Where to Settle on Mars

The story behind “Red Gold” needed the settlers to make a totally unexpected discovery, so I used my imagination. I eventually got an agent, the book went to an editor of a major publisher, but the editor died and the replacement cleared his desk, and apparently informed the agent that my story was “too far-fetched”. So, what was far-fetched? Colonization of Mars? Someone trying out a fraud to…

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Let's Explore a Metal-Rich Asteroid 🤘

Between Mars and Jupiter, there lies a unique, metal-rich asteroid named Psyche. Psyche’s special because it looks like it is part or all of the metallic interior of a planetesimal—an early planetary building block of our solar system. For the first time, we have the chance to visit a planetary core and possibly learn more about the turbulent history that created terrestrial planets.

Here are six things to know about the mission that’s a journey into the past: Psyche.

1. Psyche could help us learn more about the origins of our solar system.

After studying data from Earth-based radar and optical telescopes, scientists believe that Psyche collided with other large bodies in space and lost its outer rocky shell. This leads scientists to think that Psyche could have a metal-rich interior, which is a building block of a rocky planet. Since we can’t pierce the core of rocky planets like Mercury, Venus, Mars, and our home planet, Earth, Psyche offers us a window into how other planets are formed.

2. Psyche might be different than other objects in the solar system.

Rocks on Mars, Mercury, Venus, and Earth contain iron oxides. From afar, Psyche doesn’t seem to feature these chemical compounds, so it might have a different history of formation than other planets.

If the Psyche asteroid is leftover material from a planetary formation, scientists are excited to learn about the similarities and differences from other rocky planets. The asteroid might instead prove to be a never-before-seen solar system object. Either way, we’re prepared for the possibility of the unexpected!

3. Three science instruments and a gravity science investigation will be aboard the spacecraft.

The three instruments aboard will be a magnetometer, a gamma-ray and neutron spectrometer, and a multispectral imager. Here’s what each of them will do:

Magnetometer: Detect evidence of a magnetic field, which will tell us whether the asteroid formed from a planetary body

Gamma-ray and neutron spectrometer: Help us figure out what chemical elements Psyche is made of, and how it was formed

Multispectral imager: Gather and share information about the topography and mineral composition of Psyche

The gravity science investigation will allow scientists to determine the asteroid’s rotation, mass, and gravity field and to gain insight into the interior by analyzing the radio waves it communicates with. Then, scientists can measure how Psyche affects the spacecraft’s orbit.

4. The Psyche spacecraft will use a super-efficient propulsion system.

Psyche’s solar electric propulsion system harnesses energy from large solar arrays that convert sunlight into electricity, creating thrust. For the first time ever, we will be using Hall-effect thrusters in deep space.

5. This mission runs on collaboration.

To make this mission happen, we work together with universities, and industry and NASA to draw in resources and expertise.

NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory manages the mission and is responsible for system engineering, integration, and mission operations, while NASA’s Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Services Program manages launch operations and procured the SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket.

Working with Arizona State University (ASU) offers opportunities for students to train as future instrument or mission leads. Mission leader and Principal Investigator Lindy Elkins-Tanton is also based at ASU.

Finally, Maxar Technologies is a key commercial participant and delivered the main body of the spacecraft, as well as most of its engineering hardware systems.

6. You can be a part of the journey.

Everyone can find activities to get involved on the mission’s webpage. There's an annual internship to interpret the mission, capstone courses for undergraduate projects, and age-appropriate lessons, craft projects, and videos.

You can join us for a virtual launch experience, and, of course, you can watch the launch with us on Oct. 12, 2023, at 10:16 a.m. EDT!

For official news on the mission, follow us on social media and check out NASA’s and ASU’s Psyche websites.

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space!

World Building

Creating Land

❂

⥇ agriculture

⟿ what is grown in abundance? how common is farmland? where is the farmland?

⥇ architecture

⟿ what kind of buildings? how tall/spacious? what are they made of? how well made? how well planned?

⥇ animals

⟿ what wild animals are lurking in the area? hunting? any animals affecting the livestock or agriculture?

⥇ biomes

⟿ desert? tundra? grassland? forest? savanna?

⥇ bodies of water

⟿ seas? lake? ponds? rivers? fresh water/salt water? fishing? keep in mind, settlements are often built near bodies of water

⥇ climate

⟿ dry? rainy? temperate? tropical? polar? how have people adjusted to this climate?

⥇ elevation

⟿ altitude? how does the altitude affect lifestyle?

⥇ geology

⟿ rocky? types of rocks?

⥇ landforms

⟿ mountains? valleys? plateaus? plains? hills? glaciers? peninsulas? volcanos? canyons?

⥇ latitude / longitude

⟿ location on planet? how does it affect other elements of land?

⥇ livestock

⟿ common domesticated animals? common animal usages?

⥇ minerals

⟿ any valuable minerals / metals? are they mined regularly? how are they used?

⥇ natural disasters

⟿ earthquake? tornado? volcano? duststorm? flood? hurricane? tsunami? how often do these occur? protocols?

