#Infrared Dimension

[orgasmictomato]

2010_06_08_0520 (1)c1 (3)orb by Jim Via Flickr: slightly enhanced - crop and resize of:- A single orb presents itself and moves slowly across the field of view from right to left . "Orbs" or actually Dimensional Entities in orb state as near Earth surface atmospheric compression as researched in Australia

[skymallnine]

Do we have any indication of what the Cardassian visual spectrum is? Earth reptiles are kind of all over the map on this.

Personally, I like to imagine that it’s blue/green/infrared. This would have lots of fun ramifications, starting with

Redleaf tea

Humans call it redleaf tea because it’s red, while Cardassians call it redleaf tea because it’s hot. Like for them it’s redleaf tea because it turns the mug red. Drinking a tea “black” means it’s cold. Cue many hilarious misunderstandings re: Earl Grey.

Speaking of “grey”

…this would also add an extra, wacky dimension to Garak’s complaint about Romulan hearts being grey. Maybe their hearts only look grey at a specific temperature (shortly after being mysteriously murdered, one assumes). The infrared would have to match whatever green and blue tones the heart had; any warmer or cooler and it would no longer look grey.

Also, Cardassians would not look grey to other Cardassians. If we’re assuming they have less internal temperature regulation than humans, they’d be changing colors to match the ambient temperature, while humans remained a more stable color. In fact, the color of the room would shift to match them.

(the metaphors about the Federation write themselves)

Lighting

Anything warm would be emitting light, so everything is brighter by default. A warm, dimly lit room might appear equally bright to a cool, brightly lit room. But the light distribution and color temperature would be very different. The first room would have much more diffuse, warmer-colored light. The second room would have very focused, very blue-green light by comparison, appearing more like harsh fluorescents.

Clothes

Clothing would have a similar (infra)redness to the person wearing it. Matching fabric colors to someone’s complexion would be a very different process, since they’d automatically colorshift to be closer together. However, you could add more color contrast between the skin and the fabric by choosing insulating fabrics. Or maybe mixing different fabric types for different color effects. Warmer species could change the color of fabrics by touching them, adding temporary patterns/markings.

If you sell clothes, any species that doesn’t share your visual spectrum is going to get… interesting color combinations.* For example, where a human sees blue+purple, you’d see blue+dark blue. And purple, yes, but only when worn, and the purple hue would wash over the entire garment as it warmed up. Then, if someone with cooler hands touched the garment (perhaps on the shoulders), they would leave blue handprints.

*Cardassians might be able to infer shamelessly bullshit colors outside their visual spectrum by watching how they heat up. When Dukat looks at the red pah wraith earrings, they would initially look black, but they wouldn’t heat up as fast as a black gul uniform. So, weirdly, red would look more black to a Cardassian than black does — and black would look more red. A gul coming in from the sun would be the brightest thing in the room; Natima’s white dress would be more subdued, with a much dimmer (infra)red glow.

[cosmicyeen]

Something very interesting to consider is how art, especially art that reflects real world subjects & scenes is inherently derived from the structure of our eyes & the way our brains interpret that info.

We see things so specifically, even beyond just a certain color/light intensity range; certain magnifications/focal points, certain FOVs, certain depth perceptions, certain visual acuity, tiny details like polarized light appearing as white or the differences between artistic interpretations with and without astigmatism or visual snow etc.

And this is cool enough to think about when interpreting human art, but something i wonder is what visual art would look like from a completely alien view. If we came across the remains of a lost alien culture and the only thing left was their art, would we even be able to tell what the subjects are at first? perhaps we can recognize them, but they're distorted, the original intention lost forever, maybe partially recoverable through intense study and recreation but never fully.

What if there are pigments on their world that look the same to us but look vastly different to them?

what if they have vastly different visual acuities and spend time on details we would never see with tools far finer than any human could use, or the reverse, art that's always slightly too fuzzy to us?

what if they paint a water scene and instead of the bright white of reflected light, there are unique colors for the polarization?

strange colors in paintings that don't seem to correlate to real objects until we notice they were painting their interpretation of infrared vision.

Subjects that seem slightly off because their vision locks in on movement in the moment, and you realize those subjects are emphasized on an axis you can't really comprehend

art that's distorted, zoomed too far in or out, or subjects painted to show more sides at once compared to what one would expect of most human art that's not intentionally playing with that dimension.

art on curved surfaces that is supposed to be viewed all at once but is impossible to fit in a human's visual range in the intended way

Light and dark shades being inexplicably switched around as though they process that distinction completely differently

There's so many possibilities it's mind boggling

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Matt Shuham at HuffPost:

EL PASO, Texas — The armored military vehicles President Donald Trump has sent to the U.S.-Mexico border weigh 50,000 pounds apiece and have thermal and infrared cameras said to be able to spot “a little mouse up to a mile out.” That feature might appeal to Trump, who has referred to people who cross the border without authorization as “rats” who “infest” the nation.

Last week, when a soldier emerged from one of the hulking eight-wheelers, armed with a pair of binoculars and a grimace, he briefly turned his attention away from the U.S.-Mexico border. He turned over his left shoulder, looking inward at the United States — and at me. He was one of the approximately 10,000 members of the U.S. military who are now stationed at the border, many of whom now patrol areas where, according to the president, they have the authority to detain civilians. Over the last few weeks, Trump has directed the military to take control of thousands of acres of land along the border in Texas and New Mexico, treating nearly 250 miles of the U.S.-Mexico border as de facto military installations known as “National Defense Areas.” As a result, people who cross the border in these areas are now not only susceptible to charges of illegal entry but also of trespassing on a military installation. This escalation also purportedly gives soldiers the legal authority to detain civilians for trespassing. In short: Trump has issued a hugely significant order for troops to detain people for civilian criminal violations on American soil. At the U.S.-Mexico border last week, I saw what a national military police force might look like.

Arriving At The Border

On top of increased air surveillance and logistical support, there are now at least three massive, armored Stryker vehicles each in Texas and southeastern New Mexico. The Strykers themselves aren’t armed, but the soldiers within them carry rifles, as do others along the border. (About 50 such vehicles arrived at the border in April; it’s unclear how many are in use.)

Four other journalists and I participated in a U.S. Army tour last week, being shepherded around the borderlands in a sprinter van. Beginning at Fort Bliss, we first drove through downtown El Paso, Texas, to the bollard fence that marks many urban borders with Mexico. We passed through the gate, going south, and our van lurched between sandy potholes until we stopped underneath the Bridge of the Americas. For the first time in American history, soldiers have purportedly been given the authority to detain people in the New Mexico and west Texas borderlands on the grounds that they are trespassing on a military base. Though the 1878 Posse Comitatus Act restricts the use of the military for domestic law enforcement, a loophole known as the military purpose doctrine allows exceptions where soldiers are working to further a primarily military function, like guarding a military base. Trump’s recent orders take advantage of this loophole. You might be able to spot the circular logic. The hundreds of miles of new “military installations” along the border have provided the grounds for hundreds of trespassing charges, and potentially thousands more in the future. The purpose of those charges is to protect the military bases. Those bases, according to the military, are part of an overall effort to “seal the southern border and repel illegal activity,” as well as “denying illegal activity along the southern border.” But the trespassing charges now central to that effort would not be legal if the bases didn’t exist. According to the military, these new National Defense Areas range from 60 feet to over 3 miles deep, though the Army has not released maps to make their exact dimensions clear. Analyzing land transfer data earlier this month, a spokesperson for Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) told SourceNM the border militarization scheme has serious implications for anyone driving along New Mexico State Road 9 “who might pull over to stretch their legs and unwittingly trespass on a military base.” [...]

At least so far, the arrests have been carried out by Border Patrol agents, not soldiers. But that could change, especially if the number of unauthorized border crossings ticks up as temperatures cool in the fall. Also, so far, it appears no U.S. citizens have been charged with trespassing on the border installations — but there’s nothing in the legal authorities cited by the Trump administration that would preclude that. These developments are just the latest in decades of border militarization. The United States, under presidents of both parties, has built hundreds of miles of fencing along the U.S.-Mexico border in recent decades. The Border Patrol recently celebrated its 100th birthday, and especially since Sept. 11, 2001, border enforcement has grown more and more aggressive, featuring high-tech surveillance equipment and thousands of armed agents, the presence of whom — especially as recent presidents have attacked asylum rights along the border — tends to push people into isolated, barren parts of the desert. In recent years, members of the military have served in a support capacity along the border, helping with logistical tasks and surveillance. Still, Trump has accelerated this trend in his second term. Now, there are 10,000 soldiers along the border as part of the federal mission, up from 2,500 in January. And the threat of trespassing charges is palpable. Veteran border journalist Todd Miller wrote this month that on a recent trip to attempt to take photos of the new Defense Department signage, he noticed a camera system on an unmarked truck that appeared to be tracking his movements. [...] Similar boasts about the military’s ability to one-up Border Patrol officers are common in Operation Lone Star, the governor of Texas’ parallel (but unrelated) mission to militarize that state’s border using Texas National Guard soldiers, state troopers and state trespassing charges. That mission has also been marred by alleged human rights abuses and gratuitous political theater. Still, even before the declaration of National Defense Areas, crossings were already at historic lows, as they began dropping during the Biden administration due to much larger forces. Mexico, under pressure from the U.S., has for years moved aggressively to use its military and law enforcement to keep migrants away from the U.S. border. And both Trump and former President Joe Biden dramatically cracked down on asylum rights on the border, in Biden’s case with a numerical cap, and in Trump’s by simply declaring border crossings to be an emergency, and eliminating asylum rights almost altogether. As of last Thursday, the Army claimed it had made 190 “detections” since the New Mexico National Defense Area was first established in April — a minuscule number compared with Border Patrol’s day-to-day work.

