Notices by Mark McCaughrean (markmccaughrean@mastodon.social)

I don’t know who needs to hear this, but it seems to come up in my life weekly:

1. NASA images *are not* in the public domain;

2. They *are* generally free to use for most non-commercial, educational, & informational purposes without permission, but acknowledgement of NASA is needed (which true PD would not require);

3. For commercial use, no endorsement by NASA can be implied;

4. Images featuring people, e.g. astronauts, need explicit permission for commercial use.

https://www.nasa.gov/nasa-brand-center/images-and-media/

Still one of the coolest machines ever built.

Ending the shuttle programme felt to me the same way grounding Concorde did. Both gone, but in many ways, unsurpassed.

I know all the arguments about cost, safety, & govt vs private. I also know that we absolutely have more pressing concerns in the world than human spaceflight & supersonic jet liners.

But still ...

OV-105 as seen from the ISS on 9 December 2000, ISS-001-E-4571

Wow – didn’t think I’d be in tears today, but this message sent home from Gaia as it was shut down forever today hits hard 😭

What you’re seeing is a map of the 106 CCD detectors that Gaia used to measure the positions of billions of stars in the Milky Way for the past 11 years 🛰️✨

They were turned off in a special sequence … 😕

#SpaceScience #Astronomy #Science

And if the article is to believed, this amendment is based on wolves “wasting” 14 million tonnes of meat from 14,000 animals.

Quite apart from the fact that the wolves are actually eating most of that meat, not wasting it, it suggests the average cow & sheep weighs 1,000kg.

Which is equally stupid – the average cow is more like 500kg & a sheep perhaps 50-100kg.

How this passed a parliament is beyond me.

Here are the numbers for Castilla y Leon:

1.47 million cows in 2020

https://www.statista.com/statistics/765409/cabin-spanish-from-bovine-by-community-autonomous-in-spain/#:~:text=The%20livestock%20of%20bovine%20cattle,highest%20number%20of%20cattle%20heads

2.7 million sheep in 2020

https://www.ine.es/en/prensa/cea_2020_en.pdf

From that second document, the cow & sheep population in all of Spain in 2020 was 22.8 million.

The claimed loss to wolves is 14,000, so 0.06%.

It’s utterly pathetic to use turn these tiny numbers even if true to overturn a hunting ban on wolves & just goes to show how anti-nature farmers & hunters can be, despite their contrary protestations.

There are more than 4 million cows & sheep in Castilla y Leon in Spain.

If the claimed annual loss of 6,000 livestock to wolves is true, that’s 0.15%, well within any operational margins & easily covered by insurance or compensation.

But sure, go ahead & pass a bill that threatens the extinction of wolves all over again.

Because if you want to know what a truly bloodthirsty animal that kills for fun looks like, don’t point at wolves.

It’s us.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/mar/20/spanish-parliament-vote-on-cutting-food-waste-will-end-ban-on-wolf-hunting

So, science friends.

When in the 1930s would you have decided “no, I’m not going to go to that conference in Germany”?

Because the question now needs to be posed looking westwards across the Atlantic.

If your phone can be taken on arrival & searched for messages critical of the government & then you can be denied entry (or perhaps worse in the future), why would you even think of going in the first place?

Absolutely horrifying slide into totalitarianism.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/19/trump-musk-french-scientist-detained

We may not have been able to see yesterday’s total lunar eclipse here in central Europe, but I’ll take tonight’s Moon as a compensation 🌝

Good night everyone & remember that we are all just ephemeral refugees from the same cosmic recycling bin ✨🗑️

#Astronomy 🔭
#Photography 📷
#iPhonePhotography 📱

Another nice evening glimpse of #Mercury & #Venus in the dusk sky, this time looking west along the Neckar from the Alte Brücke in #Heidelberg.

Venus is brighter to the upper right; Mercury is along a diagonal to the left & down from there, just above the thin clouds.

As seen near the end of today’s 55km cycle – sunny & warm for early March, but chilling rapidly after sunset. I also found some Bärlauch (wild garlic) out towards Ladenburg 😋

#CyclingLife 🚴♂️
#Astronomy ✨
#Photography 📷

A nice view of Mercury, the innermost planet in our solar system, between Venus & the city lights of Mannheim on this early spring evening 🌚

As seen from 566m elevation atop the Teltschikturm on the Schriesheimer Kopf above Wilhelmsfeld in the Odenwald 🌲🌲🌲

Despite the murk, I was able to follow it down to <1° above the horizon.

