NASA to confront swarm of asteroids with scientists hopeful of discovering origins of life – Express.co.uk

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In a mission the first of its kind, NASA is set to explore a mysterious swarm of Trojan asteroids circling the Sun. The mission will see NASA send a robot probe to inspect the Trojan asteroids in an attempt to find out more about the history of the Solar System.

Hal Levison, a principal investigator involved with the Lucy mission, which will oversee the inspection of the asteroids, emphasised the significance of the advancement.

He said: "This is a very exciting time for us, because we are moving beyond the design phase and are really starting to build the spacecraft.

"It is finally becoming real!"

The Trojan asteroids orbit the Sun in two giant clumps along the path of the planet Jupiter.

One group leads the orbit and speeds just ahead of Jupiter, while the other group trails and tries to catch up to the gas giant.

Scientists believe the asteroids could hold the key to finding out more about the history of the Solar System.

As part of the Lucy missions descriptions, NASA officials wrote: "These primitive bodies hold vital clues to deciphering the history of the solar system, and perhaps even the origins of life and organic material on Earth.

Lucy is expected to launch two years from now, in October 2021.

JUST IN:Asteroid warning: Why rock twice size of Burj Khalifa could end world

The robot will twice zoom past the Earth in order to build up a reasonable speed, then launch itself out into the void.

It is hoped that Lucy will reach the first group of asteroids by April 2025.

Donaldjohanson, the first rock Lucy will encounter, lies in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.

Following this, Lucy will then fly by four Trojans in the leading swarm, this occurring in August 2027, September 2027, April 2028 and November 2028.

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The spacecrafts orbit will then ping the robot back towards the Sun ready to take on the next swarm of asteroids.

This second round is hoped to make contact in March 2033 - marking the missions grand finale.

No probe has ever before visited so many different destinations in separate and independent orbits, Lucy team members have claimed.

The missions name is an ode to an ancient 3.2million-year-old hominid fossil found in Ethiopia in 1974 by palaeontologists Donald Johanson (whose name features as the main-belt asteroid that the probe will visit) and Tom Gray.

Just as the discovery of the Lucy fossil shed light on humanitys origins, so too will the Lucy spacecraft likely expose unknown truths about humankind.

Yesterday, Express.co.uk reported on a mammoth space rock heading towards Earth that may disturb Christmas festivities.

The asteroid, known as 216258 2006 WH1, is set for its closest approach to Earth on December 20 - just days before Christmas.

The 540 metre space rock is the same size as the World Trade Centre and would cause a significant amount of damage and mass extinction.

The asteroid is currently thought to be hurtling towards the Earth at a speed of 43,200km/h or 26,843mph.

The asteroids course could be further influenced by natural a phenomenon known as the Yarkovksey effect.

The effect occurs when the gentle force of sunlight edges an asteroid either way of its natural course.

Its influence on an asteroid was demonstrated in 2012 with mastoid 1999RQ36, where scientists, using the effect, were able to estimate the most accurate determination of an asteroids orbit to date.

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NASA to confront swarm of asteroids with scientists hopeful of discovering origins of life - Express.co.uk

Could Chinese Astronauts Beat NASA Back to the Moon? – Motley Fool

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NASAwants to return mankind to the moon by 2024. To do so, it'll need help from its "Space Launch System" (or SLS) contractors Boeing and Northrop Grumman, Aerojet Rocketdyne, and especially Lockheed Martin, which is building the Orion space capsule.Blue Origin and SpaceX -- two companies that are sometimes NASA partners, sometimes NASA rivals -- want to put boots on the lunar ground as well.

And now comes a third entrant into this latest space race to get back to the moon:China.

Image source: Getty Images.

As Space.com reported earlier this month, China is actively working to develop its own "next-generation" spacecraft for human spaceflight between worlds.

Following in the footsteps of the Soviet Union (and later Russia) and the United States, China became the third terrestrial nation to put astronauts in space when "taikonaut" Yang Liwei orbited Earth in Shenzou-5 in 2003. Now the state-owned China Academy of Space Technology (CAST) is building an even bigger 30-foot long, 22-ton yet-to-be-named spacecraft capable of carrying anywhere from four to six taikonauts on a voyage to the moon.

As Space.com reports, China plans to launch its new spacecraft on an unmanned test flight sometime in the first half of next year, flying atop a Long March 5B heavy-lift rocket. China says that to get the spacecraft the rest of the way to its destination, it first needs to develop a more powerful rocket -- the super-heavy-lift "Long March 9." For this reason, the country is targeting a crewed mission to the moon only sometime "in the 2030s" (although some Chinese sources have suggested earlier dates).

A successful unmanned test flight next year could theoretically lay the foundation for a manned flight later in the year. So while for now China publicly disclaims an interest in landing taikonauts on the moon in the next decade, there's at least a chance China could accomplish this before NASA can reach the moon with its "Project Artemis" (which is targeting a 2024 date for moon landing).

Whatever China's ultimate target date turns out to be, its race to the moon puts pressure on NASA. The more delays our own Artemis program encounters, the greater the chances that China will get there first. So simply knowing that China is in this race is going to serve as an incentive to NASA to keep running.

What does this mean for investors?

NASA is spending some $35 billion to develop its Space Launch System for Project Artemis. The space agency awarded a $2.7 billion contract to buy three Orion spacecraft for the project just last month. Criticism of the program's cost overruns and development delays, however, have sparked calls for SLS's cancelation in Congress -- especially in light of suggestions that SpaceX's new "Starship" could make the moon trip cheaper.

And yet the Starship hasn't flown an orbital test flight yet, much less a trial run to the moon and back. (Neither has SLS -- it hasn't even been assembled yet!) Although Elon Musk is promising to send the Starship on an orbital test flight as early as the end of this year, so long as NASA is working with two "unknown quantities," and facing a determined rival in China, it's unlikely to cut bait on SLS before at least one of these rocket concepts has proven itself capable of executing the moon mission.

In this scenario, Congress, too, may feel compelled to spend whatever it takes to ensure Project Artemis's success. And that means that for the foreseeable future -- through the end of this year certainly, to 2024 probably, and potentially all the way toward "the 2030s" -- billions of dollars of planned and anticipated spending on a return to the moon will continue to flow out of NASA and into the pockets of investors in companies like Boeing, Northrop, Aerojet, and Lockheed.

Earning robust profit margins ranging from 10% for Boeing and Lockheed, to 11% for Northrop, to nearly 15% for Aerojet (according to data from S&P Global Market Intelligence), this is still a great business to be in. And if SpaceX and Blue Origin ever get around to having IPOs, they could become similarly great businesses to own.

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Could Chinese Astronauts Beat NASA Back to the Moon? - Motley Fool

Every $1 NASA spends drives up to $10 in growth, and that’s great for the space industry, says man behind the UFO ETF – CNBC

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Space spending is speeding up.

World Space Week, a massive confab that takes place across over 80 countries, just ended, and it has breathed new life into organizations around the world participating in the space race, says one top industry player.

"People from all over the world are really realizing how important space is not just for any one individual, any one company or any one government. This is a truly global collaborative industry," Andrew Chanin, CEO of ProcureAM and the man behind the Procure Space ETF, ticker UFO, said Monday on CNBC's "ETF Edge."

This year, Chanin spotted a notable change in how institutions are approaching investing in space.

"What we're seeing is ... this transformation away from it being completely reliant upon government agencies like NASA, like Roscosmos, like the [European Space Agency], and it being driven by commercial interests now," the CEO said.

"So, the governments out there are saying, 'Hey, we want to play ball. We want to work with you. Come up with your solutions and we're happy to finance that.' But so much of the spending now is coming from outside the government, so it's a really exciting time for the industry," Chanin said.

Boeing's venture capital arm HorizonX announced in early October that it took a $20 million stake in Virgin Galactic, the space tourism company founded by Virgin Atlantic founder Sir Richard Branson. Elon Musk of Tesla fame recently said his space company, SpaceX, has spent "hundreds of millions of dollars" building a space capsule for NASA.

"I think one of the things that most people don't give the government or NASA enough credit with is how valuable $1 of spending from NASA is," Chanin said. NASA awarded SpaceX $2.6 billion to build the spacecraft model in 2014.

"It's come out in various reports showing that $1 that NASA spends actually shows $8-10 in growth," he said. "This money being spent by NASA isn't just for, 'OK, we want to be able to say we're great.' We're actually being able to take those technologies where that money's getting spent and turn that into a positive for the overall economy."

NASA spending has contributed to everyday life on this planet more than some may think. Satellites positioned above the earth are used for everything from GPS to weather forecasting to surveillance and intelligence services, Chanin said.

That's why his firm's UFO ETF is chock-full of satellite company stocks. Still relatively small vis-a-vis the rest of the ETF space with just over $12 million in assets, its top 10 holdings include communications satellite operators SES and Intelsat, GPS technology company Garmin and radio broadcasting giant Sirius XM. It's up 3.2% since its Apr. 11 launch.

