Category: Science

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Friday/ stamps from Greenland 🇬🇱

Happy Friday.
I’m reading up about the stamps from Greenland that had I bought at the stamp show from a friendly guy from Nuuk, at the Greenland booth at the stamp show.

2025 The 75th Anniversary of the SIRIUS Patrol
Issued Jan. 31, 2025
Perf. 13 | Design: Miki Jacobsen | 40 mm x 30 mm | Offset Lithography | Printing: Gutenberg AG | Paper: FSC SecurPost 110g/ m2 | No watermark
01100788 19.00 Kr | Multicolored | SIRIUS Patrol with provisions and dog sled

The headquarters of the SIRIUS patrol is Daneborg, located on the east coast of Greenland, close to 74 degrees north latitude. The headquarters is completely cut off from the outside world. To get there, you have to fly in a small propeller plane from Iceland. At the station, twelve men and 80 sled dogs are each other’s only company for a radius of about 250 kilometers. There are not many distractions outside of work. There is mail from home six to seven times a year.
SIRIUS’ northernmost station is called Station Nord. Five men are stationed here year-round. The main task is to keep a large runway free of ice, but there are also many other tasks. On the patrols, the menu is freeze-dried food, powdered milk, chocolate and rye bread, but after arriving at the station, there is food in abundance, as well as videos, music and even a shower. Everything is in sharp contrast to the patrols’ harsh living conditions. Station Nord is therefore a very popular place to stay for the patrols.
In a modern era, when surveillance of Northeast Greenland could easily be carried out using satellites or aircraft, the SIRIUS patrol may seem redundant.
However, the fact is that, according to international conventions, sovereignty can only be enforced by entering the areas that a country possesses. So the unique Danish military unit will probably continue to operate in Greenland’s northernmost regions in the future. [Sources: stampworld.com, stamps.gl/greenland-collector, Google AI]

2025 Greenlandic Dog Sleds
Issued Jan. 31, 2025
Perf. 13 | Design: Konrad Nuka Godtfredsen | 56 mm x 33 mm | Offset Lithography | Printing: Gutenberg AG | Paper: FSC SecurPost 110g/ m2 | No watermark
895 AEK 3.00 Kr | Multicolored | East Greenlandic sled
896 AEL 38.00 Kr | Multicolored | Greenlander with East Greenlandic sled
[Sources: stampworld.com, Google AI]
2025 EUROPA Stamps – National Archaeological Discoveries
Issued May 26, 2025
Perf. 13 | Design: Maya Sialuk Jacobsen | 30 mm x 40 mm, 40 mm x 30 mm | Offset Lithography | Printing: Gutenberg AG | Paper: FSC SecurPost 110g/ m2 | No watermark
902 AER 25.00 Kr | Black and white | Boy with animal skin clothing from the Thule culture
More:
Qilakitsoq is an abandoned Inuit settlement on the Nuussuaq Peninsula on the West coast of Greenland, about 450 km north of the Arctic Circle. The settlement is renowned for the discovery of eight mummified bodies from the Thule culture in 1972. The discovery was made by two local reindeer hunters, Hans and Jokum Grønvold. In two graves were the mummies of six women and two boys. They comprise three generations with close familial links across the graves. Although the causes of death are unknown, they probably died at the same time in the Autumn shortly after arriving at the Winter settlement. They were wrapped in animal skins and fully clothed. They were equipped for a long journey to the underworld, carefully prepared according to ancient, traditional rites. They had extra skins and clothing to afford them a safe journey and a good life in the realm of the dead. The five oldest women have almost identical facial tattoos that can express both kinship and social status. The youngest woman of about 20 years is not tattooed. Perhaps she was either unmarried or childless. Tattoos have been in common use among Inuit women for thousands of years. There were amulets on and among their clothing. The Inuit probably employed these amulets to muster strength and protection from evil spirits. The mummies from Qilakitsoq have since afforded valuable insights into the life of the Inuit who lived in the area some 500 years ago. The stamp reproduces the most recognisable and most iconic of the eight mummies. It is presumed to be a small boy of about six months. While the gender is based on the clothing, the age has been ascertained from the development of teeth and bones through radiographic examination.

