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Monthly Archives: April 2022
Editorial: Censorship is alive and well The Observer – The Observer
Posted: April 15, 2022 at 1:07 pm
Business administration discarded The Observer
Crystal Clausen
The shelf stands empty after the College of Business Dean and Associate Dean recycled copies of the paper on preview day.
Over the past weekend, we received a report of the College of Business Dean Jeffrey Stinson and Associate Dean Keke Coco Wu actively attempting to throw our papers in Shaw-Smyser into a recycling bin in response to our budget story that reported on 2023 budget cuts. It is disheartening our paper was discarded in an attempt to make the university appear in a positive light.
Stinson said out loud, while walking with Wu, the Observers Social Media Editor Crystal Clausen and her coworker, Im going to put these papers in the recycling.
After being asked why the papers were being thrown away, Wu told Clausen, Why did [The Observer] think it was smart to print that [budget] story on the day that we have so many students coming to campus?
We reached out to Wu and Stinson at the time of publication. Wu stated she was involved in a meeting that went past our deadline, so she declined to comment at the time; Stinson responded in an email.
In preparing our building for the CWU Preview Day on Saturday, I moved remaining copies of The Observer from the entry foyer, the email stated. Preview Day is critical to our recruitment efforts. Our desire is to present our prospective students and guests with a positive portrayal and outlook for the college and university. Our event day set-up and event delivery was organized to that effect.
The story in question regarding the 2023 budget was published one week ago. Vice President of Financial Affairs, Joel Klucking, provided information for this story and has not reached out regarding non factual details in the article. The budget is important to both the current CWU community and future CWU students.
Observer staff also witnessed incidents in the SURC where our paper was placed on the lowest shelf and another publication, the HYPE magazine, placed on top of ours.
The Publicity Center confirmed they did not make this change. While we cant confirm who did this in the SURC, two separate incidents against our paper in one day is upsetting.
I spoke to the Student Press Law Center regarding this incident, and they confirmed it impedes us in many ways. There is monetary value to what the offenders did. The amount we paid for those copies to be printed, the money we pay our staff, the amount different groups paid for their ads to be in our paper and so on.
I would like to take this time to give a reminder that censorship of the media is a real issue that should not happen to any publication, let alone to a student publication from administration within their own university. The First Amendment is to have freedom of speech and freedom of the press. There is no justifiable excuse to attempt to censor our reporting.
Our purpose is not to make people happy or to have the university, town or state look amazing. We are reporting on the facts of our campus community.
Reaching out to us by either a phone call or email is the correct form of action if upset, not throwing away our paper. You may also write a Letter to the Editor that will be published, and if necessary, we will have a response published with it.
Please know this is not going to make us alter our reporting in any way, shape or form. Our publication is here to present necessary information to the public. We are here to stay.
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People of China smacked Weibo censors right across the face. This is how – DailyO
Posted: at 1:07 pm
China is a strange country. They have the weirdestcensorship rules and restrictions on the internet and all other forms of media. In simple words, you cannot alwayswatch what you want toorsay what you want to say.
Due to China'sInternet Censorship Policy, websites like Google, Youtube, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Whatsapp, Netflix, Reddit and several others are banned in the country.
They have their own versions of most of the social media platforms.Weibo, populary referred to as the Chinese Twitter, is one such example.
Weibo has been fined several times for breaking censorship rules. But, this time Weibo users found a smart way to deal with thecensorship.
WHAT HAPPENED:
A journalist, Wenhao, shared a long thread on Twitter explaining what happened on Weibo on Wednesday night in China.
Weibo users in China started criticising the government for mismanagement of Covid in Shanghai, and other social issues. People went on and on highlighting the Covid crisis.
Around midnight, the top two trending topics on Weibo were:
a) Shanghai handles several rumours regarding Covid.
b) 'US is biggest human rights deficit country'
AND TAKE NOTE:
The Chinese government tried to divert netizens' attention by criticising the West. But this time it backfired horribly.
Weibo users continued to criticise the government but under the US hashtag. They smartly expressed their views under other hashtags that the Chinese government promoted to distract the users.
All forms of narratives, mainly satire, were used to highlight the governments failures under the US hashtag.
SOME OF THE BEST ONES:
Tweets by China's citizens criticising the government with satire
Issues like animal cruelty, wastage of medical resources, women being chained up in villages and much more were highlighted in the posts.
They replaced China with the US in their posts and pretended to be shocked at the kinds of things that happen in the US.
Many also criticised the Chinese media for always talking about whats happening in the west instead of focusing on their own people.
Weibo users used keywords like call me by your name to refer to the Chinese governments strategy of covering their faults by criticising the US.
GOVT WOKE UP LATE
The posts remained on the social media platform for hours.As mentioned by some users, exactly at 4:19 am in China, the government woke up and deleted everything. Only posts by verified government accounts remained.
People were still criticising the government under the Shanghai handled rumours regarding Covid tag.
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People of China smacked Weibo censors right across the face. This is how - DailyO
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Under the Wire: Evading Censorship & Protecting Sensitive Information – Security Boulevard
Posted: at 1:07 pm
Troubled Times
In times of trouble, citizens can feel a sense of deep helplessness. With war, famine, or political unrest raging outside of their window, many feel compelled to help or somehow make a difference, but may not understand how their position is valued.