But as spending on the space race gains momentum, UFO should, too, Chanin said.

"It really is a representation of the global, publicly traded space industry," he said. "This industry will likely change over the years. The index provider is aware of that, so they're already looking for companies that are going to be doing things in the militarization of space, in more space transportation and hospitality as well as infrastructure building."

And as NASA continues to support commercial interests in the space race, like its administrator's call on CNBC that SpaceX and Boeing could fly astronauts into space as soon as early 2020, it will expand the whole industry, Chanin said.

"We're seeing America's place in space starting to change," the CEO said. "We're also seeing tons of interest from around the world. China has aspirations, Russia has aspirations, India, Canada, and so on. So, the ideas, the technologies, where the winners are going to be? It's tough to say. But, certainly, having a contract from NASA saying, 'OK, we want to fund you to get to a certain point' is certainly helpful."

ETF industry experts like Chris Hempstead, a top consultant and Deutsche Bank's former head of ETF sales, said the inherent opportunity in this growing area of the market "struck" him when he was first helping Chanin launch UFO.

"What struck me as a consumer, as someone who's just learning about it for the first time, was that satellite story in and of itself," Hempstead said in the same "ETF Edge" interview.

"There's only a finite amount of satellite space above this planet, and so as these companies that you're looking at that are in this ETF vie for control of where to put those satellites not only amongst themselves in the U.S., but globally with other countries. It's a really interesting story about that, the cost of doing that and the value associated with having a satellite in orbit that can do some of the things that Andrew alluded to," he said.

UFO was down by less than 1% on Friday.

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Every $1 NASA spends drives up to $10 in growth, and that's great for the space industry, says man behind the UFO ETF - CNBC

The 1st Human on Mars May Be a Woman, NASA Chief Says – Space.com

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When NASA sends humans to the moon for the first time in more than half a century, one lucky astronaut will go down in history for becoming the first woman on the moon. Then it won't be long before we see the first woman on Mars, and she just might beat the first man there, according to NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine.

"We could very well see the first person on Mars be a woman," Bridenstine told reporters on Friday (Oct. 18) during a news conference about the first all-woman spacewalk. "I think that could very well be a milestone," he added.

NASA currently has no concrete plans for landing humans on Mars the moon is the agency's first priority but Bridenstine has said that the first crewed Mars landing could happen sometime in the 2030s. Meanwhile, the private spaceflight company SpaceX is working on its Starship Mars-colonizing rocket, which could help NASA send those astronaut pioneers to the Red Planet.

Related: Women in Space: A Gallery of Firsts

"If my 11-year-old daughter has her way, we'll have a woman on Mars in the not-too-distant future," Bridenstine said, adding that whoever ends up going to Mars is probably too young to have already been selected to join NASA's astronaut corps at this time. However, the soon-to-be first woman on the moon will likely be selected from NASA's current pool of active astronauts.

NASA has not yet announced who will be the first woman on the moon, but whoever she may be, she's scheduled to land in 2024. That moon landing mission is part of NASA's Artemis program, which is the agency's precursor to establishing a permanent human presence on and around the moon something that may help pave the way to Mars.

Email Hanneke Weitering at hweitering@space.com or follow her @hannekescience. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and onFacebook.

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NASA’s Eyes on Extreme Weather – Teachable Moments – NASA/JPL Edu News

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In the News

An extreme weather event is something that falls outside the realm of normal weather patterns. It can range from superpowerful hurricanes to torrential downpours to extended hot dry weather and more. Extreme weather events are, themselves, troublesome, but the effects of such extremes, including damaging winds, floods, drought and wildfires, can be devastating.

NASA uses airborne and space-based platforms, in conjunction with those from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA, to monitor these events and the ways in which our changing climate is contributing to them. Together, the agencies are collecting more detailed data on weather and climate than ever before, improving society's ability to predict, monitor and respond to extreme events.

NASA makes this data available to the public, and students can use it to understand extreme weather events happening in their regions, learn more about weather and climate in general, and design plans for resilience and mitigation. Read on for a look at the various kinds of extreme weather, how climate change is impacting them, and ways students can use NASA data to explore science for themselves.

Global climate change, or the overall warming of our planet, has had observable effects on the environment. Glaciers have shrunk, ice on rivers and lakes is breaking up and melting earlier in the year, precipitation patterns have changed, plant and animal habitat ranges have shifted, and trees are flowering sooner, exposing fruit blossoms to damaging erratic spring hail and deadly late frost. Effects that scientists had predicted in the past are now occurring: loss of sea ice, accelerated sea level rise, shifting storm patterns and longer, more intense heat waves.

Some of the most visible and disruptive effects of global climate change are extreme weather and resulting disasters such as wildfires and flooding. These events vary by geographic location, with many regions, such as the Southwest United States and parts of Central and South America, Asia, Europe, Africa and Australia, experiencing more heat, drought and insect outbreaks that contribute to increased wildfires. Other regions of the world, including coastal areas of the United States and many island nations, are experiencing flooding and salt water intrusion into drinking water wells as a result of sea level rise and storm surges from intense tropical storms. And some areas of the world, such as the Midwestern and Southern United States, have been inundated with rain that has resulted in catastrophic flooding.

This pair of images shows the northeast side of Tulsa, Oklahoma, in May 2018 (left) and in May 2019 (right) after the Caney and Verdigris rivers flooded. Image credit: NASA/USGS | Full image and caption

Temperatures, rainfall, droughts, high-intensity hurricanes and severe flooding events all are increasing and projected to continue as the world's climate warms, according to the National Climate Assessment. Weather is dynamic and various types of weather can interact to produce extreme outcomes. Here's how climate change can play a role in some of these weather extremes.

This color-coded map displays a progression of changing global surface temperature anomalies from 1880 through 2018. Higher-than-normal temperatures are shown in red and lower-than-normal temperatures are shown in blue. The final frame represents the global temperatures five-year averaged from 2014 through 2018. Scale in degrees Celsius. Credit: NASA's Scientific Visualization Studio. Data provided by Robert B. Schmunk (NASA/GSFC GISS). | Watch on YouTube

Eighteen of the 19 warmest years on record have occurred since 2001.September 2019 tied as the hottest month on record for the planet. Since the 1880s, the average global surface temperature has risen about 2 degrees Fahrenheit (1 degree Celsius). As a result of warming temperatures, global average sea level has risen nearly 7 inches (178 millimeters) over the past 100 years. Data show this warming of the Earth system has been driven in large part by increased emissions into the atmosphere of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases created by human activities. And as temperatures continue to rise, we can expect more extreme weather.

The image on the left shows air temperatures during a record-breaking June 2019 heat wave in Alaska. Around the same time, a cluster of lightning-triggered wildfires broke out in the same area. Smoke from the wildfires can be seen in the image on the right. Image credit: NASA | Full image and caption

High temperatures alone can lead to drought. Drought can cause problems for humans, animals and crops dependent on water and can weaken trees, making them more susceptible to disease and insect attacks. High temperatures combined with low humidity, dry vegetation and hot, dry, fast winds typify what is known as "fire weather" or "fire season." During fire season, wildfires are more likely to start, spread rapidly and be difficult to extinguish.

The Operational Land Imager on the Landsat 8 satellite captured this image of the Walker Fire in Northern California on Sept. 8, 2019. Image credit: NASA/USGS | Full image and caption

In California, where climate change has brought hotter, drier weather, residents are plagued by two fire seasons one lasting from June through September that is primarily caused by high heat, low humidity and dry vegetation, and another lasting from October through April that is generally more volatile, as it is fueled by high winds. This 11-month fire season is longer than in past years. In recent years, California has also seen an increase in destructive wildfires. Weather extremes and climate change are partly to blame, even in relatively wet years. In California, these years mean more plant growth and potentially more fuel for fires when those plants dry out in the fall and the winds arrive. Wildfires have some fairly obvious effects on people and property. In addition to the visible destruction, smoke from wildfires can dramatically decrease air quality, pushing carbon into the air and destroying important carbon-sequestering plants and trees. Large-scale biomass destruction, as is happening in the Amazon rainforest, will have a lasting impact on important Earth processes.

