Author: Alan Boyle

Mastermind of Cosmic Log, contributor to GeekWire and Universe Today, author of "The Case for Pluto: How a Little Planet Made a Big Difference," past president of the Council for the Advancement of Science Writing.

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Undersea volcano’s rumblings revealed

Deep-sea octopus
A deep-sea octopus explores lava flows that erupted at Axial Seamount in 2015. At the time, this was probably the youngest seafloor on the planet. (NOAA / Oregon State University Photo / Bill Chadwick)

An underwater seismic network pioneered by the University of Washington and other institutions is revealing how thousands of tiny shocks can herald huge eruptions.

Results from the Ocean Observatories Initiative’s Cabled Array, published today by the journal Science and Geophysical Research Letters, focus on the buildup of seismic activity in advance of a 2015 eruption at Axial Seamount, the most active submarine volcano in the northeast Pacific Ocean. The release of the results was timed to coincide with this week’s American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco.

“Instruments used by Ocean Observatories Initiative scientists are giving us new opportunities to understand the inner workings of this volcano, and of the mechanisms that trigger volcanic eruptions in many environments,” Rick Murray, director of the National Science Foundation’s Division of Ocean Sciences, said in a news release. “The information will help us predict the behavior of active volcanoes around the globe.”

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Buzz Aldrin on his health scare and John Glenn

Apollo 11 moonwalker Buzz Aldrin check out the engines on a Saturn V rocket at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. “I’m feeling better and my rocket is ready to launch,” he tweeted. (Buzz Aldrin Photo via Twitter)
Apollo 11 moonwalker Buzz Aldrin check out the engines on a Saturn V rocket at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. “I’m feeling better and my rocket is ready to launch,” he tweeted. (Buzz Aldrin Photo via Twitter)

Apollo 11 moonwalker Buzz Aldrin made light of what some might consider a close brush with death during an interview that aired today on NBC’s “Today” show – but he made a serious point as well.

A medical emergency at the South Pole forced Aldrin’s evacuation from the South Pole during a tourism trek on Nov. 30. “I got out of breath,” the 86-year-old told interviewer Al Roker at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. “You know, that’s nothing new, except it’s a little more concentrated.”

Aldrin suffered from respiratory problems associated with Antarctica’s cold temperatures and high altitude. “Not much air to breathe up there,” he said. He was airlifted to a hospital in Christchurch, New Zealand, for a week of recuperation.

It didn’t sound as if he had any regrets.

“When turning back is about as difficult as pressing on, you press on, because you’ve got an objective,” Aldrin said. “Especially when they tell me that I just set a record – the oldest guy to the South Pole. See, now it was worth it, really!”

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Delivery drones take small steps toward big deal

Amazon drone
Amazon’s delivery drone comes in for a landing over an English field. (Amazon via YouTube)

Amazon’s multimillion-dollar effort to deliver goods via drone currently has just two customers in the English countryside, but this could well be the way a multibillion-dollar industry gets started.

The current state of Amazon’s Prime Air project came to light today in an online announcement and video from the Seattle-based company, plus a tweet from CEO Jeff Bezos. The first delivery to an actual customer, identified only as Richard B. of Cambridgeshire, occurred on Dec. 7.

In the coming months, Amazon expects to expand the customer base from the current two to dozens of folks living within several miles of a specially designed drone fulfillment center near Cambridge. Hundreds more will be added as time goes on.

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Alaska Air completes takeover of Virgin America

Alaska-Virgin branded plane
An Alaska Airlines jet sports a paint job that pays homage to Virgin America’s red color scheme as it taxis at San Francisco International Airport. (Boeing Airplanes Photo via Twitter)

Alaska Air Group completed its acquisition of Virgin America today, celebrating the rise of the nation’s No. 5 air carrier with a co-branded jet painted in blue, purple and red.

“Alaska Airlines and Virgin America are different airlines, but we believe different works – and we’re confident fliers will agree,” Brad Tilden, CEO of Alaska Air Group, said in a news release.

The acquisition follows through on months of work to seal the $2.6 billion deal ($4 billion, including debt and aircraft operating leases). The U.S. Department of Justice gave its regulatory approval last week after tweaking the terms to comply with antitrust requirements.

The combined airlines vaulted Alaska Air Group from No. 6 to No. 5 on the list of U.S. carriers – past JetBlue, which had courted Virgin America as well. Alaska and Virgin America are projected to generate more than $7 billion in annual revenue and operate about 280 aircraft.

For the time being, the all-Boeing Alaska Airlines fleet and the all-Airbus Virgin America fleet will retain their separate brands. Except for one plane.

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Syria crisis tests BlackSky satellite data portal

Image: BlackSky platform provides Aleppo data
BlackSky’s online imaging platform can link a satellite view of the embattled Syrian city of Aleppo to real-time social media streams about the area to provide greater context. (Spaceflight Industries Graphic)

Seattle-based Spaceflight Industries is giving early adopters a preview of its online BlackSky satellite imagery platform, which blends overhead views of sites around the world with social-media posts and other reports about what’s shown in the pictures.

