martian atmosphere in the midst of a dust storm season. ExoMar's orbiter component, Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO), will revolve Mars at a height of 250 miles and is expected to last at least through 2022. TGO will carry instruments that will detect the presence, and if so, measure the quantity of gaseous substances such as Nitrogen, water vapor and methane. Especially tantalizing is any clue of presence of methane gas in Martian atmosphere as methane may be obtained through two  processes:
* Serpentinization: It's a geological process that requires both heat and liquid water to create Methane
* Microbial Process: Methane is created as a form of waste from microbes, also known as methanogens
Since chemical reaction and sunlight break down methane molecules fairly quickly, any possible presence of methane in Martian atmosphere is to be deemed as being generated in recent time. The challenge at that time for TGO instruments is to find evidence whether the methane gas has been formed due to Microbial Process, a clear indication of presence of life in Mars.
ExoMars has been originally proposed to be launched by NASA, but American space agency has backed out in 2012, thus opening an entry for Russian space agency. The second phase of Russia-ESA ExoMars joint collaboration will involve a rover, and is tentatively scheduled to be launched in 2018.

************************************* InSight Lander ******************************
Successful Landing of InSight
It was a perfect, nerve-wracking landing of the latest Martian probe on November 26, 2018 that brought a rapturous applause to the scientists from U.S., Germany and France whose collaboration had yielded the fruit of successful launching, and now successful landing, of InSight on Mars' Elysium Planitia just before 3PM ET.  Mission Control at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California was filled with cheers, screams and tears. For the next two earth years, the mission of InSight will be to investigate Red Planet's interior to try to find out clues how it had evolved into present day desolate terrain since its birth 4 billion years ago. At its birth time, Mars was more like our planet, with magnetic field, a churning mantle and metallic core. Images from satellites reveal Mars of a planet with long-gone lakes, deltas and river-carved canyons.
The last 3 billion years were a slow-motion disaster for Mars as dynamo had died down, the magnetic field had faltered, the water had evaporated and half of its atmosphere had thinned with solar winds stripping it away. The InSight will try to find out why. InSight's successful landing on Elysium Planitia also helped preserve two accompanying mini-satellites, MarCo, fitted with solar arrays, a color camera and an antenna for relaying communication to earth. Now, data will be flowing to earth seamlessly. The landing of probe on the Mars is as difficult as can be. Scientists have no means to rectify any mistakes as there is a lag time of about 7 minutes for the light to traverse 100 million miles to earth. The entry into Martian atmosphere was cinematic, nerve-wrenching  and thrilling: entering with a herculean speed of 12,300 miles per hour and the lander's heat shield was torched with friction that rose the temperature to 2,700 degrees. Within minutes, a supersonic parachute deployed, slowed down the lander and separated the heat shield and deployed four legs. It was a perfect landing. Now, the mission begins, and unlike earlier probes such as Opportunity and Curiosity that collected interesting information about Martian rocks, InSight will monitor the tiny tremors and collect data from the planet's inside core.
************************************* InSight Lander ******************************

Opportunity's Communication Stops
After a 300-million-plus mile journey and close to one-and-half decade of sending panoramic Martian pictures to earth, Opportunity lander on February 13, 2019 was pronounced dead due to an epic Martian storm that had erupted last year. Its last picture sent to earth was on June 10, 2018. Although Opportunity didn't send any communication back to earth since June 10, 2018, scientists were hopeful that the probe would begin communication after the Martian storm was over. Opportunity and its twin rover, Spirit, were launched in the summer of 2003. In January 2004, both rovers touched down on Mars, but on the opposite sides, and began exploration of possibilities that once the Red Planet might have hosted environment conducive to life. Spirit landed in Gusev Crater, a rocky formation of lava. The crater was very hard to navigate, and over the next six days, Spirit traveled more than a mile to Columbia Hills and began to make crucial finds.  Spirit's mission ended in March 2010, a year after its wheels broke off on the thin crust Gusev Crater. Spirit was officially declared dead in May 2011. Opportunity, on the other hand, landed in Meridian Planum, possibly a dried former lakebed, and using its Spectrometers, a tool to analyze mineral composition, Opportunity found a mineral, Hemanite,  that's typically formed in water. When an epic Martian storm had hit in May 2018, Opportunity was on its way to Endeavor crater to study its inner wall. As Opportunity has been pronounced dead on February 13, 2019, the rover has set a record of traversing the maximum extraterrestrial distance of 28.05 miles. 