This image, acquired on October 11, 2019, by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer, or MODIS, on NASA's Aqua satellite, shows Typhoon Hagibis as its outer cloud bands neared Japan. Image credit: NASA | Full image and caption

Since the 1980s, regions of the world prone to hurricanes, cyclones and typhoons have witnessed an increase in intensity, frequency and duration of these destructive storms. All three are intense tropical storms that form over oceans. (The different names refer to where on Earth they occur.) They are all fueled by available heat energy from warm ocean water. Warmer oceans provide more energy to passing storms, meaning hurricanes can form more quickly and reach higher speeds. Typhoon Hagibis, which recently left a trail of destruction in Japan, was described as the worst storm to hit the region in decades. Growing unusually quickly from a tropical storm to a Category 5 storm in less than a day, Hagibis was so intense it was called a super typhoon. In 2018, the second strongest cyclone to hit a U.S. territory and the largest typhoon of the year, Super Typhoon Yutu, caused catastrophic destruction on the Mariana Islands, an archipelago in the North Pacific Ocean. More intense storms and rising sea levels make storm surge ocean water that is pushed toward the shore by strong winds even worse than in the past. Typhoons can wreak havoc on infrastructure and compromise fresh water reserves. It can take months or even years for a hard-hit region to recover.

The MODIS instrument aboard NASA's Terra Satellite captured the low-pressure area near New England that brought heavy snows and thundersnow to the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern U.S. in January 2011. Image credit: NASA Goddard/MODIS Rapid Response Team | Full image and caption

Like any other weather event, extreme cold weather events such as blizzards and unusually heavy snowfall can be, but are not always, linked to climate change. Just as warmer ocean water increases the intensity of a warm tropical storm, warmer than average winter ocean temperatures in the Atlantic feed additional energy and moisture into cold storms, influencing the severity of snowfall once the storm comes ashore in the Eastern United States. There is some natural variability, such as the presence of El Nio conditions, that can also lead to severe snowstorms in the region. But natural variability isn't enough to fully explain the increase in major snowstorms in the U.S. In fact, the frequency of extreme snowstorms in the eastern two-thirds of the region has increased dramatically over the last century. Approximately twice as many extreme snowstorms occurred in the U.S. during the latter half of the 20th century as in the first half.

Because of the risk to lives and property, monitoring the increasing number of extreme weather events is more important now than ever before. And a number of NASA satellites and airborne science instruments are doing just that.

This graphic shows NASA's fleet of Earth-science satellites designed to monitor weather and climate across the globe. Image credit: NASA | Full image and caption

A large global constellation of satellites, operated by NASA and NOAA, combined with a small fleet of planes operated by the U.S. Forest Service, help detect and map the extent, spread and impact of forest fires. As technology has advanced, so has the value of remote sensing, the science of scanning Earth from a distance using satellites and high-flying airplanes. Wildfire data from satellites and aircraft provide information that firefighters and command centers can use to call evacuation orders and make decisions about where to deploy crews to best arrest a fire's progress.

The agencies' satellites and airborne instruments also work in conjunction with those from international partners to provide data about hurricanes to decision makers at the National Hurricane Center, where predictions and warnings are issued so evacuations can be coordinated among the public and local authorities. Visible imagery from NASA satellites helps forecasters understand whether a storm is brewing or weakening based on changes to its structure. Other instruments on NASA satellites can measure sea surface characteristics, wind speeds, precipitation, and the height, thickness and inner structure of clouds.

Three images of Hurricane Dorian, as seen by a trio of NASA's Earth-observing satellites in August 2019. The data sent by the spacecraft revealed in-depth views of the storm, including detailed heavy rain, cloud height and wind. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech | Full image and caption

NASA's airborne instruments, such as those aboard the Global Hawk aircraft, provide data from within the storm that cannot be otherwise obtained. Global Hawk can fly above a storm in a back-and-forth pattern and drop instruments called dropsondes through the storm. These instruments measure winds, temperature, pressure and humidity on their way to the surface. This detailed data can be used to characterize a storm, informing scientists of shifting patterns and potential future developments.

NASA missions will continue to study both weather and climate phenomena whether they be droughts, floods, wildfires, hurricanes or other extremes returning data for analysis. New airborne instruments aboard the satellite-simulating ER-2 and cloud-penetrating P-3 aircraft will fly missions starting in 2020 to study Atlantic coast-threatening snowstorms. Data from these flights will be combined with ground-based radar measurements and satellite measurements to better understand storms and their potential impact. Meanwhile, climate science instruments and satellites will continue to collect data that can inform everyone about the many aspects of our changing planet.

Weather and climate data isn't just for meteorologists. Explore the resources and standards-aligned lessons below to get students analyzing local weather patterns, understanding wildfire monitoring and modeling global climate!

Resources for Students

TAGS: Earth, Earth science, climate change, weather, extreme weather, hurricane, wildfire, typhoons, drought, flood, sea level rise

Ota Lutz, STEM Elementary and Secondary Education Specialist, NASA/JPL Edu

Ota Lutz is a STEM elementary and secondary education specialist at NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory. When shes not writing new lessons or teaching, shes probably cooking something delicious, volunteering in the community, or dreaming about where she will travel next.

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NASA's Eyes on Extreme Weather - Teachable Moments - NASA/JPL Edu News

News | Mars 2020 Unwrapped and Ready for Testing – Jet Propulsion Laboratory

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In this time-lapse video, taken on Oct. 4, 2019, at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, bunny-suited engineers remove the inner layer of protective antistatic foil on the Mars 2020 rover after the vehicle was relocated from JPL's Spacecraft Assembly Facility to the Simulator Building for testing.

"The Mars 2020 rover will be collecting samples for future return to Earth, so it must meet extraordinary cleanliness measures to avoid the possibility of contaminating Martian samples with terrestrial contaminants," said Paul Boeder, contamination control lead for Mars 2020 at JPL. "To ensure we maintain cleanliness at all times, we need to keep things clean not only during assembly and testing, but also during the moves between buildings for these activities."

After removing the first layer of antistatic foil (just prior this time-lapse), the teams used 70% isopropyl alcohol to meticulously wipe down the remaining layer, seen here, along with the trailer carrying the rover. Later that day, the rover was moved into the larger main room of the Simulator Building. In the coming weeks, the rover will enter a massive vacuum chamber for surface thermal testing - a weeklong evaluation of how its instruments, systems and subsystems operate in the frigid, near-vacuum environment it will face on Mars.

JPL is building and will manage operations of the Mars 2020 rover for NASA. The rover will launch on a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket in July 2020 from Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. NASA's Launch Services Program, based at the agency's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, is responsible for launch management.

When the rover lands at Jezero Crater on Feb. 18, 2021, it will be the first spacecraft in the history of planetary exploration with the ability to accurately retarget its point of touchdown during the landing sequence.

Charged with returning astronauts to the Moon by 2024, NASA's Artemis lunar exploration plans will establish a sustained human presence on and around the Moon by 2028. We will use what we learn on the Moon to prepare to send astronauts to Mars.

Interested K-12 students in U.S. public, private and home schools can enter the Mars 2020 Name the Rover essay contest. One grand prize winner will name the rover.

For more information about the name contest, go to:

https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/participate/name-the-rover/

For more information about the mission, go to:

News Media Contact

Alana JohnsonNASA Headquarters, Washington202-672-4780alana.r.johnson@nasa.gov

2019-209

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News | Mars 2020 Unwrapped and Ready for Testing - Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Success! NASA Confirms the Mole is Working Again. – Universe Today

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After months of setbacks, NASA says that the InSight Landers Mole is working again.

InSight landed on Mars on Nov. 26 2018 in Elysium Planitia. Its mission is to study the interior of the planet, to learn about how Mars and other rocky planets formed. InSight (Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy, and Heat Transport) is a NASA mission with other partners, including the DLR (German Aerospace Center.)

The mole still has a way to go, but were all thrilled to see it digging again.

The Mole, or Heat Flow and Physical Properties Package (HP3,) was designed and built by the DLR. It penetrates the Martian surface and measures the heat flowing from the planets interior. It works like a hammer drill, pounding and rotating its way into the ground.

InSight only had one chance to deploy the Mole, and it took a good look around before doing it. Mission engineers used the landers cameras to examine its instrument placement area and find a place free of obvious rocks. But they couldnt see under the surface.

After deployment, the Mole got a short way into the ground, then stopped. The InSight team thought it had hit a rock, but they werent certain. They kept working with it, and then the Mole got canted over at about a 15 degree angle.

After working their way through different scenarios on test-beds here on Earth, they came to a conclusion: the Mole relies on friction between itself and the surrounding material to penetrate into the ground, and the surrounding material wasnt filling the hole the way it did when they designed and tested the Mole here on Earth.

Operators removed the Moles housing to get a better look inside the hole. They found a type of soil they call duricrust a few centimeters below the surface, and that duricrust was compacted and wouldnt fill the cavity the Mole created as it penetrated the surface.

The InSight team used the scoop on the end of the landers instrument placement arm to push down on the soil surrounding the Moles hole. But that didnt work. The instrument arm could barely reach that far, and it couldnt apply much force.

NASA and the DLR came up with another solution. This time, they would use the scoop on the instrument arm to apply sideways force on the Mole. They hoped that by pushing the Mole against its hole, there would be enough force and the Mole would make progress again.

On October 15th, NASA said things were looking good, but they couldnt be absolutely certain.