⥇ population

⟿ how many people? how dense is the population? how does the population affect surrounding nature?

⥇ resources

⟿ what is abundant? scarce? how are they used? how available are they?

⥇ sacred land

⟿ religiously important land? historical importance? widely accepted as sacred? how is it honored?

⥇ soil

⟿ good or bad for vegetation? rocky?

⥇ tectonic activity

⟿ earthquake frequency? volcano frequency? trenches?

⥇ topography

⟿ how common are maps? how accurate? how long have they been around? who makes them?

⥇ vegetation

⟿ what is abundant? scarce? what grows easily? with difficulty? what is commonly foraged? who forages? plant types? tree types?

please please please PLEASE share more on your Thoughts about gas giants!! i'd love to learn in a way that doesnt leave me baffled and half my brain leaking from my ears! you explained things so well in the psyche post and also i think things are generally more fun to learn from someone who is Excited To Share than from Published Research Papers where everything has been dried out For Professional Reasons- understandably so, mind, but i am not In The Field and dont know the terms lol

Okay it's taken me forever to get back to this but I AM SO GLAD YOU ASKED.

Like other planets, it all starts with a disk made of gas and dust orbiting an infant star, called a protoplanetary disk. Like these in the Orion Nebula, discovered by the Hubble!

To form terrestrial planets (rocky planets with relatively thin atmospheres like Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars), the gas in the protoplanetary disk coalesces to form hundreds and hundreds of rocky bodies called planetesimals, about a kilometer across. These planetesimals collide, and form dozens of protoplanets about the size of the moon. The protoplanets then collide as well, and stabilize to form the solar system as we know it today.

But, in the case of gas giants, colliding protoplanets don't form fully-finished planets. Instead, they form a core, or a seed.

We think the only thing that determines whether a planet will be terrestrial or a gas giant is simply how far away from the sun it forms - that's it. As a new sun warms its evolving solar system, it heats up the material in the protoplanetary disk. Close to the sun, the disk gets hotter, and things like water and other ices melt and evaporate into gas, making them difficult for the protoplanets to gravitationally capture. However, further away, the icy compounds stay cold enough to remain solid and coalesce along with rocky particles.

That boundary in the solar system - where ices evaporate to gas on the sunward side, and remain solid on the other - is called the "Frost Line". In our solar system, the Frost Line is right between Mars and Jupiter.

The protoplanets that form past the Frost Line turn into gas giant seeds, and are able to (kinda literally) snowball, picking up both rocky and icy material. With all that solid ice available, they grow far larger and far faster than planets in the inner solar system, and their gravity gets stronger and stronger. More gravity causes them to collect even MORE material until they're heavy enough to capture extremely lightweight elements like hydrogen and helium. Which, of course, makes them get even bigger and even heavier! Runaway growth!

But weirdly, as we study more exoplanets (planets that orbit stars other than our sun), we keep finding these huge gas giants incredibly close to their stars! Like, even closer than Mercury is to ours, which is insane. These "Hot Jupiters" break so many rules - gas giants "should" only be able to form where ice stays frozen, but here they are up close and personal with their stars, like this artist's concept!

It's possible that these planets are in the process of migrating closer to their stars, and we're managing to see them before they evaporate, but we just! Keep! Finding them!

One of my favorite parts of planetary science is how much we still have to learn. We'll think we have a pretty good idea of how things work out there, and then suddenly we'll find something that we can't explain. And there's an entire universe of weird shit - we've barely begun to scratch the surface!

As I’m doing this ask, I’m just watching Jack the Giant Slayer and making me SEVERELY wanna read Beanstalked, I’d love a passion fueled essay/reason from you why I should read it! (I’m gonna ready it anyways)

OH BOY I GET TO DROP MY LIMITERS

For starters, Beanstalked is a fantasy slice-of-life with a sprinkle of adventure and action. It does feature swearing, violence and gore as well as some body horror and existentialism. So just a heads up.

The main plot is basically that Lore, the planet that Beanstalked takes place on which exists directly parallel to Earth, has an event every 100 years where individuals are selected to become Bookmarked. This is where they are assigned roles from fables and legends from our world and gain secret weapons known as Märchen for self defense. This event has gone on practically forever under the watchful eyes of the Sun and Moon, the gods of this world.

But that all gets disrupted by an evil fairy called Nevermore who is bored of witnessing the same fairy tales happening over and over again. She has rounded up Bookmarked villains and the occasional misled protagonist to assist her and her army of ink stains as she aims to rewrite the world and rid it of happy endings.

The newest generation of Bookmarked are very unlucky as it is their turns to live out their assigned tales due to their stories all having been screwed up due to Nevermore's interference. Jack is one of these unlucky Bookmarked, who has just recently come to learn he has been assigned the same Jack from Jack and the Beanstalk. Much of Beanstalked follows hm as he learns about the magical side of the world he lives in, how to use his own Märchen, his own family history, and what exactly a "Happy Ending" is.

