Category Archives: Moon Colonization

NASA will send agolf-cart sized robotic rover to land near the moon's South Pole in 2023 to search for water ice believed to be hidden in permanently dark craters. It will be the first visit to one of the coldest places where the sun never shines.

VIPER, which stands for Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover, will touch down beside a crater known as Nobile, where it will spend about 100 days covering about 16-24 kilometres,visiting at leastsix sites of scientific interest. Equipped with a drill that can penetrate a metre into the lunar surface, it will search for water ice believed to be buried within the lunar dirt.

The south polar region is a unique place on the moon where the sun appears very low in the sky. Like the Arctic in late spring, it makes complete circles around the horizon without setting. But that low sun angle means its rays don't reach down into the bowls of some deep craters, so they are in permanent darkness where the temperature drops to 248 C, making the region among the coldest places in the solar system.

That permanent cold has preserved ice on the moon for perhaps billions of years. VIPER will determine how much ice is buried there and possibly determine where it came from.

To manage these extreme temperatures, the rover will use the higher ground to charge its batteries with solar panels, then head down briefly into the craters, the first space robot equipped with headlights, to do the ice prospecting.

A large deposit of ice on the moon would be an extremely valuable resource, both as a source of water for moon colonists, and when broken down into hydrogen and oxygen, for rocket fuel and oxygen for the colonists to breathe.

Having those commodities close by on the moon would be far cheaper than bringing them up from Earth. But before the ice is dug up for consumption, there is important scientific work to be done on material that is likely very, very old.

VIPER will carry instruments to analyze the ice to determine if it truly is water ice as we know it on Earth, or a form of hydrogen called hydroxyl and whether there are other materials present such as methaneice. This might provide clues to how the ice got to the moon, whether it was part of the original material that gave birth to our satellite, or whether it came from icy comets that hit the moon and all the planets during the early days of the solar system. There is a story to be told there before we consume it.

NASA's plan to return humans to the moon, the Artemis Mission, is also targeting the south polar region of the moon partly because of that ice. The idea is to have the moon colony close to a valuable resource.

One other interesting aspect of this mission is how it is being carried out by commercial companies. SpaceX will provide a Falcon Heavy rocket that will reach the moon, while the company Astroboticis building their Griffin lander to deliver the rover to the surface.

It is yet another example of how NASA is handing over the job of reaching space to the private sector. If the colonization of the moon goes ahead, there will undoubtedly be future companies mining that ice and selling it.

Who knows? Perhaps one day there will be a company selling billion-year-old ice cubes. I wonder how long they would last in a drink?

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NASA targets the moon's South Pole for a rover mission - CBC.ca

By Ashley Strickland, CNN

Microscopic tardigrades have thrived on Earth for more than 500 million years, and may well outlive humans, but the tiny creatures dont leave behind many fossils.

Hiding in plain sight, the third-ever tardigrade fossil on record has been found suspended within a piece of 16-million-year-old Dominican amber.

The find includes a newly named species, Paradoryphoribius chronocaribbeus, as a relative of the modern living family of tardigrades known as Isohypsibioidea. Its the first tardigrade fossil from the Cenozoic, our current geological era that began 66 million years ago.

The study published Tuesday in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

Beneath a microscope, tiny tardigrades look like water bears. Although they are commonly found in water and at times, serving as the nemesis in Ant-Man and the Wasp tardigrades are known for their ability to survive and even thrive in the most extreme environments.

These tiny, pudgy animals are no longer than one millimeter. They have eight legs with claws at the end, a brain and central nervous system, and something sucker-like called a pharynx behind their mouth that can pierce food. Tardigrades are the smallest-known animal with legs.

All of these details are incredibly well preserved in the new fossil specimen, down to its tiny claws.

The discovery of a fossil tardigrade is truly a once-in-a-generation event, said Phil Barden, senior author of the study and assistant professor of biology at New Jersey Institute of Technology, in a statement.

What is so remarkable is that tardigrades are a ubiquitous ancient lineage that has seen it all on Earth, from the fall of the dinosaurs to the rise of terrestrial colonization of plants, Barden said. Yet, they are like a ghost lineage for paleontologists with almost no fossil record. Finding any tardigrade fossil remains is an exciting moment where we can empirically see their progression through Earth history.

The fossil allowed researchers to see evolutionary aspects that arent present in modern tardigrades, which means they can understand how theyve changed over millions of years.

At first, the researchers didnt even notice the tardigrade was trapped in the piece of amber.

Its a faint speck in amber, said Barden. In fact, Pdo. chronocaribbeus was originally an inclusion hidden in the corner of an amber piece with three different ant species that our lab had been studying, and it wasnt spotted for months.

Close observational analysis helped the researchers determine where the new species belongs on the tardigrade family tree.

The fact that we had to rely on imaging techniques usually reserved for cellular and molecular biology shows how challenging it is to study fossil tardigrades, said Javier Ortega-Hernndez, study coauthor and assistant professor of organismic and evolutionary biology at Harvard University, in a statement. We hope that this work encourages colleagues to look more closely at their amber samples with similar techniques to better understand these cryptic organisms.

The new species is the first definitive fossil for the modern Isohypsibioidea family of tardigrades found across both marine and land environments today.