NASA calls the new technique pinning. By pinning the Mole against the side of the hole, theres enough friction for the instrument to keep penetrating. Without that friction, the Mole will just bounce in place as it tries to hammer its way into the ground.

Now, NASA confirms that the pinning technique is working.

Seeing the moles progress seems to indicate that theres no rock blocking our path, said HP3Principal Investigator Tilman Spohn of DLR. Thats great news! Were rooting for our mole to keep going.

Theres still a long way to go. The Mole is nowhere near its desired operating depth of five meters. But theyre making progress.

The mole still has a way to go, but were all thrilled to see it digging again, said Troy Hudson of JPL, an engineer and scientist who has led the mole recovery effort. When we first encountered this problem, it was crushing. But I thought, Maybe theres a chance; lets keep pressing on. And right now, Im feeling giddy.

The Mole is not in the clear yet. Theres no way of knowing if itll get stuck again. If it does get stuck again, at a greater depth, the pinning option wont be available. The InSight team could try to scoop dirt down into the hole, or try to press down on the exposed top of the instrument. But thats risky; the sensitive instrument tether is attached to the top.

But for now, theres progress. The Moles maximum operating depth is five meters, but it can still do science at a shallower depth. Its just not ideal, and will take more work to understand the results.

With luck, and possibly with more advanced problem-solving skills like the team has already used, the Mole will succeed. And Mars will reveal more of its secrets.

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Asteroid terror: NASA spot mammoth space rock to hit Earth’s orbit five days before X-mas – Express.co.uk

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The asteroid, known as 216258 2006 WH1, is set for its closest approach to Earth on December 20 - just days before Christmas. The 540 metre space rock is the same size as the World Trade Centre and would cause a significant amount of damage and mass extinction.

The asteroid is currently thought to be hurtling towards the Earth at a speed of 43,200km/h or 26,843mph.

The asteroids course could be further influenced by natural a phenomenon known as the Yarkovksey effect.

The effect occurs when the gentle force of sunlight edges an asteroid either way of its natural course.

Its influence on an asteroid was demonstrated in 2012 with mastoid 1999RQ36.

Scientists, using the Yarkovksey effect, were able to estimate the most accurate determination of an asteroids orbit to date.

Asteroids larger than approximately 35 metres across pose a threat to a town or city, this meaning that 216258 2006 WH1s 540 metre diameter would likely cause havoc across the globe.

The asteroid hasnt yet been measured on the Torio Impact Hazard Scale, but will likely be listed as a serious threat when and if it is added.

A stripped down version of the Torino Scale was presented to the United Nations in 1995.

JUST IN:Asteroid warning: Why rock twice size of Burj Khalifa could end world

Then, a revised version was presented in 1999 at a conference on Near Earth Objects (NEO).

It was at this conference that participants voted to make the revised version the main scale that scientists would use and refer to when labelling the threat asteroids posed to Earth.

The system has an integer scale ranging from 0 to 10 with associated colour coding.

It currently captures the likelihood and consequences of a potential impact event.

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Scientists shock after amateur sky-watcher makes asteroid discoveryAsteroid fears: NASA warning over 'raining nuclear rocks'Asteroid terror: NASA spots titanic approaching mega rock

A ten on the scale means a collision is certain, capable of causing global climatic catastrophe that may threaten the future of civilisation as we know it, whether colliding with land or ocean.

Such events occur on average once per 100,000 years, or less often.

A one on the scale corresponds to a routine and "normal" discovery.

This "normal" terminology only came about in 2005, when a one on the scale initially meant events meriting careful monitoring.

This resulted in exaggerated press coverage as scale one asteroids were relatively common, so the terminology had to be changed to normal so as to avoid stirring mass panic and attention.

For these asteroids, the calculations show the chance of collision is extremely unlikely with no cause for public attention or concern.

New telescopic observations very likely will lead to re-assignment of those originally classed as level one to eventually become a Level zero.

Organisations like NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) keep a watchful eye on NEOs passing close to Earth.

NEOs are all comets and asteroids whose orbits approach Earths path around the Sun.

NASA said: An NEO includes any asteroid, meteoroid or comet orbiting the Sun within 18,600,000 miles, 30 million km, of Earth's orbit.

Out of the 829,361 known asteroids and 3,592 known comets in the system, more than 20,000 space rocks are ranked as NEOs.

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Asteroid terror: NASA spot mammoth space rock to hit Earth's orbit five days before X-mas - Express.co.uk

NASA reveals how falling into black hole would be portal to another reality – Express.co.uk

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Black holes remain one of the most mysterious entities in the universe, but what is known of them is terrifying. They completely break the laws of physics with their singularity at the centre, which is a one-dimensional point where gravity becomes infinite and space and time become curved. The only other point in nature where a singularity existed is at the Big Bang.

This is why NASA believes black holes could be a portal to another reality where you experience space and time in a completely different way.

NASA said on its website: For black holes, distant observers will only see regions outside the event horizon, but individual observers falling into the black hole would experience quite another reality.

If you got into the event horizon, your perception of space and time would entirely change.

The perception would change because, in the universe, space and time are intertwined, called space-time.

However, gravity stretches space-time and objects with a large mass will be able to stretch space-time to the point where it is unrecognisable, known as time dilation.

The more mass an object has, the more it stretches and slows down time so something as large as Sagittarius A* the gigantic black hole at the centre of the galaxy would be able to stretch time to a point where it almost comes to a complete standstill.

Sagittarius A* has a radius of 22 million kilometres and a mass of more than four million times that of the Sun.

In other words, it is very dense.

READ MORE:Time travel BREAKTHROUGH: Time can be stopped and this is how

And because it is so heavy, it has the ability to completely stretch out space-time to a point where one minute on the edge of Sagittarius A* will see 700 years pass on Earth, Emma Osborne, an astrophysicist at the University of Southampton, said.

However, anyone hoping to get close to a black hole and experiencing this phenomenon is out of luck.

Firstly, there is no chance that one would survive falling into a black hole, so time travelling would be futile.

This is due to a process called spaghettification. The immense gravitational pull is so strong that the force is much stronger at the base than the top.

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For example, if you were travelling feet first into a black hole, the gravity be so strong you would literally be spaghettified, and you would be stretched out to a point where you would just be a stream of atoms heading towards the centre.

Another impossible hurdle to overcome would be getting to a black hole.

The nearest black hole to our planet is located 6,523 light-years away one light-year is 5.88 trillion miles.

The farthest humans have been from Earth is 248,655 miles (400,171 km) in 1970 as part of NASAs Apollo 13 mission when the craft swung around the far side of the moon it took almost three days to get there.

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NASA reveals how falling into black hole would be portal to another reality - Express.co.uk

NASA’s Van Allen probes are no more, and we owe them a lot – MIT Technology Review

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The seven-year mission, which ended Friday, was one of the most consequential investigations into how space weather affects the environment just outside our planets atmosphere.

The background: The Van Allen radiation belts are zones of charged particles energized by intense solar winds and cosmic rays, stretching out from 400 to 36,040 miles above the surface. Earths magnetic field, which protects the planet from space radiation, actually ends up mostly trapping the particles into two layers within the magnetosphere.

Satellites and spacecraft in high orbits or on their way into deep space can be damaged by prolonged exposure to this radiation. Humans who spend too long in the Van Allen belts can suffer severe health problems. And the belts play a significant role in modulating space weather that could end up damaging satellites, power grids, and other electronic infrastructure on Earth.

The probes: NASA launched two Van Allen probes in 2012 into an elliptical orbit to directly study the radiation belt. Each satellites used a suite of five instruments to detect particles and study the magnetic fields and plasma waves characteristic of the region of space directly around Earth. Probe B was shut down in July after it ran out of fuel, and NASA ceased probe As operations on Friday. The pair should fall back and burn up in the atmosphere in 15 years.

The legacy: Scientists used the mission to better understand the distribution of charged particles throughout the Van Allen belts, which is helping engineers design spacecraft that can better withstand extreme and extended cosmic radiation. Theres also a clearer understanding of how space weather causes the belts to swell and shrink over time, in what we now know is an 11-year cycle. More exciting was the discovery that additional transient belts can form during bouts of extreme solar activity.

But the biggest impact of the Van Allen probes might be in their engineering. The primary mission was set for only two years, because it was feared that radiation would quickly erode the electronics. Yet the duo unexpectedly lingered on, and might have survived into the 2020s with enough fuel. As we consider long-term missions in space, the probes will be a lesson in how to think about spacecraft design.

Whats next: NASA doesnt actually have any plans for a mission that compares to scope of the Van Allen probes, so we will have a dearth of space weather science for the foreseeable future. ESAs Lagrange mission could be a powerful tool if it launches, and NASAs upcoming TRACERS mission will flesh out how charged particles interact with the magnetic field at the poles.