The organization Reporters Without Borders is a consultant for the United Nations and aims at defending freedom of press and information. They have been active in filing complaints to the International Criminal Court regarding the Russian military attacks on journalists and in assisting with reporting the tragedies in Ukraine more generally. Journalists with jobs as dangerous as this use a wide variety of tools to release data, but they are not inaccessible to the public.
Availability of communications (and basic services) is one of the first major concerns limiting speech in times of crisis. This may be an attempted shutoff from communications outside the country or simply an issue with delivery of services. Either way, this problem must be addressed before any other.
Ukrainians continue to face a crisis of the availability of basic utilities and tools for freedom of communication. This starts with internet access. Connections to primary ISPs in Ukraine are down a massive amount since the start of the invasion, to the point of showing a notable dip on monitoring maps.
However, Ukraine also has deep complexity in their smaller independent internet providers, unlike some countries which may rely on only a few larger monopolies. This creates a situation in which censorship by government entities becomes far more difficult to perform and utilities have more stability. Ukraine has faced censorship in the past, but there is some hope in satellite communications, which require far less infrastructure on the ground than traditional cable or fiber.
Starlink, which uses advanced satellites in low orbit, has been providing internet access to citizens who may not otherwise be able to access cable infrastructure due to damage or dangerous conditions. Though it is not the only option to evade censorship, it is likely quite appreciated by citizens in dire need or with less technical prowess.
In the world of cybersecurity, we have a lot of tools for evading censorship. The most traditional such as VPNs or Virtual Private Networks are a method of subverting prying eyes of internet providers or possible eavesdroppers on the local network.
Tor browsers are another option, being easily downloadable from the internet. They allow a user to connect into a vast network of open-source nodes that bounce around a users communications and make it harder to track them. Both common solutions allow users to access items that would otherwise be banned, dodging censorship, tracking, and monitoring by all forms of bad actors.
A step up from this is eliminating digital fingerprint. An example is through flashing an image of Tails (a Linux distribution specifically aimed towards privacy and security, famously used by Edward Snowden) to a flashdrive and using it to disseminate information, something recommended for use by Reporters Without Borders.
Over the years, weve also seen increasing popularity in applications like Signal, which provide end-to-end encryption on messages in an easily accessible mobile app. End-to-end encryption is vital when service providers cant be trusted to keep their eyes off of communications, because only the end users (the senders and recipients) are privy to the unencrypted data.
Some applications are very close to end-to-end encryption or have options for it, such as Telegram. These can be equally good options for everyday use, but those looking for a private pipeline for communications should use caution and ensure their level of privacy is what they desire. The risk of using applications like this is usually low, and to most, readily available.
As the war in Ukraine continues to devastate the country, it is vital that citizens and journalists under siege are able to access and transmit critical and accurate information. With cities and townships under almost constant bombardment, the ability to intercept or receive information or timely warnings can help keep people safe.
Journalists and media workers risk their lives to provide war coverage, as well as document evidence of atrocities. Using these tools and techniques can help at-risk journalists and civilians stay connected to critical emergency services, utilities, and life-saving information.
###
LogicHub harnesses the power of AI and automation for superior detection and response at a fraction of the cost. From small teams with security challenges, to large teams automating SOCs, LogicHub makes advanced detection and response easy and effective for everyone.
*** This is a Security Bloggers Network syndicated blog from Blog | LogicHub authored by Tessa Mishoe. Read the original post at: https://www.logichub.com/blog/under-the-wire-evading-censorship-protecting-sensitive-information
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Under the Wire: Evading Censorship & Protecting Sensitive Information - Security Boulevard
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How China will censor the metaverse – SupChina
Posted: at 1:07 pm
How China will censor the metaverse SupChina Skip to the content