Beanstalked is meant to somewhat explore fairy tales and how suddenly becoming a figure in one can affect one's life-whether it be good or bad. It's also, at its center, a story about learning more about one's self and figuring out what truly makes you happy.

If you are a fan of fairy tale retellings then Beanstalked is a good pick for you. Especially if you are a fan of retellings that:

Aren't just mean spirited spins about the original tale

Aren't completely dark and gritty retellings of the source material for the sake of being edgy

Aren't just rip offs of Disney designs and characters

Or if you are petty like me, don't want to read another story about a protagonist having fallen into the land of fairy tales

Every Beanstalked character is meant to be based off either a direct character from a fable or a stock character. And for each fable, I try to bounce off the original story if there is an author (Like Pinocchio novel) or the oldest retellings as many fables don't have direct authors and simply have collectors that put their own spin on things.

So if you are worried about another fairy tale retelling story where each fable is just based off Disney's spins-DON'T WORRY BECAUSE ROCKY GOT YA' COVERED!

Beanstalked also contains a lot of found family elements, such as the entire village of Briar Patch being a community of Bookmarked who watch out for one another.

There are also cool af battle scenes due to the existence of Märchen (because Rocky grew up watching too many shounen anime and now has to put battles in everything), a ton of world building (I've had this story for nearly a decade now), a lotta characters with melanin (many being black), and a cast comprised of bi and pan characters.

ALSO ALSO...if you are a fan of pretty black girl love interests that kick ass (and may also be a monster girl with sharp teeth and claws and whole big monster form) then you will enjoy Beanstalked as Jack's love interest, Nana, is all of said above mentioned things.

SO if any of this happened to catch your attention-GO READ BEANSTALKED! As of right now I've rebooted it from the original 2010s version I had so it currently only has chapters 1 and 2. Which means you don't have a lotta catch up to do!

I have also handcuffed myself to this story which means I will be working on it till I finish it. I am on a mission. So if you want a webcomic and don't wanna worry about it suddenly being cancelled or disappearing one day-DO NOT CONCERN YOURSELF CITIZEN as I am unhinged about my fairy tale babies and am in for the long haul.

Wormwood

Artemisia absinthium

Known as: Absinthe, crown for a king, green ginger, madderwort, old woman & wormot

Related plants: A member of th e family Artemisia that also include mugwort, sagewort, tarragon, sagebrush & southernwood

Parts used: Leaves & flowers

Habitat & cultivation: this shrub is native to Europe, Asia & Siberia. It is most likely found present in along dry rocky roads,  in pastures & open waste areas or overgrazed rangeland

Plant type: Perennial

Region: Zones 4-9

Harvest: Best to let grow for at least two years before harvesting large amounts

Growing tips: Wonderful container plant that can be incredibly invasive. It grows readily from seed, root divisions or cutting and preferably recently composted or fertilized. They do not love wet soil & prefer warm, dry, rocky conditions.

Medicinal information: The bitter-tasting plant has been used for centuries for medicinal purposes to reduce pain & swelling. Made into a salve it can help the itch from insect bites-It's also used as a anti-parasitic  to treat intestinal worms, treat digestive problems & skin infections. It was also used to make the infamous drink Absinthe & Vermouth.

Cautions: Wormwood is  toxic & shouldn't be taken internally. It is dangerous to use for longer than a two week period & should be avoided by pregnant & chestfeeding individuals. If burning, use in a ventilated area as the smoke can be irritating to the eyes and throat.

Magickal properties

Gender: Masculine

Planet: Mars

Element: Fire

Deities: Aida Wedo, Artemis, Diana, Innana, Iris, Isis, Lakshimi & Sif

Magickal uses:

•Burn as an incense with mugwort, bay and/or blue lotus to aid in psychic powers, enhance divination abilities & to attract spirits

• Place under your bed to draw a loved one

• Keep in your vehicle to protect against accidents & dangerous roads

• Use to send harmful magick back to it's sender

• Sprinkle in the path of an enemy to cause strife and misfortune

• Decorate your altar or workspace with wormwood when using your clairvoyant skills

• Give as an offering to spirits

• Carry with you in a satchet to protect against bewitchment

• Use rituals of astral projection and divination

• In Russia, wormwood was commonly used to protect the wearer from Rusalki, water spirits who roamed forests and rivers with sharp claws and an hate for humans

A Speculative Analysis About Irkens No One Asked For: Part I

Dem green fellas. Them lil guys, they’re an interesting pack of critters, aren’t they?

I used to really fixate on them back in middle and high school, stronger than everyone else seemed to be on the spazz in the dog costume. Jhonen Vasquez’s worldbuilding has always towed a very fine line between nonsensically ridiculous and surprisingly logistical, and this balance is typified in everything we know, and can infer, about these bug-eyed imperialists at the center of everything Invader Zim. So, let’s infer, and take a crack at it since no one’s stopping us anyway- More specifically, some thoughts and ponderings I had about how they “tick” as a fully realized society, not just a sci-fi monster..