Neither of these, however, will directly study the Van Allen belts. Meanwhile, NASA and NOAA have several spacecraft that monitor space weather and keep the agencies apprised of any solar events that could wreak havoc on modern-day electronic systems.

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NASA's Van Allen probes are no more, and we owe them a lot - MIT Technology Review

Iowa considers stepping backward on criminal justice reform – The Gazette

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As state and federal policymakers are brainstorming ways to reduce prison populations and establish alternatives to incarceration, Iowa Auditor Rob Sand wants to go backward.

Sand is asking the Iowa Legislature to pass a bill requiring prison time for people convicted of a felony for stealing $1,000 or more of taxpayer money.

White-collar criminals frequently receive soft sentences, Sand laments, and often avoid jail time altogether. His bill would not impose mandatory minimums, but would mandate some amount of jail time, perhaps only days or weeks in some cases.

If we tell people who do this youre going to be treated like a criminal, I think we actually can deter people from doing it because theyre less likely to risk that reputational value, Sand told me in an interview last week.

I get it. Fraudsters are bad people. Bad people deserve to go to jail, or so weve been told. Most Iowans probably agree with Sands idea.

However, I challenge Iowans to reconsider the knee-jerk reaction to lock up people who do bad things. There are other ways to enforce laws and manage offenders, some of which actually work, unlike mass incarceration.

The open secret about our criminal justice system is that prison is not a great way to deter criminals. A significant body of research shows this, but people who write and enforce laws often ignore it.

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In a brief published during the Obama administration, the National Institute of Justice summarized it as such: Prisons are good for punishing criminals and keeping them off the street, but prison sentences unlikely to deter future crime.

There is relatively little research about whether short prison sentences are an effective deterrent to financial crimes like the ones Sands proposal focuses on, but given everything else we know about incarceration, we have to wonder.

In most cases, incarceration is not a strategy to prevent future crimes or physically restrain people who are imminent threats to others. Its a tool to satisfy our desire for vengeance.

Tough-on-crime policymaking has been a disaster, making the United States the world leader in incarceration. There are an estimated 2.2 million people in American prisons and jails, a 500 percent increase over the last 40 years, according to the Sentencing Project.

It cannot be the case that Americans are simply more criminal than other people. This is a systematic problem.

Encouragingly, Americans are evolving on the issues of crime and punishment. There is an emerging consensus that mandatory sentences are bad, and that imprisoning people has negative unintended consequences on society.

I admit it is difficult to get too worked up about thieves serving short jail sentences for stealing taxpayer money at a moment when we know peaceful people have been sent away for decades for victimless crimes.

We must recognize that jailing people who deserve it does not set free the people who dont. Quite the opposite, new sentencing mandates will grow and embolden the incarceration state, tightening its grip on current victims and claiming new ones.

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The movement to radically diminish the role of incarceration got national attention this month following the sentencing of Amber Guyger, a Texas police officer convicted of murdering a black man in his own apartment last year.

Many Americans were rightly frustrated that Guygers 10-year sentence seemed out of line with punishments handed down to people of color who have committed far less serious crimes.

In an essay published in the Appeal, lawyer and justice reformer Elisabeth Epps made the case that Guyger should be held accountable in some form, but not in a jail cell.

Abolitionists want and work to create a world where prisons need not exist. A necessary step in abolishing prisons, a prerequisite to ending mass incarceration, is stopping the inhumane practice of keeping people in cages even people like killer cop Guyger. Why?

Because people do not belong in cages, Epps wrote.

We have other tools besides cages. There are promising models for restorative and rehabilitative justice that seek to right whats wrong, rather than simply building more jail cells that we cant afford.

Prison abolition is a radical movement, but one whose vision a world where prisons need not exist we all should embrace.

We cant close the prisons tomorrow. But we can stop passing new laws to mandate prison time.

Comments: (319) 339-3156; adam.sullivan@thegazette.com

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Iowa considers stepping backward on criminal justice reform - The Gazette

Lori Loughlin Charged With ANOTHER Crime As Daughters Chill Out At Jonas Brothers Concert! – PerezHilton.com

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Prosecutors are NOT willing to letLori Loughlin off the hook so easily.

Earlier, we heard theFull House stars chances of getting a late game plea deal had gone up thanks to a departmental dispute.

She and fashion designer hubbyMossimo Giannulli were arrested as part of the infamous Operation Varsity Blues and accused of bribing USC officials $500,000 to get their daughters fraudulently put on the crew team (despite the fact neither rowed) to ensure their conditional acceptance to the college.

The couple pleaded not guilty, but with their acknowledgement of the crimes caught on audio recording and others involved having already confessed and pled guilty, the case seems like a slam dunk.

However, insiders said prosecutors were worried after theprobation departments sentencing report of fellow college admissions scandal participantFelicity Huffman, which judged the crime to be victimless.

Related:Alec Baldwin Doesnt Think Felicity Or Lori Should Serve Jail Time!

Considering colleges only admit a certain number of students every year, cheating your way into those opportunities definitely knocks innocent people off the list, but OK. Lets say enough people think this way. Does it mean Lori is more likely to win her trial? Or to face an incredibly light sentence if she is found guilty?

Well, it turns out prosecutors are open to a plea deal, but theyre coming at it from a position of strength they just hit the Giannulllis with yet ANOTHER new charge to go along with mail fraud and money laundering.

The US Attorney out of Boston just charged 11 of the 15 parents who had pleaded not guilty with a new crime: federal program bribery.

The bribery chargecarries a max 5-year sentence btw, bringing Lori and Mossimos possible sentence to an intimidating 45 years.

Apparently the families were all given the heads up. They had a chance to reverse their pleas or else they would face even more charges, and four of the parents took deals.

(Some of the athletic officials involved were also hit by the bribery charges, as well asnew fraud conspiracy charges. The prosecutors are NOT messing around.)

However, since Lori and Moss chose not to fold under the threat of another charge, they likely wont take a plea deal at all. They vowed to fight this and they apparently still plan to.

So how are the girls taking all this? You know, the beneficiaries of all the alleged crimes,Olivia Jade andIsabella Giannulli?

Theyre still living their best lives following officially cutting ties from USC; on Monday night they went to see theJonas Brothers!

The infamous young women were spotted at the concert sharing a 4-seat box with with two girlfriends. Olivias on-again boyfriendJackson Guthy was in a nearby box with three other guys.

According to witnesses spilling toET, the couple met in the middle for a big kiss whenNick Jonas sangJealous!

Awwww. How romantic! Its like all the criminal charges and lifelong ignominy just melt away

[Image viaAdriana M. Barraza/WENN/Olivia Jade/Instagram.]

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Lori Loughlin Charged With ANOTHER Crime As Daughters Chill Out At Jonas Brothers Concert! - PerezHilton.com

The persistent problem of hazing – Yellowhammer News – Yellowhammer News

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Two Troy University fraternities were recently suspended for hazing, which is a recurring problem at our nations colleges. According to Wikipedia, 20 college students have died in hazing incidents this decade. Economics can offer insight into how initiation rituals help build groups and why hazing persists.

In addition to fraternities and sororities, bands, sports teams, firefighters, and military units have all had abusive initiations exposed. Economists would hope that our insights will apply across different groups.

Economics distinguishes between positive and normative analysis. Positive analysis focuses on factual questions, cause and effect, and how things work. Normative economics deals with questions about what should be.

My discussion is positive. Personally I did not join a fraternity and consider initiation rituals ridiculous. Economists focus on understanding practices in society without imposing personal biases. We should understand what rituals do before we possibly ban hazing.

Enduring initiation signals a new members commitment to a groups cause or purpose. Initiation differs from training. Training develops skills used in group tasks; initiation generally does not. Demanding training can cause many applicants to drop out, similar to initiation.

What types of groups benefit from making prospective members signal commitment? Ones where the group experience or its performance depends on members actions and effort, and where the valued types of effort are difficult to describe. Fires and coworkers carelessness can put firefighters in grave danger. Firefighters need to have each others backs, and in ways that go beyond training protocols. Initiation signals this willingness.

Initiation screens prospective members. Sometimes a group can enroll all applicants and boot those failing to perform. Natural limits on group size make signaling more valuable. Only eleven players play football at once, only so many firefighters ride on a truck, and an exclusive fraternity or sorority cannot admit everyone.

Signaling also generates value when other ways of screening fail to identify high quality applicants. The inability of resumes, interviews, and background checks to identify the best potential members makes signaling more important.

An action works as a signal when only outstanding potential members willingly take the action. That is, a good signal separates the prospective great members from others. Many things serve as signals in life; I recently wrote about Professor Bryan Caplans book on higher education as a signal.

Economic models of signaling reveal an unpleasant truth: a signal is valuable because it is costly. Initiation rituals consequently must be unpleasant or humiliating. A pleasurable initiation would not deter any would-be members.