************************** UAE'S MARS EXPLORATION ORBITER *****************
UAE Becomes the First Arab World Nation to Undertake Interplanetary Mission 
After sending its first astronaut to International Space Station in the Fall of 2019, United Arab Emirates on July 20, 2020 leapt to a historic success in space endeavor when it had launched Arab world's first Mars rover from a Japanese launch site, Tanegashima Space Center, on a small island in South Japan. The rover, Amal, is set to reach at Mars in February 2021. Mitsubishi Heavy Industries' H-IIA rocket is carrying Amal. The July 20, 2020, launch came months after Hazzaa Ali Almansoori spent over a week at ISS last Fall, marking back-to-back achievements in space research. UAE has set a goal of building a human colony in Mars in 2117.

Arab World's First Mission to Mars Achieves a Milestone with Orbiter Entering Martian Atmosphere

On February 9, 2021, UAE became the first Arab and Islamic nation to achieve the feat of its orbiter entering into orbit of the Red Planet. The mission control in Dubai erupted in joy as Amal entered into Mar's orbit after a 300-million-mile journey that had kept the UAE captivated over the past six months and 20 days.  Amal will try to settle down on an elliptical orbit of 13,670 miles by 27,340 miles over the next few months and start to capture multitude of data from the atmosphere surrounding Mar. As the mission control in Dubai received message that Amal had successfully entered into the Martian atmosphere, an ebullient Omran Sharaf, mission control director, declared "UAE reaching Mars". Also, on hand was UAE's ruler for day-to-day operation, Mohammad bin Zayed al Nahyan. 

There are two more missions closely following the UAE orbiter: China's mission and U.S. mission. China's mission involves a lander and an orbiter while U.S. rover Perseverance is about to land on the Martian surface on February 18, 2021. 
************************** UAE'S MARS EXPLORATION ORBITER *****************

********************************** PERSEVERANCE ROVER **********************
Perseverance Launched to Probe on Mars
Perseverance, a MARS rover, was launched on July 30, 2020 from Cape Canaveral atop an Atlas V Rocket. The vehicle will drop the rover, if everything goes well, on Mars in February 2021.

Perseverance Lands on Mars

The Mars rover Perseverance landed on the Red Planet successfully on February 18, 2021. It will now seek traces of past life and collect soil and rock samples to be brought to earth one day. Swati Mohan, the guidance and control operations leader for the mission at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California announced the landing: "Touchdown confirmed! Perseverance is safely on the surface of the Mars, ready to begin seeking the signs of past life".

The touch-down occurred at 2:56 CT on February 18, 2021. Perseverance used its autonomous guidance system to navigate through hazardous surface and land perfectly on the surface of a dry, ancient Martian lake bed, Jezero Crater.  The $2.5 billion Martian mission was equipped with brand new Terrain Relative Navigation, or TRN, system to help a perfect landing on the treacherous Martian surface. Perseverance will spend researching for past life over at least the next 687 days, or one Martian year. 

The EDL, or Entry-Descent-Landing, maneuver has been entirely autonomous as it's too far for our scientists to guide the rover's last phase of arrival. The carrier of Perseverance entered the Martian atmosphere at 12,000 mph, deployed a heat shield to prevent burning out, used thrusters to slow down the speed, deployed parachute and eventually used a sky crane for final lowering of the rover on the Martian surface. In the next 30 Martian days, or sols, Perseverance will travel on the surface to a more convenient area which will be used as a flight pad for a 4-lb solar-powered helicopter, Ingenuity, to start flying over the terrain to collect data, marking the first time that such flight technology will be used on a different planet. Perseverance will also collect soil and rock samples to be brought back to earth by a future rover around 2031. 

"Wrights Brothers Moment" Felt after a 30-second Flight in a Planet 178 million Miles away

A 4-pound helicopter, called the Ingenuity, took a 30-second flight over Martian surface on April 19, 2021 around 2:30AM Dallas time. It sent pictures to earth to Jet Propulsion Laboratory. It took almost 3 hours and traversed 178 million miles to reach the earth in a combination maneuvers: Ingenuity to rover; rover to an aircraft on Martian orbit, to NASA's Deep Station Network of antennae to eventually to JPL. The 30-second flight of Ingenuity is compared to Wright Brothers' 1903 debut flight. 

