Rob Seaman

Whole-sky equal-area opposition-centered ecliptic plot of PHAs visible to a limiting magnitude of V 22.

Catalina Sky Survey is evaluating Anthropic's Claude AI for software coding projects.

NEOlyzer, a NEO visualizer (via NEA.txt), is now available to the wider community:

github.com/rlseaman/neo...

See the README for a screenshot and quick start details.

#PlanetSci #AstroMethods #PlanetaryDefense

NEOlyzer's whole sky Hammer plot of PHAs visible to a V limiting magnitude of 22.

Catalina Sky Survey has been evaluating Anthropic's Claude AI for software coding projects.

NEOlyzer, a NEO visualizer, is a resulting project that is now available to the wider community from:

github.com/rlseaman/neo...

See the README for a screenshot and quick start details.

Of course, this is still better than many humans manage.

NASA’s Webb Observations Update Asteroid 2024 YR4’s Lunar Impact Odds - NASA Science While asteroid 2024 YR4 is currently too distant to detect with telescopes from Earth, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope collected one more observation of the

Bad news, good news:

"The asteroid’s probability of impacting the Moon has slightly increased from 3.8% to 4.3%. In the small chance that the asteroid were to impact, it would not alter the Moon’s orbit."

#PlanetSci #K24Y04R #LunarRealEstateValuations

Space Ops: Blue Origin Prepares To Leapfrog SpaceX To The Moon | Aviation Week Network Blue Origin plans to attempt to land its MK1 on the Moon this year, and if successful, it would become the largest vehicle to touch down on the Moon's surface.

Those Amazon drones are amazing!

#BlueOrigin #NotSpaceX #Moon #Astronomy (?)

Monsoon Workshop 2025 | Catalina Sky Survey

The 2025 Catalina Sky Survey Monsoon Workshop will be held in Tucson, August 1-5, as a splinter session of the ADASSx Summer Software Workshop, immediately following the Rubin Community Workshop.

Registration (free) and abstract submission are now open.

#PlanetSci #AstroMethods #PlanetaryDefense

Happy bee in a prickly pear bloom in the Sonoran desert. Not sure if either species is native.

#Pollinators #Insects #Angiosperms #Arizona

Century plant.

I wanted to call this "Agave and Adobe", but alas, the neighbor's house is stucco. The Century Plant, a rare modern example of truth in advertising, is a member of the Asparagaceae family.

#CenturyPlant #PatienceSometimesPaysOff

Where's Kosmos 482? To put the current NASA shenanigans into perspective, this Venus lander outlasted the country that launched it, and is landing on another planet entirely.

#PlanetSci

Yeah, but likely also deep dish pizza. I guess that's what qualifies as "dignified middle of the road" these days.

The future Leo XIV graduated with a BS in mathematics from Villanova, my alma mater, in 1977, the same year I matriculated with a joint major including math and astro/physics. VU math professors were some of the best I've ever had. (I ended up an agnostic with a math minor)

#LeoXIV #Villanova #Math

"The Six Million Dollar Man" Death Probe: Part 1 (TV Episode 1977) ⭐ 8.0 | Action, Crime, Drama 1h | TV-PG

Been there, done that.

www.imdb.com/title/tt0702...

Murderbot — An Inside Look | Apple TV+ YouTube video by Apple TV

Here's a second glimpse at Murderbot from Apple. They appear to be steering the production in a direction that understands the character.

youtu.be/wSCDyYOQgQA?...

Playing For Change | Official Website Playing For Change entire library of Songs Around The World, Live Outside, PFC Band, Mark's Park videos. Featuring artists like Slash, Carlos Santana, John Paul Jones, Keith Richards, Sara Bareilles, ...

"To stop the flow of music would be like the stopping of time itself, incredible and inconceivable." – Aaron Copland

#peace #love #music

#Heraclitus_and_Parmenides_are_unit_vectors_of_philosophy

Planetary Defenders (NASA+ Original) YouTube video by NASA

The production team and a broad swath of projects supported by NASA's Planetary Defense Coordination Office and the international near-Earth asteroid community did a great job with this documentary.

#PlanetSci

Here’s how a satellite ended up as a ghostly apparition on Google Earth Zoom in over rural North Texas for a spacey surprise.

Starlink and other megaconstellations are photobombing ground-based telescopes. And they are photobombing remote-sensing Earth-imaging satellites in higher orbits.