Initiation likely persists because it helps sustain cohesive groups. Yet even if hazing works, alternatives may exist. Perhaps a less costly signal could still separate the prospective good and bad members. The initiation could be less demeaning and dangerous and not cross the line into hazing and still help a fraternity or fire department function effectively.

Human emotions can make initiations unnecessarily dangerous or persist when no longer needed. Turnabout may not be fair play, but is a natural reaction after we undergo a trial. Rituals may not be precise and are carried out by members with imperfect memories. Members may believe they endured worse abuse than occurred and unintentionally push exercise and drinking into hazing.

Economics also suggests that preventing hazing will be difficult. A cooperative victim greatly facilitates criminal prosecutions. Normally crime victims want their attacker punished. Prosecuting victimless crimes like drugs or gambling is difficult because all parties voluntarily participate; few gamblers want their bookie arrested and put out of business.

Young men and women choose to join fraternities and sororities and undergo initiation. Pledges will be reluctant to report hazing, even with websites and hazing hotlines. And illegality serves as a further barrier to reporting; a fraternity member risks punishment when reporting an initiation that went too far.

Should initiations be done away with as a relic of the past? Perhaps, but we should recognize that they play a role in building valued groups in society. We should constantly assess if safer initiations can serve the signaling function.

Daniel Sutter is the Charles G. Koch Professor of Economics with the Manuel H. Johnson Center for Political Economy at Troy University and host of Econversations on TrojanVision. The opinions expressed in this column are the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of Troy University.

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Lightning Network User Confused By Protocol: Lost 30000 USD – Bitcoin News

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The Lightning Network has long been touted by its proponents as a speedy, low-cost solution to Bitcoins scaling issues. A series of security scares and UX issues have called that vision into question however. The latest LN slip-up saw a user lose 4 BTC in one fell swoop.

Also read: Hidden Lightning Network Bug Allowed Spending of Fake Bitcoins

An unfortunate LN user claims to have lost 4 BTC after force-closing a channel using an older invalid state. Cue a cascade of alternately sardonic and sympathetic comments on the thread where redditor ZipoTm confessed their calamity.

How did this travesty befall the hapless ZipoTm? Well, on Lightning, the distribution of funds occurs when a channel is closed, with the protocol deferring to the most recently signed balance sheet. Or as one redditor explained, If you force close using an older invalid state, they can take the money while its timelocked if their node is online.

At current prices, that mistake cost ZipoTm a cool $30,000. Force-closing on an open payment channel would have taken but a second, but the effects were irreversible and catastrophic. ZipoTm isnt a tech newb, either, confessing Im working as a system administrator, have some server knowledge and I bet that everybody who has bigger nodes will face the same issues.

This is the second embarrassing issue to have beset the Lightning Network in as many months. September saw the disclosure of a hidden bug that allowed the spending of fake coins on the network. The revelation prompted Bitcoin Unlimiteds Peter Rizun to chide: Many people pointed out how LN channel balances were claims on real bitcoins, and not actually real bitcoins themselves, and that problems like this would surface. LN proponents retorted that it was impossible for channel balances to be unbacked. LN proponents were wrong.

With the Lightning Conference having taken place in Berlin over the weekend, and given the recent release of lnd v0.8.0-beta, the LN brain trust must be alarmed by the timing of the latest disaster story. Even if ZipoTm was at fault, the tale proves that despite being ultra-quick, Lightning Network is not yet production-ready in any shape or form and its developers will have their work cut out to restore confidence in the technology.

Roger Ver weighed in on the story, quoting a tweet from Lightning Network earlier this month warning users Dont put more money on Lightning than youre willing to lose. Perhaps the calmness which ZipTim exhibited suggests he was willing to lose $30k but that seems a stretch. One redditor could scarcely accept the apparent apathy, writing: Tell me thats not your whole stack? Id be nowhere near this calm.

To fulfill its promise as Bitcoins scaling savior, more rigorous Lightning Network testing is required. However, it is not always possible to legislate for the carelessness of users. A fully-working Lightning Network would appear to be some way off, but lessons can be learned in the interim. Perhaps the most important is to avoid locking up a substantial amount of bitcoin in a technology which is far from flawless at this juncture.

Do you think LN will ever be ready for public use? Let us know in the comments section below.

Images courtesy of Shutterstock.

Did you know you can verify any unconfirmed Bitcoin transaction with our Bitcoin Block Explorer tool? Simply complete a Bitcoin address search to view it on the blockchain. Plus, visit our Bitcoin Charts to see whats happening in the industry.

Kai's been manipulating words for a living since 2009 and bought his first bitcoin at $12. It's long gone. He's previously written whitepapers for blockchain startups and is especially interested in P2P exchanges and DNMs.

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Lightning Network User Confused By Protocol: Lost 30000 USD - Bitcoin News

Sunday Digest: Bitcoin Price And The Week’s Top Stories – Bitcoinist

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If you feel like your personal freedoms are being eroded by [insertyour government here] becoming increasingly undemocratic in the name of the public good, then thank [insert your choice of deity here] that you dont live in Eritrea unless you do live in Eritrea. Either way,you can improve your monetary sovereignty at least, by investing in andholding Bitcoin.

The start of the week saw bitcoin price clinging on to $8400 with its fingernails, as some analysts predicted a swift return to $7700 lows.

Bitcoins failure to overcome resistance saw its dominance rating fall by a percentage point, as altcoins took the opportunity to catch up.

In the current climate we are looking for any indicator to give us a clue when the price will pick up again, so why not network activity? Or perhaps we should pin our hopes on another Halloween pump to lift us out of the current consolidation period?

And then, naturally, we were hit by another drop. Not as low as the $7700 predicted, but back below $8000. And this time altcoins led the downwards charge, wiping out gains against bitcoin from earlier in the week.

But of course, none of this is anything to worry about. As anyone whose introduction to Bitcoin preceded the 2017 bull-run will tell you, 40% corrections happen regularly before a serious rally starts.

Litecoin founder, Charlie Lee, celebrated the altcoins 8th birthday by dismissing recent rumors of the Litecoin Foundations imminent bankruptcy.

Facebooks Libra is facing the scrutiny of almost everyone these days. On Monday, it was the turn of a G7 taskforce to express its concerns.

In order to deflect all this attention, Libra decided it needed a financial industry insider to be seen managing the project. Someone like an ex-Federal Reserve boss, suggested project lead, David Marcus.

Grayscale won the first US approval for cryptocurrency-based security when the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) gave its digital large-cap fund the green light.

Satoshi entered the Oxford English Dictionary, with the definition: The smallest monetary unit in the Bitcoin digital payment system, equal to one hundred millionth of a bitcoin.

Binance announced that it would allow futures trading with up to 125x leverage, urging customers to use this with caution. Reactions from the crypto community suggested that nobody had a clue how to use 125x leverage with caution, so it looks like nobody will be able to take Binance up on the offer.

Despite being called out as a Pumpkin Man earlier this week, (Dr) Craig S Wright isnt the feature act of our final story for once.

That honor goes to Nouriel Roubini, commonly known as Dr. Doom, but also not a real doctor. At the CC forum in London, Doom (as his friends know him), debated both Roger Ver and Bobby Lee. Although the term debated is debatable, as Roubini simply spouted his standard tired old tropes.

So gather round folks. Its time for a debunking.

What do you make of this weeks bitcoin and crypto news? Let us know your thoughts in the comment section below!

Image via Bitcoinist Media Library

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Sunday Digest: Bitcoin Price And The Week's Top Stories - Bitcoinist

Bitcoin (BTC) Price Breaks Above $8,200 While Bitcoin Cash (BCH) and Bitcoin SV (BSV) Post Even Higher Gains – U.Today

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There is a good chance that the cryptocurrency market is finally reviving given that Bitcoin, the top digital asset by market capitalization, has surged by four percent over the last 24 hours. According to CoinStats data, the coin that started it all is trading at $8,243with its market cap inching closer to the $150 blnlevel.

Considering that Bitcoin has already had a few fakeouts, bears might dismiss this recent price uptick as another flash in the pan. However,Alistair Milne, the CIO of the Altana Digital Currency Fund, recently took to Twitter to allege that this time might be different. His graph shows that Bitcoin has managed to break out of another descending triangle, which could mean a trend reversal.

As of now, the bearish sentiment is gradually waning. John Bollinger earlier assumed that Bitcoin had good potential for a head-fake trade. In layman's terms, it's simply a move in the opposite direction, which could also be described as a bear trap if to consider all $6,000 and $2,000 predictions.

Bitcoin has been range-bound for almost a month at the lower-$8,000 level. Such prolonged periodsof volatility usuallymean that BTC is ready for another volatile move.

While top altcoins mostly remain dormant, Bitcoin's controversial forks are on a roll. Bitcoin SV (BSV) is leading the pack with a seven percent price increase while Roger Ver's favorite Bitcoin Cash (BCH) is also up by six percent.