HuffPost’s Matt Shuham went on tour to the US/Mexico Border to preview what a potential national military police force would look like under the Trump Regime.

Read the full story at HuffPost.

[mysticstronomy]

IS THE LARGEST STORM OF OUR SOLAR SYSTEM IS MOVING??

Blog#445

Wednesday, October 16th, 2024.

Welcome back,

New observations of Jupiter’s Great Red Spot captured by the Hubble Space Telescope show that the 190-year-old storm wiggles like gelatin and shape-shifts like a squeezed stress ball.

The unexpected observations, which Hubble took over 90 days from December to March, show that the Great Red Spot isn’t as stable as it appears, according to astronomers.

The Great Red Spot, or GRS, is an anticyclone, or a large circulation of winds in Jupiter’s atmosphere that rotates around a central area of high pressure along the planet’s southern midlatitude cloud belt. And the long-lived storm is so large — the biggest in the solar system — that Earth could fit inside it.

Although storms are generally considered unstable, the Great Red Spot has persisted for nearly two centuries. But the observed changes in the storm appear related to its motion and size.

A time lapse of the images shows the vortex “jiggling” like gelatin and expanding and contracting over time.

Researchers described the observation in an analysis published in The Planetary Science Journal and presented Wednesday at the 56th annual meeting of the American Astronomical Society’s Division for Planetary Sciences in Boise, Idaho.

“While we knew its motion varies slightly in its longitude, we didn’t expect to see the size oscillate as well. As far as we know, it’s not been identified before,” said lead study author Amy Simon, a planetary scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, in a statement.

“This is really the first time we’ve had the proper imaging cadence of the GRS,” Simon said. “With Hubble’s high resolution we can say that the GRS is definitively squeezing in and out at the same time as it moves faster and slower. That was very unexpected.”

Astronomers have observed the iconic crimson feature for at least 150 years, and sometimes, the observations result in surprises, including the latest revelation that the storm’s oval shape can change dimensions and look skinnier or fatter at times.

Recently, a separate team of astronomers peered into the heart of the Great Red Spot using the James Webb Space Telescope to capture new details in infrared light. The Hubble observations were made in visible and ultraviolet light.

The study, published September 27 in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets, revealed that the Great Red Spot is cold in the center, which causes ammonia and water to condense inside the vortex and create thick clouds. The research team also detected the gas phosphine within the storm, which could play “a role in generating those mysterious” red colors that make the Great Red Spot so iconic, said study coauthor Leigh Fletcher, a professor of planetary science at the UK’s University of Leicester, in a statement.

Originally published on https://amp-cnn-com.cdn.ampproject.org

COMING UP!!

(Saturday, October 19th, 2024)

"WHY DOES OUR UNIVERSE EXIST??"

[scifigeneration]

A decade after the release of ‘The Martian’ and a decade out from the world it envisions, a planetary scientist checks in on real-life Mars exploration

by Ari Koeppel, Postdoctoral Scientist in Earth and Planetary Science, Dartmouth College

Andy Weir’s bestselling story “The Martian” predicts that by 2035 NASA will have landed humans on Mars three times, perfected return-to-Earth flight systems and collaborated with the China National Space Administration. We are now 10 years past the Hollywood adaptation’s 2015 release and 10 years shy of its fictional timeline. At this midpoint, Mars exploration looks a bit different than how it was portrayed in “The Martian,” with both more discoveries and more controversy.

As a planetary geologist who works with NASA missions to study Mars, I follow exploration science and policy closely. In 2010, the U.S. National Space Policy set goals for human missions to Mars in the 2030s. But in 2017, the White House Space Policy Directive 1 shifted NASA’s focus toward returning first to the Moon under what would become the Artemis program.

Although concepts for crewed missions to Mars have gained popularity, NASA’s actual plans for landing humans on Mars remain fragile. Notably, over the last 10 years, it has been robotic, rather than crewed, missions that have propelled discovery and the human imagination forward.

NASA’s 2023 Moon to Mars Strategy and Objectives Development document lays out the steps the agency was shooting for at the time, to go first to the Moon, and from there to Mars. NASA

Robotic discoveries

Since 2015, satellites and rovers have reshaped scientists’ understanding of Mars. They have revealed countless insights into how its climate has changed over time.

As Earth’s neighbor, climate shifts on Mars also reflect solar system processes affecting Earth at a time when life was first taking hold. Thus, Mars has become a focal point for investigating the age old questions of “where do we come from?” and “are we alone?”

The Opportunity, Curiosity and Perseverance rovers have driven dozens of miles studying layered rock formations that serve as a record of Mars’ past. By studying sedimentary layers – rock formations stacked like layers of a cake – planetary geologists have pieced together a vivid tale of environmental change that dwarfs what Earth is currently experiencing.

Mars was once a world of erupting volcanoes, glaciers, lakes and flowing rivers – an environment not unlike early Earth. Then its core cooled, its magnetic field faltered and its atmosphere drifted away. The planet’s exposed surface has retained signs of those processes ever since in the form of landscape patterns, sequences of layered sediment and mineral mixtures.

Layered sedimentary rocks exposed within the craters of Arabia Terra, Mars, recording ancient surface processes. Photo from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment. NASA/JPL/University of Arizona

Arabia Terra

One focus of scientific investigation over the last 10 years is particularly relevant to the setting of “The Martian” but fails to receive mention in the story. To reach his best chance of survival, protagonist Mark Watney, played by Matt Damon, must cross a vast, dusty and crater-pocked region of Mars known as Arabia Terra.

In 2022 and 2023, I, along with colleagues at Northern Arizona University and Johns Hopkins University, published detailed analyses of the layered materials there using imagery from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and Mars Odyssey satellites.

By using infrared imagery and measuring the dimensions of surface features, we linked multiple layered deposits to the same episodes of formation and learned more about the widespread crumbling nature of the terrain seen there today. Because water tends to cement rock tightly together, that loose material indicates that around 3.5 billion years ago, that area had a drying climate.

To make the discussions about this area easier, we even worked with the International Astronomical Union to name a few previously unnamed craters that were mentioned in the story. For example, one that Watney would have driven right by is now named Kozova Crater, after a town in Ukraine.

More to explore

Despite rapid advances in Mars science, many unknowns remain. Scientists still aren’t sure of the precise ages, atmospheric conditions and possible signatures of life associated with each of the different rock types observed on the surface.

For instance, the Perseverance rover recently drilled into and analyzed a unique set of rocks hosting organic – that is, carbon-based – compounds. Organic compounds serve as the building blocks of life, but more detailed analysis is required to determine whether these specific rocks once hosted microbial life.

The in-development Mars Sample Return mission aims to address these basic outstanding questions by delivering the first-ever unaltered fragments of another world to Earth. The Perseverance rover is already caching rock and soil samples, including ones hosting organic compounds, in sealed tubes. A future lander will then need to pick up and launch the caches back to Earth.

Once home, researchers can examine these materials with instruments orders of magnitude more sensitive than anything that could be flown on a spacecraft. Scientists stand to learn far more about the habitability, geologic history and presence of any signs of life on Mars through the sample return campaign than by sending humans to the surface.

This perspective is why NASA, the European Space Agency and others have invested some US$30 billion in robotic Mars exploration since the 1960s. The payoff has been staggering: That work has triggered rapid technological advances in robotics, telecommunications and materials science. For example, Mars mission technology has led to better sutures for heart surgery and cars that can drive themselves.

It has also bolstered the status of NASA and the U.S. as bastions of modern exploration and technology; and it has inspired millions of students to take an interest in scientific fields.

A selfie from NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover with the Ingenuity helicopter, taken with the rover’s extendable arm on April 6, 2021. NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

Calling the red planet home?

Colonizing Mars has a seductive appeal. It’s hard not to cheer for the indomitable human spirit while watching Watney battle dust storms, oxygen shortages and food scarcity over 140 million miles from rescue.

Much of the momentum toward colonizing Mars is now tied to SpaceX and its CEO Elon Musk, whose stated mission to make humanity a “multi-planetary species” has become a sort of rallying cry. But while Mars colonization is romantic on paper, it is extremely difficult to actually carry out, and many critics have questioned the viability of a Mars habitation as a refuge far from Earth.

Now, with NASA potentially facing a nearly 50% reduction to its science budget, the U.S. risks dissolving its planetary science and robotic operations portfolio altogether, including sample return.

Nonetheless, President Donald Trump and Musk have pushed for human space exploration to somehow continue to progress, despite those proposed cuts – effectively sidelining the robotic, science-driven programs that have underpinned all of Mars exploration to date.