A Homeworld Obscured 

Now, to really understand the history and “deal” of any civilization, or any animal, usually you would turn to their environment first to give you some handy clues and context.

Small problem, though: We actually don’t get much in the way of direct, explicit showing or explanations about Irk itself when it comes to the show. This makes some sense, given that the whole of what they do worth showing (and the most notable members of their kind) exists almost entirely off-world. So instead, we mostly find out more about Irk from what Invader Zim does tell us about its natives. As far as confirmed canon goes, we know that Irk’s atmosphere appears red, its surface is entirely and densely urbanized, and it’s long been depicted in starmaps with a set of Saturn-like rings. 

  This last fact is probably the most interesting, because planetary rings are usually something we, in our own little solar system, would only associate with massive, gaseous worlds, not terrestrial ones.  What These rings are made of is really anyone’s guess- could be ancient debris from natural satellites, Water-ice particles, maybe even some form of artificial defense network put into orbit by the Irkens themselves. If they aren’t artificially created, this would suggest that Irk has quite a strong gravitational field- greater than that of any of our neighborhood’s rocky planets. This is the common theory I personally like to subscribe to, because it would also go hand and hand with explaining why the average height of the irken race is so much shorter compared to that of an adult human. It fits neatly into the “why” question for the sort of athletic skill and agility we’ve seen invaders able to demonstrate on Earth, too, for otherwise being of meek physical prowess. It even adds some credible context for why the very achievement of growing to a more substaintial height is both uncommon and associated with extreme survival fitness to them.

A Fun fact that’s about to be relevant: “Rayleigh scattering” is the term given to when light wavelengths become shifted and scattered through an atmosphere medium. Long story short, it’s the reason our sky has color to it during the day. Stay with me on this.

I’ve also seen some people take a go at the red-looking surface, guessing a different gas makeup than the elements on earth responsible for our blue skies. I’m gonna go against the grain here, and actually contest that. I think that Irk’s atmosphere is coincidentally extremely similar to Earth’s. We know well enough that they both have a similar composition of gases breathable to both societies, given that Zim, Skoodge, and Tak all seemed pretty comfortable without some form of assistance on the same dirtball as humanity. Instead, I propose that Irk’s magenta skies are actually the symptom of heavy pollution. Sunsets and sunrises in the real world are known to make the sky appear more reddish-orange, even pink, as is. Usually, Rayleigh scattering has the light From the sun appear bluish in full midday, but during low sun, the rays are coming at an angle making them have to travel farther before reaching us, so you have already stretched light waves getting the same treatment from the air and, well, a higher frequency blue turns down to the lower end of the spectrum, red and yellows.

And wouldn’t you know, air pollution can actually do the same thing. THIS is why there's a scary ass orange haze known to accompany the presence of massive forest fires and volcanic eruptions. Earth’s most polluted cities even experience longer and redder sunsets for the same reason. 

Left: Image of a lilac sky over a Chinese city experiencing heavy smog levels Right: Intense red haze spotted over towns in Indonesia in the wake of rampant rainforest fires

On Earth, Zim stared directly into the midday sun without hesitation, nor concern that it would literally blind him. I think the planet hue and this is plenty enough to guess the likely case that Irk’s surface probably doesn’t get a lot of direct sun on an average day as is, and the sheer amount of unbroken cityscape that covers the homeworld would be the more obvious suspect than just having a more distant star from them. If they overcrowded to the point of their expansion, why build their civilization deeper into the ground, instead of up? Maybe there's actually a good reason or two they don’t raise their young topside.

A Psychology Molded for Domination

As well, I want to chirp about real world space again for a second. So, anyone up to the buzz in geek circles and aware of the math on the matter probably got the memo: humanity is almost matter-of-fact certainly not alone in this sandbox of a universe (or at the very least, we won’t always be alone). Like, about as certainly as we were about Black holes’ existence before we up and observed the real thing. And while it’s probably not going to happen in any of our lifetimes, sci-fi and media generally have been trying to take a crack for years at what the theoretical first contact with an alien civilization is going to look like. 

And I’m gonna go ahead and say it, 

As “cliche” and Hollywood as the conquering little green/grey dudes trope might have become… it’s actually not a wild take after all. The little and green thing, that’s creative liberty, but the part about them being hostile and something we may not actually even WANT to be aware of our existence? That’s an idea that even the smarty pants experts have been fearing the realistic odds of, even including the late Stephen Hawking .

The Evolution of intelligent life is a hard thing to really pin down and predict, given that we literally only have the one example to study. Under the right conditions, what reason would another advanced species NOT have to be equally as expanding, as exploitative of its resources, self-destructively short-sighted, and as supremacist as humans have already demonstrated themselves to be capable of? There is a lot of very interesting literature that suggests BOTH empathy/altruism and or aggression/tribalism to be (at least in the short term) very rewarding characteristics for an intelligent social species to develop.

