From NIc Farey: TH 77r
Update from Bill Burns:
A somewhat monochromatic set of six new issues now at https://efanzines.com
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Bill
Draconis Festival is the biggest role-playing game event of Quebec. It offers more than a hundred role-playing game sessions for beginners or advanced players. The event is totally free and open to all the diversity. The organization team is made entirely of volunteers and the role-playing games are offered by members of our excellent community.
4) THANK YOU!We thank Keith Braithwaite, Joe Aspler, Josée Bellemare, Daniel P. Kenney, Kevin Holden, Trudie Mason, Cathy Palmer-Lister, and all who contributed to programming today, and we offer a nod of appreciation, as well, to all who attended.
MonSFFA hopes you have enjoyed your time with us this afternoon, and we ask all of you to check in regularly here at www.MonSFFA.ca for additional content.
We look forward to again gathering, face to face, at August’s get-together, on the 17th. We’ll be meeting in our usual Nouvel Hotel function room on that occasion, and concurrently online via ZOOM, as well!
And don’t forget our big Super Sci-Fi Book Sale, coming October 19, also at the Nouvel Hotel, downtown!
Thank you for your interest and attention today, and don’t forget to comment on this afternoon’s e-Picnic!
Until we meet again, keep safe, healthy, and exercise your creativity! And continue to enjoy your summer!
This is the first of two “e-Picnic” posts that will appear this afternoon; our closing post will go up at 5:00PM
Missed MonSFFA’s Summer BBQ earlier this month? Then join us this afternoon for this online “e-Picnic!” Have your favourite summer snacks and libations on hand!
Proceedings are set to begin at 1:00PM; we’re allowing some 30 minutes in advance of our event for folk to gather, here, online and join our ZOOM-Chat.
Some light programming is planned, but there’ll be lots of time to simply chat, catch up, and touch base again. Have you seen any good movies this summer, or are you enjoying a good sci-fi beach read? Today’s will be an afternoon of casual conversation with friends on any and all topics SF/F and fannish!
We do have ready a quick slide show of our field trip to the Montreal Biodôme back in June, plus a couple of vacation stories and photos of cool sci-fi events, exhibits, and museums recently visited? The floor will be open to anyone who may have sci-fi, or SF&F-adjacent summer vacation adventures to share!
And, given this opportunity, we are launching our Special Interest Group (SIG) for Art this afternoon with a talk/workshop on “How to Create Sci-Fi Art Without Knowing How to Draw!”
So let’s get started…
To join our ZOOM video-chat, which will run throughout the next few hours, simply click here and follow the prompts: This Afternoon’s MonSFFA e-Meeting on ZOOM
If you’re not fully equipped to ZOOM, you can also take part by phone (voice only); in the Montreal area, the toll-free number to call is: 1-438-809-7799. From out of town? No problem; find your ZOOM call-in number here: Call-In Numbers
Also, have this information on hand as you may be asked to enter it:
Meeting ID: 833 9011 0192
Passcode: 809749
Except for the Art SIG at 3:00PM, right after the break, we expect we’ll be pretty loosey-goosey with the schedule today (summertime, and the livin’ is easy!), but here’s approximately what we’re figuring on:
1:00PM—Introduction, ZOOM-Chat Begins
1:30PM—Biodome Slide Show; ZOOM-Chat Continues
2:00PM—Summer Vacation Adventures! ZOOM-Chat Continues…
2:45PM—Mid-Meeting Break!
3:00PM—Art SIG
5:00PM—Wrap-Up
In particular for our out-of-town members and friends, and any who couldn’t make it to the Summer BBQ, MonSFFA will host an “e-Picnic” via ZOOM (www.MonSFFA.ca) tomorrow afternoon (Sunday, July 28) beginning at 1:00PM—have your favourite summer snacks and libations on hand!
(NOTE: Club members have been sent, via e-mail, the necessary information required to join us on ZOOM tomorrow afternoon. Or, visit this Website tomorrow at 12:30PM for details as to how to join our ZOOM-chat.)