Yet, it is these programs that have yielded humanity’s richest insights into the red planet and given both scientists and storytellers like Andy Weir the foundation to imagine what it must be like to stand on Mars’ surface at all.

[elgatt0]

MER WIND!!!!!

(boxing peacock lobster)

Click to see the chain: Time // Twi // Wars // Sky // Hyrule // Legend // Wild // Wind // Four

Click to see the Mers!: Time // Twi // Wars // Sky // Hyrule // Legend // Wild // Wind // Four

🦞More details🦞

Eyes

These little guys are the holder of the most complex vision on the animal kingdom! Oh boy, I spend a good time studying about it lol

- He has hexocular vision (each eye having 3 iris and moving independently)

- Wind's eyes are divided into three morphological sections: midband, dorsal hemisphere and ventral hemisphere.

*The Dh and Vh sections have sensitivity to 4 types of polarized light ( 2 diagonals, horizontal and vertical ) which allows a better analysis of the environment in therms of dimensions, perspective, distance, composition... (in other words , he can almost feel the world with his eyes. He uses this to find weak points in his opponents )

*MB is divided into 6 sessions that have 16 types of photoreceptor cells and cells sensitive to circular light polarization (which allows him to see ultraviolet and infrared)

-The image is processed by the eyes instead of his brain, which allows faster reactions

- Wind possesses selective vision, being able to change the "setting" of his eyes in a blink