One of the first subjects to be tackled is the humanitarian crisis in the Syrian city of Aleppo, where tens of thousands of civilians have been caught in devastating bombing attacks and house-to-house fighting. That’s apt, because the members of the early adopter program include the United Nations as well as the World Bank and RS Metrics, a company that uses satellite imagery to track global developments.

“Tracking critical global events as they happen is of interest to all of our early customers,” Jodi Sorenson, vice president of marketing and communications at Spaceflight Industries, told GeekWire in an emailed comment. “We chose to use Aleppo as an example to demonstrate the platform’s ability to provide insights on areas of particular international importance.”

The BlackSky platform offers access to imagery from more than 10 Earth-watching satellites, including Korea’s KOMPSAT spacecraft and UrtheCast’s Deimos-2. Customers can also use the platform to order up near-real-time images of specified sites.

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V2V plan for connected cars gets into gear

V2V communication
This artist’s concept shows how vehicles could communitcate using V2V. (USDOT Illustration)

The U.S. Department of Transportation today laid out its proposal for enabling cars and light trucks to connect to each other wirelessly. The technology, known as vehicle-to-vehicle communications or V2V, is expected to speed up the push toward autonomous vehicles.

The department said the system could prevent hundreds of thousands of crashes every year.

“We are carrying the ball as far as we can to realize the potential of transportation technology to save lives,” Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx said in a news release. “This long-promised V2V rule is the next step in that progression.  Once deployed, V2V will provide 360-degree situational awareness on the road and will help us enhance vehicle safety.”

The proposed rule would require automakers to include V2V technologies in all new light-duty vehicles, and require them to “speak the same language” through a standardized wireless messaging system developed in cooperation with the auto industry.

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Curiosity rover fleshes out picture of old Mars

Mars geology in Gale Crater
This schematic illustrates how the creation and disappearance of a Martian lake created different layers of rock in the region being explored by NASA’s Curiosity rover. (NASA / JPL Graphic)

Scientists say they’re putting together the puzzle pieces provided by NASA’s Curiosity rover to get a better picture of how the outlook for habitability on Mars brightened and dimmed over the course of billions of years.

“We see all the properties in place that we like to associate with habitability,” Caltech planetary scientist John Grotzinger said today during a session at the American Geophysical Union’s fall meeting in San Francisco.

As Curiosity makes its way up the layered slopes of a 3-mile-high peak known as Aeolis Mons or Mount Sharp, it’s encountering different layers of material that hint at how the region around the mountain was formed.

Grotzinger and his colleagues said that clay minerals, boron and an iron-bearing mineral known as hematite are more abundant in the higher layers. Their presence suggests that there was dynamic chemical interaction between the rocks and groundwater in ancient times.

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Arctic Report Card heats up climate concern

Arctic warming
From October 2015 to September 2016, the Arctic region recorded its warmest temperatures on record. Shades of red indicate how much warmer the temperature was compared to the 1981-2010 average. (NOAA / NCEP Graphic)

The latest update on Arctic climate shows that temperatures at the top of the world are increasing at twice the global rate, setting an assortment of records and near-records.

“Rarely have we seen the Arctic show a clearer, stronger or more pronounced signal of persistent warming and its cascading effects on the environment than this year,” Jeremy Mathis, director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Arctic Research Program, said in a news release.

The Arctic Report Card, issued annually by NOAA, was released today in conjunction with the American Geophysical Union’s fall meeting in San Francisco. The annual report brings together peer-reviewed findings produced by 61 scientists from 11 nations.

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Boeing trims 777 jet production, raises dividend

Boeing 777
A Boeing 777 jet is assembled at the company’s plant in Everett. (Boeing Photo)

The Boeing Co.’s decision to trim back production of its wide-body 777 jet is likely to bring bad news for employment at its plant in Everett, Wash., while a boost in the company’s quarterly dividend should come as good news for investors.

The bad-news, good-news situation was laid out on Dec. 12, sparking ups and downs in Boeing’s share price. By the end of today’s trading, the price was slightly down.

The planned cutback in 777 production from the current 8.3 jets per month to five per month next August points to a dramatic softening in the market for twin-aisle, wide-body jets. Production of Boeing’s 747 jumbo jets has been reduced as well. “The twin-aisle market is glutted,” Teal Group analyst Richard Aboulafia told Reuters.

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SpaceX delays flying astronauts until 2018

Dragon at space station
An artist’s conception shows SpaceX’s crew-capable Dragon approaching a port on the International Space Station with a cargo Dragon in the foreground. (NASA Photo)

NASA has confirmed that the commercial space taxis being developed by SpaceX and the Boeing Co. will start carrying astronauts to the International Space Station no earlier than 2018, and there’s a chance the schedule could slip even further.

Any further schedule delays could create further complications, considering that NASA hasn’t purchased seats aboard Russia’s Soyuz spacecraft for flights past 2018. In September, NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said NASA wasn’t “presently looking at any additional seats beyond those that we have already purchased.”

Until SpaceX’s Crew Dragon and Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner enter service, the Soyuz vehicles provide the only approved way to get astronauts to and from the space station. NASA’s most recent reservation with the Russians sets aside seats through the end of 2018, at a cost of $81.7 million per round trip.

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