And that’s the thing about the behavior of the Irken Armada I think has always been fascinating. Their drive to be the biggest definitionally invasive species across the cosmos is framed exactly as irrational, bumbling, and pointless as it deserves to be; however, is it not just the extended conclusion of every empire that has existed here on Earth, if only it had survived long enough to achieve the technology of Irk? And yet, it’s reminiscent, like the rest of their design, to the far from sapient, yet very real world creatures they appear to be most inspired by: hive and colony building arthropods. Whether the next point I'm about to touch on should be seen as a rejection of that resemblance, or further elaboration of it is anyone's to answer.

Transhumanism, or.. Transirkenism, in this case?

Like the specifics of what Irk really looks like and how it realistically works, a bunch about the aliens’ physical biology is left to scattered tidbits to ponder and piece together into a bigger picture. A few of those tidbits are as follows, drip-fed to us over the course of aired and scripted but never released episodes:

+ From the mouth of Vasquez himself, it has been confirmed that Irkens lack any form of reproductive organs. Instead, they rely on industrialized facilities to grow and produce them in a factory sense.

+ Yet curiously, they still demonstrate something akin to sexual dimorphism, or at least the cultural existence of masculine/feminine genders, where females are aesthetically set apart by the presence of curled antennae, eyelashes, and higher voices.

+ Irken lifespans are able to stretch far past that of an average human’s (Zim himself is cited to be around 2 centuries old in earth years).

+ Invader class soldiers have been implanted with surgical upgrades to their eyes.

+ Every Irken is fitted with a PAK that serves a wide array of utility and life-sustaining functions for its owner. These units are physically and neurologically connected into an Irken’s spine from “birth” and contain a cybernetic backup of an individual’s personality, assigned occupational programming, and memories. 

That’s not close to a complete list by any means, but it’s got the gist of what I want to dwell on most, starting with the last bit; because the PAK isn’t done true justice in one statement. It is not an extra addition the way a prosthetic enhancement is, and it is not a tool the way armor and weapons are. It is literally analogous to a vital organ to these aliens, and they are shown to die within 10 minutes of being forcefully detached from their own.

The degree to which Irken bodies and minds rely on this technology, and how seamlessly they are integrated into it, ALONG with their completely artificial life cycle all directly points to the fact that their civilization has advanced into a cyborg-like stage of evolution. It may even be on track to reach a post-organical peak in due time, phasing out more and more of their “vestigial” and feeble meatsuits until they’ve become a true drone army. And that actually begs some huge questions now that we realize we will never know how much of the Irken anatomy was ever originally a natural feature. An Irken’s own brain practically comes secondary to the superior efficiency of the supercomputer on their back, capable of literally holding their own essence and being in the form of code. A code that can preserve the “self” even in the event of meatbody failure, being uploaded post-mortem into the Control Brains’ collective data and repurposed for a future generation of workers. It absolutely would stand to reason that the species has continued this biological self-tampering to other heights- extending their lifespans, incorporating untold amount of mechanical upgrades into their bodies, and maybe even genetically engineering their smeets to be so compatible with this technology.  The control brains themselves are a mesmerizing reflection of this change over time- the result of an evident shift long ago from technology serving them, to them serving the directives of computers. When you really pay attention to the control brains’ role in the series, it comes clear to you who (or what) is really in charge of their society. The Tallest still maintain their symbolic/cultural importance to the Irkens, but outside of their part in spearheading the active intergalactic invasion, they ultimately are figureheads when it comes to actually running the homeworld and ruling the lives of Irk’s inhabitants. If I had to bet money, I would say the Brains may even have the ability to choose and predetermine the next Tallest when a replacement is needed. But what does that make the Tallest? A meaningless title and transformation, chosen arbitrarily by the AI overlords? Well, I don’t think so, actually… but maybe that, and more on the “meaty” morphology of their race is all a tangent fit for another day and post ;)

A single yellow dwarf, unremarkable, of about 1.0218 solar masses. And in its corona, dancing aurora-dragons, ribbons and feathers of nine-colored light, singing and reciting poetry to each other and hitching freezing rides on the asteroids and comets that swing close enough to the star to leap out onto.

One small, dense planet, frosted over with incandescent stormclouds that snow lead flakes onto the slopes of volcanoes whose calderas are choked with galena coral reefs, the bones of colonies of radiation-tolerant extremophilic microorganisms, and where sulfur-swamps coat the lazy tideless beaches of the planet's only ocean, stirred and tilled by people like lanky bundles of black ironstraw, who heap their storehouses high with xanthous dried fusegrass.

One larger, much cooler planet, the calcite gleam of its moon hidden from the surface much of the time by cloudcover. warm, shallow, mildly acidic seas of lavender mucous, tentative marshes of weeping fuschia ferns, translucent lapine blobs with probing antennae that could be eyes or ears or questing tongues, and in the middle of the deepest ocean, a massive gelatinous thing, a superorganism like a rose with its stem plunging down into the volcanic baths of an oceanic rift, a mind from whom all other minds on this planet came and to which they occasionally return, eager to share their stories.