903 AES 28.00 Kr | Black and white | The Kingittorsuaq rune stone
More:
The Kingittorsuaq rune stone was found in 1824 by a man called Pelimut. The discovery was made on top of the mountain on the small island of Kingittorsuaq about 20 km north of Upernavik. At the highest point of the island, he saw three collapsed cairns placed in a triangle formation. Near the largest of the cairns, he spotted a stone with several markings that he did not recognise. The stone, which is known as the Kingittorsuaq Runestone, bears medieval rune inscriptions. It is conclusive evidence that Norsemen in Greenland on their fishing trips along the West coast of Greenland reached as far North as North of the present-day town of Upernavik. The stone, which currently resides in the National Museum in Copenhagen, has been dated to the Middle Ages between 1250 to 1333 AD. The last part of the runic script remains undecipherable as it appears to be a group of meaningless characters. However, the first part of the writing on the runestone translated from Old Norse reads: “Erling, son of Sigvath and Baarne Thordar’s son and Enriði Á’s son, on Saturday before Rogation Day raised this stone and rode…”
[Sources: stampworld.com, europe-stamps.blogspot.com, Google AI]

2025 Dove of Peace
Issued Sep. 12, 2025
Woven cloth with embroidery | 100% Recycled polyester | 55 mm x 42 mm | Mfg. by Hämmerle & Vogel (Austria) | Self-adhesive
909 AEY 75 Kr | Stylized, white-and-blue embroidered dove carrying an olive branch
Part of an international joint initiative where multiple postal services worldwide issued identical embroidered stamps. It features the exact same dove motif across over a dozen postal organizations (including the UN, Switzerland, Austria, and the Faroe Islands) with only the country name and local currency varying.
[Sources: stampworld.com, Google AI]
2026 Boston World Expo
Issued May 23, 2026
Perf. 13 | Two stamps in minisheet (140 mm x 80 mm) | Design: Martin Mörck | Stamps 40 mm x 30 mm | Offset Lithography | Printing: Gutenberg AG | Paper: FSC SecurPost 110g/ m2 | No watermark
01100819 25.00 Kr | Multicolored | Leif the Lucky’s discovery of Vinland*
01100820 37.00 Kr | Multicolored | Thor Solberg’s flight aboard the Leif Eriksson biplane**

*Leif Eriksson, also known as Leif the Lucky, was a Norse explorer who is thought to have been the first European to set foot on continental America, approximately half a millennium before Christopher Columbus did.
Vinland is the coastal region of North America (Newfoundland & eastern Canada) explored and temporarily settled by Norse Vikings around 1000 CE.
**Thor Solberg was a Norwegian-born aviation pioneer who made the first successful flight from the United States of America to Norway in 1935. He made the journey, which started in New York City, in an open-cockpit single-engine aircraft with no landing instruments.
[Sources: stampworld.com, stamps.gl/greenland-collector, Google AI]

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Tuesday/ Hantavirus on board 🚢

A suspected outbreak of the rare hantavirus on a cruise ship in the Atlantic kills 3 people

CAPE TOWN, South Africa (AP) — A deadly outbreak of the rare hantavirus unfolded over the course of weeks on a cruise ship that sailed from Argentina toward Antarctica and then across the Atlantic Ocean, stopping at or near remote islands on the way as passengers and crew members fell sick, according to information from the cruise operator, the World Health Organization and ship tracking data.

It shows nearly a month passed between when an elderly Dutch man fell sick and died in the South Atlantic and laboratory tests in South Africa — more than 3,500 kilometers (2,174 miles) away — confirmed hantavirus infections.

Three passengers in total have died, one is in intensive care in a South African hospital, and three other people still on the cruise ship have shown symptoms and were waiting for evacuations. Nearly 150 passengers and crew members from 23 countries were on the ship, which is waiting off the coast of West Africa.
– Reporting by Associated Press

I am following the hantavirus outbreak on the polar cruise ship MV Hondius.
I hope there is a resolution soon for those trapped on the ship.

Authorities do not know if the passengers that fell ill contracted the virus while on excursions away from the ship, or from rodents on the ship itself. The hantavirus is not really contagious except for one specific type: the Andes virus, found in long-tailed pygmy rice rats.

