Jatan Mehta @uncertainquark@writing.exchange

Issue No. 170: https://orbitalindex.com/archive/2022-05-25-Issue-170/

I nominate this Moon mountain for today’s prompt of the micro.blog Photoblogging challenge. This incredible picture of the central peak of Tycho crater is taken by NASA’s LRO spacecraft.
Also read how Moon mountains form: https://blog.jatan.space/p/exploring-moon-mountains http://lroc.sese.asu.edu/posts/384

Here’s rubble-pile mountain from somewhere in South India (I was in a train) for today’s prompt of the micro.blog Photoblogging challenge. https://challenges.micro.blog/2022/05/21/091545.html

Last week NASA released its 50 “Moon to Mars” objectives to establish a permanent human presence beyond Earth orbit. In the latest Moon Monday, I map specific ongoing and upcoming efforts by NASA to meet those objectives: https://blog.jatan.space/p/moon-monday-issue-78 🚀🌗👩‍🚀

Today’s prompt for the micro.blog Photoblogging challenge is “intricate”, suggested by yours truly: https://challenges.micro.blog/2022/05/21/091501.html

Here’s my submission: A crushable aluminum-honeycomb structure that gets compressed in the legs of Moon-landing spacecraft during touchdown to absorb impact forces.

Honored that my article on “When to worry about an asteroid striking Earth” has been shared by the UN’s official Asteroid Day Twitter account: https://twitter.com/AsteroidDay/status/1528766544888709121 https://www.planetary.org/articles/asteroid-hitting-earth-when-to-worry

Moon Monday #78: NASA’s Lunar-Mars vision, forward planning Artemis I, and more lunar updates: https://blog.jatan.space/p/moon-monday-issue-78

Tip: You can make a Google account using your non-gmail email address too i.e. without having a gmail account. Especially useful to avoid Google’s ridiculous ban policies abruptly taking away your entire email and contacts, and having you wait for days to talk to a human.

For the Day 21 prompt of the micro.blog Photoblogging challenge: symmetry
A Gazania flower from the beautiful bunch at IIT Kanpur: https://thoughts.jatan.space/p/flowers-at-iit-kanpur https://challenges.micro.blog/2022/05/14/190039.html

Get my toots from a week in one neat email! https://web.jatan.space/subscribe

My microblog now has a newsletter! Subscribe to get just one neat email with all my posts and articles from a week: https://web.jatan.space/subscribe
For people (like me) who hate reading on email, there’s (of course) RSS and other options: https://web.jatan.space/about

A little too close for comfort: https://www.planetary.org/the-downlink/a-little-too-close-for-comfort

How Uranus and Neptune are key to unlocking how planets form: https://blog.jatan.space/p/why-explore-uranus-and-neptune

The tranquality of a beverage isn’t just about what’s in it but what holds it too. Thanks to double-walled steel cups, I’m never going back to drinking in ceramics or glass: https://thoughts.jatan.space/p/cup-of-steel
For Day 20 of the micro.blog Photoblogging challenge. https://challenges.micro.blog/2022/05/14/185946.html

For the Day 19 prompt of the micro.blog Photoblogging challenge: indulgence.

At long last I completed migrating all my Moon articles, the entire Moon Monday newsletter archive, and other posts and curated resources to my space blog, all browsable and searchable from one place: https://blog.jatan.space/moon-projects 🌗
Let’s explore the Moon. 🚀

The latest Orbital Index issue had more details on the recent research of successfully growing plants on lunar soil. I’m glad that my point about us lacking high-fidelity planetary soil simulants is being carried forward and discussed further in public. https://orbitalindex.com/archive/2022-05-18-Issue-169/

Absolutely love how my new microblog at https://web.jatan.space looks and feels with the Paper theme. I made a few personalization changes including:

Having an Emoji menu
Adding a CTA button style
Search on the Archive page
Hiding unwanted elements
Text formatting and fixes https://micro.blog/account/plugins/view/43

Issue No. 169: https://orbitalindex.com/archive/2022-05-18-Issue-169/

Twitter has just gotten worse in terms of my articles reaching even the 1,000+ people who followed me. My new article tweet only got “59 impressions” in Twitter feeds. So if you like my articles, please follow my blog directly: https://blog.jatan.space/subscribe https://twitter.com/uncertainquark/status/1526591776634675200