Second Flight for Ingenuity: This Time Higher, Farther and Longer

Three days after making history of flying a flight in another planet, Ingenuity, the four-pound helicopter, took off for its second flight on April 22, 2021. This time, it went up as high as 16 feet, six feet higher than the 10-foot lift that Ingenuity had accomplished on April 19, 2021, flew 7 feet sideways and spent about 52 seconds, 13 seconds longer than the last time, in the Martian air, whose atmospheric composition of as thin as 1% of earth's atmosphere had made all the more difficult for Ingenuity to operate and fly without significant risk. 

Ingenuity Makes its Longest Journey in Fourth Flight, More Flights in the Coming Days

In its fourth flight, the four-pound helicopter Ingenuity on April 30, 2021 traveled 872 feet at the height of 16 feet for two minutes, longest and farthest by a flying vehicle on a different planet. Jet Propulsion Laboratory's Ingenuity Project Manager MiMi Aung told reporters that "Ingenuity loves Mars". Now, Ingenuity will take more arduous task to go to more difficult terrains in the coming days. 

Ingenuity Outlasts Expectation, Its Flight Life Declared over

After almost three years of flying in the ultra-thin Martian air, covering a collective distance of 10.5 miles, spending as much as 128.8 minutes of flight time, attaining a highest altitude of 78.7 feet and speeding on ground as high as 22 mph, the flying mission of Ingenuity drone is called over. It is an extraordinary feat to fly a drone in an atmosphere that's air density is as low as 1% of the earth's. Ingenuity sent many insightful information about Martian craters, soil, rock formation and other aspects of Martian landscape. On January 25, 2024, NASA called it quits after one or more blades had "sustained damage during landing" on January 18, 2024, incapacitating the propeller from undertaking any future flight. 

Perseverance Captures Martian Lightning

Toulouse, France-based scientists reported on November 26, 2025 that Perseverance rover captured lightning on Mars, a tantalizing feat that captured the imagination of the entire space research community, according to the November 27, 2025, edition of The Dallas Morning News. 
********************************** PERSEVERANCE ROVER **********************

********************************* CHINESE MARS MISSION ***********************

Chinese Lander Lands on Martian Surface

In another ace to its space success, a Chinese spacecraft landed on Mars for the first time, Xinhua News Agency announced on May 15, 2021, quoting China National Space Administration. A rover will emerge from the lander in a couple of days using a ramp and begin maneuvers in an icy area of Mars called the Utopia Plantia. 

Scientists Find Traces of Recent Water

China-based scientists published an article on April 28, 2023 in the Science Advances that shed light and insight into crack- and crust-filled sand-dunes. Based on the information sent before Zhurong rover had gone for a long hibernation, mainly due to the Martian dust covering the solar panel, circa a year ago, Chinese scientists estimated that the salt-rich dunes with cracks and crusts had been formed between 1.4 million and 400,000 years ago. 

********************************* CHINESE MARS MISSION ***********************

Mars Struck by Four Meteoroids a

Four meteoroids struck Martian surface late last year (2021) that had created "bloops", according to pictures sent by InSight lander on September 19, 2022.

Far Away, Earth 2.0 Possible

In this weeks Science (April 14-20, 2014), scientists reported the existence of a far-away planet that is little bigger in size and colder in temperature, but has resemblance with earth in many other characteristics. The planet, called the Kepler-186f, was discovered by NASA's Kepler Telescope, and offers the hope for existence of life other than our own planet, according to the lead researcher Elisa Quintana of the SETI Institute and NASA's Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California.

Earth's Closest Sibling Identified
A year after identifying Kepler-186f as close to a livable planet like ours, Kepler Space Telescope , which had been launched in 2009 and had identified nearly 5,000 exoplanets so far, had another success story to share with human on the earth, and this time, closest cousin of our planet, called the Kepler-452b, that's approximately same distance from its sun, Kepler-452, as our planet. NASA's Ames Research Center in California said on July 23, 2015 that
* Kepler-452b, 1,400 light-year away in a solar system,  was formed about 6 billion years ago, 1.5 billion years older than earth
* Kepler-452b is 60 percent larger in diameter than earth and takes about 385 days to orbit its star, Kepler-452.