Better DSLR photos to follow 🙂👍

#Astronomy ✨
#Photography 📷
#iPhonePhotography 📱

Big day here in Germany, with a pivotal federal election underway: my wife is working at local polling station.

Although I can’t vote as a non-citizen resident, I feel the tension. It’s unbelievable that the far-right have become so strong in this country of all countries: the barely concealed admiration of the Nazis by the AfD & frequent “unintentional” reference to their symbols is shocking.

I hope the warning signs from across the Atlantic & elsewhere work, but …

#Bundestagswahl2025

A very pretty conjunction between the Moon & Venus in clear cold skies this evening 🙂

There was some excellent earthshine to be seen, sunlight reflected off the Atlantic lighting up the otherwise dark part of the Moon 🌒

And it was easy to see that Venus was a crescent, with sunlight striking it in pretty much the same as it was hitting the Moon 🌙

Wide-field: iPhone 📱
Close-ups: DSLR + 200m lens 📷

#Astronomy #SpaceScience #PlanetParade #Photography #iPhonePhotography #Nikon

West Germany vs East Germany – what a difference 35 years makes 😬

Perhaps as predicted, but still, this map of the second vote in yesterday’s German election is pretty startling.

The former West goes almost completely conservative right (even my Heidelberg, a Green redoubt, wtf?), while the former communist East goes almost full fascist.

The places not following those trends bear discussion too: Kaiserslautern, Gelsenkirchen, East Berlin, Hamburg etc.

Source: https://www.theguardian.com/world/ng-interactive/2025/feb/23/german-election-2025-results-in-full-live

Coming up in 100 minutes at 21:48CET: the ESA/NASA Solar Orbiter mission is making flyby at Venus, just 379km above the cloud tops.

Although it has made several Venus flybys before, this one's special: it's the first of a sequence designed to lift the spacecraft out of the ecliptic plane.

Why? Because Solar Orbiter is aiming to take the first clear images of the north & south poles of the Sun.

Will there be a polar hexagon like on Saturn? Stay tuned 🌞

https://www.esa.int/Enabling_Support/Operations/Solar_Orbiter_ready_for_close_encounter_with_Venus

#SpaceScience

I definitely wasn't supposed to be doing this this afternoon, but ... 🤷♂️🙂

A time lapse movie of the northern hemisphere of Saturn, showing a full rotation of the famous polar hexagon, a very cool fluid dynamics phenomenon in the planet's atmosphere 🪐🐻❄️

Taken by the NASA/ESA/ASI Cassini spacecraft over a 12.5 hour period on 3 & 4 April 2014: 35 ISS WAC images 512x512 pixels, CB2 filter at 752nm 🛰️📷

Credit: NASA, JPL-Caltech, SSI, Mark McCaughrean

#SpaceScience

When PR goes wrong 🤷♂️

If you’re going to advertise a nice space discovery, make sure your lead image shows it clearly.

Don’t lead with a context image in which it’s very hard to see and/or which could be misinterpreted.

Because the press will use that first image & everyone will be confused.

Case in point: this @guardian story about an Einstein ring seen by Euclid, PR’d by ESA this morning.

Can *you* see it? 👀

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2025/feb/10/euclid-telescope-captures-einstein-ring-revealing-warping-of-space

#SpaceScience #Astronomy

A different twist on the planetary parade tonight: Mars & Jupiter aided by Capella, making a triangle around the Moon circled by its own 22° ice halo 🌝

#Astronomy ✨
#Photography 📷
#iPhonePhotography 📱

“You don’t have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them."
– Ray Bradbury

University of #Helsinki library, January 2025

#Finland 🇫🇮
#Photography 📷
#iPhonePhotography 📱

Men of steel ⚒️

“Kolmen sepän patsas” (Three smiths sculpture) by Felix Nylund at the intersection of Aleksanterinkatuand Mannerheimintie in Helsinki, January 2025.

#Finland 🇫🇮
#Photography 📷
#iPhonePhotography 📱

When you look up at the night sky, the photons arriving from distant stars & galaxies have experienced no passage of time during their journey to your eye 💫

From their perspective, they arrive at exactly the same moment that they left & they have travelled no distance ⏰📐

You may now continue your sub-light speed day 🤷♂️

(Yes, my train to Mannheim was late & I made it on to my connecting ICE to Frankfurt Airport thanks only to the conductor who kept his door open for me 🚅😰)

#Relativity