#astronomy
#space
#downinfront
#privilegeknowsnobounds
#didanybodyfigureoutthisstuffbeforegrantingthemalaunchpermit

Cautiously optimistic. Cast looks great. Hoping it's not a sitcom. No sign on IMDB that we meet ART in the first season. I think I see how they plan to minimize the first-person narrator. I don't think it can work if they create entirely new narratives.

#Pleasedonotmurdermurderbot #SanctuaryMoon

I should have refreshed the feed before posting.

NASA Update on the Size Estimate and Lunar Impact Probability of Asteroid 2024 YR4  - NASA Science Since near-Earth asteroid 2024 YR4 was first discovered in December 2024, NASA and the worldwide planetary defense community have continued to observe the asteroid, which was ruled out as a significan...

Observations from JWST and Cerro Paranal have narrowed the uncertainties for that pesky asteroid 2024 YR4 to hit the Moon on December 22, 2032. The estimated impact probability is now 3.8%. The risk for the Earth on the same date is now too low to report. Near Earth = Near Moon.

#PlanetSci #MoonSci

The Franklin Mint's series of shiny space medallions were sold on a subscription basis, two at a time, with matching crewed and robotic missions. They also released a series of mini-coins in silver. These are four of the 18 robotic missions.

The Franklin Mint sold America in Space mini-coins in the 1970s. At the time, my father, Lew Seaman, was the Nimbus & Landsat Program Manager at the GE Space Technology Center. Dad managed four out of the 18 robotic missions in Series 2 & 3. All these spacecraft remain in orbit.

#Space #Satellites

I could wish Bluesky did better with animations.

ESA Planetary Defence Office’s NEO Coordination Centre (NEOCC) has released v5 of its Aegis software. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10569-024-10225-z

ESA's NEO Coordination Centre (NEOCC) computes impact probabilities (tmp link: neo.ssa.esa.int/-/latest-news) including animations of the uncertainty shrinking as more observations of 2024 YR4 were reported. Note the difference between missing along-track (Earth) and cross-track (Moon).

#PlanetSci

Review of asteroid, meteor, and meteorite‐type links With the goal to determine the origin of our meteorites in the asteroid belt, video and photographic observations of meteors have now tracked 75 meteorite falls. Six years ago, there were just hints ...

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

Meteorites and asteroids tracked back to their place of origin in the solar system "This has been a decade-long detective story, with each recorded meteorite fall providing a new clue."

"We now have the first outlines of a geologic map of the asteroid belt." – Peter Jenniskens

#PlanetSci #Asteroids #Meteorites

Revised a bit for clarity.

Changing the definition of UTC will certainly require changes to astronomical software, the astronomical almanac, etc.

The could have left UTC alone and simply recommended the use of TAI (and variations) for their own use cases.

Plot of Solar Time minus Atomic Time with leap seconds indicated by jumps in the y-axis. Tenth-second calibrations are published by the International Earth Rotation Service (IERS). The Earth has recently been spinning up a bit, though the long term trend is tidal slowing causing the day to lengthen a few milliseconds per century.

Earth's rotation is being slowed by the tides. Length of the day increases about one second every 50,000 years while the Moon recedes about a mile to carry off its angular momentum. Over human timescales, the Earth's rotation follows a random walk and sometimes speeds up.

#Astronomy #Science #Time

The continuing saga of human (left) against robot (right). It is the robot who claimed I was lucky.

#DangerWillRobinson

NASA’s SpaceX Crew-9 Returns to Earth After Months of Engaging in Cutting-Edge Science Sponsored by the ISS National Lab Returning crew members include NASA astronauts Nick Hague, Suni Williams, and Butch Wilmore and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksandr Gorbunov.

A much better headline than most.

#Theywereneverstranded

#ItwasjustareshufflingofCrew9personnel

Rotation Of Earth Plunges Entire North American Continent Into Darkness NEW YORK—Millions of eyewitnesses watched in stunned horror Tuesday as light emptied from the sky, plunging the U.S. and neighboring countries into darkness. As the hours progressed, conditions only w...

“Vast gravitational forces have rotated the planet Earth on an axis drawn through its north and south poles,” said Dr. Elena Bilkins of the National Weather Service. “The Earth is in actuality spinning uncontrollably through space.”

#YoureOnEarthTheresNoCureForThat #SamuelBeckett