MILKY WAY GALAXY AND OTHER GALAXIES

MILKY WAY GALAXY

Habitable Planets in Milky Way Galaxy

The number of earth-like habitable planets may be as high as 40 billions, or nearly one-fifth of Milky Way's 200 billion stars may have planets in the so-called Goldilocks Zone, or habitable zone, with the orbital distance from the star to have ingredients for water on the surface. The research was based on a three-year study that used data from Kepler spacecraft. The research, co-authored by Professor Geoffrey Marcy of the University of California, Berkley, and his graduate student Erik Petigura, was published on November 4, 2013 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.

In-Sync Solar System Found in Our Galaxy

Astronomers reported on November 29, 2023 that they had found a star with six "in-sync" planets about 100 light years away in the Constellation Coma Berenices, according to November 30, 2023, edition of The Dallas Morning News. Two satellites--NASA's Tess and European Space Agency's Cheops--have found the star, known as HD 110067, and six planets which are revolving in perfect synchronous symphony, or in-sync, around the star. They range nine to 54 days to circle around the star. There may be more planets circling around the star, but they are yet to be definitively identified by the astronomers. The six planets found so far are made of gas, but the cores are made up of rock, ice or metals. 

OTHER GALAXIES

Euclid Sends Picture of Three Cosmic Regions of Faraway Galaxies

European Space Agency's Euclid Space Observatory blasted off the Florida coast in 2023 on a rocket. The mission of the Euclid Observatory is, among others, to explore dark energy and dark matter, which consist of the majority of our ever-expanding Universe. 

European Space Agency on March 19, 2025 released titillating visuals that Euclid has sent from its constantly enriching cosmic atlas. The pictures include those of three cosmic regions of several galaxies, billions of lightyears away, with the central NGC 6505 galaxy positioned at the heart of one picture that The Dallas Morning News has published in its March 24, 2025, edition. 

Color of the New Planet Blue

Astronomers for the first time have come to the reasonable conclusion of the color of a planet outside our solar system. The planet, HD 189733b and discovered in 2005, belongs to a family known as the "Hot Jupiters" that revolve close to their stars, and has a daytime temperature of around 1,800 degree Fahrenheit and has wind speed of 4,500 mph. Although the earth also looks blue from the space because of our oceans, this planet--HD 189733b--looks blue because of silicate particles in the atmosphere that scatter blue color off the light. Scientists have used Hubble Space Telescope to determine the color of the planet. Dr. Frederic Pont of the University of Exeter in England has said on July 12, 2013: "Measuring the planet's color is the real first--we have never managed it before with a planet outside our own solar system".

Source: Associated Press

Asteroid, Comet, Eclipse and Meteor

Asteroid 2012 DA14 hurtled by the earth on February 15, 2013, a few hours after a meteor hit a Ural Mountain town in Siberia, at a height of 17,150 miles with a speed of 17,400 miles per hour. The asteroid, first discovered last February, is of 150 ft wide and 143,000 tons of weight. If it struck the earth, it would have released 2.4 millions tons of TNT and wiped out 750 square miles. Compared to this asteroid, the one that had struck the earth and wiped out the dinosaurs 65 million years ago was 6-mile wide.

In a totally unrelated incident of cosmic travesty, a 49-foot meteor entered the earth's atmosphere few hours earlier at a hypersonic speed of 40,000 mph and exploded 12 to 15 miles high, releasing 300 to 500 kilotons of energy near the Ural Mountain city of Chelyabinsk, a city of 1 million people. Because of the shock, at least 1,100 people were injured, mostly from broken glass shreds and other eartly objects. Most of the injuries were minor. The object that exploded over Russia came from the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. This was the worst hit by a space object in more than a century. In 1908, a meteor hit a forested area in Tunguska, Siberia, flattening an estimated 80 million trees.

Meteors are pieces of space rocks, usually from a comet or asteroid that enters earth's atmosphere. Many of them burn out by friction from earth's atmosphere, but the ones that survive and strike the earth's surface are called Meteorites.