Search for any China-based companySearch for any China-based companyChina Development Bank International InvestmentBeijing iQIYICASILBYD AutoCapital International InvestorsFidelity InvestmentsInvescoBeiGene (Beijing)Beijing Pingxin Media CultureBeijing JD36Kr HoldingsBaidu (China)Qianjin Network Information Technology (Shanghai)GAIGAVICHINATaobao China Holding (Hong Kong)Huaneng Power InternationalWeRidemiHoYoCheetah MobileCALBZTO ExpressAluminum Corporation of ChinaRYB EducationTuniuChinaCacheHeyTeaNayukiNEIWAIPetroChinaMeiping Meiwu Home FurnishingChina Tourism Group Duty Free51jobFosun PharmaTCL TechnologyKingsoft Cloud HoldingsAlibaba Investment Limited (British Virgin Islands)KongZhongAutoXeHi Car ServicesMINISOHuatai Insurance GroupTSMCTrip.com GroupHuaqinXuanji TechChina Life InsuranceBilibiliVolitationHuimingjieZhejiang Tmall Network TechnologyHuaweiFlyZoo HotelYoudao ComputerAgricultural Bank of ChinaAEEEHangChina Three Gorges Corporation (CTG)Aviation Industry Corporation of ChinaCATLYuanfudaoTaobaoNanjing Taobao SoftwareTsinghua UnigroupGreat Wall MotorsFantasia HoldingsGigaDeviceXiaomi58.comBrilliance Auto GroupLenovoAir DwingAutel RoboticsWaterdropHoneycombBeiGeneSoarabilityShenhua EnergyTaobao Holding (Cayman Islands)FAW GroupBaiduJinko SolarHigh GreatByteDanceGotion High-techSinochemChina Railway Construction CorporationXianyuXAGKanzhunBeijing Taobao TechnologyGeely AutoZTEHangzhou Alibaba Taize Information TechnologyDAMODAManner CoffeeXPeng MotorsMissFreshLi-NingZhejiang Maoxiang E-commerceiQiyiMideaJD TechnologyGenki ForestT3 TravelChina Development BankKuaishouSMDHangzhou Cainiao Supply Chain ManagementChangan AutomobileZhejiang Alibaba Communication TechnologyAlibaba Group HoldingChina Railway Group (CREC)China Construction BankLONGiPAX TechnologyDongfeng MotorSJAIChina State Construction EngineeringGAC GroupChicecreamTALDJIRoborockNIOIceKreditGrepowAlibaba Cloud Computing (Zhangbei)Suning.comTmallChina National Petroleum CorporationHainan Yunfeng Tuohai Fund Center (Limited Partnership)PinduoduoGDUYunnan EnergyGaotu TecheduNetEaseNantong Haochao E-commerceGuangzhou Haochao E-commerceFOiA DroneBrilliance ChinaXNWCITIC GroupChina PostChina Eastern AirlinesLuxshare PrecisionINNNOTaobao China HoldingLi AutoChina ResourcesGanfeng LithiumZhejiang Tmall TechnologyPing An InsuranceAutoFlightJD HealthState Grid (SGCC)Evergrande GroupChina UnicomneoMeituanLens TechnologyHuobiZhejiang Yiding Orange Network TechnologyManbang GroupEVEBank of ChinaWillSemiSohu InternetZhejiang Tmall Supply Chain ManagementAnt GroupZuoyebangZhangmenAlibaba (Hainan) Digital EntertainmentJin Jiang CapitalSinopharm GroupYuanmu HoldingAlibaba Lirengou (Shanghai) E-commerceChina Southern AirlinesMuyuan FoodsGeneinnoSinopecShenghe Resources HoldingBinanceYatsen Holding LimitedSuning FinanceChina OceanwideFutu HoldingsZhejiang Meiping Meiwu Home FurnishingZhejiang Alibaba Cloud ComputingHaierChina Northern Rare Earth GroupBeijing Smart Cloud Technology ServiceBaotou SteelHangzhou Alibaba Network TechnologyModern LandBitalltechShanghai PetrochemicalCodemaoQihoo 360 Technology Inc.TencentHangzhou Tongxin Network TechnologyAlibaba.com Investment HoldingCMC Inc.China International Capital CorporationBYDDidi ChuxingJincheng AviationAnta SportsLizhi Inc.Wuxi LeadDingdong MaicaiFlorasisWeiboSheinXing Yuan DongAerofugiaSAICWalkeraChina Aerospace Science and Technology CorporationNew OrientalZingtoAlibaba (Beijing) Software ServicesSky SYSMMCXiaohongshuGreeJOYYTmall SupermarketUBTECH RoboticsOPPOPony.aiHengrui PharmaZhangbei Tmall Preferred E-commerceGEMTencent MusicTaobao (China) SoftwareLuckin CoffeeBank of CommunicationsHangzhou Wuhao Haochao NetworkSinovac BiotechChina MobileHangzhou Ant Nest Supply Chain ServiceChina National Offshore Oil CorporationZhejiang Bird Tide Supply Chain ManagementXiami MusicHangzhou Xinxuan E-CommerceAlibaba InvestmentAlibabaYuanxin TechnologyHangzhou Orange Umbrella Information TechnologyChina Pacific Construction Group (CPCG)MegviiBAIC BJEVJD LogisticsSungrow Power SupplyKweichow MoutaiJD.comSinic HoldingsIndustrial and Commercial Bank of ChinaInceptio TechnologyTIMZhangjiakou Tmall Youpin E-commerceAerospaceAgricultureArts, Entertainment, and MediaAutomotiveBiotechnologyConsumer ElectronicsConsumer SoftwareDefense and SecurityEcommerceEducationEnergy and UtilitiesEnterprise SoftwareFashion and BeautyFinancial ServicesFood and BeverageHealthcareHospitalityIndustrials and ManufacturingInformation TechnologyInfrastructure and ConstructionInsuranceMarketing and AdvertisingMaterials and ChemicalsMusicNon-Consumer ElectronicsPostal ServiceReal EstateRetailSemiconductorsSupply ChainTechnology Promotion and Application ServiceTelecommunicationsTransportation and LogisticsTravel AgencyWholesale
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‘So to Speak’ podcast: Former BBC bureau chief Konstantin Eggert and what you need to know about censorship in Russia – Foundation for Individual…
Posted: at 1:07 pm
Konstantin Eggert, a native Muscovite, has reported on Russia since the fall of the Soviet Union. He started his reporting career in Moscow in 1990. From 1998 to 2009, he was senior correspondent, then editor-in-chief, of the BBC Russian Service Moscow bureau. Later he worked for ExxonMobil Russia and Russian media outlets, Kommersant and TV Rain.