We are just scratching the surface when it comes to understanding living tardigrade communities, especially in places like the Caribbean where theyve not been surveyed, said Barden. This study provides a reminder that, for as little as we may have in the way of tardigrade fossils, we also know very little about the living species on our planet today.

Tardigrades can tolerate extremes better than most forms of life like surviving five mass extinction events on Earth and some recently traveled to the International Space Station. Its not the first time tardigrades have gone to space and there may even be some of them on the moon after a mission carrying them crashed into its surface.

The tiny animals are related to arthropods and have a deep origin during the Cambrian Explosion, when multiple species of animals suddenly appear in Earths fossil record, 541 million years ago. More tardigrade fossils could be hiding within other pieces of amber that have already been studied researchers just have to look close enough and have the expertise of what theyre looking for when it comes to microscopic fossils.

And tardigrades could outlive humans. Its because they would be largely unaffected by things that could potentially spell doom for Earth and human life in the future, like asteroids, supernovae or gamma ray bursts. As long as the worlds oceans dont boil away, tardigrades will live on.

The-CNN-Wire & 2021 Cable News Network, Inc., a WarnerMedia Company. All rights reserved.

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Tiny rare fossil found in 16 million-year-old amber is 'once-in-a-generation' find - kuna noticias y kuna radio

University College is illuminated in orange light Sept. 30, 2021.

Western Universitys Office of Indigenous Initiatives hosted several events last week, recognizing the inaugural National Day for Truth and Reconciliation across campus and within the community on Sept. 30.

The federal government passed Bill C-5 this summer following the unearthing of over 1,300 unmarked residential school graves, announcing the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation.

The orange flag is raised at the International and Graduate Affairs Building Sept. 27, 2021, marking the start of recognition events for the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation.

The week began with a flag-raising ceremony on Concrete Beach, lowering the Canadian flag and raising the orange flag. Canadian flags on campus flew at half-mast all week.

The orange flag, designed by story-teller and knowledge-holder Isaac Murdoch of Serpent River First Nation, recognizes the ongoing trauma that Indigenous people experience. While sorrowful, the flag also evoked feelings of hope, acknowledging the truth of and reconciliation with those impacted.

The flag-raising ceremony concluded with a song performance with the womens hand drum.

The National Day for Truth and Reconciliation affords us with an opportunity to recognize and commemorate the history and ongoing intergenerational legacy of oppressive forms of colonization, said vice-provost and assistant vice-president of the Office of Indigenous Initiatives and member of Kettle and Stoney Point First Nation Christy Bressette at the ceremony.

This is an opportunity to address these issues as Canadian issues by all Canadians, added Bressette.

Kay^thke Honyust and Ian^stalkwas Elijah, two Oneida youth, commenced the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation with a Thanksgiving address in a video on Sept. 29.

This address, translated as what comes ahead of matters, is conducted before community gatherings and originates from a messenger in the 18th century who reminded Indigenous people to give thanks to the Creator in the time of war.

The address recognizes the thunder, the sun, the moon, the stars, the four directions and the Creator.

Christy Bressette (left) distributes tobacco for the Sacred Fire ceremony as a student (right) reflects on the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation Sept. 30, 2021.

A Sacred Fire ceremony was also hosted at the base of the Music Building and Talbot College on Thursday.

The Sacred Fire ceremony allows participants to heal and release heavy emotions. Participants take sacred tobacco in their hands, holding it to their chests in prayer. They then use the left hand, which is closest to the heart, to place the tobacco into the fire, releasing any burdens.

Tobacco is distributed for the Sacred Fire ceremony Sept. 30, 2021.

Virgil Tobias, an elder from Moravian Reserve, conducted the ceremony.

The National Day for Truth and Reconciliation is important that its a day. But whats really important is that everyday you should remember these things, said Tobias. These things are things that happened. If you know about it, it wont repeat itself. Everyday, you should be able to see an Aboriginal person and say this is the life that theywent through.

Virgil Tobias, an elder from Moravian Reserve, observes the Sacred Fire ceremony in recognition of the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation Sept. 30, 2021.

While the Western community has made strides in recognizing the truth of Indigenous history in recent years, theres still a long way to go to heal and reconcile with victims and survivors of the Indigenous genocide.

It's really important for Indigenous initiatives to be prominently positioned here at Western because it provides an actual way forward, a different way of looking at life in society not as commodities, but as a holistic unit, said Bressette. And that's what education is all about, really. And so, this day, National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, is about honouring the history that has transpired but moving it forward in a way that will benefit all of us.

Students can visit the Office of Indigenous Initiatives website to learn more about how to engage in truth and reconciliation.

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Acknowledging the truth in 'Truth and Reconciliation' | Culture | westerngazette.ca - The Gazette Western University's Newspaper

Oluseye's Ploughing Liberty features a series of old wooden hockey sticks and affixes them seamlessly to antique farm implements evocative of early Black Loyalist farmers, in a statement on how Canadian identity has been narrowly crafted.