NASA Set to Launch First Test to Hit an Asteroid in Effort to Change Trajectory

NASA is set to launch a first of its kind test on November 23, 2021 to test out a still evolving technique to forcefully strike an incoming asteroid and veer its course off the earth in effort to eschew another dinosaur extinction-type blast by an asteroid. Scientists are still wary about a February 2013 explosion of a meteor  over the Russian Ural Mountain city of Chelyabinsk that had injured more than 1,600 and inflicted widespread property damages. The Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) is tentatively scheduled on November 23, 2021, involving a Space X rocket carrying a spacecraft in its destiny to collide heads-on with a smaller of the two gravitationally tied asteroids. The 1,344-pound, 59-foot craft will travel at a speed of 15,000 mph and, if things go as planned, in September 2022 will collide with Dimorphos, a 530-foot rocky body, orbiting its larger sibling, 2,600-foot Didymos. Dimorphos rotates completely around Didymos in an approximate 11 hours and 55 minutes. Didymos and Dimorphos are 0.6 miles apart. The craft will try to slow down the speed of Dimorphos by few seconds and adjust its rotational period. Although Dimorphos-Didymos pair is not in a trajectory to reach the earth, they will provide a great platform for our scientists to test an "asteroid intervention" approach. 

Asteroid-Chasing Craft Launched by NASA

On late November 23, 2021, Double Asteroid Redirection Test, or DART, vehicle was launched on a Space X Falcon 9 rocket from Space Station Complex 4E at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California in its 6.8 million-mile journey towards its rendezvous, the smaller of a pair of gravitationally attached asteroids. 10 days before its collision with Dimorphos, tentatively around September 2022, DART vehicle will release a tiny observation spacecraft to observe and stream back to earth the collision and destruction of DART upon striking on the asteroid with a speed of 15,000 mph. The $330 million project will be a trial run for NASA in its series of potentially future tests to conduct experiments aimed at veering a possibly threatening incoming asteroid off its course and saving our planet from a dinosaur extinction-type collision. 

DART's Mission of Collision with a Vending Machine-sized Asteroid Called a Success

NASA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test, or DART, vehicle has slammed into a 525-foot asteroid, Dimorphos, on September 26, 2022, creating a crater and forcing its trajectory as part of a serious test of whether humans stand any chance to save our planet from an incoming spatial object such as a meteor or a large asteroid. The answer, based on days of information and data gathered in the aftermath of the September 26, 2022, historic collision millions of miles away from our planet, is resoundingly yes as NASA Administrator Bill Nelson on October 11, 2022 said that the direct collision had altered the orbit of Dimorphos and shaved time of 11 hours and 55 minutes for a full circle around its companion, larger asteroid, Didymos, by 32 minutes, significantly higher than the anticipated 10 minutes. 

*********************************** ASTEROID PSYCHE ***************************

Psyche Launched to Chase Asteroid of Same Name

A Space X rocket on October 13, 2023 launched the NASA spacecraft Psyche that would get into the orbit of asteroid Psyche in 2029 to transmit valuable data that would empower us to know more profound insight into the earth's core. The asteroid Psyche discovered in 1852 is in the Asteroid Belt and made up of mostly metallic rocks. The asteroid might have been formed from the inner core of a planetary object in our solar system. The $1.2 billion mission will take the spacecraft, Psyche, around the Mars in 2026 and leverage Mars' gravitational boost to hurl itself farther to reach the asteroid's orbit by 2029. The spacecraft is expected to circle the asteroid once it enters the orbit at a maximum distance of 440 miles and minimum distance of 47 miles. 

*********************************** ASTEROID PSYCHE ***************************

COMET

NASA defines a Comet as a "cosmic snowball" made of frozen gases, rocks and dusts, which when heated by the sun, emits glowing aura brighter than planets. (Source: The Dallas Morning News April 5, 2024)

Debris from Halley's Comet to Display as Meteor Showers 

One of the most renowned, imaginative and sought-after celestial objects from the family of comets an asteroids is the Halley's Comet that has startled and prickled the human imagination and stimulated the curiosity of astronomers for centuries. Halley's Comet returns to solar orbit some every 75 years, and it leaves behind plenty of celestial detritus. When the earth crosses the path of Halley's Comet, it runs into abundance of glowing debris left behind by one of the most renowned comets. The meteor showers from Eta Aquarids, left behind as meteor debris by Halley's Comet, can be seen in naked eyes. The Dallas Morning News reported in its May 4, 2025, edition that the Eta Aquarids showersc an be visible between May 6, 2025 and May 28, 2025, with the brightest streak on May 6, 2025. Although Halley's Comet returns our solar system every 75 years, we see its debris and the display of their celestial showers two or three times a year when the earth passes the orbit of Halley's Comet. 