Human eyesight:

~~~🦞🦞🦞~~~

Antennae

- The "feathers" on his head reflect different polarizing and fluorescent patterns that he uses for communication, and in some cases, intimidation

~~🦞🦞~~

Raptorial armppendage

- Wind's "punches" are as powerful as a 22 calibre gun. Due to the rapid strike, it causes a cavitation bubble generating a second impact ( his claws accelerates 104 km/s in 2.7ms and the bubble generated by the impact can reach temperatures of 4400C which is nearly the temperature of the sun )

~~🦞🦞~~

Body

- He has a very dynamic swimming style and can swim backwards, head downs and even "walk"

Weight : 42 kg (92,6Ib)

Length : 1,64m (5'4ft)

[usafphantom2]

F-15D Eagle Spotted with Unusual Infrared Measurement Pod

Stefano D'Urso

F-15D IR pod

The pod appears to be previously unseen but closely resembles the Airborne Turret Infrared Measurement System III (ATIMS III), which is used to perform airborne IR signature measurements.

A U.S. Air Force F-15D has been recently spotted flying in a very unusual configuration, usually seen only for very specific tests. In fact, the aircraft was carrying on its station #2, instead of the usual external fuel tank, what appears to be a large InfraRed pod.

The pod appears to be previously unseen but closely resembles the Airborne Turret Infrared Measurement System III (ATIMS III), which is used to perform airborne IR signature measurements.The IR-measuring podsATIMS IIIThe other pods

The photos, kindly shared with us by aviation photographer @arizona_planespotter, shows the aircraft, sporting the markings of the 144th Fighter Wing from Fresno Air National Guard Base, California, taking off from Morris ANGB in Tucson, Arizona, together with an F-15C. The two fighters apparently took part in a mission with local F-16s.

Upon closer inspection, the single-seater Eagle appears to be aircraft 83-0026, which sports on its tail the markings of the Air National Guard/Air Force Reserve Test Center. The unit is based at Morris ANGB and primarily supports F-16 operational flight program (OFP) testing, although it is tasked also with testing of other aircraft.

The large pod, which is half the length of the F-15’s external fuel tank, appears to be equipped with a ball sensor turret in the front. While some argued this might be a prototype of a directed energy weapon, the most plausible identification is an infrared measurement pod which is usually carried by twin-seater F-15Ds.

The F-15D with the unknown pod takes off from Morris ANGB. (Image credit: @arizona_planespotter)

In fact, the OT- and ET-marked aircraft are able to employ a range of highly specialized pods to accurately measure infrared signatures while airborne. This capability is usually employed during the development of IR seekers or sensors, as well as IR countermeasures.

We reviewed the available imagery of the known pod, but we were not able to find a 100% match, given the nature of these pods. While the unknown pod shares similarities with the SARIS and SATIRS pods, the closest match is the ATIMS III pod, although there are some differences.

The overall shape and dimensions of the two pods appear to be the same, however there are some differences in the sensor turret and some fairings on the body of the pod. We should note that the most recent info about the pod dates back to 2020, so we cannot exclude the possibility of a newer variant.

The IR-measuring pods

According to The War Zone, which published in 2020 an in-depth report about the unusual pods, both the Air Force and Navy use these specialized pods. While the Navy’s pods, usually seen on twin-seater F/A-18s, are also used by F-15Ds, the Air Force’s ones appear to be exclusive to the F-15D.

The choice of the F/A-18 and F-15 is due to their ability to carry large and heavy loads. The latter has been particularly used throughout the years to carry outsized loads during testing and operational missions.

At the time of the 2020 report, Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR) maintained two podded systems, the Airborne Turret Infrared Measurement System III (ATIMS III) and the Threat Infrared Generic Emulation Radiometer (TIGER). Four more pods are available for the Air Force, with 96th Test Wing employing the Beam Approach Seeker Evaluation System (BASES), the Calibrated IR/visible/UV Ground and Airborne Radiometric Spectrometer (CIGARS), the Supersonic Airborne Tri-Gimbal Infrared System (SATIRS), and the Spectral/Spatial Airborne Radiometric Infrared System (SARIS).

The ATIMS III pod (top) and the unknown pod (bottom). (Image credit: The Aviationist using photos by Brian Lockett/Goleta Air And Space Museum and @arizona_planespotter)

ATIMS III

ATIMS III has been defined in 2020 as the latest generation of a system that dates back to at least the 1970s. The system was originally integrated aboard the A-3 Skywarrior, before being later developed into a podded variant, the ATIMS II, employed by the F-4 Phantom II.

The system, which allowed greater flexibility and more ease of use compared to the original one, had an articulating turret with various cameras and sensors installed that a single operator could point at the desired target. Today’s ATIMS III was acquired in the 1980s and offers even greater capability.

The pod’s sensor turret can hold up to four different infrared seeker types at once. The system is also equipped with one middle wavelength infrared (MWIR) imager and three visual spectrum video cameras, as well as a laser rangefinder. This allows to collect a multitude of data from multiple sensors at the same time.

The available photos show that the pod can be installed either with the turret facing forward or facing backwards, depending on the test’s requirements. TWZ reported that the pod’s design is highly modular and adaptable and features a digital data recording system.

The report included a mention of a statement from Ampex Data Systems Corporation which provided solid-state recorders to capture the full spectrum of infrared data measured by the pod as part of an upgrade program. According to the statement, which uses the alternate Airborne Infrared Countermeasure Evaluation System (AICES) name, the pod can possibly transmit collected data to the ground via datalink.

The F-15s returning to Morris ANGB. (Image credit: @arizona_planespotter)

The other pods

The second pod operated by the Navy is the Threat Infrared Generic Emulation Radiometer (TIGER), which is designed for more general aerial infrared signature measurement of fixed-wing and rotary-wing aircraft, as well as decoy flares. TIGER carries three MWIR cameras and a long-wavelength infrared (LWIR) camera, in addition to a separate infrared tracking camera and an MWIR spectrometer, along with three visual spectrum video cameras and a laser rangefinder.

TWZ reported that the spectrometer allows to verify how the infrared radiation from the test subjects interacts with the surrounding environment, enabling the pod to gather data on an object’s temperature, how that heat is distributed and how the resulting infrared signature might fluctuate under different environmental conditions and at extended distances.

Similarly to ATIMS III, the pod can be carried with the turret either facing forward or backwards. TIGER is usually seen on F/A-18s, however there are instances when it was employed by F-15s, sometimes together with ATIMS III in the same flight.

Another pod is the Spectral/Spatial Airborne Radiometric Infrared System (SARIS), focused on infrared spectroscopy. More specifically, a scientific article published online mentions that SARIS uses an Imaging Fourier Transform Spectrometer (IFTS), which permits the determination of the surface temperatures of distant objects and, combined with imaging capability, allows rapid temperature mapping.

The document says that SARIS, first delivered to Eglin AFB in 2003, is used to characterize infrared targets, such as aircraft, missiles and flares, from the air. The pod is equipped with a co-registered, high-definition infrared camera and two internal blackbody sources for performing in-flight radio-metric calibration.

There are limited freely available details about the BASES, CIGARS, and SATIRS pods, but they are understood to have general capabilities very similar to those of ATIMS III and TIGER.

Thanks again to @arizona_planespotter for the photos he sent us! Make sure to follow him on Instagram for more!

@The Aviationist.com

[geniusboyy]

Covenants and other Provisions

Chapter 44

You’ve Got Mail

     April had been crueler than December—less honest, less keen to change. It clung to 48 degrees, dragging its heels in dirty slush and false promises. The sun stayed out longer, casting that sharp, clear light that made everything look cleaner than it really was. The first naive buds had begun to appear, coaxed forward by false warmth, only to blacken overnight when the frost bit back. It fooled even the smartest things—the trees, the birds, the soil. And Ford, too.

     But May had come at last. The thaw was real this time, and the cold no longer lingered. The wind, once a knife across cheekbones, now moved like breath—persistent, survivable. The ground had softened. Ford could feel it give underfoot as he resumed his rounds, thick with moisture, sucking at his boots and leaving the tread behind.

     The perimeter drones were operational, and the new imaging system had begun delivering results. Not just static anymore, but structure, patterns. The same grounds he’d walked before that harsh winter now pulsed with life he’d previously been unable to see. Flickering clusters of heat signatures, spectral outlines that shimmered on the readouts. The points never stayed fixed. They drifted, looped, branched out and split like synapses firing through the cortex of something vast and aware. Some collapsed on themselves, as if whatever passed through left a kind of bruise in spacetime.

     Most days found him out in the field before breakfast, hunched over scanners or crouched in brush with an infrared scope, jotting notes with a numb pencil. Sometimes it was only strange flora—deep purple fungus with fractal gills, or grasses that reacted visibly to sound. Other times, the anomalies were animate. Creatures that blurred at the edges, refusing to hold a consistent shape under observation. One had eyelids but no eyes, and it screamed in a deafening pitch when he approached. Another dissolved completely when captured, leaving behind only a wet pile of chitin that hadn’t yet been identified by any database, government or otherwise.

     Still, there were patterns. The biological markers he’d collected—saliva, excretions, tissue samples when he could get them—showed anomalies that shouldn’t be possible. Mismatched cellular timelines, as if parts of the organism had aged in separate dimensions and stitched themselves together when crossing. DNA helices that flickered between configurations. Molecules arranged by a logic that felt recursive, as though the organisms were imitating life more than living it.

     More and more, he suspected that these entities were slipping through—poorly adapted but persistent. Survivors of transits. Scavengers. Scouts. Something.

     Fiddleford was persistent about coming out much anymore. He stayed in the cabin, tending to the lab. Said he preferred running diagnostics, overseeing the drones, logging coordinates. And Ford didn’t press. Whatever silence had settled between them after that night remained intact—not brittle, not cold, just… inert. They’d reached a kind of unspoken détente—still a well-oiled machine, still friends, still them—but Fiddleford had gone quieter, and something in Ford had grown more careful. The closeness remained, but the shape of it had changed, despite their efforts—they avoided that, too.

     The map above Ford’s desk had grown cluttered—color-coded pins blooming outward in a shape that was no longer random. He’d started drawing over it in pencil, connecting the dots into arcs, then loops. Some nights he stared at it until his eyes burned, lips parted slightly, muttering as he adjusted a line by millimeters. A spiral had begun to form—just faintly, just barely. But there.

        It was Fiddleford who brought it in. 

     He came through the door with a half-squashed armful of mail, most of it damp around the corners, peppered with pine needles and creased where it had been shoved into the box too hard. He dropped the stack on the table without ceremony, on top of another equally neglected stack that had long since lost any hope of being sorted.