Will the Bitcoin price manage to touch $9,000 by the end of the month? Share your take in the comments!

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Bitcoin (BTC) Price Breaks Above $8,200 While Bitcoin Cash (BCH) and Bitcoin SV (BSV) Post Even Higher Gains - U.Today

BTC, BSV, BCH Update, HOT and NEW See Gains, Oct. 21 Bitcoin is stable and still – Bitrates

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Bitcoin is stable and still hovers around the fibonacci levels, BSV adds 21% on the week, HOT and NEW also see double digit gains.

Bitcoin is currently trading above $8,200 as selling pressure has continued for the last weeks. The move is still contained by the 50-61.8% Fibonacci levels, so we are still looking at a correction of the move that began in December 2018. The price action is still heavy and the market dynamics are the same. The only hope of real gains from here will be a crisis in the current financial system, which has been mentioned in previous posts. The mass population is still switched off to cryptocurrencies and only panic or fear of missing out on gains will see them embrace the market.

Support for BTC is around the $7,500 level and this will be the critical level going forward. The first key resistance will occur near $11,000. A move above $8,500 this week could see a potential move to $10,000 in the next week or two.

Bitcoin SV was 21% higher on the week and 16% of that move occurred in the last 24 hours. Looking at the price action of the move and it looks more like a technical correction from the recent sell-off. The positive week was the third straight gain and brings BSV back above the $100 level, which will be the focus going forward. A move to $130 is possible as the market makes its mind up about the value of BSV.

Bitcoin SV has been a volatile coin due to the Bitcoin Cash fork and the project isnt helped by the drama that surrounds its creator, Craig Wright. Wright aimed another attack at Binance CEO, CZ Zhao, calling him a money laundering piece of scum. The high-profile spat between the pair saw BSV delisted from the exchange earlier in the year.

Bitcoin SV was created after a hard fork from Bitcoin Cash. BCH has its own frontman in Roger Ver and his Bitcoin.com announced that it had acquired the Japanese blockchain startup O3 labs. O3 previously worked with NEO and Ontology and will now build apps for Bitcoin.com.

BCH leads BSV with a market cap of $4.2 billion versus $1.88 billion. In terms of mass adoption, BCH may have created a masterstroke with the Bitcoin.com web domain. If market newbies want to get involved in crypto then a google search of Bitcoin would draw many to the apps of BCH.

Holochain saw a positive week with a 20% gain and this finds the HOT token at number 37 in the list of cryptocurrencies by market cap.

Over the last few weeks, the projects have built a testing simulation of their p2p network and DHT implementation, ssim1h. Sim1h is a tool that can simulate an entire P2P network on a single centralized device. The test environment will operate ahead of the full solution, lib3h. Holochain lets users own and control their own data build applications.

HOT was trading at $0.00225 in June of this year but has retreated alongside the general market to trade now at $0.0009. The 20% move this week is a bounce from the recent low and could signify a potential bottom, however, the volume would need to build after the recent selling before any real follow-through is possible. HOT currently has a market cap of $156 million.

The Newton project is now at number 82 in the list of coins after a 27% move on the week. The NEW coin has a market cap of $46 million and currently trades at $0.0038.

Newton is seeking to disrupt areas such as digital identity, personal credit, advertising, and the supply chain. NewPay is the digital wallet for NEW and the project also wanted it to interact with NewMall, an e-commerce platform. Users consumer behavior would be saved and earn incentives known as NewForce. The goal is to disrupt traditional e-commerce platforms to give consumers control and to cut costs for merchants.

In market news, Samsung SDS, which is a subsidiary of tech giant Samsung, announced a joint venture for a blockchain traceability product. The tie-up with Pega and Mahindra will target industries including banking, insurance, and public services.

Fidelity Digital Asset Services has now undergone a full rollout of its trading and custody products. The platform had been operating a test phase with limited clients. The companys CEO told the Financial Times:

Fidelity started adding clients in the first quarter and is now engaged in a full rollout of its custody and trading services for digital assets a boon to what is a fragmented and complicated industry.

Fidelity currently manages $2.8 trillion assets in the traditional financial sector. Alongside the recent Bakkt launch, the door is now open for professional investors to enter the crypto space.

Disclaimer: information contained herein is provided without considering your personal circumstances, therefore should not be construed as financial advice, investment recommendation or an offer of, or solicitation for, any transactions in cryptocurrencies.

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BTC, BSV, BCH Update, HOT and NEW See Gains, Oct. 21 Bitcoin is stable and still - Bitrates

Binance announces listing of BCH-pegged tokens on Binance Chain – AMBCrypto

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Binance, the worlds largest crypto-exchange by market volume, recently made an announcement which should make the Bitcoin Cash community happy. In a recent Binance community post, Changpeng Zhao, CEO of Binance, proposed the listing of BCH-1FD, a token that would be pegged with Bitcoin Cash.

The proposal was put forward to add support for Bitcoin Cash trading on top of the Binance Chain. Bitcoin Cash is only the third crypto-asset to be chosen for the platform after a Bitcoin-backed token was issued in June earlier this year. An XRP-tracking token was later announced by Binance on 11 October.

Binance has claimed that the current listing is aimed at increasing interoperability between different assets, while improving the overall utility aspect of Binance DEX. Binance will initially issue a net worth of $2 million BCH-tokens and the exchange will continue issuing more tokens in accordance with market demands. The issued BEP2 BCH will be backed 1:1 with native BCH tokens and it will be placed in a disclosed reserved address that can be accessed and monitored round the clock by anyone in the community.

CEO CZ welcomed the announcement and stated,

The BCH community is one of the strongest crypto communities, and were excited to collaborate with them on migrating BCH token onto Binance Chain.The BEP-2 BCH token will be pegged to the native BCH. BCH holders can enjoy the seamless token swap experience on Binance.com and non-custodian trading on Binance DEX after the listing proposal is approved by the Binance Chain community.

Bitcoin Cash was in the news recently after its proponent Roger Ver recently mentioned that Bitcoin Cash will soon resonate with the functionality of a stablecoin too. He stressed that with BCH, users will be able to pay the interest thats acquired on the fiat currency in the bank, directly on-chain to all the stablecoin holders in the network via a new tool introduced on the BCH network.

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Does the Lebanese Government Have the Courage to Make the Right Decisions? – International Policy Digest

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On my visit to Lebanon several weeks before the current demonstrations began, two Lebanese leaders, one a minister and the other a parliamentarian, described the mood of the Lebanese people and noted the lack of courage by Lebanese government officials, one admitting, We do not have the courage to address our problems.

That comment now appears prescient as Lebanons crisis is about more than Syrian refugees, who with existing Palestinian refugees and other immigrants, make up at least one-third of the population. This presence adds to the existing pressure on government services, unemployment and underemployment, infrastructure overload, environmental damage, and increased crime. And the government has no national strategy to effectively addresses these concerns.

Nearly daily, Israel threatens to intervene militarily in Lebanon against the Iranian-backed Hezbollah. Israeli jets and drones conduct illegal overflights of Lebanon, while Hezbollah threatens to wreak havoc inside Israel. One miscalculation by either side could lead to a catastrophic war. One almost occurred a month ago when Israel sent drones to the Hezbollah stronghold in the southern suburbs of Beirut; another in December, when Israel first discovered tunnels dug by Hezbollah from Lebanon into Israel.

However, the Israeli military threat and the refugee crisis are not taking up most of the attention of the Lebanese these days. Its their economy and people from all over the country and across all sectarian groups are demonstrating in the streets.

They have many reasons to demonstrate. Economic growth could be in negative territory in 2019; bond agencies have rated Lebanese bonds as deep junk; unemployment and poverty are on the rise; and the government has little in the way of resources and management to address the countrys socio-economic problems. The Central Bank of Lebanon has enacted monetary policies to maintain the value of the Lebanese pound to prevent economic collapse, rampant inflation, and wage instability. But this cannot last without sound fiscal measures taken by the government. Adding to these pressures are the decrease of remittances and deposits from the Lebanese diaspora and the decline in significant deposits and foreign direct investment from Gulf countries, principally the UAE and Saudi Arabia, who have blocked their investments to Lebanon due to the Iranian influence on Hezbollah. In addition, the Syrian war has also cut off Lebanon from its only overland trade routes.

The U.S. has made its position clear by taking on Hezbollah by taking tough steps to weaken Hezbollah and Iran, sanctioning individuals and two banks in Lebanon, most recently, Jammal Trust. This affected 85,000 mostly innocent Shiite depositors who face challenges in retrieving and transferring their accounts. This is perceived by some as the U.S. targeting Lebanons Shiite community. The banking sector makes up 14% of the GDP of the country, and protecting this industry is a must if Lebanon is to recover.

There is a new U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Near East Affairs and there will soon be a new U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon. These changes lead Lebanese officials to wonder if ongoing U.S. support will continue, especially regarding its negotiations on the Lebanon-Israel land and maritime borders, putting into question the future potential of natural gas development.

