ANOTHER X-CLASS SOLAR FLARE: Earth-orbiting satellites detected another X-class solar flare today–the second in less than a week and a possible harbinger of more to come. There are now two large, unstable sunspots capable of producing these strong explosions, and both are turning toward Earth. Full story and forecasts @ Spaceweather.com
Instant X-flare alerts: Sign up for Space Weather Alerts to receive instant text messages when strong solar flares are underway. Above: An X1.9-class solar flare on Jan. 9, 2023, recorded by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory.
Dino fans: Science GoH is Philip John Currie AOE FRSC, Canadian palaeontologist and museum curator –CPL
CSFFA will be at Pemmi-Con
Pemmi-Con* is happening in Winnipeg 20-23 July, 2023.
Eight of the nine Pemmi-Con Guests of Honour and the Toastmaster are Canadian. They are Julie E. Czerneda; Waubgeshig Rice; Nisi Shawl; John Mansfield; Philip John Currie AOE FRSC, Canadian palaeontologist and museum curator; Lorna Toolis, Ghost Guest of Honour; katherena vermette; George Freeman; Tanya Huff.
*Pemmi-Con is the 2023 NASFiC (North American Science Fiction Convention). NASFiCs occur in a North American city in a year when Worldcon is happening elsewhere than in North America.
Omenana Speculative Fiction Magazine is published quarterly by Seven Hills Media. All rights reserved. For feedback or information, please email sevenhills.media@yahoo.com
January 14 meeting feature presentation, by Joe Aspler
This is a brief history of information storage. In some cases, this mean very hard copy. Humans have this need to record our thoughts. This became institutionalized through religion, bureaucracy, graffiti, Shakespeare, and science fiction. We’ve painted on cave walls, carved on stone, used animal skins, plants, and chopped up trees. Now we’re on the least archival of all: computer storage.
Where will our thoughts be a century from now? A millennium from now? Beyond that? Will our digital media fall apart faster than a pulp science fiction magazine in the hot sun?
Attached is The Incompleat Register2022, the voters’ guide and pro forma ballot for the 2023 FAAn awards, fanzine fandom’s only dedicated honors, and voting is thus open.
The voting deadline is midnight (Pacific time) Friday March 10 2023, and ballots must be received by then (please note this if you’re sending by snail mail). Your own name and contact details should also be clearly supplied.
The awards will be announced at Corflu Craic in Belfast, Northern Ireland on April 2 2023.
Voting is open to anyone with an interest in fanzines, no memberships of anything are required.
Publicity is welcomed. Feel free to share and distribute this as far and wide as you like.
Nic Farey
(Current FAAn Awards administrator)
The following zines have been received and uploaded to our website:
On the 4th of January there was a Class X explosion on the farside of the sun. Now it is turning toward Earth, and has already caused shortwave radio blackouts. We might see some Aurora activity. CPL
X-CLASS SOLAR FLARE: A large and potentially dangerous sunspot is turning toward Earth. This morning (Jan. 6th at 0057 UT) it unleashed an X-class solar flare and caused a shortwave radio blackout over the South Pacific Ocean. Given the size and apparent complexity of the active region, there’s a good chance the explosions will continue in the days ahead. Full story @ Spaceweather.com
Instant solar flare alerts: Sign up for Space Weather Alerts to receive instant text messages when strong solar flares are underway. Above: An X1.2-class solar flare on Jan. 6, 2023, recorded by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory. Space Weather News for Jan 4, 2023 https://spaceweather.com https://www.spaceweatheralerts.com
SIGNIFICANT FARSIDE EXPLOSION: A powerful explosion rocked the farside of the sun yesterday, hurling a bright CME over the edge of the solar disk. It may have been an X-class event. Helioseismic echoes suggest that the source of the blast is just behind the sun’s southeastern limb and could turn to face Earth later this week. Full story @ Spaceweather.com
Instant solar flare alerts: Sign up for Space Weather Alerts to receive instant text messages when strong solar flares are underway.
Above: A bright CME emerges from the farside of the sun on Jan. 3rd. Credit: The Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO)
HAARP IS PINGING AN ASTEROID TODAY: Researchers from NASA and the University of Alaska are about to perform an unusual radar experiment. They’re going to ping a near-Earth asteroid using shortwave radio. The target is a 500-ft-wide space rock named “2010 XC15.” When it passes by Earth on Tuesday, Dec. 27th, the HAARP array in Alaska will hit it with a long pulse of 9.6 MHz radio waves.
The High-frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP) site in Gakona, Alaska
Radio astronomers ping asteroids all the time. What’s unusual about this experiment is the frequency: 9.6 MHz is hundreds of times lower than typical S-band and X-band frequencies used by other asteroid radars. The goal is to probe the asteroid’s interior.
Lead investigator Mark Haynes of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) explains: “The low frequencies we are using can penetrate the asteroid, unlike S-band or X-band frequencies which reflect mostly off of the surface. Ultimately the idea is to use echoes to form tomographic images of asteroid interiors.”
Knowing the internal structure of an asteroid could come in handy — especially if you need to destroy it. 2010 XC15 poses no threat 770,000 km from Earth. Tomorrow’s experiment is proof-of-concept for a scarier object: Asteroid Apophis, which will buzz Earth closer than many satellites on April 13, 2029. If shortwave asteroid radar works for 2010 XC15, it should work for Apophis, too, giving planetary defense experts key data about the asteroid’s vulnerabilities.
The OVRO Long Wavelength Array near Bishop, CA, will receive echoes from HAARP’s transmission
HAARP will transmit a continually chirping signal to asteroid 2010 XC15 at slightly above and below 9.6 MHz. The chirp will repeat at two-second intervals. The University of New Mexico Long Wavelength Array near Socorro, NM, and the Owens Valley Radio Observatory Long Wavelength Array near Bishop, CA, will receive the reflected signal.
“This will be the lowest frequency asteroid radar observation ever attempted,” notes Lance Benner, a co-investigator from JPL. If the experiment works it could mark a significant advance in asteroid radar. Stay tuned!
Discovery important for reconstructing ancient food webs, scientist says
Dennis Kovtun · CBC News ·
Mammal foot among the ribs of microraptor (Photo by Hans Larson)
An international team of scientists have discovered new evidence of a dinosaur dining on ancient mammals.
The foot of a tiny mammal was inside the stomach of a microraptor — a small feathered dinosaur that lived during the Cretaceous some 100 million years ago in temperate forests in what is now China.
It’s the first time a piece of a mammal was discovered inside a microraptor.
“Looking at interactions between animals, that’s much easier to tell in the modern biology in living animals because we can actually go out and make those observations,” said Caleb Brown, a curator of dinosaur systematics and evolution at the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology in Drumheller, Alta.
“Trying to make those inferences for fossils is more difficult because you don’t necessarily know exactly which animal ate which other animal, unless you have exceptional cases like this.”
Reconstruction of Microraptor eating the foot of a small mammal. (Artwork by Ralph Attanasia III)
This find alone will not change understanding of Cretaceous ecosystems and how they evolved, said Corwin Sullivan, a professor in the department of biological sciences at the University of Alberta, who was involved in the new discovery.
But the discovery will contribute to the accumulation of paleontological knowledge and allow to “build up a very general picture of how food webs functioned, to some degree, in the geological past, how these various species were behaving and interacting,” Sullivan said.
“It’s rare for a preserved fossil vertebrate to have any kind of gut contents, and certainly evidence of dinosaurs eating mammals is rare.
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