ECLIPSE

***************************  SOLAR ECLIPSE

Totality not to Arrive at Dallas until 2317

The April 8, 2024, presents a unique opportunity to millions of people in the path of totality and Dallas is the largest city in the path of totality. The last time that this area had seen totality was in 1878, and would not happen again until 2317. Totality refers to moon is going to cover the sun wholly, plunging the daytime into darkness. 

Cloudy Sky Predicted for the Most of North Texas

Based on the National Weather Service's forecast issued on April 5, 2024, most of the North Texas will be under some sort of cloudy weather, dampening, even by a little degree, the strong enthusiasm among millions of people who live in the path of totality in the region and an additional hundreds of thousands of people who are traveling to the region to see a unique celestial event that our region will not experience a second time until 2317. The totality will happen between 1:40 PM CT and 1:44 PM CT. 

As there is so much of hype and interest about the totality, this is also presenting as a unique opportunity for students and general public to learn more about space, celestial events, weather and clouds. Since a cloudy sky is anticipated for the most of North Texas, there are questions surrounding the type of clouds and degree of visibility for each type. According to a scholastic article published by the April 6, 2024, edition of The Dallas Morning News, there are three key cloud types that North Texas may expect to form during the time of eclipse:

* STRATUS CLOUDS

Low cloud layers appear more like ragged sheets and obscure the visibility. Lower cloud layers are in the region between 1,500 feet and 6,000 feet. Altostratus clouds may reach as high 20,000 feet and they are mid-level clouds. The so called high-level clouds, formally known as Cirrostratus clouds, may reach as high as 45,000 feet. Low Stratus clouds contain water balls and look like ragged sheets, thus obscuring the view of the eclipse watchers the most. Higher the clouds are, irrespective whether they are Stratus or not, they have more transparency because instead of water balls, they do have tinier ice formations. 

* CUMULUS CLOUDS

Often Stratus clouds do break up into individual Cumulus clouds which are puffier, brightening the viewability. 

* CIRRUS CLOUDS

Cirrus clouds are narrow-band clouds, often spotted at high altitudes and contain ice crystals. From the perspective of viewability, Cirrus clouds are most favorable and Low Stratus clouds are the least favorable to eclipse viewers if they eventually face a cloudy sky prediction. 

Totality Fosters Collaboration among Students from Small Towns, Big Cities Alike

The NASA and National Science Foundation have launched a citizens project to collect data on the day of totality by involving dozens of communities and empowering them with tools, technology and knowhow to collect eclipse-related data (photos, videos, etc.) that may be a treasure-trove for future research. The Citizen CATE (Continental-America Telescope Eclipse) 2024 Project, according to an April 8, 2024, article published by The Dallas Morning News, is an effective means for some rural communities such as Kemp to get involved and inspire their students to dream big and bold for a lifelong passion of science and space. The April 8, 2024, totality is expected to be a wider display of a majestic celestial event compared to the 2017 totality. This time, 31 million people will have opportunity to regale this unique event just by looking up in the sky. Totality also creates opportunities for a firmer scientific and community bond threading through big cities like Dallas and Cleveland as well as small towns such as Kemp. 

***************************  SOLAR ECLIPSE

Solar Storm Biggest in Six Years

The January 22, 2012, solar flare-up was the biggest in six years, and occurred at 10PM US central time. A solar eruption follows one-two-three punch: First comes electromagnetic radiation, second comes radiation in terms of Proton, and third comes Coronal Mass Ejection--plasma from the sun itself--most noticeable and impactful event on the earth.

SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH, PATENTS AND MISCELLANEOUS

********************************* SUPER COLLIDER *******************************

Physicists About to Narrow the Range of "God Particle"

Two teams of scientists have reported on December 13, 2011 the research findings on the so-called building blocks of the Universe, i.e., Higgs Boson, named after the British Physicist Peter Higgs who, along with others, theorized 40 years ago that sub-atomic particles--the so-called the building blocks of Universe--have mass. Before Higgs' theory, scientists used to think that atom is the least possible obtainable block with mass. Higgs Boson has fascinated scientific community for long time, and often referred to as "The God Particle". However, until recently, scientific community was unable to pinpoint the range of mass for Higgs Boson. The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) underneath the Alps on the Swiss-French Border has been used to estimate the range of mass for Higgs Boson. The $10 billion LHC, also known as Big Bang Machine, is apt to create the scenario of the mini-Universe during the time of inception by using the super-power magnets to race protons at the 99% speed of light and colliding among each others. The LHC is run by the European Organization for Nuclear Research, also known as CERN, based near Geneva. Two teams who have reported the recent findings on Universe are: (1) Team, led by Italian Physicist Fabiola Gianotti, involved in the so-called ATLAS experiment. (2) Team, led by Guido Tonelli, involved in the so-called CMS experiment. Both teams have reported that the most likely range of the mass of Higgs Boson is between 114 and 130 billion electron volts. One billion electron volt is roughly the mass of a proton. This is the first time scientific community has grasp of some finite mathematical range of the mass of Higgs Boson with high confidence.