Toni Hafkenscheid/Courtesy Patel Brown Gallery

The art world does love its big pulse-taking group shows that summarize the contemporary scene every two or three years. The venerable Venice Biennale keeps spawning descendants and you can now add COVID chaos to that crowded family tree: At the top, the 59th Venice Biennale has been postponed a full year and will open next April; at the bottom, after its successful debut in 2019, the Toronto Biennial of Art has been delayed six months and will open in March, 2022.

The latter is not to be confused with Greater Toronto Art 2021, the Museum of Contemporary Arts bid to launch a triennial group show devoted to the citys most exciting artists. On the one hand GTA 21, as it is cleverly abbreviated, is a necessary attempt by MOCA to root itself more firmly in Toronto soil with a promise of regular seeding and watering. On the other hand, it competes with the Toronto Biennial for similar turf, an awkward overlap only emphasized by the early fall timing, just when its competitor should have been busy comparing the local to the international.

Well, many things feel awkward these days and, not surprisingly, the new art unveiled at GTA 21 when it opened Wednesday, is marked by the pandemic and all the fear, disruptions and claustrophobia forced upon us. If you are looking for an image that captures the moment, look no further than Walter Scotts Read the Room, a group of jerry-rigged, half-assembled sculptures on castors and carts that include trailing wires, some shapes outlined in neon tubes, cardboard boxes, a dismembered pair of plaster feet and a pair of hooks that spell SO . These days even a cry for help gets postponed.

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Water Scott's Read the Room captures the pandemic and all the fear, disruptions and claustrophobia it forced.

Courtesy the artist and Cooper Cole

As they commissioned Toronto artists to create new work for this exhibition, MOCA artistic director November Paynter, and colleagues Rui Mateus Amaral and Daisy Desrosiers have had the smart idea of including some designers and architects in the mix, and Scott shares the ground floor with the experimental architectural firm Common Accounts. Partners Igor Bragado and Miles Gertler contribute Parade of All the Feels, a model for an unrealized parade float that features a doll-house-sized apartment in a plastic bubble boasting two miniature screens playing a demonic talking head. Pull up a QR code on your phone and you can then, via Instagram, enhance the experience with a Lego-like buggy that circles the house. Voila, its a recipe for a Zoom reduction, a miniaturized version of our current state.

On the two upper floors the curators attempt to wrangle their 21 participants into more enduring themes: the second floor is devoted to the idea of inheritance and the third to mutation, but the current anxiety permeates both. For example, Pamela Phatsimo Sunstrum, who deploys unusual perspectives on mythic narratives painted in a rather classical style, has mounted a series of her canvases as theatre or fairground flats, as though, like Scotts sculptures, they might need to be shifted at short notice. Native Art Department International (Maria Hupfield and Jason Lujan) has created a double gazebo that is cordoned off so the visitor cant enter it. Sculptor Tony Romano has included a months worth of lockdown watercolour self-portraits.

Igor Bragado and Miles Gertler's Parade of All the Feels features a model for an unrealized parade float that features a doll-house-sized apartment in a plastic bubble boasting two miniature screens playing a demonic talking head.

Courtesy of the artists

If you are looking to define Toronto art here, it appears as a movement that emerges from a great diversity of backgrounds, is fascinated by global and personal identities, and deeply committed to decolonization. No surprises there. Oluseye takes a series of old wooden hockey sticks and affixes them seamlessly to antique farm implements evocative of early Black Loyalist farmers, in a beautifully executed if rather transparent statement on how Canadian identity has been narrowly crafted. Ashoona Ashoona and Alexa Hatanaka have collaborated on a delicate cultural map made from squares of washi paper quilted together to depict the links between Japanese and Inuit printmaking, and from one artists grandmother to the other.

Despite Ashoonas presence, themes of indigeneity, which animated the Toronto Biennial two years ago along with a powerful interest in local geography, are largely absent: Oddly, Toronto the city seems missing from GTA 21. (There is also not much art about the environment and biology let alone disease with the exception of Kara Springers photography, which includes images of oil slicks and a startling lightbox showing a ladder standing in an ocean.) Toronto is celebrated for its diversity but here the focus on cultural identity makes the exhibition seem rootless. Works such as Jesse Chuns projected text panel O (for various skies), in which a U.S. military document about colonization of the moon morphs into a piece of astronomical poetry, or Sahar Tes Toyota Tacoma ominously wrapped in black fabric, feel like they could have been made in any cosmopolitan capital.

Perhaps that is another effect of lockdowns, a kind of divorce from the tangible specifics of the urban environment as we experience life either at a hyper personal level or virtually with a global perspective. Almost all the works in the show were commissioned specially for the occasion, yet site specific interventions into MOCAs light industrial space are few and far between. Scott has wrapped several of the pillars on the ground floor in protective zippered coverings as if providing further evidence of his sculptures instability. And Ghazaleh Avarzamani has created a beautiful blue enclosure, a large metal grille echoing Islamic architecture, to cover one of the ground-floor windows. From the exterior on Sterling Road, as it punctuates the Tower Automotive buildings utilitarian brick and stucco faade, it offers a refreshing bit of placemaking. Avarzamanis other contribution is equally reflective; a large gathering of wooden tops of different shapes laid out on a plywood platform on the ground floor. Some are perfectly turned but others are misshapen or half-formed. In the midst of much angst, its a work that approaches its human themes with a welcome lyricism. Yes, some of us are still spinning; others not so much.