One rocky planet, bitterly cold and with the merest wisps of atmosphere clinging to it. Lifeless, all its water burned off it by baleful solar glare, the vast horizon-spanning saltpan seafloors bone-bare under the violet sky, and its moon hanging above like a clenched fist of black basalt.

An asteroid belt, scattered diamond motes of ice and stone and clay and metals, with three dwarf planets in its embrace, and the largest of them bearing a banner of silver and midnight, a unicorn guarding some alien tree.

A planet one might almost mistake for Earth, for all its snake-necked tortoise-camels and gold-feathered tigermen, for all its gleaming pentagonal ziggurats of diamond and steel, its three space elevators anchored in the emerald forests that girdle the equator, the capital of an interplanetary empire founded at the mouth of an immense river lazily piling hundreds of tons of silt a year into delta marshes, its vast ports berthing wide, flat-bottomed barges hauling iron and salt and sand and cinnabar, barrels of fish and wine and oil and perfumes, tigerman janissaries and scholars and poets and wizards, all tallied and accounted for in the lightning thoughts of supercomputers domesticated by bureaucracy. spaceplanes like silver songbirds or leaping fish ferrying the nobility (who disdain regular shuttle flights from the tips of the space elevators as base transportation for commoners) from the surface of the planet to its moon above, or to any number of gleaming stations in high orbit.

A gas giant, pale as pearl streaked with delicate pink and green pastels, skirted by dozens of captured child-moons, many of them bearing the same unicorn banner, some of them mined for this or that rare earth element, cities buried under the shielding crust of a scant handful, and two of them habitiformed enough to support imperial hunting grounds - managed grasslands or forests full of imported game - and hunting lodges of squat domes and towering spires, mirrored labyrinthine greenhouse-gardens and treasure-vaults of platinum jewelry set with nebula-gems snatched from their condensation-nests in the gas giant's depths.

Another gas giant, the blues and purples of a ripe plum blushing from clouds of midnight-black marbled with gold, icy rings slicing through swirling lunar orbits, merchants and mercenaries and privateers gliding from port to port in their sapphire-hulled ships, out where the empire scrabbles to find purchase. hollowed-out asteroids house cylindrical farms or monasteries of fatalistic leonine faiths or the huddled bodies of wound-down murine clockwork eunuchs, commissioned to advise and amuse some tiger-empress whose phoenix standard had long since faded into obscurity by the time the founder of the unicorn-banner dynasty first rallied soldiers to his cause.

An Earth-sized ball of grey-green ice, glassy smooth surfaces broken up by cryovolcanoes pumping volatiles up from a sooty core to rain down again in miserable pattering drizzles of methane through ammonia blizzards.

An ice giant, the immense azure sphere its inward neighbor might have been were it not for the vagaries of fate as involved in early star system formation, accompanied by seventeen bitterly cold moons whose tides have woven something enormous and ponderous of thought out of the inner sea of supercritical fluids.

a dozen or more dwarf planets of packed stone and ice, swinging through the outer black clouds on vastly elliptical orbits, witnesses to tumbling nickel-iron visitors and alien probes relaying streams of blurry photography and other observations back to some unknown homeworld as they fall endlessly through interstellar space.

Eastern Red Cedar (Essential Herbs for Witches)

*Notes from the Hekate ritual kits that were released October 23'.

Latin name: Juniperus virginiana

Planet: Sun, Saturn

Element: Fire

Parts used: foliage, wood, essential oil

Astrological Association: Leo

Energy: Masculine

Magical properties: Longevity, protection, preservation, strength, wisdom, perseverance, renewal, transformation, balance, connection to the divine through nature, return of stolen goods, defense.

Healing properties: Fever, cough, skin conditions, respiratory issues

Eastern Red Cedar is not actually a true cedar, it’s a juniper, as its latin name, Juniperus virginiana, indicates. Naturalized in Europe, Asia, and North America, Eastern Red Cedar is present in all temperate regions of the northern hemisphere and stretches into parts of the southern hemisphere. This hardy tree has deep roots and tolerates poor rocky soil, salt, heat, and wind, and is drought tolerant. 

Medicinally juniper has been used in bathing, sometimes as a scourge, to alleviate rheumatoid arthritis and to relieve depression symptoms and exhaustion. It’s also been used to heal open wounds. Juniper is warming and pungent and affects the liver and kidneys. Its bitter action stimulates the gallbladder and liver and it aids in digestion. Juniper is also used for respiratory issues, urinary tract infections, and skin ailments like psoriasis and eczema. The warming effect of juniper makes it helpful in breaking fevers. Eastern red cedar is an abortifacient and should not be used by pregnant women. 

Juniper berries have been used to flavor food, beer, and notably gin, and in Ireland the unripe berries are tinctured with whiskey and used as a general health tonic. 

As for juniper’s use in folklore and witchcraft, around the Mediterranean and Aegean seas, it was planted to protect a home from evil spirits and malicious men. It was sometimes built into a new house as a structural beam or to fill cracks between stone to drive away illness and evil spirits. Branches were hung above doors to repel witches. 