Reporting from the New York Times.
An update on Wed 5/6: As of May 6, 2026, three people have died and eight cases (three confirmed) of hantavirus are linked to the MV Hondius cruise ship. Three symptomatic patients were evacuated to the Netherlands, and the vessel is heading to the Canary Islands with roughly 150 passengers in cabin isolation. The Andes strain, capable of rare person-to-person spread, was identified. – Google AI Overview/ PBS
The MV Hondius started out in Ushaia, Argentina, on April 1. It is highly likely that individuals on the MV Hondius were already infected with the hantavirus at that time, although they were not showing symptoms at the time of departure.
[Graphic by Bloomberg]
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Tuesday/ it’s World Quantum Day ⚛️

Happy World Quantum Day.

World Quantum Day is an international celebration held annually on April 14 (4.14, a nod to Planck’s constant*, to promote public awareness and understanding of quantum science and technology.
It features global events, including lectures, lab tours, and workshops, aiming to make quantum physics more accessible.

*The value of Planck’s constant is about 4.135667696×10^−15 eV⋅Hz−1.
There is another value for it, in SI units— the one that we used in science class in high school, which came to approximately 6.62607015×10^−34 J⋅Hz−1 .
Ten to the power minus 34 is an infinitesimally small quantity and we would say about something annoying or boring ‘I care less about it than Planck’s Constant, ha ha ha 😁’ as a little inside joke, understood and appreciated by the science class nerds.

A major advance in the understanding of atomic structures began in 1924 with a proposition made by Fench physicist and nobleman Prince Louis de Broglie (pronounced ‘de broy’). It was already known at the time that light is dualistic in nature— behaving in some situations like waves and in others like particles. De Broglie proposed that this duality should hold for matter in general. Electrons and protons, he said (thought of as particles at the time), may in some situations behave like waves. This was the start of a revolution in thinking about physics at the sub-atomic level— a detailed theory called quantum mechanics.
The foundational, modern quantum mechanics of the 1920s was primarily laid by Werner Heisenberg (matrix mechanics), Erwin Schrödinger (wave mechanics), Max Born (probability interpretation), and Paul Dirac (transformation theory/relativity).
They built on earlier quantum theories from Max Planck and Niels Bohr, with key contributions from Wolfgang Pauli and Louis de Broglie.
Above are diagrams of the 1s, 2s, and 3s hydrogen-atom wave functions. These are solutions to the Schrödinger equation describing an electron in the lowest orbital angular momentum state (l=0) at different energy levels.
The wave functions are spherically symmetric (no angular dependence), decay exponentially with distance from the nucleus, and possess n-1 radial nodes, representing increasing energy and distance from the nucleus.
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Tuesday/ Earthset 🌏

Earthset captured through the Orion spacecraft window at 6:41 p.m. ET on April 6 during the Artemis II crew’s flyby of the moon.
A muted blue Earth with bright white clouds sets behind the cratered lunar surface. The dark portion of Earth is experiencing nighttime.
In the foreground, Ohm crater has terraced edges and a flat floor interrupted by central peaks. Central peaks form in complex craters when the lunar surface, liquefied on impact, splashes upward during the crater’s formation.
[Image and caption supplied by NASA, and was posted at npr.org]
Reported by the staff from National Public Radio at npr.org:

The Artemis II astronauts are making their way back to Earth after the lunar flyby.

The crew became the first astronauts in over 50 years to fly around the far side of the moon. They also experienced a solar eclipse.

During the mission’s loop around the moon, the crew took geological observations of places of interest on the lunar surface with their own eyes and snapping thousands of photos of the surface.

The crew will return to Earth on Friday and splash down off the coast of California. NASA says a landing on the lunar surface won’t happen until 2028, at the earliest.

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Friday/ our blue planet 🌍

NASA posted this image of Earth on X, taken yesterday from the Orion spacecraft by Artemis II commander Reid Wiseman.

The picture was taken with a Nikon D5 with a wide-angle zoom lens (14.0-24.0 mm f/2.8) at ƒ/4.0 with focal length 22.0 mm at 1/4 s and ISO 51,200*.
*This is an extremely high ISO, necessary for the very low level of light. At this moment, this side of Earth is dark with the sun behind it. With the naked eye none of these colors would be visible, but the extreme sensitivity of the camera sensor produces this image.