Its the perfect storm, said one Lebanese official. Another remarked, The U.S. wants us to be more aggressive with Hezbollah and in our economic policies. We have little room to maneuver, adding, We need breathing spaceThis is not our problem alone. It is a problem involving outside actors much larger than Lebanon: Syria, Russia, Iran, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and the United States. They have as much an effect on Lebanon as Lebanons internal actors.

As the U.S. has reduced its involvement in the Middle East, Russia sees an opportunity to fill the void and exert leadership. Russia claims to be a more dependable alternative, promising Lebanon and its neighbors increased trade, military equipment, and conflict mediation regarding Lebanons refugee repatriation. So far, Russia has shown little action and questionable capability, but this propaganda works at a time of U.S. regional retreat.

Despite Lebanons fears of abandonment, and in response to the legitimate concerns of the demonstrators, the U.S. can be helpful in many ways. For example, emphasizing its commitment to the sovereignty, independence, and stability of Lebanon, providing significant funding in direct military and foreign assistance, and continuing visits by senior diplomatic and military officials.

Time is running out however for the Lebanese government to show the courage to make the tough decisions necessary to right its economy. Thousands of Lebanese are demonstrating in the streets, expressing their frustration with a government that is failing to take decisive action on the economy.

The government has the power to make the needed changes, address its economic woes, and take control of its destiny. It has been offered $11 billion in soft loans and grants by international donors to rebuild infrastructure, kick-start the economy, and privatize government-run entities.

The international community however expects Lebanon to reduce its budget and public workforce, create transparent oversight mechanisms, and institute anti-corruption policies that will allow this beautiful country to reclaim its historic role as an economic model in the Middle East. The demonstrators are showing their concern and commitment to a more free, open, transparent, and inclusive Lebanonwill the politicians take up the challenge? All it takes is a little courage.

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Does the Lebanese Government Have the Courage to Make the Right Decisions? - International Policy Digest

BDP has run the race and deserves a break to introspect – The Patriot On Sunday

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BDP leadership

Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) has been in power since independence in 1966. That is a period of over half a century. It seeks another term and it is perfectly entitled to do so as do other political parties. It is important to recognise and appreciate that it has done well under trying circumstances to bring Botswana where she is. But to be in power for so long in and of itself breeds complacency, arrogance, fatigue and a serious dereliction of duty. The current state of the political and socio-economic standing of the country is in my view, the result of arrogance, fatigue and serious dereliction of duty. Consequently and in the process, citizens suffer the most in terms of receiving the full social justice benefits they would otherwise receive if there was no such serious dereliction of duty. I am not interested in blaming the Presidents of the BDP but the institution and the brand called the BDP.

Arrogance is borne out of the sheer account that the party is ruling and whatever good motions/ideas from the opposition are ignored on account that they could elevate the opposition profile. I need not tabulate them because they are common knowledge. Fatigue in the sense that important national issues are not treated with the urgency and the speed they deserve. Parliament, which has become subservient to the executive has for example, failed to investigate the shenanigans surrounding the National Petroleum Fund scandal whose funds it authorised. The BDP ganged up to frustrate any motion that sought to investigate this matter. Serious dereliction of duty would encompass the failure to attend to for example, the runaway corruption that has become the way of life.

In the Presidential debate held on 16 October 2019, it emerged that the BDP is challenged in so many fronts with respect to fulfilling its mandate as a ruling party. Chief among these challenges and as conceded by the President of the party are the secretive nature of the agreement between Botswana and the De Beers Group. Rre Ndaba Gaolathe confirmed albeit with no rebuttal from the President during the debate that even parliament is kept in the dark about the agreement. One feels rightly or wrongly that there is more in this agreement for the BDP than it is for the nation. It was also confirmed that the economy of the country is firmly in the hands of non-Batswana. It is mind blogging that Batswana, and by virtue of the fact that this economy belongs to them and should therefore play a tangibly evident role to better their socio-economic circumstances, play very little to no significant role in it. How and why is this so given that the BDP has alone, been in power for over fifty years?

Corruption under the BDP has remained unattended to for as long as one can remember. The latest figure released by the Director General of the DCEC is that over P 5 billion of public funds have disappeared and mysteriously so if I may add. Just how could P 5 billion believably, disappear under the BDPs watch and authority? I guess it should be reasonably easy to trace the paper trial if there is no attendant complicity of some sort in the BDP. Corruption like I have said somewhere in this conversation, has become a way of life in Botswana. The DCEC has not caught and convicted the big fish of the corruption world yet such fish is in our midst and in abundance given the extremely high levels of corruption. In this regard, it tells me that the BDP is not doing something right in corruption fighting except the usual and tired we are fighting corruption slogan. While the Assets and Liabilities Act has come to pass, it was evident from opposition parties in the presidential debate and in parliament that it leaves a lot to be desired. I need not repeat the inadequacies in this law because they are common knowledge as well. Very little if anything, will be attained through this law. Those required by law to make declarations will still do so to their political principals thereby making the whole exercise a mockery of justice. Just why should one make a declaration to a politician amongst others? Its a joke of the century in corporate governance. Why has the BDP lowered the corruption fighting bar this low?

The President of Botswana is above the law as evidenced by Sections 41 and 47 of the Constitution. In this respect, it is not difficult to imagine how the powers conferred therein could be seriously abused. The easiest example is the recent decision by the President that he, and him alone, has decided to reinstate workers dismissed in 2011 after the public service strike. The relevant trade unions representing these workers have according to Botswana Nurses Union official on one of the private radio stations on Thursday, neither been consulted nor engaged on the matter. There are several legal implications to the Presidents decision which on the face it, have not been dealt with. Is this re-employment which would suggest that the dismissed are employed as first and new employees or re-instatement where they are paid their back pays and other attendant benefits they would have lost? The sitting President is alleged to be involved in some corruption/abuse of office with respect to the NPF and the CMB scandals. It is difficult or should I say impossible that the President can be subjected to any form of investigation to establish if these allegations are true or not. This state of affairs (that of the President being above the law) is not good for democracy, the Rule of Law, accountability and transparency. Why has the BDP allowed the President of Botswana to be above the law? The intentions of this law, good as they may have been back then, have long been overtaken by events given the unfolding events. In this day and age, there is no reason why we still have a Motswana who is above the law. Such a person cannot rationally be expected to uphold the Rule of Law regardless of pronouncements made thereto and that he himself or herself is above the law.

State institutions like the DCEC, DIS, IEC, Ombudsman and others are still housed under the office of the President. This issue was raised in the debate where the President responded by saying that this is how the law stands. Fair enough. He failed to convincingly commit that the status quo will change by reforming these institutions and by removing them from his office. The location of these institutions, appointments of their heads and other related matters have been raised by both opposition politicians and the general public but the BDP has remained unmoved. The end result is that these institutions are susceptible if not, to manipulation and influence by the politicians. The BDP has allowed this situation to be perpetuated for time immemorial because predictably, it has served it very well for political expediency.

I have argued before which I still maintain that most Botswanas problems are as a result of painfully lowering the leadership bar. In fact there is no longer any bar to refer to. And this bar is lowered right from the top political leadership level to the boards of parastatals amongst others. Just like it is the case for the country, parastatals leadership is in shambles with the entities performing so poorly. Most of them are on the verge of collapse if they have not already collapsed. Integrity in leadership is a rare commodity leading to no consequent management across the leadership hierarchy. This leadership decay has been largely promoted by arrogance, self-preservation and a serious dereliction of duty as stated above.

It is incontrovertible that the BDP could close BCL mine and in the process render about 5000 people jobless. And this was a decision taken by the BDP without the consent of parliament as it has become the norm under its rule. As a political campaign tool, the party somersaults under unexplained reasons to suggest that it intends to re-open the mine. It is important to mention that competent individuals and bodies richly endowed in mining had advised and correctly so, that it would be catastrophic to close BCL mine. The catastrophic consequences are there for even the blind to see.

The morass Botswana finds herself in, in whatever form or shape, is the result of the BDP having dropped the ball not once, twice but several times. The party has been largely reactive and less proactive in many instances hence the morass which seemingly and at best, is being solved if any, by short cuts and unsustainable measures. The BDP is an institution and a brand that has run its race that needs some introspection and soul searching outside the seat of power. Apart from populist and self-centred view that it is the only party that has the wherewithal to take Botswana forward, the socio-economic circumstances of her citizens largely suggest otherwise. It is somewhat of a movie I have watched before and whose script is still the same. Botswana is spoilt for choice with regard to other citizens taking the baton from the BDP. The argument that no other party is competent to rescue Botswana is seriously flawed to the extreme. I am prepared to be persuade otherwise as always. Judge for Yourself!

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BDP has run the race and deserves a break to introspect - The Patriot On Sunday