Now, living in Lithuania, Eggert is a vocal critic of the Putin regime and has more than a few thoughts on censorship in Russia: specifically, how it compares to Soviet censorship, the decline of independent media in the country, Russian history, and the war in Ukraine.
Eggert currently works for a German broadcaster, Deutsche Welle.
Show notes:
Subscribe and listen to So to Speak: The Free Speech Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, and Stitcher, or download episodes directly from SoundCloud.
Stay up to date with So to Speak on the shows Facebook and Twitter pages, and subscribe to the shows newsletter at sotospeakpodcast.com.
Have questions or ideas for future shows? Email us at sotospeak@thefire.org.
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'So to Speak' podcast: Former BBC bureau chief Konstantin Eggert and what you need to know about censorship in Russia - Foundation for Individual...
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See a sunrise on Mars in this stunning view from NASA’s InSight lander (photo) – Space.com
Posted: at 1:06 pm
If you think sunrises on Earth are amazing, wait until you see one on Mars.
This stunning view comes from NASA's InSight Mars lander, which snapped images of the Martian sunrise on April 10.
"I'll never tire of sunrise on Mars," NASA officials wrote in the lander's "voice" in a Twitter post Wednesday (April 13). "Each morning, that distant dot climbs higher in the sky, giving me energy for another round of listening to the rumbles beneath my feet."
As if the image wasn't enough, the InSight mission team combined several of InSight's sunrise photos into a short timelapse of daybreak on the Red Planet and included it in the Twitter post.
Related: Photos of NASA's InSight mission to Mars
InSight (short for "Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport") is a stationary Mars lander designed to study marsquakes and the interior of the Red Planet. The lander touched down in the Elysium Planitia region of Mars in November 2018 and is currently in an extended phase after completing its primary mission of one full Martian year (about 687 Earth days) studying the Red Planet.
In January, a massive dust storm on Mars forced InSight to slip into a protective "safe mode" when its solar arrays were unable to generate enough power to perform its science mission. The lander recovered by Feb. 15, NASA officials said at the time.
Currently, InSight is expected to continue its science mission on Mars into the summer and end its mission for good in December, NASA officials have said.
Email Tariq Malik attmalik@space.comor follow him@tariqjmalik. Follow us@Spacedotcom,FacebookandInstagram.
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NASA photos show the Perseverance Mars rover and tiny Ingenuity helicopter from space – Space.com
Posted: at 1:06 pm
NASA's newest Mars rover and its trusty helicopter companion were spotted all the way from space in a new photo.
In 2021, NASA's Perseverance rover and the first-ever Mars helicopter Ingenuity landed in Jezero Crater on the surface of the Red Planet. Now, a high-resolution camera on a NASA spacecraft orbiting Mars has captured the pair from orbit.
The new image, snapped on March 31, the HiRISE (high resolution imagine experiment) camera aboard NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, shows both the rover and helicopter together on the planet's surface. These images come just about 16 years after the camera delivered its first Mars photos.
Related: 1 year later, Ingenuity helicopter still going strong on Mars
The spacecraft might be a bit hard to spot in the black-and-white image, but annotated versions from the space agency show the pair from above.
In the image, "Percy" (as Perseverance is known) can be seen sitting on the cracked surface of a large rock formation called "Maz," the Navajo word for "Mars." About 656 feet (200 meters) to the left of the rover, Ingenuity sits on the bedrock. A number of Martian features have been given names in the Navajo language as part of a collaboration with the Navajo Nation Office of the President and Vice President.
Perseverance was sent to Mars with two main mission objectives: to collect samples for a future return to Earth and to investigate possible evidence of ancient life on the Red Planet. Ingenuity was sent to Mars within the rover.
While the helicopter was originally only slated to perform a few flights as part of a technology demonstration, its successful performance has now seen the craft perform 22 flights and helping Perseverance in scouting out exploration routes.
Email Chelsea Gohd at cgohd@space.com or follow her on Twitter @chelsea_gohd. Follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.
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Mapping the atmosphere on Mars can help advance science on our own planet – MIT Technology Review
Posted: at 1:06 pm
The Hope probe has three main objectives, the first is to understand the lower Martian atmosphere and its weather and climate. Yousuf continues, The second objective is to correlate the lower atmosphere conditions with the upper atmosphere to explain how weather changes the escape of hydrogen and oxygen. And the final objective that we have is to understand the structure and variability of hydrogen and oxygen in the upper atmosphere and why Mars is losing them into space.
The focus on space for the UAE comes at an important time as mapping Mars will contribute to the work of not just the knowledge economy of the UAE, but advance science for the whole world. The UAE is basically investing in space, as investing in the space sector means investing in the human capital towards a better future for all, says Yousuf.
This episode of Business Lab is produced in association with the UAE Pavilion Expo 2020 Dubai.
Meet the Emirati engineers of Hope Probe Mars Mission, Gulf News, February 10, 2021
Laurel Ruma: From MIT Technology Review, I'm Laurel Ruma. And this is Business Lab. The show that helps business leaders make sense of new technologies coming out of the lab and into the marketplace.
Our topic today is the Emirates Mars Mission, also known as the Hope Probe. Hope aims to be the first probe to provide a complete picture of the Martian atmosphere and its layers. The data collected by Hope will help answer key questions about the global Martian atmosphere and the loss of hydrogen and oxygen gases into space over the span of one Martian year.