The large brown mass visible on the left side is Africa (the Sahara Desert), with the Iberian Peninsula (Spain and Portugal) and the Mediterranean Sea in the lower-left quadrant of Earth’s disk.

The South Pole is oriented toward the top of the frame, so the prominent green glow at the top of the atmosphere is aurora australis (the southern lights). A second, fainter aurora (aurora borealis, the northern lights) is visible near the bottom-left edge of the planet’s image.

The image also captures zodiacal light (a faint glow from sunlight scattering off interplanetary dust) in the bottom-right corner, appearing as Earth partially eclipses the Sun from the perspective of the Orion spacecraft.

The bright rectangular cluster of spots in the middle of the image is probably a reflection of something from inside the Orion spacecraft.

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Thursday/ Day 2 of the Artemis II mission 🚀

From Google AI Overview:
The main event on Day 2 of the Artemis II* mission (April 2, 2026) was the successful Translunar Injection (TLI) burn, which sent the Orion spacecraft and its four-person crew out of Earth orbit and onto a trajectory toward the Moon.

*In Greek mythology, Artemis was the daughter of Zeus and Leto, and the twin sister of Apollo.
Artemis I was launched on November 16, 2022, at 1:47:44 a.m. EST. The uncrewed mission lifted off from Launch Complex 39B at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, marking the first integrated flight test of NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and the Orion spacecraft.

Key Details of Day 2:
The Burn: The Orion spacecraft ignited its main engine for 5 minutes and 50 seconds, beginning at 7:49 p.m. EDT, 25 hours after launch.
Significance: This maneuver marked the first time humans have left Earth orbit since Apollo 17 in 1972.
Trajectory: The burn placed Orion on a free-return trajectory, ensuring the spacecraft would loop around the Moon and return to Earth.
Other Activities: The crew also worked on preparing the spacecraft, initiated early space-to-ground video communication, and began adapting to the space environment.

The Artemis II crew during a video-conference call today. 
The crew consists of four astronauts (from left to right)—NASA’s Reid Wiseman (Commander), the Canadian Space Agency’s Jeremy Hansen (Mission Specialist), Christina Koch (Mission Specialist), and Victor Glover (Pilot). 
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Wednesday/ a sunbreak, and a full moon 🌕

It is a soggy start to April here in the Emerald City.
There was a beautiful sunbreak at 6.50 pm, as I stood on the corner of Thomas St and 13th Avenue East on Capitol Hill.

Tonight, there is a full moon in the sky.
Very appropriate— with the Artemis II mission to the moon launch that happened just a few hours earlier from Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

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Friday/ happy Equinox 😊

Happy Friday.
Happy vernal equinox and happy autumn equinox (for those in the southern hemisphere), as well.

The rain brought on by the atmospheric river from the Pacific Ocean has finally stopped here in Seattle.
Several rivers and low-lying areas are under flood conditions today, which will continue into the weekend.

The vernal (spring) equinox in 2026 occurred this morning at 7.46 am Pacific Daylight Saving Time (PDT) here in the United States.
It marks the official astronomical start of spring in the Northern Hemisphere and autumn in the Southern Hemisphere.
Today, the Sun passes directly over Earth’s equator, creating nearly equal lengths of day and night everywhere.
[Graphic from USA Today online]
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Friday/ at the airport ✈️

My time in Mazatlán was over on Friday morning 😢.
My stuffed axolotl from the Gran Acuario Mazatlán gift shop went into the suitcase with my clothes, and now I am at Mazatlán airport.
I will try to get a few airplane pictures before we board. 

Update at Sat 12.30 am:
I made it home.
That connection to Seattle for international arrivals into LAX is quite something.

We arrived at the gate at LAX at 5.55 pm.
The flight to Seattle was going to leave at 7.40 pm.
First, there is a very long walk through a labyrinth of walkways and hallways to get to the US Customs and Border Control point. I said to a friendly official that they need to put more signs up for us, to which she replied – oh, but you should ‘just look for open doors’ if you don’t know where to go next.