In addition to talking with friends online about any and all topics SF/F and fannish, we’ll have opportunity to view an album of photographs snapped by those MonSFFen who took part in our field trip to the Montreal Biodome last month.
Plus, we’ll invite folk to “show-and-tell” the group about any cool sci-fi destinations or events they’ve enjoyed on vacation during this first half of summer—conventions, museums, theme parks, shows! Share your experiences, and any photos, with the group!
And, we’ll take the opportunity to hold our very first meeting of the club’s Special Interest Group (SIG) for Art. If you’re interested in sci-fi art, be sure to take part!
Host Keith Braithwaite will give a talk/workshop on “How to Create Sci-Fi Art Without Knowing How to Draw!”
AFTERGLOW OF A CME: A CME struck Earth yesterday (July 25th at 1422 UT). The impact did not immediately cause a geomagnetic storm, but hours later a minor G1-class storm occured as Earth was passing through the CME’s magnetized wake. The afterglow was observed in Washington, Wisconsin and Maine. CME impact alerts: SMS Text
MAJOR FARSIDE SOLAR FLARE: The biggest flare of Solar Cycle 25 just exploded from the farside of the sun. X-ray detectors on Europe’s Solar Orbiter (SolO) spacecraft registered an X14 category blast:
Solar Orbiter was over the farside of the sun when the explosion occured on July 23rd, in perfect position to observe a flare otherwise invisible from Earth.
“From the estimated GOES class, it was the largest flare so far,” says Samuel Krucker of UC Berkeley. Krucker is the principal investigator for STIX, an X-ray telescope on SolO which can detect solar flares and classify them on the same scale as NOAA’s GOES satellites. “Other large flares we’ve detected are from May 20, 2024 (X12) and July 17, 2023 (X10). All of these have come from the back side of the sun.”
Meanwhile on the Earthside of the sun, the largest flare so far registered X8.9 on May 14, 2024. SolO has detected at least three larger farside explosions, which means our planet has been dodging a lot of bullets.
The X14 farside flare was indeed a major event. It hurled a massive CME into space, shown here in a coronagraph movie from the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO):
The CME sprayed energetic particles all over the solar system. Earth itself was hit by ‘hard’ protons (E > 100 MeV) despite being on the opposite side of the sun.
“This is a big one–a 360 degree event,” says George Ho of the Southwest Research Institute, principal investigator for one of the energetic particle detectors onboard SolO. “It also caused a high dosage at Mars.”
SolO was squarely in the crosshairs of the CME, and on July 24th it experienced a direct hit. In a matter of minutes, particle counts jumped almost a thousand-fold as the spacecraft was peppered by a hail storm energetic ions and electrons.
“This is something we call an ‘Energetic Storm Particle’ (ESP) event,” explains Ho. “It’s when particles are locally accelerated in the CME’s shock front [to energies higher than a typical solar radiation storm]. An ESP event around Earth in March 1989 caused the Great Quebec Blackout.”
So that’s what might have happened if the CME hit Earth instead of SolO. Maybe next time. The source of this blast will rotate around to face our planet a week to 10 days from now, so stay tuned. Solar flare alerts: SMS Text
https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasas-curiosity-rover-discovers-a-surprise-in-a-martian-rock
Among several recent findings, the rover has found rocks made of pure sulfur — a first on the Red Planet.
Scientists were stunned on May 30 when a rock that NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover drove over cracked open to reveal something never seen before on the Red Planet: yellow sulfur crystals.
Since October 2023, the rover has been exploring a region of Mars rich with sulfates, a kind of salt that contains sulfur and forms as water evaporates. But where past detections have been of sulfur-based minerals — in other words, a mix of sulfur and other materials — the rock Curiosity recently cracked open is made of elemental, or pure, sulfur. It isn’t clear what relationship, if any, the elemental sulfur has to other sulfur-based minerals in the area.