     Ford barely looked up. Just grunted in acknowledgment, eyes still locked on the data spread across his out in front of him as he sipped his coffee—rows of thermal signatures and flux readings, squirming their way through the latest printout like worms in the dirt.

     The envelope sat untouched for a long while—half-buried. Ford only noticed it when he reached for a pen and knocked it off the table entirely, sending half the stack tumbling to the floor.

     He crouched to gather the mess and finally saw it. Heavy cardstock. No return address. His name printed in clean, professional font—Dr. Stanford Pines—followed by the faintly embossed emblem: West Coast Institute of Technology.

     For a moment, he just stared at it, one knuckle still resting against the floor. His breath didn’t catch so much as go quiet, like his lungs were trying to move around something suddenly lodged there.

           West Coast Tech.

     He hadn’t thought about that place in years. Had told himself he didn’t need to. That it hadn’t mattered. That he hadn’t wanted to go in the first place.

        But his hands said otherwise.

     They moved carefully, deliberately, peeling the envelope open with a sort of reverence he didn’t like admitting to himself. Inside was a single sheet of ivory paper, crisp and symmetrical. He scanned the top, brow furrowed.

The East Tech Department of Theoretical Physics cordially invites you to participate in a moderated panel as part of its Spring Quantum Horizons Symposium…

     His eyes skipped down, pulling the important words into focus.

Session IV: Controversial Frontiers in Cosmological Theory. Participants will engage in live discussion and Q&A on the state of multiversal logic, quantum topologies, and speculative cosmography.

     He skimmed the body of the letter again, slower this time.

     And then—at the bottom, in small, neatly printed font—the names of the other panelists.

     His breath left him in a single, narrow exhale. Not quite a laugh, but near enough to one that his lip curled. He sat back slowly, the chair groaning beneath his weight.

     It wasn’t until later that evening that he brought it up.

     The light outside slanted low through the kitchen windows, catching in the streaks on the glass and lighting the dishwater like mercury. Fiddleford stood at the sink with his sleeves rolled to the elbows, scrubbing a cast‑iron pan the way some people polish headstones—slow, methodical, faintly mournful. A scorched halo of onions clung to the skillet, testament to whatever culinary optimism had died there an hour earlier. The whole cabin smelled faintly of carbon and reconstituted gravy.

     Ford lingered in the doorway, one shoulder braced against the frame, the envelope in his hand tapping lightly against his thigh. He could’ve waited. Could’ve kept it folded away on the cluttered desk where he’d left it earlier, ignored it entirely, let it slip into the same quiet denial as all the other things he didn’t feel like facing. But something about it itched. 

        “Got something today,” he said casually.

     Fidds didn’t turn around. “Yeah? Was it another jury duty summons you’re gonna dodge?”

     “Better.” Ford crossed the linoleum, laid the envelope on an empty stretch of counter—far from the dish soap, close enough to be noticed. “Thought you’d want to see.”

     The sponge went still and Fidds’ shoulders squared. He turned, drying his hands on a dish towel so threadbare it had outlived fashions and at least two governments. His brows lifted when he read the emboss.

        “West Coast Tech?”

     “The one and only.” Ford dropped into the nearest chair.

     Fiddleford dried his hands and picked up the envelope. “What is this, some kind of slow-burn apology? They finally figured out they should’ve let you in?”

     “Panel invitation,” Ford said, rubbing the crease between his brows. “Spring Quantum Horizons Symposium. Session IV: ‘Controversial Frontiers.’ They want someone to defend multiversal logic.” A beat. “Apparently that’s me.”

     Fidds whistled through his teeth, slid into the seat across from him. The wooden table creaked like it had opinions. “A debate, huh? You thinking of going?”

     Ford didn’t answer immediately. Condensation slid down the side of a forgotten water glass, pooling in a perfect circle. “Kratzer’s on it.”

     Fiddleford’s eyebrows rose higher. “Kraster? Ethan Kraster?”

     Ford nodded again, slower this time. His lip caught briefly between his teeth before he released it. 

     “So…” Fidds ventured, resting his elbows on the table, “you gonna go?”

     Ford didn’t answer right away. His eyes tracked his thumbnail against the grain of the table. “I don’t know. Part of me wants to tell them I’ve joined a monastery.”

     Fidds tilted his head, studying him. “It’s not like you to back away from a challenge.”

        “I don’t know if it’s a challenge or a trap.”

     “Well,” Fiddleford said, setting the envelope gently back on the table. “Only one way to find out.”

     Ford leaned forward, bracing his arms against the edge of the chair’s armrests. His eyes dropped to the seal again—the crisp emblem of West Coast Tech, still so pristine it caught the fading light and made it shine.

     “It’s up to you,” Fiddleford said, his voice lighter now. “But if you’re asking for my opinion, I think you should go. Rattle some cages. Show ’em what you’re really made of.”

        Ford huffed a soft breath through his nose.

     “You don’t have to prove anything,” Fidds added, already getting up. He nudged the envelope closer. “I’ll back your play either way.”

     The room fell into a quiet hum again. Water, sponge, the low rasp of steel against steel.

     Ford stayed at the table, unmoving, staring down at the crest of West Coast Tech like it might blink first.

—

         It was warm here.

     The kind of warmth that gathered over time, settling into wood grain and cotton, into the low, amber light that spilled from a source unseen. Smoke hung lazily in the air, curling into the stillness like it had nowhere else to be.

     Ford sat sideways in an old upholstered chair, one leg slung casually over the armrest, the other crossed over it. His skin held the hush of sleep-warmth, bare and unselfconscious, like he hadn’t realized he was naked. It didn't matter here, with him.

     He drew slowly from the cigarette between his fingers, exhaling a fine ribbon that wavered in the stillness before dissolving.

        Across from him, Bill sketched.

     He sat on a worn, tufted ottoman that hadn’t been there before—a new prop conjured into the dream, seamlessly folded into the room’s aesthetic. His posture was loose, one leg crossed neatly over the other, a large pad balanced on his thighs. A charcoal stick moved across the page in practiced, deliberate strokes—his gaze flicked up and down, studying, returning, returning brief glances before resuming his strokes.

     Ford watched him in silence for a while. The dream had already established itself—anchored in mood, in texture, in that strange sense of emotional equilibrium that only came when reality was far away.

     He took another drag. The cigarette burned lower, warming the tips of his fingers. He leaned his head back against the chair and looked up. The ceiling stretched high above them—wood-beamed, stained dark with age, draped in shadows that flickered with some invisible motion. Everything about the room felt familiar. Even if he couldn’t name a single object, he knew the air. He knew the way it made him feel. That meant it had to be Bill’s doing. Or his own. Or both.

     He let his eyes fall shut for a beat, then cracked one open again. “So what’s the ask? You always pull me into places like this when you want something.”

     Bill raised a brow but didn’t stop sketching. “Is that so?”

     Ford’s tone was mild, almost teasing. “Yeah. The warmth. The candles—you wanna soften the blow.”

     Bill chuckled. It was low and amused and fond in that way he got when Ford saw through him. “Can’t fool you.”

        Ford smiled.

     The silence returned, but it didn’t stretch so much as fold around them, warm and breathable. The only sound was the scratch of charcoal against paper. It came in steady beats—sharp, deliberate, almost soothing. Ford could feel the weight of Bill’s attention, not pressing but constant. He knew that gaze. Knew the difference between being looked at and being seen.

     It wasn’t scrutiny. Just attention—total, uninterrupted, unapologetic.

   When Bill finally spoke, it was without preamble.

        “You’re not going to the panel.”

     Ford’s lips parted. He held the smoke at the back of his throat for a second too long before exhaling through his nose. “No.”

     Bill tilted his head, fingers still moving across the page. “Why not?”

        “I’ve got work to do.”

     Bill didn’t scoff. He didn’t even smile. He just met Ford’s gaze for a moment, like he was testing the edge of something.

     “It’ll be here when you get back,” he said softly. “Infinity isn’t going anywhere.”

     Ford didn’t contradict him, just ground the last inch of his cigarette into a ceramic ashtray that materialized beneath his hand—dream logic, seamless and unquestioned—then flicked the filter aside like a spent match.

        “You want me to go,” he said at last.

     Bill didn’t deny it. He set the charcoal down in the groove of the pad, looked up. His eyes were steady. “The world needs to hear you. Not the whole symphony—but enough to tune their ears to the main performance.”

     Ford ground his knuckles against his cheek. “And what, exactly, are we scoring them for?”

     Bill’s smile was gentle in a way that always unsettled him, too sincere and too certain. “For what’s coming,” he said. “For us.”

     Ford’s mouth curved—wry, but distant. He settled his back deeper into the armrest, gently swinging one of his legs.

     “ ‘Us,’” he repeated, the word tasting strange in his mouth. “ ‘Us’ is precisely why I don’t want to waste time on academic pageantry.”

     He turned his head to look at Bill more directly, his expression clearer now. “We’re getting closer,” he said. “The software hasn’t dropped a single data point in over a week. You know what that means. If we calibrate the mapping to scale—then we’ll finally be able to—”

     “To break through,” Bill finished, gently. 

     Ford lit another cigarette—no lighter, no motion, just the dream obeying—and drew from it deeply, smoke curling around his lips as he exhaled in a long, steady stream. His tone had settled into something clinical again, practical, the rhythm of a man holding tight to rational ground.

     “So why,” he went on, “would I waste three days playing academic show pony when we’re this close?”

     Bill leaned back in his seat, the sketchpad still balanced on his knee. The charcoal stick dangled loosely between two fingers now, forgotten. “And what about this Kratzer fella?” Bill asked, voice light but knowing. “Certainly you want to know what he has to say.”

     Ford rolled his eyes. “I don’t care what Kratzer has to say.”

        “Don’t you?”

           “I don’t.”

     “Liar,” Bill said, smiling now. “Not because of what he thinks—please,” he twirled the charcoal in his fingers before aiming it at Ford. “You care how his opposition is received. More importantly, you care who’s in the room when you prove him wrong.”

     Ford sat silently, rolling the filter in his fingers—listening.

     Bill leaned forward a little. The sketchpad shifted with him, angling slightly. “You want to see the look on his face when you start making sense,” he said, quieter now, more deliberate. “You want to watch the realization sink in—that he underestimated you. That they all did.”

        Ford’s voice was quiet. “So what?”

     “So nothing.” Bill retorted. “You think you’re so detached, but you’re not.

     He said it without judgment. Just an observation. A truth named plainly, like it didn’t cost anything to say.

        Ford looked away.

     “You’re… passionate,” Bill continued, reaching across the page with a long, deliberate line of charcoal. Then his eyes lifted again. “You want to be seen. You want a witness to what you’ve built, not just use of it.”