Because it is an evergreen, it’s also used in fertility rites and the berries are sometimes used as an aphrodisiac. 

Shamans in Siberia burned and inhaled the smoke of juniper to induce trance, and because of its high thujone contain, it can indeed induce altered states. Thujone does build in the liver over time so care should be taken to limit smoke inhalation to occasional use. 

Burning juniper as a smudge was common in Native American rituals for purification and to cleanse sacred ritual space. Cherokee natives believed that the wood of this cedar held the spirits of their ancestors. In other native ritual practices, it was believed that messages were sent to the Creator when it was burnt ceremonially. 

In Scottish folk magic, juniper is used to ‘sain’ livestock and homes during Beltaine and Samhain. Saining is done by lighting bonfires and driving cattle between them.  These fires would be lit from sacred Neid fires and extinguished home fires would be relit with this fire.  People also hopped over these fires to rid themselves of negative spirits. Juniper (lubhar beinne) was used, and to a lesser extent, mountain ash or rowan (caorran).  The cattle byre was sained, and the lintel over the byre was anointed with wine or human urine. Homes were also sained with burning juniper and “in such quantities to fill the whole house with smoke.”  Juniper would have also hung at windows to ward off witches and evil spirits and to rid the house of pests and diseases.

According to Scottish folklore, juniper needed to be harvested in a particular way, like all magical plants.  It was pulled by the roots, taking 4 branches between 5 fingers while an incantation was repeated.  Today we should probably refrain from yanking bushes from the ground and taking a branch or some berries after asking permission should suffice.  The branches can be dried and burned or the berries can be burned on a charcoal disc, or dip the branch into sea salted water and sprinkle a bit on yourself and your magical working space. 

While we generally think of juniper as a plant of the Sun, it does have older Saturnian associations perhaps because they are very long lived, but maybe also because of their often gnarled wood and spiky foliage, giving them a dark, ominous aspect. Like both yew and cypress trees, Easter red cedar is common in older cemeteries in the southern united states. This may be because its evergreen leaves have come to symbolize ‘eternal life’, but through the ancient Greeks, we have an association with juniper as a plant of Hekate, perhaps because she led the procession of the dead. Through Hekate, it is also associated with Medea, a Hekatean priestess. 

I choose to substitute Eastern red cedar for the yews, cypress, and cedar we traditionally see aligned with Hekate because ERC happens to grow in abundance in my bioregion and has a long history of use in sacred rites across the world. Eastern red cedar is a plant of protection and is excellent for banishing, inspiring courage and strength, purification and release.

Separate pieces from my fursona reference.

The original is too big and the quality gets worse when uploaded.

Hope these ones will look better.

Any and all pronouns for Aurelius.

More info under the cut.

Name: Aurelius

Species: Khay’reek

Age: Adult

Height: 120 Cm / 3.937 Ft

Gender: Xenogender

Pronouns: Any / All Including neos

Orientation: Aro / Ace | Romance and sex repulson

Personality: Emotions can run very high very quickly. And negative ones take time to go down. Also unable to deal with them. Extremely easy to get stressed out, and terrible at dealing with that too. Is aware of these issues now and is trying to make sure this will not bring any negative consequences to others, but since it cannot deal, it is stewing in its own issues and tries not to explode externaly.

Some might think he is shy, but that is not the case. That is fear. Fear of dealing with anybody. Internally she is far less patient than it appears. They believe in being kind on principle ( if they deserve it ), but they are easy to annoy or anger. Only their fear keeps them in check then, unless they simply explode.

Beside their rocky emotions, Aurelius actually firmly believes everyone should be free to live their life how they please, as long as they are not harming others. Trully harming. Hating on somebody because they annoy you, not even on purpose, does not count. Others are not obligated to live the way you wish they would.

Likes animals, soft things and mainly shiny and sparkly colors.

Backstory: Aurelius used to be non corporeal entity consisting of pure magic. Connected to the star of Khay'reek´s home planet.

Khay'reeks worshipped it as a god ( does not necessarily means anything good in their believs ). Cosmic beings are not supposed to interact with mortals, but it was too curious. Cosmic beings do not have personalities, but by interacting with mortals it started to mirror whatever idea they had of it. It was considered corrupt. Got banished to body. Physical body. It was not the body it has now. The original had too much raw magic to fully contain. That creation was being much more closer to horror. With partially physical base, magic was not enough to sustain it. It was hungry. Khay'reeks begged to be saved and their wish was granted.

Most of the magic that created it was destroyed. Now, through still high, the magic could be contained by much more usual body. They used skull of a dead Khay'reek, and the being used that as a base for its new body.

Now Aurelius has body like any other Khay'reek. Except eye color and really impossible mane colors, which bear some resemblance to its original form. The body is also immortal, after all it is prison, you would not just let them leave it.

Despite some differences there is a lot of restrictions the body have. Its brain for example can retain only as much as mortals can. Aurelius lived for many many years, but ey do not remember any of that. Xey do not remeber how xey got the name. Or what personality sparkle had before. The only memories kept is something much more akin to regular mortal life.