Greater Toronto Art 2021 continues at the Museum of Contemporary Art Toronto to Jan. 9, 2022.

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MOCA launches triennial Greater Toronto Art 2021 to highlight the city's 'most exciting' artists - The Globe and Mail

This one isn't all electric.

On Thursday, Honda announced a massive new strategy to look beyond the automotive industry and into other areas. The company revealed plans for its first electric vertical take-off and landing aircraft, new robotic advances and even plans to help bring sustainable life to the moon. Yes, we're talking about the same company best known for building the Civic, Accord and CR-V.

Let's break it all down, starting with the closest thing to a car in this announcement: the eVTOL. Honda recognizes there's a growing appetite for this type of transportation and expects the industry to (wait for it...) take off in the decade to come. However, it also pointed out rivals bank on totally electric machines limited by their range. To counter this, Honda wants to build its own eVTOL with a gas turbine hybrid unit. Without range restrictions, Honda imagines its own helicopter-like contraption could take people between cities, and not just around a city. It'll require a huge new ecosystem the company said it plans to invest in, but it plans to leverage many of the technologies it's already developed, especially for the eVTOL itself.

Today, a robot hand. Tomorrow? A full avatar perhaps.

Honda's already pretty well known for Asimo, the cute robot helper that's made waves for years now, but the next step is "avatars." These are robots that take the place of you and I. Essentially, a human could perform a task without being physically present, but instead while controlling their avatar, which is really freaky. Honda specifically called this a "second-self." To show its progress, the firm revealed a proof-of-concept in the form of a robotic hand with fingers. While a human provides input in a separate location, the robotic hand executes the moves. Right now, that includes grasping an object, handling a tool with the right amount of force and artificial intelligence to handle the remote functions. The possibilities surrounding the tech are wild, and Honda wants to show off its tech in greater detail come 2024. In the 2030s, it wants to put it into practical use.

If none of that is outrageous enough for the carmaker, we arrive at moon colonization. No, Honda doesn't want to stake out its own territory on the moon, but it does want to help support future life there. With a new partnership between it and Japan's NASA equivalent, JAXA, the two want to build a "circulative renewable energy system on the lunar surface." This is all dependent on the likelihood of water on the moon's surface, but essentially, Honda wants to use its fuel-cell technologies to produce lots of good things. A system using high differential pressure water electrolysis technologies decomposes the water, creating both hydrogen and oxygen. In Honda's vision, the oxygen supplies living quarters with air for lunar colonists, while the hydrogen refuels rockets. Those rockets, by the way, are also part of Honda's vision for reusable units. Right now, the goal is to create small rockets to support the launch of low-earth orbit satellites. In the future, they could play a part in space travel.

Got all of that? It's a lot coming from Honda in one day, but the automaker promised these initiatives run alongside its core business; that's the business of building and selling cars, in case you forgot. Basically, we're in for a wild decade from Honda. And perhaps the Japanese automaker may help humans survive on the moon one day, if the company has its way.

Climb in the driver's seat for the latest car news and reviews, delivered to your inbox twice weekly.

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Honda reveals eVTOL plans, future robots and dreams of helping colonize the moon - CNET

As Canadians observe the inaugural National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, we bring together four Indigenous female poets to speak their truth in the sixth edition of the CBC Arts series Poetic License. Watch previous performances now and read Kahsenniyo Williams's poem below.

Contains strong language.

Hamilton-based poet Kahsenniyo's name means "a good name"in Mohawk.She credits her mother's sense of humour for her name but as an artist, matriarch and 1492 Land Back Lane activist who uses her words for social change,her mother may have predestined the empowered woman her daughter would grow up to be.

Watch Kahsenniyo perform Decolonizing Love in the video above and follow her at @landback_and_lipstick also a good name. In this deeply personal poem, Kahsenniyo reckons with the ways in which colonialism has decimated Indigenous lands and family structures and offers her own strategies to break the cycle of intergenerational trauma.

This video was filmed on location at the Woodland Cultural Centre, a site at which a small but mighty group has transformed the original intent of the Mohawk Institute Indian Residential School into a place of reconciliation and learning to promote Indigenous art and history.

Special thank you as well also to multidisciplinary artist Kelly Greene.Greene is of Mohawk-Oneida-Sicilian ancestry, a member of the Six Nations of the Grand River Reserve, and a descendant of the Turtle Clan.Her work centres around environmental, political and cultural themes that have been impacted by colonization.Her incredible installation "The Haldimand Coupe" (2015)is featured in the video.