     The room flickered with candlelight, shadows crawling gently along the beams overhead. Ford’s posture, which had stiffened without him realizing it, began to loosen again. His arms fell over his knees. His shoulders rounded. His profile softened in the glow. In that moment, he looked younger—less like the version of himself the world had last seen, more like the one Bill had always known. 

     Bill shrugged. “Optics, Sixer. Say what you will about the ivory tower, but the people who make it to the top? They’re not always the smartest. They’re the ones who knew how to tell a story.”

     Ford’s lips twitched around the cigarette, the beginnings of a reluctant smile. “Optics,” he muttered. “You sound like a politician.”

     “I sound like I'm making sense,” Bill said breezily, but he was watching him too closely for the comment to be flippant. “Let them see you. Let them see the man who’s been quiet for years and still managed to be five steps ahead of them.”

     Ford scoffed, a little smile creeping in despite himself. “Oh, yes. I’m sure the academic elite will be thrilled to find out I’ve been publishing anonymous papers from a shack in the woods with the help of the interdimensional entity I’m sleeping with.”

     Bill’s grin widened. “Leave that part out of the presentation.”

     Ford shook his head, lips parting with a low, amused breath. “You really think this will do anything for me?”

     “I think,” Bill said, sitting back with ease, “that you underestimate how intoxicating it is when you talk about math.”

        Ford went still.

     The smoke between them curled upward like a veil, and for a moment, neither spoke. Then, with a quiet sigh—resigned, but not unhappily—Ford said, “Fine. I’ll go.”

     Bill’s expression lit, sharp with something warm and hungry. “Atta boy.”

     Ford flicked the ash off his cigarette with a flick of two fingers, his other hand gesturing loosely toward Bill.

        “Let me see,” he said.

     Bill’s eyes glittered with satisfaction as he turned the sketchpad, angling it toward Ford with a little flourish.

      Ford leaned forward slightly, squinting. His expression shifted. First neutral. Then surprised. 

     He laughed. A real laugh this time, unguarded, rasping low in his chest.

        “I don’t look like that.”

     “Sure you do,” Bill said, his voice a little too smooth, a little too pleased. He was already rising, abandoning the chair.

     Ford started to argue—some dry quip already forming on his tongue—but Bill was faster. He had already moved in beside him, folding his legs beneath him and laying the pad on one knee. 

     “Here,” Bill said, tapping the edge of the paper. “This line—your shoulder when you’re leaning just like that.”

     He reached, brushing two fingers lightly along Ford’s chest, from the dip below his throat to the sharp rise of bone near his shoulder.

     The touch was light yet certain, as if marking coordinates. He moved back to the drawing, tapping a shaded hollow beneath the ribcage, and mirrored the gesture along the subtle valley of Ford’s side. “Here,” he murmured. “And here.” His palm flattened lightly over the faint, uneven scar trailing Ford’s hip; the charcoal lines on the pad captured it like a brushstroke, turning an old wound into a deliberate accent.

     Their proximity diminished by inches, Bill’s breath warming Ford’s skin; Ford could smell the faint mineral tang of charcoal on his fingertips when Bill lifted his hand to trace the ridge of Ford’s cheekbone—smudging his skin—Ford caught his wrist.

     He let out a quiet laugh, barely a breath. “You’re so full of shit.” he said, but his eyes had gone half-lidded, watching Bill with something undeniable behind his gaze. 

     Their proximity tightened without either of them moving much at all. For a suspended heartbeat they simply looked at each other, the room hushed except for their breathing.

        “You’re extraordinary,” Bill whispered.

     Ford leaned in, or Bill did. It didn’t matter. Their mouths found each other like they’d been circling the idea all night.

     It deepened quickly, like they’d both been waiting for it longer than they wanted to admit. Fingers curled. Breaths coming fast. The sketchpad slid from Bill’s fingers and landed on the floor with a soft rustle of paper.

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[orgasmictomato]

20110304211603 (23)c1 rsz IR notes (Rider) - W by Jim Via Flickr: Infrared Dimensional Entity captured by IR laser illumination in the night sky. Shown here as cropped and computer enhanced for clarity in the laser beam.

[electronickingdomfox]

"The Wounded Sky" review

Novel from 1983, by Diane Duane (I had read some TOS comics, and even played a text adventure by this same author, but this is the first novel I read). Very bizarre, very imaginative. You'd probably have to go back to "Planet of Judgment" (1977) to find a similarly unusual TOS novel. Most of the "action" unfolds inside mental landscapes (and that's not even a proper description; the situation is actually far more complex than that). At times poetic, at times metaphysical, it's a more difficult novel than the standard TOS light literature, though there are also many humorous moments.

The aliens are remarkable for how truly "alien" they are, which produces lots of absurd (from a human viewpoint) situations. There's a species who only see in infrared, and needs properly heated cards to play poker. A feline alien that doesn't have language to express the passage of time. Another species with twelve sexes, all of them male (specially the ones who bear children). And glass spiders with an altogether different understanding of physics, who spend a lifetime building a nest of memories to pass to their offspring, and then die at the time of mating. I haven't read any novels by Terry Pratchett, though I know about Discworld from the videogames, but may I say there's something "pratchean" in all this?

In many ways, this is a fascinating novel. But is it a good representative of a Trek novel? I'm not sure. I feel the scope and the depth of this story is a bit constrained by the Trek frame. The TOS series, and even the movies, had a smaller scope: interpersonal problems, specially among the big three, or political conflicts. The aliens were usually very human, and represented different human societies/worldviews. Even when more alien creatures appeared, like the gas cloud from "Obsession", the story was really about Kirk's very personal demons. So maybe this novel would have benefitted if it was set in its own, independent sci-fi world, that provided the needed freedom to explore the larger cast and variety the story strives for.

I'll try to summarize the plot, though this is over-simplifying, since "themes" are more important here than "action". Spoilers under the cut:

The Enterprise is tasked with testing a new revolutionary invention, that will allow ships to travel instantly as far as they want, even outside the galaxy. The artifact in question works by "inversion", sending the starship to a different dimension where time doesn't exist, and popping it up again at the desired coordinates. Since there's no time involved, there's no damage done to ship and crew. Theoretically. Well, what could possibly go wrong?

They take aboard the artifact, along with its Hamalki inventor: K't'lk (pronounced "ketelk", I think). She's the glass spider from the cover, and thus far, takes the prize for most unusual "lady of the week". K't'lk soon becomes best friends with Scotty, though the engineer struggles to understand the nutty physics of the Hamalki. For his part, Kirk has a conversation with her about the reproductive habits of her species, during which K't'lk weaves a strange crystal sculpture, and gifts it to him. She also makes a demonstration of the inversion process, without changing the ship's coordinates. But Kirk can't feel anything, except a vague dizziness.

However, soon after leaving the starbase, the Enterprise is attacked by Klingon ships which desire the inversion apparatus. Sulu manages to outmaneuver them, sending the Klingons into a nearby star, which becomes nova right then. The Enterprise escapes the explosion in the nick of time, by activating inversion and leaving the normal plane of existence. And this time, the crew has indeed strange (but blissful) experiences during inversion. For example, Kirk finds himself living as if he was the starship itself, and this had a conscience of its own.

Upon reappearing in the normal universe, they find out the explosion somehow messed up the coordinates, so they're not anywhere near the Lesser Magellanic, which it was their mission to investigate. Also, the nearby star is going nova too. Coincidence again? Activating inversion once more, this time they're placed in the correct coordinates. But with each subsequent, longer jump, the inversion experiences are becoming weirder, and individuals start merging with other crewmembers, and seeing things from their viewpoint.

Finally, things get more sinister once Kirk reappears with real wounds, that he thought were just the product of his mind. And even worse, the Lesser Magellanic, now nearby, is showing the most disturbing anomalies. Entropy has simply ceased to exist at some points. And it seems the longer jumps with the inversion apparatus have caused this, by ripping the fabric of the universe. Thus, a new universe without entropy is sipping through the tear, and threatens to destroy everything. (It's funny how the problem in "The Entropy Effect" was that they had too much entropy, while here they have too little. If they just left it alone...).

K't'lk is sure she can close the rip between both universes, but to do so, they'll need to make a final jump right at the center of the anomaly. The climax of the story happens entirely inside the mental world of inversion. Which is highly malleable by thought, given the progressive rupture of natural laws. Also, the flux in entropy is represented by ascencing and descending slopes in the landscape. However, they can't close the rip immediately, since they discover a living, god-like being (called simply "the Others"), who would be destroyed in the process. Before that, Spock must join in a group mind-meld with other crewmembers, to give the Others self-awareness, and explain the situation. K't'lk must also stay behind with the god, to weave new natural laws for Them to live in. And she puts forth this universe by singing (echoes from Tolkien's "Silmarillion"? might be, since a forest called "Lorien" appears at one point).

Once everything's fixed, and the Enterprise is back in Federation space via smaller jumps (that won't mess up the universe too much), Starfleet decides that the inversion apparatus is way too dangerous in its present state, and must not be used. Meanwhile, everyone misses K't'lk. But when Kirk accidentally breaks the crystal sculpture that she gave to him, he discovers it was actually an egg. A new, small K't'lk emerges from it, and quickly runs to greet Scotty.

Spirk Meter (or rather McSpirk): 5/10*. During inversion, Kirk gets to see Spock and McCoy's true, deepest natures, and he's in awe with what he finds. First, he's blinded by McCoy's compassion, and the doctor's touch on his arm both reassures and bewilders him. Then Kirk is humbled by Spock's desire of knowledge and his superior mind. The three of them are relieved to find such good qualities in the others' souls. However, the scene is quite abstract, and seems to be dealing more with the characters as ideas, rather than as specific persons. So I don't find it all that slashy really.

As for Spones as such, there's the moment when Kirk finds them walking together, while inside the anomaly, and Spock looks at McCoy with "nearly unalloyed affection". Kirk also considers that McCoy is more geared towards receiving, in contrast to Spock's inclination for giving... How convenient for them!

*A 10 in this scale is the most obvious spirk moments in TOS. Think of the back massage, "You make me believe in miracles", or "Amok Time" for example.

[spacetimewithstuartgary]

Black hole in early universe appears to be consuming matter at over 40 times its theoretical limit

Supermassive black holes exist at the center of most galaxies, and modern telescopes continue to observe them at surprisingly early times in the universe's evolution.