Blueprint of Next Gen Collider Unveiled

On March 31, 2025, The planners associated with the European experiment into fundamental composition of the particles and what make them so unique have unveiled a blueprint for the successor of Large Hadron Collider, or LHC, that will consist of 56-and-1/2-mile loop of atom smasher underneath the Swiss-French border and spanning underneath the Lake Geneva. The Future Circular Collider, or FCC, blueprint next goes to the CERN, or European Organization for Nuclear Research, member nations, all of which barring Israel are in Europe. 

The CERN member nations will make a final decision in 2028 on whether to go forward with the $16 billion plan. If the blueprint is implemented, the first phase will focus on completing the component related to the high-precision experimentation by 2040s, followed by a more complex second-phase high-velocity collision experimentation facility by 2070s. The experimentation involving FCC will lead to a spurt of innovation in Cryogenics, super-conducting magnet technology, vacuum technology and more insight into Higgs Boson particles, founding block of the Universe. 

********************************* SUPER COLLIDER *******************************

Pollution-Free Fusion Energy Production Possible, even for a Fraction of Seconds

It remains an enigma on how or whether we may one day generate pollution-free energy like Sun. The answer to that mysterious question is found by a team of researchers at a novel test at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California when a combination of more than 192 lasers and temperatures more than three times hotter than the center of the Sun has produced, even for a split of a second, a near pollution-free fusion energy. The research has been published in the Nature on January 26, 2022. The end-goal for the scientists to scale up the pollution-free fusion energy like Sun does it by pressing hydrogen atoms to combine into helium, which releases torrent of energy. What more than 100 scientists have accomplished is a "spark" to produce, for a split of a second, the near pollution-free fusion energy. Their next step is to achieve "ignition" that helps fuels burn on its own and generate more energy. 

De-carbonized Energy Produced in Lab

Scientists used laser to carry out fusion ignition for the first time to generate more energy than what is in the laser. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm, announcing the generation of clean energy, said on December 13, 2022 that the fusion "ignition allows us to replicate for the first time certain conditions that are found only in the stars and the sun". Granholm has added that the fusion ignition is "one of the greatest scientific feats of the 21st Century". Appearing alongside White House Science Adviser Arati Prabhakar, Granholm said that the successful outcome happened on December 5, 2022 at Lawrence Liverpool National Laboratory in California. President Joe Biden hailed the scientific marvel and expected a lot of "good news on the horizon". 

In the nuclear fusion reaction, LLNL scientists leveraged a laser to exert tremendous pressure and heat to fuse two Hydrogen isotopes (Tritium and Deuterium) to mesh together to form Helium. There are other byproducts too: leftover neutrons and a large amount of energy. The amount of produced energy is as large as 1.5 times the laser used to carry out the nuclear fusion ignition. There is no nuclear waste, thus creating an environment as safe as possible. The nuclear fusion is a fascinating area that has offered scientists a tantalizing potential for generating clean energy. The occurrences are littered all across our universe, including stars and our sun. The concept remains simple: when two atoms blend each other to form a third atom with a mass less than combined mass of the original two atoms, the excess energy will be formed. 

The key challenge now is how to scale us the nuclear fusion technology to a level of electricity generation on a sustainable, dependable and scalable manner. 

Saturn's Moon Has the Best Shot of Supporting Life

The Dallas Morning News reported on June 15, 2023 that based on the data sent by NASA's Cassini mission, a key element, Phosphorus, that had been thought of missing was eventually found in the subsurface ocean in Saturn's moon Enceladus. Six basic elements--CHNOPS (Carbon, Hydrogen, Nitrogen, Oxygen, Phosphorus and Sulfur)--form the sextet of elements that along with water and energy act as the fuel for nurturing and sustaining life. Now, with the discovery of traces of Phosphorus in the subsurface ocean of Enceladus, there may be a supporting ecosystem for life. After 13 years of collecting data and researching on Saturn and its moons, NASA had directed a managed destruction of Cassini by plunging the spacecraft into the gaseous giant in 2017. 