(The problem was that I had no crowd to follow. A group of people in front of me on the airplane took so long to disembark, that the rest had disappeared completely out of sight by the time I stepped off.
Where did everyone go? 😱)

Anyway, there was no Global Entry kiosk open at Customs and Border Control (they are part of the partial government shutdown that still has not been resolved). So instead, there was a facial recognition photo check for everyone, regardless if you had Global Entry credentials or not. The camera did not recognize everyone and those were then directed to an official for a manual passport check.

Now I still had to pick up my bag from the international arrivals carousel for rechecking it for the flight to Seattle. That took a very long time as well, after which you get ejected into the public area at Terminal 6.
So now you go up the escalator, to go through the standard domestic flight security check again— which ate up the remaining time I had for the connection.
My flight to Seattle was already into boarding Group E by the time I had gone to the restroom and taken a few bites out of a sandwich and banana that I had bought hastily.

There were puffy white clouds in the view of the Pacific Ocean by Olas Altas beach this morning.
From Wikipedia:
The axolotl (Ambystoma mexicanum) is a species of paedomorphic mole salamander. They mature into the terrestrial adult form without undergoing metamorphosis; the adults remain fully aquatic with obvious external gills. This trait, although somewhat unusual among the majority of amphibians, is not unique.
Axolotls originally inhabited a system of interconnected wetlands and lakes in the Mexican highlands. They were known to inhabit the smaller lakes of Xochimilco and Chalco, and are also presumed to have inhabited the larger lakes of Texcoco and Zumpango. These waterways were mostly drained by Spanish settlers after the conquest of the Aztec Empire, leading to the destruction of much of the axolotl’s natural habitat, which is now largely occupied by Mexico City. Despite this, they remained abundant enough to form part of the staple in the diet of native Mexica during the colonial era.
Today, due to continued urbanization in Mexico City, which causes water pollution in the remaining waterways, as well as the introduction of invasive species such as tilapia and carp, the axolotls are now near extinction. The species has been listed as critically endangered in the wild, with a decreasing population of around 50 to 1,000 adult individuals.
A large captive population of axolotls currently exists, though, with the specimens being used extensively in scientific research for their remarkable ability to regenerate parts of their body, including limbs, gills and parts of their eyes and brains.
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Wednesday/ at the Gran Acuario Mazatlán 🐠

The Gran Acuario Mazatlán hosts over 250 species of fish. It is the is the largest aquarium in Latin America.

It contains a marine museum, the Gulf of Mexico Oceanic Fish Tank, a walk-through aviary, a boardwalk along the lagoon outside, crocodile exhibits, and a capybara petting area. The penguin area and flamingo area are currently closed. 

The new Gran Acuario Mazatlán opened to the public in May 2023.  This large new set of concrete structures and spaces were designed by architecture firm Tatiana Bilbao Estudio from Mexico City, and replaced the old municipal aquarium.
[Image from tatianabilbao.com/projects]
Here is the main courtyard inside the new Gran Acuario Mazatlán complex.
A shallow round tank with cownose rays (Rhinoptera bonasus), a species of eagle ray commonly found in aquariums.
A beautiful pyramid sea star (Pharia pyramidata).
About 1,900 species of starfish form the taxonomic class Asteroidea. These creatures live on the seabed and are found in all the world’s oceans, from warm, tropical zones to frigid, polar regions. They can occur from the intertidal zone down to abyssal depths, at 6,000 m (20,000 ft) below the surface.
[Source: Wikipedia]
Two long-spine porcupinefish (Diodon holocanthus) alongside a sea urchin.
This is a large cylindrical tank. 
A yellowtail surgeonfish (Prionurus laticlavius or Prionurus punctatus).
A blackspotted puffer (Arothron nigropunctatus), also known as the dog-faced puffer.
The Gulf of Mexico Oceanic Fish Tank, with a little group of elementary school students.
The blue blubber jellyfish (Catostylus mosaicus) swimming in a tank.
A young slender-snouted crocodile (Mecistops cataphractus), a critically endangered species native to Africa.
A finescale triggerfish (Balistes polylepis).
The Mexican beaded lizard (Heloderma horridum) or beaded lizard is a species of venomous lizard in the family Helodermatidae, one of the two species of venomous beaded lizards found principally in Mexico and southern Guatemala.
(The other is the similar-looking Gila monster, Heloderma suspectum, which is found in the southweatern United States as well).
A great egret (Ardea alba) perched on the boardwalk fence by the lagoon.
A green iguana (Iguana iguana) catching the sun on the water’s edge. This monster in the bushes does not prey on smaller animals. Iguanas are strict herbivores that eat a diet consisting almost exclusively of leafy greens, vegetables, and fruit.
The capybara (Hydrochoerus hydrochaeris) or greater capybara is the largest living rodent, native to all countries in South America except Chile. Together with the lesser capybara, it constitutes the genus Hydrochoerus.
[Source: Wikipedia]
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Tuesday/ the total lunar eclipse 🌑