It's difficult to understand how these black holes were able to grow so big so rapidly. But with the discovery of a low-mass supermassive black hole feasting on material at an extreme rate, seen just 1.5 billion years after the Big Bang, astronomers now have valuable new insights into the mechanisms of rapidly growing black holes in the early universe.

LID-568 was discovered by a cross-institutional team of astronomers led by International Gemini Observatory/NSF NOIRLab astronomer Hyewon Suh. They used the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) to observe a sample of galaxies from the Chandra X-ray Observatory's COSMOS legacy survey.

This population of galaxies is very bright in the X-ray part of the spectrum, but are invisible in the optical and near-infrared. JWST's unique infrared sensitivity allows it to detect these faint counterpart emissions.

LID-568 stood out within the sample for its intense X-ray emission, but its exact position could not be determined from the X-ray observations alone, raising concerns about properly centering the target in JWST's field of view.

So, rather than using traditional slit spectroscopy, JWST's instrumentation support scientists suggested that Suh's team use the integral field spectrograph on JWST's NIRSpec. This instrument can get a spectrum for each pixel in the instrument's field of view rather than being limited to a narrow slice.

"Owing to its faint nature, the detection of LID-568 would be impossible without JWST. Using the integral field spectrograph was innovative and necessary for getting our observation," says Emanuele Farina, International Gemini Observatory/NSF NOIRLab astronomer and co-author of the paper, "A super-Eddington-accreting black hole ~1.5 Gyr after the Big Bang observed with JWST," appearing in Nature Astronomy.

JWST's NIRSpec allowed the team to get a full view of their target and its surrounding region, leading to the unexpected discovery of powerful outflows of gas around the central black hole. The speed and size of these outflows led the team to infer that a substantial fraction of the mass growth of LID-568 may have occurred in a single episode of rapid accretion.

"This serendipitous result added a new dimension to our understanding of the system and opened up exciting avenues for investigation," says Suh.

In a stunning discovery, Suh and her team found that LID-568 appears to be feeding on matter at a rate 40 times its Eddington limit. This limit relates to the maximum luminosity that a black hole can achieve, as well as how fast it can absorb matter, such that its inward gravitational force and outward pressure generated from the heat of the compressed, infalling matter remain in balance.

When LID-568's luminosity was calculated to be so much higher than theoretically possible, the team knew they had something remarkable in their data.

"This black hole is having a feast," says International Gemini Observatory/NSF NOIRLab astronomer and co-author Julia Scharwächter.

"This extreme case shows that a fast-feeding mechanism above the Eddington limit is one of the possible explanations for why we see these very heavy black holes so early in the universe."

These results provide new insights into the formation of supermassive black holes from smaller black hole "seeds," which current theories suggest arise either from the death of the universe's first stars (light seeds) or the direct collapse of gas clouds (heavy seeds). Until now, these theories lacked observational confirmation.

"The discovery of a super-Eddington accreting black hole suggests that a significant portion of mass growth can occur during a single episode of rapid feeding, regardless of whether the black hole originated from a light or heavy seed," says Suh.

The discovery of LID-568 also shows that it's possible for a black hole to exceed its Eddington limit, and provides the first opportunity for astronomers to study how this happens.

It's possible that the powerful outflows observed in LID-568 may be acting as a release valve for the excess energy generated by the extreme accretion, preventing the system from becoming too unstable. To further investigate the mechanisms at play, the team is planning follow-up observations with JWST.

TOP IMAGE: This artist's illustration shows a red, early-universe dwarf galaxy that hosts a rapidly feeding black hole at its center. Using data from NASA's JWST and Chandra X-ray Observatory, a team of U.S. National Science Foundation NOIRLab astronomers have discovered this low-mass black hole at the center of a galaxy just 1.5 billion years after the Big Bang. It is accreting matter at a phenomenal rate — over 40 times the theoretical limit. While short lived, this black hole's 'feast' could help astronomers explain how supermassive black holes grew so quickly in the early universe. Credit: NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/J. da Silva/M. Zamani

LOWER IMAGE: This artist's illustration shows a rapidly feeding black hole that is emitting powerful gas outflows. Using data from NASA's JWST and Chandra X-ray Observatory, a team of U.S. National Science Foundation NOIRLab astronomers have discovered this low-mass black hole at the center of a galaxy just 1.5 billion years after the Big Bang. It is accreting matter at a phenomenal rate—over 40 times the theoretical limit. While short lived, this black hole's 'feast' could help astronomers explain how supermassive black holes grew so quickly in the early universe. Credit: NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/J. da Silva/M. Zamani

[okaywolf]

wizard whose familiar is just a regular guy

Written to the prompt by make-up-a-wizard — wizard whose familiar is just a regular guy

Originally posted on cohost on April 29th, 2024.

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“Hey now, both the steward and the secretary said he could sit in.”

There was a crackle of energy as more and more people—wizards, they were all wizards—paid attention to the situation, an assorted mix of anxiety, annoyance, and avoidance made manifest because so many wizards did a shitty job at managing their emotions—or their emotions’ connection to their powers. Some of the many wizards were turning to watch.

Dave heaved his entire lung capacity into a sigh, in part to calm himself from the literal charge of the room. He put a hand on his wizard’s shoulder, entirely ignoring the couple of pedantic shitheels at this point trying to cause a scene. “It’s fine, I’ll go to the lounge, you can come get me later.”

Dave’s wizard Betula—Birch, to Dave—turned to level her dark eyes at his. “No. They said you could sit in. This is the third AGM since— I’m not having you sit with all the other familiars for who even knows how long.” Betula was short, with long black hair hiding a very impossible peekaboo dye of a swirl of celestial bodies (Dave had explained that space photos were colourized with infrared spectrum data but Betula didn’t care), and wore the wizard robe version of an outfit that would clock her as trans at the queer all-ages powerviolence shows Dave took her to (she had the not-wizard-robe version of those outfits that she wore instead, thanks to Dave knowing where and how to shop).

In work jeans and a flannel, with a scruff of facial hair (Betula had insisted Dave didn’t have to put effort in his appearance for a measly AGM of all things and had disappeared his razor before he could sneak in a shave) Dave was just a guy. Easily clocked as blue collar, he also gave the impression that he knew how to chop wood, fix a garden gate, and drink even the most miserable instant coffee.

In ten minutes, Dave is drinking the most miserable instant coffee. He pulls a face and studies the disposable cup. “You’d think they’d at least get like, an urn thing from a franchise place.”

Not quite ‘standing’ next to him at the table of refreshments, the many segments of something Dave would describe as an oversized house centipede chittered.

“I know, I know, miracle there’s even anything in here. Last year was better though.”

Last year’s Wizard Annual General Meeting took place in the sort of hotel with conference rooms and half decent coffee. Apparently that wasn’t in the budget this year. Instead, this was the sort of hotel with a small exhibition space they packed full of folding chairs and a “lounge”. The lounge was packed with familiars in a sort of coat check policy of the AGM.

Dave finds a seat between a melanated barn owl and a hive of dripping moss standing on a gnarled narrow tree trunk before catching sight of a shifting orb of velvet malachite. “Terry! You’re here! Does this mean your wizard finally escaped their pocket dimension?”

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The doors to the lounge burst open two hours later, because Birch will never open a door as intended—Dave spent a lot of time rehanging doors. She scans the assortment of creatures and not creatures big, bigger and not big until she spots Dave standing up looking confused at her. “We’re leaving.”

“Already?” He checks his wristwatch. “It’s only been—“

“AGM’s cancelled,” she announces to the lounge. “Reconvening next year.”

Various familiars skitter, shake, melt, and or look— as confused as Dave.

Dave who’s now stepping cautiously through the crowd to the doors he’s pretty sure slammed through the safety stops and have their handles imbedded in the walls—he’s pretty sure they’re not having the AGM here again. “Birch, what did you do?”

She turns around and he follows her out. No one’s in the hall and there’s shouting from the exhibition space. “Now they’re all my familiars.”

[First] [Previous] ~ 1 ~ [Next] [Last]

[drinkyourvillainjuice]

1.) What is the hero situation like in other countries? 2.) We know about powered sports with "no limits" but what are some other jobs that powered people have? 3.) Whats the general perception that the public has about people being BORN with their powers or people igniting? 4.) When did the first powers start arriving? 5.) who is the known strongest powered person in the world (if its public) 6.) Hi how are you? :)

1) Some countries have DPR equivalents where many/most heroes are tied in directly to a government agency. Otherwise there's a lot of variance. In a few places hero teams are almost like competing companies, complete with advertisements, a couple places heroes are just full blown celebrities and media powerhouses.

ngl I lowkey think that in Mexico specifically parahumans are almost like... blended together with a lot of the lucha libre wrestling traditions since they share trappings of masks, theatrics/celebrity, faces/rudos...

2) Somebody with a minor power could make a nice niche for themself in an ordinary career, so 'guy who sees in infrared' could be a great night watchman or work in engineering; 'girl who talks to dogs' could be a pet trainer. There's at least a few powered people in film doing SFX, and a stage performer who uses mirage style powers to create a full sensory experience.

3) A few dimensions to this. A) powers from birth/a very young age are rare and thought of as problematic since it's much harder to keep a superpowered toddler safe (and teach them control!). B) Genomes demonstrating powers at a more reasonable age tend to immediately get the specialised attention/tutoring they need - if a mask is known to have kids, the public tends to speculate about when/if those kids will exhibit powers of their own. C) The general public likes genomes, but also scrutinises them more heavily. There's an element of legacy involved, so while on the one hand it's really neat to think of hero's kid as the second coming of hero, that comes with the weight of expectations.

4) 1920sish (provided I don't change my mind at some point)

5) Although I don't have a definitive power ranking or anything. However, there's a hero on the DPR national team called Controlz (as in Ctrl+Z, but marketing didn't get the pun and thought Controls sounded better than ControlZee) whose power is to undo the effects of any other power within a brief window. Since this means he can literally resurrect people if he's there fast enough, guy has to be considered up there.

6) I am good I'm multitasking work cause I'm fly like that.

[nullitope]

Hyperseity / n-seity (Hyperseic / n-seic)

An ipseity centered around higher dimensions. One may feel as though they belong in a higher dimension, that they originally came from a higher dimension, or that their sense of self is influenced by forces that reside in higher dimensions, among many other possibilities.