Two words for you, space data.
My guest today is Maryam Yousuf, who is a data analyst for the Emirates Mars Mission.
This podcast is produced in association with UAE Pavilion Expo 2020 Dubai.
Welcome, Maryam.
Maryam: Hi, Laurel. Thank you for having me.
Laurel: To begin with, I want to congratulate you and your team. The United Arab Emirates is the fifth country in history to reach Mars and only the seventh in the world to reach the orbit of another planet. And to top it all off, the performance of the spacecraft is exceeding expectations. What does this mean for the UAE? And what kind of impact is it having on the UAE's aspiring scientists?
Maryam: Thank you for the congratulations. And it's for everyone, I think, having this mission to go to Mars and get the unique data that we have. Hope Probe is the vision of the late founder of the Emirates, Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, where he envisioned the UAE leading in the sector one day. One of the predominant project goals is developing the science and technology sectors within the UAE, in terms of capacity building and forging new pathways for the younger generations in research and development in the natural sciences domains, as they lay the foundation for any space exploration initiative in the future.
Laurel: That is very inspiring. The UAE's Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Center with the international Mars science community is defining the objectives for the mission. What are those objectives and how will they further international goals to understand Mars?
Maryam: The Emirates Mars Mission will be the first mission to provide the full global picture of the Martian atmosphere. So three scientific objectives. The first objective is to characterize the Martian lower atmosphere to understand the climate dynamic and the global weather map. The second objective is to correlate the lower atmosphere conditions with the upper atmosphere to explain how weather changes the escape of hydrogen and oxygen. And the final objective that we have is to understand the structure and variability of hydrogen and oxygen in the upper atmosphere and why Mars is losing them into space.
Laurel: No small feats. These are big goals, for sure. Hope aims to provide the first comprehensive picture of Mars climate and atmosphere. Hopes unique 25-degree elliptical orbit enables it to collect data and high-resolution images of the planet's atmosphere every 225 hours or 9.5 days. What data is the Hope Probe collecting? How does it actually collect it?
Maryam: We have three instruments on board of Hope Probe. Two are studying the lower atmosphere and one is studying the upper atmosphere. If we speak about those that are studying the lower atmosphere, we have the Emirates Exploration Imager or EXI, which is a digital camera that is capable of taking 12-megapixel images while maintaining the radiometric calibration needed for the detailed scientific analysis. It will capture high resolution images of Mars, which is the RGB. And then it will measure optical depth of water ice at the range of 305 to 335 nanometers. And it will also measure the abundance of ozone at the range of 245 to 275 nanometers. All this is basically the ultraviolet bands.
The second instrument, which is the Emirates Mars Infrared Spectrometer or EMIRS, collects its data from the lower atmosphere. It is an interferometric thermal infrared spectrometer that will give a better understanding of the energy balance in the current Martian climate by characterizing the state of the lower atmosphere and the processes that are driving the global circulation. It'll measure both the surface and the atmospheric temperatures, as well as the optical depths of water ice, and dust, and the abundance of water vapor. All of this will be measured from 6 to 40 plus micrometers.
For the upper atmosphere, we have the final instrument, which is the Emirates Mars Ultraviolet Spectrometer, which is EMUS. It is a far ultraviolet spectrometer that will measure oxygen and carbon monoxide and the thermosphere, and then it will measure the variability of the hydrogen and oxygen and the upper atmosphere.
Laurel: That absolutely is comprehensive. It will have a really good idea of a map of Mars from everything, from the surface to the atmosphere.
Maryam: Yeah.
Laurel: As a data analyst on the Mars Probe, what is your job like? How do you analyze so much data, and what are you looking for?
Maryam: For me personally, I only use EMIRS data for now. I basically study the impact of varying atmosphere conditions to the lower atmosphere on the out thermo-physical properties, on the Martian surface. And the thermo-physical properties are the properties that affect the energy budget itself.
All the instruments that we have on board of the Hope Probe are built on heritage data, which means we built the instruments based on the instruments used during previous Mars missions. When it comes to EMIRS specifically, we can use data from the Thermal Emission Spectrometer (TES), which was on board of the Mars Global Surveyor and before the launch and so on, I used to build my code and models using TES data. Now I basically use EMIRS instead of TES.
Laurel: That's pretty exciting. You came to the mission itself as a recent graduate with a background in biomedical engineering and now you're exploring space data from Mars. How have you been able to use your own analytic skills to make that transition?
Maryam: It was very challenging, but I like to challenge myself, and I like to seize any opportunity that is presented to me. So when this opportunity was there, I was like, why not? Because everything that we need to know, we can learn it from experts or we can learn it online. I challenged myself by learning programming, which is Python language, through online courses and online sources available that we can get our hands on. And then when it comes to the science, the space science in particular, the Emirates Mars mission was built on a knowledge transfer program. So we have experts from the United States that monitor the project that we're working on. So, I have mentors that teach me about all this amazing space science that relates to Mars as well.
Laurel: That is amazing because this data will actually help the entire planet address climate change. Correct?