Here are my amateur pictures of the early morning hours’ total lunar eclipse, taken with my Sony a7CR and Tamron lens at 5 times zoom (200 mm).

The next total lunar eclipse will be in 2028.

Here is Katrina Miller explaining in the New York Times why the moon is red during a total lunar eclipse:
A total lunar eclipse occurs when the entire moon slips into the umbra, during which most of the sunlight illuminating the lunar surface is blocked by Earth. But some sunlight spills over the edges of Earth and through its atmosphere, which more readily scatters blue light. That leaves red light, which has an easier time passing through the atmosphere, lighting up the face of the moon and causing it to shine scarlet.

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Friday/ the whale museum & more 🐋

There was a marine layer out on the ocean this morning as we made our way to  Cerro del Vigía (‘Lookout Hill’).

We took the short cable car trip up to the observatory: the touristic park named Observatorio 1873, after the year of its construction.

By the observatory there is a small agaviario (a dedicated agave garden) and steps down to a bird sanctuary called El Nido.  A few steps further down the hill there is an enclosure with iguanas and tortoises.

The last stop is the new whale museum called Museo Nacional de la Ballena (National Whale Museum) that opened in August 2025. 

(Thanks to Bryan for the picture of the toucan and of the green parrot).

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Tuesday/ the Snow Moon 🌕

I had a great view of the Snow Moon this morning, looking through my kitchen window.
The Snow Moon is the traditional name for the Full Moon in February, named for the heavy snow typical of this month in North America.

Looking out my kitchen window towards the west, at 7.15 am just before sunrise. Sunrise is at 7.32 am.
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Thursday/ the year’s last supermoon 🌕

Tonight the last supermoon* of the year— and the third in a consecutive sequence— is out. (There will be a fourth supermoon in this same celestial series in January 2026).

We have cloud cover and lots of rain here in the city in Seattle tonight, so for now I can only look for pictures of the supermoon online.

*A supermoon is a full moon that occurs when the Moon is at or near its closest point to Earth in its elliptical orbit, a point called perigee. This proximity makes the Moon appear slightly brighter and larger than an average full moon, although the difference may be difficult to notice with the naked eye. The term can also technically apply to a new moon, but it is typically associated with the visible full moon.
[Google AI Overview]

A supermoon, the last full moon of the year, rises behind the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge, Thursday, Dec. 4, 2025, in San Francisco. This one is called the Cold Moon.
[Associated Press Photo/ Godofredo A. Vásquez]
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Sunday/ Christmas lights 🎄

I took the No 10 bus to Westlake Center at sunset to check out the Christmas tree and its lights. (Pike Place Market is just a few blocks away).

There were not a lot of people around, probably because it was chilly (43°F/ 6°C). A few Seahawks fans were back from Lumen Field, where the Hawks took out the Minnesota Vikings 26-0 tonight.

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Wednesday/ Viking I at 50 🛰

It’s been 50 years since the launch of Viking I, the first US spacecraft ever to land successfully on Mars.
Research from recent years suggests that the lander touched down where a Martian megatsunami deposited materials 3.4 billion years ago.