The flag's colors depict a wavelength of the visible light spectrum that fades into infrared (represented by transparency, black, or white) and connects to a hypersphere on the right.

Symbol:

[captainswaglord500]

Spiny Gilleylowe (second picture by u/M4theus4rts)

Kingdom: Animalia

Phylum: Chordata

Clade: Eugnathostomata

Clade: Acanthodii

Class: Coelospondyli

Subclass: Polydonta

Order: Daeognathiformes

Family: Daeognathidae

Genus: Guailong

Species: G. htaahsingkaalensis (from Mandarin 怪龙, “strange dragon of the Htaahsingkaal Plateau”)

Temporal range: Jartunian to recent (5.6 million Vuleto years [roughly 14.4 million Earth years] - present)

Information:

When the intelligent alien race known as the Eos created Universe-895, fleeing the destruction of their own universe, they sought to bring life to a virgin universe, seeding each world with the necessary organic molecules and compounds needed to jumpstart abiogenesis. While these procedures succeeded on some worlds, they found that for as many worlds that successfully produced life, there were just as many which had not, and far fewer which produced sapient life. This was when they would launch *Khau Tsvoa'oodhh-ptaach* (IPA: /kʰaw t͡svoaʔoːðː ptaːt͡ʃ/), or Project Universe Seed. Project Universe Seed started with the creation of an island chain called Archaeonesia encased in a pocket dimension in the deep oceans of Precambrian Earth, using the uniquely extreme and isolated conditions of the archipelago as a way to incite an evolutionary arms race and eventually force intelligent life to evolve, continually seeding the island chain with lifeforms from all throughout Earth’s geologic history. From there, candidate species would be selected and genetically modified before being placed in similar “petri dish” environments created on other planets, inciting further genetic and evolutionary divergence within the specific confines of this new planet’s conditions. Other planets which yielded life from abiogenesis procedures were also subjected to similar experiences, being given their own equivalents to Archaeonesia as a testing ground for early lifeforms before they would be genetically modified and seeded on other planets. On some planets, Archaeonesian-derived lifeforms and lifeforms derived from abiogenesis procedures on other planets would even be mixed within the same environment, the idea being that in the face of new competition in an unfamiliar environment, this would provide further ecological strain and force the native lifeforms to become more creative with how they adapted to their new homes. Because of these procedures, most life on planets nowadays is either remarkably similar to Earth life or utterly and truly alien, with a great many planets sporting silicon-based lifeforms living alongside carbon-based ones. To manage their experiments from afar, the Eos would create an advanced AI system which fully automated the environmental and ecological processes of each planet and, in particular, each isolated island chain which served as a testing ground for life which would later be seeded across the entire planet in various waves. During the Permian epoch, they would seed life from the original Archaeonesia experiment (as well as an experiment on a planet called Throng) on a Uranus-sized exoplanet called Vu’ulen (Vuleto: /vuʔulen/).

Notable for the fact that it orbits a sun which emits infrared radiation, Vu’ulen’s sky and landscapes glow a vibrant red, its vast oceans tinted maroon. With slightly lower gravity than Earth, fliers on Vu’ulen can get substantially more bulky than they would on Earth. The entire planet is in the middle of a hothouse era, with permanent ice sheets only occurring at the farthest extremities of the poles and large tropical storms being common along the coastlines. Two major continents, a northern continent named Hlaahtto (Vuleto: /ɬaː.θːo/) and a southern continent named Tahzzugi’i (Vuleto: /taʒː.ug.iʔi/), make up the majority of dry land on the planet, with several smaller subcontinents and large island chains along the fault lines. On Tahzzugi’i, high up in the velvet steppes of the Htaahsingkaal Plateau (Northern Sungnap: /θaː.ʃiŋ.kaːð/), a peculiar lifeform descended from the Archaeonesia seeding glides across the alpine winds: Guailong htaahsingkaalensis, the spiny gilleylowe.

Despite its seemingly reptilian appearance, the spiny gilleylowe is actually a member of a far more peculiar lineage: descended from a clade of terrestrial vertebrates called coelospondyls (class Coelospondyli), it’s actually a highly-derived acanthodian, descended from a Brochoadmones-like ancestor. This makes the spiny gilleylowe a closer relative to sharks, rays, and chimeras on Earth than to any proper tetrapod. Originally a dominant clade back on Archaeonesia, the introduction of amniotes quickly spelled disaster for the clade, leading to the complete extinction of larger-bodied members of the clade while the survivors were relegated these animals to small, generalist niches. However, on Vu’ulen, where the only other vertebrates are largely relegated to small herbivore niches by the presence of silicon-based lifeforms dominating large herbivore and carnivore niches, the coelospondyls were able to proliferate into small-to-medium-sized predator niches on the southern continent, filling a niche akin to that of small canids on Earth. On Earth, the spiny gilleylowe would be far too large to fly, reaching between 4-6 feet in length and between 15-30 lbs on average, yet Vu'ulen's lower gravity allows this rather bulky animal to coast on the wind currents for several miles at a given time, climbing up and throwing itself off of high ledges to gain lift. 

Though this creature’s names in the native Vuleto language, xuu’ (Vuleto: /xuːʔ/, “biter”) or hlaa'-thi'-phooht-unu-iig-xu/hlaa'thi'phoohtunuiigxu (Vuleto: /ɬaːʔ.tʰiʔ.pʰoːθ.unu.iːŋ.xu/, “[the] creature which kills with one bite”), indicate a deadly nature, this creature is not known to be aggressive towards most sophonts, though it is known to approach them in groups out of curiosity much in the same way seals and dolphins will approach and attempt to play with humans. While it is indeed venomous, with a potent hemotoxic venom capable of killing animals up to the size of a small elephant, these creatures only rarely bite, preferring to either flee or swing their spiny tail in front of them and hiss aggressively as part of a threat display when confronted with danger. It will only bite if cornered, injured, or aggressively handled. Their otherwise docile nature and so-called “ugly-cute” appearance has made them a popular pet amongst the native Vuleto species since time immemorial, with ancient cave paintings depicting the two species hunting together. Its affectionate nature when hand-reared from birth and ease to train have earned it the moniker of the “Vuleto skydog”, and it is amongst the most popular animals in the intergalactic pet trade. In fact, the Northern Sungnap language, spoken in its native region of Vu’ulen, refers to the creature by a far less intimidating moniker because of the close association between the Northern Sungnap ethnic group and the spiny gilleylowe: ìíghhilxwááhthsòtnááuuhlxhààdrìíng (/ìíɣ.hil.ʍáːθ.ʃòt.náː.uːɬ.χàː.d̠͡ʐìíŋ/), or “(the) one who sails (the) sky at dawn”.

Though adapted for mountainous terrain, primarily inhabiting karst mountains and cliffs, these animals appear to do moderately well in montane forest environments as well, being found at lower elevations in smaller numbers. A largely nocturnal/crepuscular animal, they sleep under trees and large boulders during the day before emerging in the evening/night to forage and socialize, migrating in search of food on other mountain tops, their red skin helping them to blend in with the sky and surrounding vegetation. A highly social and intelligent predator, it shows a high degree of convergent evolution with Earth mammals in behavior, having social hierarchies and highly complex family units. These family units typically consist of a mated pair and several generations of offspring. Social in nature, these creatures tend to sleep next to one another and have been observed play-fighting. A highly vocal creature, its long, whooping calls can be heard from miles away, a way of marking its territory to other spiny gilleylowes. Shrill hissing and loud shrieking are also reported vocalizations, the former an expression of agitation and the latter a vocalization in pain in addition to a call of excitement. Primarily a sight predator, it is able to see infrared light (as per its planet’s available light rays), visible light, and ultraviolet light. By contrast, its hearing is significantly less advanced but still passable. Though it has one set of true eyes, two pairs of photoreceptive “proto-eyes” can be found on one side of the main pair. What evolutionary pressures led to this animals developing tube nostrils is unknown, though it has been suggested that its lineage may have briefly returned to an aquatic or semiaquatic way of life at some point before switching back to land, which would explain the underdeveloped digits on its frontmost pair of limbs.  The function of its long, backwards-pointing tube nostrils is not exactly known, though it is suspected to potentially aid its sense of smell. 

Spiny gilleylowes are simultaneous hermaphrodites and mate for life, courting one another by chasing each other through the mountain tops and divebombing each other. Spiny gilleylowes are simultaneous hermaphrodites and mate for life, courting one another by chasing each other through the mountain tops and divebombing each other. Once on the ground, whichever one manages to overpower the other is the one who penetrates, mating occurring either with one individual on their back or with the tail pushed to the side. Gestation takes roughly 5 weeks before the eggs, which are amniotic in nature, are laid in a den situated between boulders or inside the refuge of a cave, the young hatchings, as many as 10 to a clutch, in 4 weeks time. Young spiny gilleylowes, called pups or nuggins, are born blind and deaf and are like this for the first 2 weeks of life. Dependent on their parents for the first 2 years of life, some youngsters may leave their family behind and form their own family group at 2 years old, when they’ve reached physical maturity, while some will stay behind with their family group. By age 3, they will be old enough to rear young of their own. By age 4, they will have gained their adult coloration, being born completely pink.

Formerly common in the Southern Thsutluug (Southern Sungnap: /t͡ɕʊ.t͡ɬuːɣ/) mountain range in the south of Tahzzugi’i, it has been largely extirpated by the Southern Sungnap peoples, an ethnic subdivision of the Vuleto species, who considered it to be an evil spirit and a pest animal which attacked livestock. By contrast, the Northern Sungnap peoples historically viewed it as a guardian spirit, having a long history of husbandry with the animal, hence it managed to maintain much of its original range further north. This species features prominently in the traditional artwork of the Northern Sungnap, and historically, artistic depictions of the Draconic god Hamalutan (spelled in Northern Sungnap as Hmatlan /m̥at͡ɬan/) portrayed him as having a spiny gilleylowe perched on its shoulder. Amongst the central regions of Tahzzugi’i, the spiny gilleylowe is a delicacy, and in the late summer months, a festival known as Aakunduug (Transitional Sungnap: ɑːkuⁿduːɣ) is held, where these creatures are rounded up, killed, and eaten in large numbers. The name “gilleylowe” itself is hard to trace etymologically: folk etymology traces its origin to an interaction between the Vuleto and explorers from the planet Torthon, where the Torthonians asked what kind of creature it was, only for one of the Vuleto to answer in Vuleto, “Gi hlii hloo” (IPA: /gi ɬiː ɬoː/) (“I don’t know”). However, it’s more likely that it originates from a word in the Mluhxo’ (IPA: /mluχo̞ʔ/) language, ghiriirwoo (IPA: /ɣi.ɾiː.ɾʷoː/), meaning “to glide/coast on the air”. This creature is the mascot of The Vu’ulen Intergalactic Tourism Agency (or TVITA for short) and is responsible for a large portion of (eco)tourism industry on the planet. This animal is resistant to its own venom’s effects, and studies show it may also have a heightened immunity to other biotoxins as well. This has made it vital in the developmental of antivenins across the universe.