Maryam: I wouldn't say there is a known correlation between earth and Mars. But Mars, billions of years ago, had a very similar atmosphere to earth. It had a warm, wet, and thick atmosphere that was capable of accommodating life. Now it's basically dry, cold, and it has a very thin atmosphere. When we understand the evolution and what's currently happening to Mars that might aid us in answering questions like, what happened and what could happen to our own planet. So yeah, I can't really pinpoint the correlation between both the planets, but exploring other planets might help us in understanding our own planet.
Laurel: That's a very good point for clarification. Thank you. The Emirates Mars Mission is unique, in that the troves of data collected by Hope are being released to the public. So that means anyone me, our listeners, and more importantly, scientists based in more than 200 universities and research institutes globally can go to the Mission's website and register to access the data. Why is this important to the Mission, that all of the data be available at this scale?
Maryam: As a team, we have our objectives and hypothesis that we want to achieve or confirm. And when we share the data with everyone, they add on their knowledge and perspective to our current understanding. This contributes to a more knowledge-based economy and fosters the science community's capabilities as a collective. This step was taken to encourage the science community to break the barriers and work together for the greater good.
Laurel: Releasing all of this data in an open way and sharing it is certainly going to be exciting to young scientists and engineers and people around the world who are perhaps looking for different kinds of data sets to experiment with. What do you think it means to do this in such a collaborative way?
Maryam: A lot of things come from this. If we talk about the UAE community itself, we do a lot of outreach activities here, and we get approached by the youth and even researchers within the UAE that have used the data itself for their own projects or research. So that's one of the program objectives is basically to encourage more people to be involved in the STEM fields and so on. Another thing is when we go to conferences and other people will come to us and they basically want to collaborate, and they want to make a connection between their own projects and our projects and basically the objectives or whatever we're seeing with the data. For example, maybe they had a hypothesis about it and they want to confirm it through our data because we have such unique data. So that's really exciting. And the more we see people are into using our data, we basically want to produce the data as soon as we can.
Laurel: To keep that excitement going. Yeah.
Maryam: Yep.
Laurel: Before Hope even arrived at Mars, the probe was gathering valuable data. In November 2020, the European spacecraft, BepiColombo, was headed to Mercury. Both BepiColombo and Hope instruments were facing each other, so scientists took the opportunity to measure the amount of hydrogen between the two probes. What other unexpected opportunities has the mission encountered?
Maryam: Another observation that we haven't put our mind into is basically with the EMUS instrument. The EMUS instrument is very sensitive when it comes to the EUV, the extreme ultraviolet bands. So this basically allows us to see the discrete Aurora and this is basically not from our objectives. From about 400 observations that we've seen, we saw discrete Aurora more than 60% of the time. And that wasn't an expectation that we had or something any other mission has seen before. So, yeah, that was exciting for us.
Laurel: Speaking of other observations, the Hope Probe has made a number of them, right? With the Martian atmospheric phenomenon, including discrete aurora on Mars' nightside, remarkable concentrations of oxygen and carbon monoxide, and never-before seen images of Martian dust storms. When you see this data and the images come in, which one of these, or perhaps there are other events, has caused everyone to sit up and say, Wow, that is from Mars. No one's ever seen that before. And we're the first ones.
Maryam: I'd have to speak about myself on this one. Personally, I find dust storms very fascinating. One, because I live in a country that has a tropical desert environment, which means dust storms are very common here. Every time it becomes very dusty here, I wonder if it's the same thing that's happening on Mars atmosphere or not. But if I speak about the team, I can tell you that we see all observations of value and impact.
Laurel: Oh, I'm sure. How is the success of Hope fueling other space exploration initiatives by the UAE? Because this has been successful, what else is possible?
Maryam: The Emirates Mars Mission is just the beginning of exploring the frontiers of space. Hope Probe is the gateway to space exploration in the UAE. So currently the UAE is working on multiple initiatives in the space sector, such as the UAE Astronaut program, which prepares Emirate astronauts for scientific space exploration missions. And the new Emirati interplanetary mission, which involves an expedition to the orbit of Venus followed by an exploration of the asteroid belt, which is beyond Mars. And then in addition, we have the Emirates Lunar Mission that is launching Rashid rover by the end of this year. So that's really exciting for us. The UAE is basically investing in space, as investing in the space sector means investing in the human capital towards a better future for all.
Laurel: Maryam, thank you very much for joining us today on Business Lab.
Maryam: Thank you for having me.
Laurel: That was Maryam Yousef, a data analyst for the Emirates Mars Mission, who I spoke with from Cambridge, Massachusetts, the home of MIT and MIT Technology Review, overlooking the Charles River.
That's it for this episode of Business Lab. I'm your host, Laurel Ruma. I'm the director of Insights, the custom publishing division of MIT Technology Review. We were founded in 1899 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. And you can find us in print, on the web, and at events each year around the world. For more information about us and the show, please check out our website at technologyreview.com.
This show is available wherever you get your podcasts. If you enjoyed this episode, we hope you'll take a moment to rate and review us. Business Lab is a production of MIT Technology Review. This episode was produced by Collective Next. Thanks for listening.
This content was produced by Insights, the custom content arm of MIT Technology Review. It was not written by MIT Technology Reviews editorial staff.