A model of Viking 1.
(The remains of the original Viking 1 lander are on the surface of Mars, where it had landed on July 20, 1976. It was a stationary lander and did not roam around. It did have an orbiter with solar panels that completed 1,485 orbits around Mars. While it no longer transmits data, the orbiter continues to orbit the planet! )
Construction of the Viking 1 spacecraft was done primarily by the private company Martin Marietta (now Lockheed Martin). The team worked for six years to build the ground-breaking spacecraft. The cost came to roughly $1 billion— about $6 billion in today’s dollars.
[Image from Lockheed Martin, posted on space.com]
The Mars landscape, as seen from the camera of the Viking I lander.
[Image from California Science Center website]
This timeline was compiled for MSN online by Dede Wilson:

1. The Historic Liftoff
The countdown ended in a roar of fire and smoke as Viking 1 lifted off from Cape Canaveral on August 20, 1975. The Titan IIIE-Centaur rocket carried both an orbiter and a lander, marking NASA’s boldest step toward exploring Mars.

2. The Long Cruise to Mars
Viking 1 traveled nearly 11 months through space before arriving at Mars. This interplanetary cruiseinvolved careful navigation to ensure the spacecraft reached its target orbit with pinpoint accuracy.

3. Mars Orbit Arrival
On June 19, 1976, Viking 1’s orbiter fired its engine to settle into orbit around Mars. From this vantage point, it began photographing the surface to find a safe and scientifically valuable landing site.

4. The First Soft Landing on Mars
On July 20, 1976, exactly seven years after Apollo 11’s Moon landing, Viking 1’s lander touched down in Chryse Planitia, becoming the first fully successful Mars lander in history.

5. Stunning Panoramas of a New World
Viking 1 sent back the first high-resolution panoramic photos of Mars, revealing a rocky, rust-colored landscape beneath a salmon-pink sky, images that captured the imagination of people worldwide.

6. Searching for Life
Equipped with biology experiments, Viking 1 attempted to detect signs of life in Martian soil. The results were puzzling: some tests gave unexpected positive readings, but most indicated no organics, sparking debates that continue to this day.

7. Mapping Mars from Above
The orbiter mapped vast swaths of the planet, from giant volcanoes like Olympus Mons to canyons deeper than Earth’s Grand Canyon. These images shaped our understanding of Martian geology.

8. Years of Operation
Viking 1’s lander operated for over six Earth years (2,245 Martian sols) making it the longest-running Mars surface mission until 2010, when NASA’s Opportunity rover broke the record.

9. A Sudden Goodbye
In November 1982, a faulty command ended communications with the lander. The orbiter had already completed its mission, but Viking 1’s contributions to science remained secure.

10. Inspiring Future Mars Missions
From Pathfinder to Perseverance, every Mars mission since Viking 1 has built on its legacy. It proved we could land safely, operate for years, and study Mars in depth.

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Wednesday/ off Gough Island 🪨

Check out this cool 1979 envelope.
It was mailed paquebot off Gough Island, with all kinds of outrageous postmarks on the envelope.

Paquebot cancellations on postage stamps indicate that the mail was posted on a ship at sea and canceled at the ship’s next port of call.
The term paquebot is French for “packet boat” (steam ship, steam vessel) and signifies that the mail was handled according to international regulations for mail posted on vessels. These cancellations are distinct from regular postmarks and are often sought after by collectors. 