I fell in love with you centuries agoas we stood belowthe silver moonsurrounded by treesme weeding gardens on my kneesnot knowing the complexitiesthat over centurieswould be put in our way

even though I wanted to staythe white man took me awayand held me in the captivityof his lust for memy brown skin a symbol of the earththat had no worthto himand I been struggling to love you since then

I've been struggling to love myselfI forgot my valueI allowed you to disrespect meas a woman I am to demand respectaccept nothing lessbecause I am worthy

I didn't know how to love the bloodthat once bound us so tightlycolonization made it impossible for you to like mebe attracted to medesire me sexuallyrespect me

I am the colour of earthwe took on the colonizer's idea of worth; it's made us forget who you arewho I amwho we are supposed to be togetherleft each other to walk this land with foreign responsibilitiesI abandoned you

you were left in the emptinessof her hollow chestwith each one of her breathsyou were left with lesseach time she inhaledher power prevailedleaving you living in a secret nightmarebut you put on a happy face, pretend that things are greatwhen day grows latethe darkness swallows you wholeyou are left with an unfilled soulin silenceemptinessdarknessfilled with regret

haunted by blood memories of mememories of who you are supposed to be

haunted by your strongsoft rhythmic heart beat in her captivityas these beats echofrom generations agoyou are reminded of the drums from homethe songs you know you are supposed to sing for your family

I've realized I don't want to plant gardens aloneit's taken a lot but I'm glad we've both come homeassimilated ideologiesof our responsibilitieswe've let gomy heart you have sewnwith needles of traditionheld together by threads of languageyour handswill help rebuild clanstogetherwe can heal centuries of collective traumaby fiercely loving the fuck out of each otherthe way we raise our children has consequencesSo, let's soak them in our love

teach our daughterstheir hearts are made of lavahave star dust under their tonguesand the ability to sift tides in their wombs

let's allow laughter to vibrate so loudlyour great grandchildren feel us in their bones

Watch more Poetic License.

Continue reading here:
Kahsenniyo performs a poem reckoning with the wounds of colonialism and breaking cycles of trauma - CBC.ca

For the first time ever, the University of Toronto is offering a course that takes an Indigenous perspective on astronomy.

Hilding Neilson, an assistant professor at the David A. Dunlap department of astronomy and astrophysics in the Faculty of Arts and Science, created the third-year course called "Indigenous Worldviews & Astronomy"for U of T students who are interested in Indigenous perspectives, ethics and colonization in science.

Neilson, a Mi'kmaw from the Qalipu First Nation, says he believes viewing astronomy exclusively through a Western lens can be limiting.

"We tend to omit Indigenous perspectives and methods in this discussion, even though we live and benefit from being on Indigenous lands,"says Neilson. "By embracing Indigenous and other knowledges, we bring more lenses and that can only enrich our view and understanding of the universe."

Neilson says he was inspired to create the course after hearing a lecture from Wilfred Buck, a science facilitator at the Manitoba First Nations Education Resource Centre and an Indigenous star lore expert.

The course Neilson created will explore Indigenous knowledge of astronomy, how people use the stars for navigation and rituals.

It will discuss astronomy and ongoing colonization with cases such as the Kanaka Maoli Indigenous people of Hawaii, who are protesting the lack of consent for the Thirty Meter Telescope.

There is also the question of permissions when wealthy people such asJeff Bezos and Elon Musk (SpaceX) go ahead with space programs unchallenged.

"There's a new realm of colonization that's occurringthat's going to have negative impacts on both Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples," Neilson says.

Putting more and more satellites in the sky is changing how we see the night sky.

"A lot of the SpaceX satellites are bright enough that they can be seen with the unaided eye in dark spots," he says. "This creates a form of light pollution that impacts our view of the night sky. And nobody's actually asked for, or consulted with Indigenous peoples about whether that's okay to have that light pollution."

There may be some Indigenous people who want more access to the Internet that the satellites can provide, he says, adding: "But there's not a whole lot of discussion about it."

There is also the language of colonization that continues when people speak about going to the moon or Mars.

"The whole language of going to Mars, fromscience fiction to movies, like The Martian to how we actually go about today, it is the same language of colonization."

While Mi'kmaq culture wasn't a large part of his life growing up, Neilson says he decided to learn more after hearing Buck speak.

"I feel that learning from Indigenous knowledges have allowed me to relate and connect with the science more deeply, and to think about how I myself relate to that knowledge," Neilson says.

"It has made me a better scientist."

The rest is here:
U of T professor creates astronomy class with an Indigenous lens - blogTO

The Maya-Bantu installation seen at the Moody Center for the Arts, which is currently home to "The Sand Recalls the Moons Shadow" - the first solo exhibition in Houston for Paris-based, multidisciplinary artist Kapwani Kiwanga. The show revolves around issues like the cultivation of sisal in Tanzania and the impact of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, in Texas.

Two side-specific installations anchor Kapwani Kiwangas The Sand Recalls the Moons Shadow, a new exhibition at the Moody Center for the Arts at Rice University. Each piece presents an immersive environment: Maya-Bantu is a looming sculpture more than 25-feet high in which a crescent is bisected by a rectangular panel, and the entire piece is draped in sisal. Dune gives the feeling of some futuristic space colony. The lights along the perimeter bounce through glass lenses and orbs. For such an otherworldly vibe, Dune is quite serene.

Though the materials and overall appearance are wildly different, each piece offers faint echoes of the other. Lean into the sisal threads of Maya-Bantu and each fiber offers a unique twisting shape. And those shapes can be found in the orbs that play with the lights in Dune. Also connecting the two is a beige tone that emerges from the tufts of sisal, matching the color of the sand 50 tons of it that covers the sizable floor space in Dune, all of it from Texas, a product used in the process of hydraulic fracturing.