While people associate sulfur with the odor from rotten eggs (the result of hydrogen sulfide gas), elemental sulfur is odorless. It forms in only a narrow range of conditions that scientists haven’t associated with the history of this location. And Curiosity found a lot of it — an entire field of bright rocks that look similar to the one the rover crushed.
Pan around this 360-degree video to explore Gediz Vallis channel, the location where NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover discovered sulfur crystals and drilled its 41st rock sample. The images that make up this mosaic were captured by the rover’s MastCam in June.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS
“Finding a field of stones made of pure sulfur is like finding an oasis in the desert,” said Curiosity’s project scientist, Ashwin Vasavada of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. “It shouldn’t be there, so now we have to explain it. Discovering strange and unexpected things is what makes planetary exploration so exciting.”
It’s one of several discoveries Curiosity has made while off-roading within Gediz Vallis channel, a groove that winds down part of the 3-mile-tall (5-kilometer-tall) Mount Sharp, the base of which the rover has been ascending since 2014. Each layer of the mountain represents a different period of Martian history. Curiosity’s mission is to study where and when the planet’s ancient terrain could have provided the nutrients needed for microbial life, if any ever formed on Mars.
From the N3F, NAPA271, with a fabulous cover by Alan White.
In this issue:
Front Cover: Donated by Alan White
The Official Organ #271
Mini-Editorial, by Jefferson P. Swycaffer
Snow Poster Township #16, by Heath Row – 8
Intermission 143.5, by Ahrvid Engholm – 6
The Murdered Master Mage, by George Phillies – 3
Intermission 144, by Ahrvid Engholm – 16
Archive Midwinter, by Jefferson P. Swycaffer – 4
Ye Murthered Master Mage #271, by George Phillies – 3
Brandy Hall Issue 7 July 2024, by Mark Nelson – 8
Fan Fic 2, by George Phillies – 4
Renovation and Innovation Letter, by Adrian Kresnak – 3
Samizdat… Ish #26, July/August 2024, by Samuel Lubell – 8
Brownian Motion #9, by Garth Spencer – 15
Snow Poster Township #17, by Heath Row – 7
Just added at https://efanzines.com are:
In particular for our out-of-town members and friends, and any who couldn’t make it to the Summer BBQ, MonSFFA will host an “e-Picnic” via ZOOM (www.MonSFFA.ca) this Sunday, July 28, beginning at 1:00PM—have your favourite summer snacks and libations on hand!
(NOTE: Club members have been sent, via e-mail, the necessary information required to join us on ZOOM Sunday. Or, visit this Website Sunday at 12:30PM for details as to how to join our ZOOM-chat.)
In addition to talking with friends online about any and all topics SF/F and fannish, we’ll have opportunity to view an album of photographs snapped by those MonSFFen who took part in our field trip to the Montreal Biodome last month.
Plus, we’ll invite folk to “show-and-tell” the group about any cool sci-fi destinations or events they’ve enjoyed on vacation during this first half of summer—conventions, museums, theme parks, shows! Share your experiences, and any photos, with the group!
And, we’ll take the opportunity to hold our very first meeting of the club’s Special Interest Group (SIG) for Art. If you’re interested in sci-fi art, be sure to take part!
Host Keith Braithwaite will give a talk/workshop on “How to Create Sci-Fi Art Without Knowing How to Draw!”
Amazing prices on thousands of amazing stories by science fiction and fantasy authors from Asimov to Zelazny!
We’ve got plenty of inventory left over from past sales, plus lots of fresh stock, including items from the legacy of our late friend, collector, and club member Sylvain St-Pierre! And we’re clearing it all at our astonishingly low prices!
Piles of Paperbacks! Boxes of Books! An Astounding Assortment Available, Including…
Trade Paperbacks and Hardcovers! Anthologies and Specialty Books! Magazines and Comics! Plus DVDs! UNIMAGINABLE, UNBELIEVEABLE, UNBEATABLE BARGAINS!