A New Epoch Has Started in Mid 20th Century, A Geological Working Group Says

The Dallas Morning News reported in its July 16, 2023, edition that a new geologic epoch, Anthropocene Epoch, might have started between 1950 and 1954. The idea was first floated by a Nobel Prize-winning chemist, Late Paul Crutzen, at a science conference about 20 years ago. A working group of geologists was subsequently formed to assess and analyze the geologic evidence and markers to conclude whether there was indeed a new epoch that had begun. The working group, Anthropocene Working Group, is now proposing that a new epoch has begun sometime between 1950 and 1954 as the "effects of humans overwhelm the earth system". The impact of humans in creating an entirely new epoch is comparable, but on a much smaller scale, to the meteoric strike 66 million years ago that has led to the Cenozoic Era. The Ground Zero of the Anthropocene Epoch is the Crawford Lake in Canada. The site has been chosen over 11 other places as Crawford Lake preserves the human effects on earth's environment with different layers of sediments in the lake reflecting those impacts and imprimatur in a surprisingly unperturbed levels. 

Geologic time is split on a narrowing scale into (1) Eons, (2) Era, (3) Periods, (4) Epochs and (5) Ages. The effects of humans on the earth system is consequential enough to trigger a new epoch, but not a period as the ongoing Quaternary Period that has begun 2.6 million years ago is still associated and linked to permanent ice on the poles. However, rapid pace of Global Warming may chip away the permanence of icing layers on the poles in few hundred years, triggering the beginning of a new period. Anthropocene Epoch followed the Holocene Epoch that started about 11,700 years ago at the end of ice age. Geologists are proposing a new age too with the start of a new epoch. They are calling it Crawfordian Age, naming it after the lake in Canada. Prior to making it official, three other working groups of geologists have to give their approvals which are expected in the next several months. 

PATENT: DOJ Files on Behalf of Moderna

Two small biosciences firms--Arbutus BioPharma and Genevant Sciences--filed lawsuits in 2022, accusing Moderna of unauthorized use of their patented technology to speed up COVID-19 vaccines. The U.S. Department of Justice intervened in this case, according to Meng Xi who had penned an article in the June 17, 2024, edition of The Dallas Morning News. The Biden administration's argument hinges on a World War I-era statute, Section 1498, that can be leveraged by the government during the time of the war and national emergencies to allow the patent of a firm to be leveraged for a scaled-up and mass production in exchange for compensation for the firm's patent, or patented technology. Meng Xi accused Democrats and Progressives of pushing the Biden administration to increasingly use Section 1498 as a tool to push drug prices lower. In this respect, Meng Xi referred a June 2022 letter co-written by Sen. Elizabeth Warren, urging the U.S. Health and Human Services to use Section 1498 to weaken the patent protection to lower drug prices.  

Fruit Fly Employs Smart Techniques to Locate Food

A research article published on July 26, 2024 in the Current Biology provides interesting insight how fruit flies may find their food using appropriate strategies and odor-based approach. Scientists at the University of Nevada used genetically modified fruit flies, Drosophila Melanogaster, that had light-activated neurons in the antenna acting like a nose, but instead of being triggered by food, it would be tickled by turning on light. 

The researchers have concluded based on experiment that when there is wind, the fruit flies employ cast and surge technique. The cast and surge technique helps the flies to fly upward when there is breeze and subsequently, when they lose the odor, they fly sideways to locate the source. 

When there is no wind, the fruit flies employ sink and circle strategy, according to the research. This strategy helps flies to circle around moving downward as part of the technique to locate the source of food. 

Earth's Inner Core Changing, Research Finds

A tantalizing research is published in Nature Geoscience on February 10, 2025 that has driven home some key insights about the morphing through which the earth's inner core is undergoing. The inner core is changing in shape too. The earth is composed four distinct layers:

* Inner Core: Made of iron and nickel, it's of 759 miles in radius and as hot as under 9,800 degree Fahrenheit

* Outer Core: 1,400 miles in radius, and composed of iron and nickel fluid

* Mantle: It's the thickest of all four layers, and 1,800 miles in depth

* Crust: It's 19 miles deep in reference to the surface, and at the bottom of the ocean, it extends an additional 3 miles beyond sea floor.