An award-winning artist from Canada based in Paris, Kiwanga presents these pieces in her first ever solo exhibition in Houston. Her materials sand, glass, sisal were selected not just because they interact so intricately with one another. But she also finds herself intrigued by organic materials: their histories, their applications, the evolution of their usage across time.

Who: Kapwani Kiwanga

When: 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesdays through Saturdays through Dec. 19

Where: Moody Center for the Arts, Rice University, 6100 Main (near Entrance 8)

Details: free; moody.rice.edu

With these materials, I find this way to work that is less sculptural and more like an archivist, Kiwanga says. I like to approach the material in the most broad way thinking about how we can open up the archives and make the archives more in phase with the world. Thats where the materials come in. These materials witness our past and the present as well. I try to allow the material to speak.

The Moody Centers Ylinka Barotto, who curated The Sand Recalls the Moons Shadow, describes Kiwangas method as an anthropological approach to art.

With Maya-Bantu, Kiwanga decided to work with a material that carries a long and fascinating history in Tanzania. The Agave sisalana plant was introduced by a German settler in the country nearly 130 years ago. Sisals long story as a cash crop runs through the nations 20th century and played a part through Tanzanias colonization and independence. Befitting a complicated history, Maya-Bantu takes an intriguing shape: Parts of the sculpture serve almost as an embrace to visitors, who can be enveloped by the fibers. Travel 90 degrees around it and the piece becomes more forbidding and imposing.

I think of these as speaking witnesses, Kiwanga says. Its not just something like taking a pen and writing ones own story. The material speaks for itself, which is something I am trying to wrestle with but in a very simple way. Sisal has this economic and social history in Tanzania. It was smuggled in by settlers, and they installed sisal plantations. And theres a monocrop economy that survives today that has gone through all these phases of political power. Sisal hasnt changed its structure, but it has witnessed all these changes.

Forget for a moment its visual allure, just from a logistical perspective, Dune prompts deep reflection about time. The effort to pour so much sand into the gallery was formidable. The pieces title suggests both a temporary structure as well as the millennia required to produce a singular grain.

With Kiwanga in Paris and the materials in Houston, Barotto and others at the Moody Center had to use video through phones and tablets to install the works to the artists specifications.

It was a challenge, Barotto says, but we were able to accomplish her vision.

For all the textural intrigue of Maya-Bantu, Dune by contrast serves more as a scene to observe a sight upon touch down to some other celestial space. That mood was also by design: Though the sand was deliberately selected from fracking operations, Kiwanga also wanted to touch on Houstons connection to space travel.

Houston, NASA, celestial bodies, Barotto says, she was thinking about all of those things.

Though Kiwanga has a background in anthropology, her pieces are hardly simple condemnations of the past. Rather she hopes they prompt conversation about historical record: How we file and regard what happens. Ideally, they would prompt some heightened awareness of our smallness.

I like to think of deep, deep history, she says. The formation and disappearance of lakes. Compression of granite and its erosion. We think of ideas, Atlas and myths, but even that this ancient history is just a small blip. The big, big, big history makes us more humble. . . . And I find things humbling are also healthy. Im not a geologist, but imagine how that grain of sand got here. A mountain eroding into this little thing that gets stuck between your toes when you go to the beach.

The Sand Recalls the Moons Shadow has a third component, though its neither new nor site-specific. But Vumbi nestles beautifully between the two installations. Early in her career, Kiwanga worked mostly with video, and Vumbi is a piece from 2012. The piece finds her in Tanzania on the side of the road as motorists, pedestrians and cyclists pass by. With her back to the camera Kiwanga gently washes the leaves of some vegetation. On first look, the vegetation simply appears a robust rust color. But Kiwangas work reveals a brilliant green beneath.

Hers is a Sisyphean task captured on film: With each vehicle that passes, the reddish dust will simply find its way back to the foliage. Still, she finds value in such a small, intimate act.

These things sand, sisal, dust they speak to a series of connections between people and the planet.

All of these things were there before us, she says. Theyll be there after us. I think Im just drawn to this idea of our smallness in a larger story.

andrew.dansby@chron.com

Andrew Dansby covers culture and entertainment, both local and national, for the Houston Chronicle. He came to the Chronicle in 2004 from Rolling Stone, where he spent five years writing about music. He'd previously spent five years in book publishing, working with George R.R. Martin's editor on the first two books in the series that would become TV's "Game of Thrones. He misspent a year in the film industry, involved in three "major" motion pictures you've never seen. He's written for Rolling Stone, American Songwriter, Texas Music, Playboy and other publications.

Andrew dislikes monkeys, dolphins and the outdoors.

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Moody Centers immersive Kiwanga exhibition meditates on sand and time - Houston Chronicle

Latinx Heritage Month also known as Hispanic Heritage Month is a great time to celebrate the achievements of Latin Americans throughout U.S. history and the Latinx people who are making history today. But its also important to honor these things during the 11 other months of the year, too.

I think having months that celebrate different cultures and races are a double-edged sword, Jenny Torres Sanchez, author of We Are Not From Here, told HuffPost. They help highlight a culture and race, which is wonderful, but also gives too many people the sense that theyve done enough. That theres no need to seek, learn about and celebrate past that month. And thats regressive and damaging.