Postmarks and stamp on envelope—
S.A. Agulhas is a South African ice-strengthened training ship and former polar research vessel. She was built by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries in Shimonoseki, Japan, in 1978. S.A. Agulhas retired from Antarctic service in April 2012 when the replacement vessel, S. A. Agulhas II, was commissioned. She was transferred to the South African Maritime Safety Authority as a training ship.
Mailed paquebot off Gough Island on Nov. 2, 1979.
Penguin and Gough Island coordinates. Gough Island is home to northern rockhopper penguins (Eudyptes moseleyi).
Neutron research postmark from University of Potchefstroom in South Africa. The main scientific station on Gough Island is a South African weather station, which has been in operation since 1956. The Physics department at Potch University studied cosmic rays. Cosmic rays are primarily composed of high-energy particles, with about 90% being protons (hydrogen nuclei). Neutrons are secondary particles that are knocked out of atoms in the earth’s atmosphere.
The blue helicopter postmark is most likely a commemorative or mission-specific cachet used on mail handled during the 1979 Gough Island expedition. The 22 might refer to a flight number or a team identification.
The Cape Town postmark of Nov. 17, 1979 likely marks the arrival of the vessel there, at which time it was dispatched to the street address in Stellenbosch.
The 4c stamp is from South Africa’s Third Definitive Series
Issued May 27, 1977 |4c Protea longifolia |Perf. 12½ |Photogravure |Fluorescent paper |No watermark
Look at the bottom of this map for Gough Island.
The island is also known historically as Gonçalo Álvares, and is a rugged volcanic island (area 35 mi²) in the South Atlantic Ocean.
It is a dependency of the Tristan da Cunha island group and part of the British overseas territory of Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha.
Nobody lives on Gough Island except for the workers of a weather station, which is usually six people. The South African National Antarctic Programme has maintained the island with British permission since 1956.
[From Wikipedia]
[Map in Lambert azimuthal equal-area projection by Rand McNally and published in 1984 in an atlas by Encyclopdia Britannica]
One of these stamps would have fitted the envelope perfectly.
Unfortunately, it would be 18 more years after 1979 before these stamps featuring the Antarctic skua would be issued.

South Africa Sixth Definitive Series (Endangered Fauna, Redrawn)
Issued Aug. 27, 1997 |R1.20 Antarctic skua (additional value to series first issued in 1993) |Perf. 14×14¼ |Lithography |Coated paper |No Watermark

 

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Tuesday/ the 8.8 earthquake 🌎

My phone and watch buzzed a dozen times from my Japan-based NHK app tonight, with tsunami warnings (because of the 8.8 earthquake on the Kamchatka peninsula).

By now the first waves have reached Hokkaido in the north of Japan, though, and it seems the waves will be no more than a few feet high.

Why was this the case? I asked Chat GPT’s AI chatbot.
Great question — and a very reasonable one, given how large-magnitude earthquakes like the 8.8 off the Kamchatka Peninsula can sometimes generate devastating tsunamis. But not all big earthquakes produce massive waves. Here’s why this particular one likely produced only a small tsunami (a few feet):
1. It was very deep
2. It was likely within the subducting slab
3. The tsunami threat is highly dependent on the type of fault motion
4. Energy was spread over a wide area

Magnitude: 8.8
Depth: 21 km 13 mi
Time: GMT 2025-07-29 23:24:50.842
Epicenter: 2025 Kamchatka Peninsula, Russia Earthquake
Agency: USGS (United States Geological Survey)

For this extremely strong earthquake, 64 aftershocks (above mag. 2) have been detected so far. The strongest was a magnitude 7.2 quake that hit 53 seconds after the mainshock in 81 km (50 mi) distance, in 94 km southeast of Vilyuchinsk, Yelizovsky District, Kamchatka, Russia, on Wednesday, Jul 30, 2025 on 11:25 am (Kamchatka local time GMT +12). The most recent aftershock occurred 5 hours ago 217 km south of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatskiy, Kamchatka, Russia, and had a magnitude of 4.9.

The majority of reports came from Petropavlovsk-Kamchatskiy (58 reports), a city with more than 180,000 inhabitants in Kamchatka in 119 km (74 mi) distance northwest of the epicenter, Russia, Yelizovo (10 reports), a town with 41,000 inhabitants in 140 km (87 mi) distance northwest of the epicenter, and Yakutsk (4 reports) (2,085 km or 1,295 mi to the northwest) in Sakha. 
[Source: volcanodiscovery.com]

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Thursday/ AI does hard math 🧮

Cade Metz reports from San Francisco for the New York Times:
An artificial intelligence system built by Google DeepMind, the tech giant’s primary artificial intelligence lab, has achieved “gold medal” status in the annual International Mathematical Olympiad, a premier math competition for high school students.

It was the first time a machine — which solved five of the six problems at the 2025 competition, held in Australia this month — reached that level of success, Google said in a blog post on Monday.

Google said Deep Think had spent the same amount of time with the I.M.O. as human participants did: 4½ hours. But the company declined to say how much money, processing power or electricity had been used to complete the test.

I looked up the problems online, and here they are.
Oof. Should I give it a go, and put in two sessions of 4½ hours each?
I think I’d better not. I might damage my self-esteem. 😆