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NASAs New To Do List Is Published Next Week. Will It Go To Mars, An Ice Giant Or Saturns Slam Dunk Ocean Moon? – Forbes
Posted: at 1:06 pm
Earth and solar system planets, sun and star. Sun, Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, ... [+] Uranus, Neptune, Pluto. Sci-fi background. Elements of this image furnished by NASA. ______ Url(s): https://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA00271 https://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/jpeg/PIA15160.jpg https://images.nasa.gov/details-PIA01492 https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/resources/17549/saturn-mosaic-ian-regan https://images.nasa.gov/details-PIA21061 https://mars.nasa.gov/resources/6453/valles-marineris-hemisphere-enhanced/ https://images.nasa.gov/details-PIA23121 https://images.nasa.gov/details-PIA22946 https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/good-morning-from-the-international-space-station-1 Software: Adobe Photoshop CC 2015. Knoll light factory. Adobe After Effects CC 2017.
Where should NASA go next?
Next week, on April 19, 2022, the space agency will get a new to do list when the National Academy of Sciences finally publishes its Decadal Survey for Planetary Science and Astrobiology.
Compiled by scientists at the cutting edge of their fields and specifically designed to be fair and honest, it will set out the priorities for NASA for the next 10 years. Congress usually follows its recommendations. What will it say?
A decade ago it recommended NASA prepare as astrobiology mission to Mars as its top priority. The details changed, but the Perseverance rover is now on the red planet. The second priority was a mission to Jupiters icy moon Europa, one of the most promising environments in the solar system for supporting life. NASAs Europa Clipper is scheduled for launch in October 2024.
However, the third priority was deemed to be a Uranus Orbiter. Err ...
That last mission never got off the ground. Will Uranus or its ice giant companion in the Solar System, Neptune, get a second mention 10 years later? Or will mission concepts to visit the ice giants be consigned to history? There have been myriad other mission concepts for the Decadal Survey to peruse, from landing on Saturns ocean moon Enceladus to launching a planetary science telescope to replace Hubble.
However, theres a problem for all of those mission concepts. Mars. More specifically, our continued obsession with it.
With Perseverance now collecting samples of Martian rock and carefully placing them in boxes on the surface, a mission to go collect them and bring them homedubbed the Mars Sample Returnseems virtually self-selected as NASAs next flagship mission.
This illustration shows a concept for a set of future robots working together to ferry back samples ... [+] from the surface of Mars collected by NASA's Mars Perseverance rover.
Theres already a website for it and NASA has even been announcing contracts.
As is stands the exciting plan is for NASA to deliver a Mars lander close to Jezero Crater, where Perseverance will by then have collected and cached samples.
A Sample Retrieval Lander would carry a NASA Mars Ascent Vehicle rocket along with ESAs Sample Fetch Rover. The latter will gather the cached samples and put them on the ascent vehicle. If its close enough then Perseverance could help out. The samples would them launch a container into orbit to rendezvous with an ESA spacecraft to return to Earth.
Its a concept thats fleshed-out and, frankly, expecting to be green-lit.
This groundbreaking endeavor is destined to inspire the world when the first robotic round-trip mission retrieves a sample from another planet, said Bill Nelson, NASA Administrator. Americas investment in our Mars Sample Return program will fulfil a top priority planetary science goal and demonstrate our commitment to global partnerships, ensuring NASA remains a leader in exploration and discovery.
Could that mission possibly be delayed by the Decadal Survey to allow something ...new?
I would love to see the decadal survey discuss the pros and cons of sending the Mars Sample Return as the next flagship mission, said Abi Rymer, a Program Officer at NASA who acted as Principal Investigator for the Neptune Odyssey concept mission. Its almost like its already selected, but it really does require a flagship level effort in the next decade.
It is certainly possible that the Mars Sample Return missionwhich seems inevitable in the medium-termcould be paused. I'm hoping to see an open discussion about delaying that mission in order to get the Neptune mission, or any ice giant mission, stood up now so that we can get that window for the Jupiter gravity assist, said Rymer.
Some of the proposed missions do require a pause on Martian ambitions. Celestial mechanics dictate that if NASA is to send a spacecraft to Uranus or Neptune it needs to go by 2032 so it can sling-shot around Jupiter.
Illustration of Neptune, eighth and farthest known planet from the Sun, created on 27 August, 2019. ... [+] Also visible are several of Neptunes moons, as well the anti-cyclonic storms observed on the planets surface. (Illustration by Tobias Roetsch/Future Publishing via Getty Images)
The main reason to visit Neptune or Uranus is to figure out how the Solar System formed.
Thats important because as astronomers look at other star systems they see different kinds of planets to those in our own. The most abundant exoplanets that weve discovered are mini-Neptunes and super-Earths and we dont have either in the Solar Systemwe have Uranus and Neptune, said Dr. Jackie Faherty, Senior Scientist and Senior Education Manager jointly in the Department of Astrophysics and the Department of Education at the American Museum of Natural History. What exoplanet scientists need to know more about are the ice giantsMars isnt a world they talk about.
I definitely think there will be conversations about Uranus or Neptune, or both, said Erin Leonard at NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory and lead author of a proposal for a NASA New Frontiers mission to visit the Uranian System, which is now under review by the Decadal Survey.
Each Decadal Survey is always about yielding the most scientific benefit per dollar spent, and with the Mars Sample Return on everyones minds a lot of the mission concepts have been scaled-down.
After all, NASAs budget is tight.