At a time when white supremacy continues to rear its ugly head on the political stage, its even more imperative for parents, especially white parents, to step up. And children of color are in need of mindful support and empowerment.

Culture and race and ethnicity is not something you slip on and off. It is who we are, Torres Sanchez said. And all of us deserve to celebrate and acknowledge and love who we are all the time, without limitation.

HuffPost spoke to parents and educators to identify some ways that parents can honor and engage with Latinx heritage past, present and future with their children all year long.

Use childrens books.

As a family, reading picture books together regardless of everyones age is a fabulous way to quickly expose your children and yourself to many sorts of Latinx lives, said David Bowles, author of My Two Border Towns and co-founder of #DignidadLiteraria.

He said some of his current favorites are My Papi Has a Motorcycle from author Isabel Quintero and illustrator Zeke Pea, Dreamers by Yuyi Morales, Imagine by author Juan Felipe Herrera and illustrator Lauren Castillo, and Hair Story by author NoNieqa Ramos and illustrator Keisha Morris.

Research shows that both children of color and white children benefit from greater exposure to inclusive texts, especially comics and other books written from the lived experiences of authors and illustrators, that accurately reflect our diverse society, Bowles noted.

There are countless great texts that families can add to their bookshelves. Torres Sanchez recommended looking into picture books, middle grade and young adult novels from authors such as Margarita Engle, Aida Salazar, Juan Felipe Herrera, Yuyi Morales, Reyna Grande, Celia C. Prez, Monica Brown and Guadalupe Garca McCall.

Alejandra Tejada founded Enlingos, a Spanish-language and bilingual book service for kids after noticing the shortage of engaging resources to teach her son Spanish.

Introducing kids to Latina authors like Sandra Cisneros, Pat Mora and Monica Brown helps to show young children, especially girls, how much their voices matter, she told HuffPost. Tejada added that shes currently loving books like Pepe and the Parade from author Tracey Kyle and illustrator Mirelle Ortega and Nios de Amrica by author Francisca Palacios and illustrator Carmen Cardemil for the way they celebrate the different places people come from and teach about cultural traditions.

Take part in cultural events and celebrations.

There are so many traditions around the holidays that come from Latin America Da de los Muertos, Novena de Aguinaldos (Las Posadas), Da de Reyes which is a great opportunity to learn about the history of these traditions and find ways to incorporate them into family traditions beyond Hispanic Heritage Month, Tejada explained.

She encouraged Latinx families to research and celebrate the independence days of the countries their families are from.

Its another great teaching moment and, of course, gives an opportunity to celebrate by cooking meals, decorating with flags, learning about the people that have made contributions to the world from these countries and, of course, enjoying local music, Tejada said.

Non-Latinx families can also honor these occasions, but its important to do so with respect for the people and culture being celebrated.

Enjoy our holidays and food though with respect, Bowles said. Tongue-in-cheek, ironic appropriations are not appreciated.

All kids from communities of color need to see their lives, their families, their communities and their culture as worthy of being included in those media, as important to academic study, as valuable and integral parts of not just personal and school life but of schoolwork and broader national conversations.

- David Bowles, author of My Two Border Towns

Bring the celebration home.

Beyond books, there are many other ways to celebrate and to educate your children about Latinx heritage at home.

Definitely make a point of streaming a show or two that centers the Latinx experience, Bowles advised. Buy your kids comics and video games that feature Latinx characters.

PBS is offering a number of resources to honor Latinx heritage, including a video about the origin and purpose of Hispanic Heritage Month in English and Spanish as part of PBS Kids All About the Holidays series. There are also episodes of the show Lets Go Luna highlighting Mexico City and Peru, and giving recipes for Puerto Rican dishes such as mofongo and the frozen treat piragua.

Parents can also encourage their childrens schools to implement these kinds of activities and lessons if they arent already.

All kids from communities of color need to see their lives, their families, their communities and their culture as worthy of being included in those media, as important to academic study, as valuable and integral parts of not just personal and school life but of schoolwork and broader national conversations, Bowles said.

If all that Latinx/Hispanic kids or any children from communities of color are exposed to in books and entertainment is mostly just a generic, homogenous white American identity, they begin to internalize a view of themselves as unworthy, lesser, unimportant, he added. And when Latinx/Hispanic folks are erased from media, white readers who grow up consuming media that reflects only their identity internalize a view of the nation and its default culture as white.

Expose them to role models.

So representation matters. And thats not just with the characters in TV shows and books or the toys kids play with.

Its also important to expose children to real-life role models from different backgrounds. In terms of Latinx heritage, there are many historical and present-day figures to inspire your kids, including Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, labor leaders Csar Chvez and Dolores Huerta, composer and actor Lin-Manuel Miranda, actor Gina Rodriguez, artist Jean-Michel Basquiat and astronaut Ellen Ochoa.

Parents can teach their children about these icons through media at home but also by visiting museums, attending performances and traveling to sites that highlight their achievements. In 2020, Congress approved legislation to start the process of creating the National Museum of the American Latino through the Smithsonian Institution, so future visitors to Washington, D.C., will have the opportunity to learn about influential figures there as well.

Start conversations.

As you go about your everyday routine with your family, recognize the aspects of Latinx heritage that appear along the way, and use them as conversation starters.

There are usually many opportunities to teach kids about Latinx culture and histories, said Raquel Vasquez Gilliland, author of How Moon Fuentez Fell in Love With the Universe and a member of the Las Musas literary collective. This spooky season, places like Target will probably carry Da de Muertos decor. Parents can talk about the history of this holiday with their kids. When eating Mexican and other foods, parents can discuss the history of certain dishes for instance, tamales precede colonization.

Dont be afraid to talk about less pleasant aspects as well.

I would also encourage parents to make children aware of the racism many Hispanic/Latinx people face and why that is, Vasquez Gilliland added. Including all facets of the history and experience of a people is a great way to honor them and to make sure children dont inadvertently commit microaggressions.

Educate yourself.

If youre going to do the work of educating your children about Latinx heritage, youll likely also have to do some internal work as well. This means educating yourself about the Latinx experience of the past and present, learning different terminologies and even understanding the different opinions around the term Latinx itself.

Engage in a meaningful way, and approach teaching and celebrating our culture with an open mind and open heart, Torres Sanchez said. Find out more about the different countries and cultures that make up the Latinx community, the leaders and creators who have made a difference in our communities, our histories, our contributions and our struggles.

Bowles said that as a Mexican American, he views this month as a time to celebrate his shared ethnicity with millions of Latinx people throughout the U.S. But he also sees it as an opportunity to expose others to this powerful heritage and identity.

In terms of the national conversation, our visibility and the cultural dignity that is every communitys right, its more concretely a moment for opening the eyes of non-Latinx groups to the rich, important and amazingly cool nature of my people, he said. The collective gaze of the country falls on us for 30 days, and we get to show them what theyre missing out on when they dismiss or marginalize us.

Children's Books To Read In Honor Of Hispanic Heritage Month

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How To Celebrate Latinx Heritage With Your Kids All Year Round - HuffPost

Homeward bound.

Best three-day "weekend" ever? That may be the question SpaceX's four civilian astronauts are putting to themselves after returning to Earth on Saturday. The crew of the historic Inspiration4 mission splashed down off the Florida coast at about 7 p.m. local time, after having orbited the globe almost 50 times since Thursday. The astronauts safely exited the spacecraft about an hour after splashdown, following a recovery at sea.

"That was a heck of a ride for us," mission commander Jared Isaacman tweeted after splashdown. "Congratulations @Inspiration4x!!!" SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said, also via Twitter.

It was the first time a crew composed of private citizens had been launched into orbit, without any professional astronauts aboard. The mission took the crew members much farther out than either Virgin Galactic's Richard Branson or Blue Origin's (and Amazon's) Jeff Bezos traveled on their recent jaunts above the planet. And the Inspiration4 trip helps solidify the notion of sending everyday people into space, for tourism, futuristic international travel and perhaps even colonization of the cosmos.

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The mission was bankrolled by Isaacman, a former pilot and the billionaire founder of a payment processing company, who offered up the other three seats to members of the general public: physician assistant Hayley Arceneaux, data engineer Christopher Sembroski and community college professor Sian Proctor (who's now also the first Black woman to pilot a spacecraft).

That's not the only historic first. Arceneaux becomes the youngest American in space at 29 and the first to fly in space with a prosthetic. The mission will also likely remain the farthest human spaceflight since the space shuttle missions of the early 2000s. Reaching an altitude of around 360 miles, Inspiration4 doesn't quite exceed the missions designed to service NASA's Hubble Telescope, which saw astronauts fly to around 370 miles above the Earth. A future SpaceX mission, aboard the still-in-development Starship, plans to take humans out where only Apollo astronauts have traveled --by flying them around the moon in 2023.

The crew spent its time orbiting the Earth every 90 minutes (about 100 miles farther out than the International Space Station); checking out the view of our planet from a specially installed glass cupola on SpaceX's Dragon capsule; conducting various science experiments; and occasionally taking breaks to play with a plushie pup (also known as the mission's "zero gravity indicator"). Physiological information about the crew was collected to assess changes in behavior and cognition, including data on heart rate, blood oxygen saturation and how well the team members slept.

The mission was also billed asa fundraiser for St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital, where Arceneaux works and where she was a cancer patient as a child.

On Saturday evening, Musk announced he would be donating $50 million to the donation drive, helping it surpass the $200 million mark set by the crew. Isaacman is contributing $100 million.

The successful mission is another feather in the cap of Musk and his company SpaceX, which has already shuttled astronauts to the International Space Station as part of NASA's Commercial Crew Program. That initiative sees the space agency working with private companies to achieve NASA's stated goal of "safe, reliable and cost-effective access to and from the International Space Station and low-Earth orbit."

In June, SpaceX signed a deal to send space tourists to the ISSstarting next year (at areported $55 million price tagper seat). And in April, NASA announced that it had selected SpaceX to provide the human landing system for the space agency's Artemis program. Artemis calls for putting the first woman and next man on the moon sometime soon -- and eventually setting up sustainable exploration there. Knowledge gained from Artemis will be put to use in getting ready to send astronauts to Mars.

Read more:Why the SpaceX Inspiration4 mission matters to everyone

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SpaceX Inspiration4 mission splashdown ends historic trip around the Earth - CNET