The Mars Sample Return mission is one reason to be looking at lower costs, said Leonard, whose concept of a mission to Uranus would cost under the $1 billion cost-cap for a New Frontiers mission (flagship missions like Cassini and Juno tend to cost over $2 billion). Theres no guarantee that anything will be left after Mars Sample Returnand no guarantee of what the budget for the next decade will look like, said Leonard.
While flagship missions are often called Christmas Trees because they have every kind of science instrument on them and can study everything, the Uranus Orbiter would be more focused. The plan is to study the rings of Uranus, how the solar wind interacts with its magnetosphere (a kind of missing link in solar physics) and four the planets largest, innermost moons. Its suspected from Voyager 2 data that Ariel, Umbriel, Titania and Oberon are both geologically active and could host subsurface oceans.
I would love to see an ice giants mission, said Shannon M. MacKenzie, a planetary scientist at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory and author of the Enceladus Orbilander Mission Concept. I think the success of Cassini at Saturn has really whetted everyones appetite for repeating Cassini at the other giant planets.
Illustration of vapour plumes erupting from the surface of Enceladus, Saturns sixth largest moon, ... [+] created on July 26, 2018. (Illustration by Tobias Roetsch/Future Publishing via Getty Images)
Her own plans to have a spacecraft visit Enceladus include a 200 days orbit to fly through the plumes of water known to be spewing into space from tiger stripe cracks on the tiny moons icy shell. The spacecraft would then follow so it can sample the material falling onto the surface. The search for life on ocean worlds is important and very different from what were doing at Mars, said MacKenzie.
After all, if life has taken hold on Enceladus then it will have had to happen completely independently from life on Earth. Thats not something anyone will be able to say for certain if traces of life are found on Mars.
With liquid water and a heat source, Enceladus is one of the most exciting places in the Solar Systems from an astrobiological point of view. If I had to put my money on something in the Solar System thats a slam-dunk for life it would be Enceladus, said Faherty. Meanwhile, while Uranus and Neptunevirtually unknown and analogs for the thousands of similarly exoplanets astronomers keep on finding in the Milky Waysurely deserve some kind of mission.
Its possible theyll get a mention, but it still seems likely that Mars Sample Return mission will get the lions share of attention in the Decadal Survey.
Mars seems to always win and part of why it wins is because we've gone there so many times, said Faherty, who thinks that its the ice giants that carry in them the secrets of how the Solar System formed. However, she knows how this works: When you go up against Mars, most of the time you lose.
Wishing you clear skies and wide eyes.
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Exclusive: Mars Attacks 2 In The Works With Tim Burton – Giant Freakin Robot
Posted: at 1:06 pm
By Faith McKay| 9 seconds ago
Once upon a time, Tim Burton made a very daring, risky, and off-the-wall black comedy. Over 20 years later, Mars Attacks still stands out as the boldest movie in his filmography. The cast of respected high-profile actors all played terrible people who met unexpected fates. Instead of the evil and terrifying aliens of Independence Day, which also came out in 1996, Mars Attacks gave us aliens that were ridiculous jerks just kind of goofing off as they violently invaded Earth. While critics didnt get it at the time, and it was a box office flop, its still a movie audiences revisit to this day, if for no other reason than that its just an unexpected story. Now, were hearing that Tim Burton has decided to revisit it as well. A trusted and proven inside source for Giant Freakin Robot shares that Tim Burton is currently developing Mars Attacks 2.
Recently, Beetlejuice 2 was officially announced to be in development as well, which makes it sound like Tim Burton is feeling a little nostalgic these days. While our source shared that Mars Attacks 2 is in development, we dont have details on what his ideas will be this time around, but we are definitely curious.
Fans have speculated that the movie was ripe for a reboot, but a sequel is more of a surprise. The first film ended with the world officially saved in a comedic manner when humans accidentally discover the Martians true weakness in the song Indian Love Call by Slim Whitman. The song played, and the Martians were violently taken care of once and for all. Or so it would seem. Perhaps when Mars Attacks 2 arrives, the Martians will have developed better protection against the fatal song. Like really strong earplugs.
Its going to be interesting to see if Tim Burton chooses to bring back any of the original cast. The list is long, and amazingly, many of them are still high-profile actors working in Hollywood. Will Tim Burton choose to bring back original cast for Mars Attacks 2, or approach the movie with younger actors more familiar to todays audiences? That second option feels more in line with a reboot than a sequel, but may be a better fit after all this time.
When making the first movie, Tim Burton ran into some issues. He wanted to make Mars Attacks using his signature stop-motion techniques, but budget restraints reportedly led him in a different direction. Will he use his original strategy for the special effects in Mars Attacks 2? Will he keep his original tone and hope that it hits better with todays audiences? The story for Mars Attacks is based on trading cards that are much more violent than the movie Tim Burton made. Will the sequel take a more gory direction this time around? Itll be interesting to see if Tim Burton tries to recreate the elements people liked from the original movie, or if his sequel will be more of an attempt to change what he did previously. Hopefully, with his current work on Wednesday for Netflix and Beetlejuice 2, hell find time to make Mars Attacks 2 a priority soon, so we can see how hell handle a sequel for one of his strangest movies.
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Exclusive: Mars Attacks 2 In The Works With Tim Burton - Giant Freakin Robot
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