Abilities: Aurelius have a lot of magic power. Raw power, actually. They are not good at refining it into anything. It is the raw power that lets them do anything because it is strong enough to materialise as it is.

This makes em good at shields, barriers and explosions of raw power. But not any other magical abilities that require refinement.

No levitation, no telepathy, no power over elements. No healing magic. Do not under any circumstances try its healing abilities. Absolutely no complicated and more structured magic.

Sparkles raw magic appears in dual colors that behave differently. Orange which can have form of bubbles and electricity. And dark purple, which appears as thick goo. It may drip upwards for some reason. Orange is the original. The purple is result by getting corrupted by physical body.

—————

Colors

No need to be exact, those are mainly for me, or in case it is more helpfull like this.

Fur middle tone: fcbe8f

Fur dark tone: c27b50

Fur light tone: fee8db

Inside mouth: 964242

Tongue / Gums / Skin: fd9d8f

Teeth: fff0c5

Hooves / Horns: fed699

Hair gradient: 9affdd ~ 9aedff ~ 9bc5ff ~ b39aff ~ cd9aff ~ ec9afe

Hair shine: ffffff add layer 35% opacity

Pupil: 000000

Eyelashes: 471051

Eye dark tone: a739be

Eye middle tone: e56efe

Eye light tone: f5c8ff

Eyewhite: f9f9f9

Glasses rim: 77006e

Glasses lens: ff38ef 60% opacity

Bowtie / Eyeshadow: fccf5a

Bowtie / Eyeshadow shines: ffffff add layer 40% opacity

Shorts: afaae7

Shorts light tone / Zipper / Buttons: dad4ff

Hoodie dark tone: 9955bf

Hoodie light tone: d98fff

Left upper sleeve: 98ffeb

Left down sleeve: ff94ff

Right upper sleeve: fffaa1

Right down sleeve: bad1ff

Inner hoodie fur: f9f9f9

Purple magic dark: 220941

Purple magic middle: 471b6e

Purple magic light / Shine: 7e3ab7 60% opacity for shine

Orange magic dark: f9b330

Orange magic middle: fccf5a ( like bowtie and eyeshadow )

Orange magic light / Shine: ffff87 60% opacity for shine

nothing like being asked to take my hat off indoors. listen, buddy. the earth is a rock orbiting the sun. it's one of many rocks and assorted non-rocky planets orbiting the sun in something called the solar system. the sun with its solar system is one of several hundred billion stars in the milky way galaxy. the milky way, the andromeda galaxy, and the triangulum galaxy together form the local group (along with their many satellite galaxies). the exact number of galaxies in the local group beyond the 3 largest is unknown, but estimates range from 50 to 80. the local group is part of the virgo supercluster, a concentration of at least 100 galaxy groups. the virgo supercluster, however, is actually just a subpart of the laniakea supercluster, as defined in 2014. the laniakea supercluster is home to approximately 100,000 - 150,000 galaxies, each containing billions of stars with their own planetary systems. the laniakea supercluster spans 160 megaparsecs, or 520,000,000 light years. (one light year equals 9,460,730,472,580.8 km, or 5.88 trillion miles.) the laniakea supercluster is located in the pisces–cetus supercluster complex, a galaxy filament measuring roughly 1,000,000,000 (yes, one billion) light years in length. the number of superclusters in the observable universe is estimated to be 10 million, each home to its own galaxy groups and galaxies and stars and planets and rocks. but the earth is not just a rock within an inconceivably large universe. it is a rock that happens to be very wet. and the reason why the rock is wet, is that it happens to orbit its star, the sun, at the perfect distance for peak wetness.

one unfortunate day between 4.3 and 3.7 billion years ago, this very wet rock spawned microbial life. until the cambrian explosion 538,800,000 years ago, most living things were very simple organisms, but during this period, life diversified rapidly and complex organisms eventually ventured beyond the oceans. the first known footprints on land date to 530,000,000 years ago, and the earliest dinosaurs appeared 225,000,000 years ago, along with the first mammals. the last common ancestor shared by the genera homo (humans) and pan (chimpanzee and bonobo) is estimated to have lived anywhere between 13,000,000 and 5,000,000 years ago.

the earliest appearance of members of the genus homo dates back to about 2,600,000 years ago. fire was discovered 2,000,000 years ago and has been in habitual use for at least 400,000 years, although it may have begun as early as 1,000,000 years ago. the control of fire had a lasting effect on the human diet and, according to the cooking hypothesis, it was an essential element in our evolution as it led to a large increase in energy acquisition while reducing the physical challenges of eating and the amount of energy that had to be spent on digestion. it also allowed innovations in tool making and the creation of art and pottery. it even helped develop early societies. fires required organized cooperation as they had to be maintained, and they offered gathering places for increased social interaction. the use of fire extended the waking day into the evening hours and changed humans' circadian rhythms. in addition to cooked food and artificial light, fire offered protection from predatory animals and cold temperatures, allowing humans to survive in temperate regions.

neanderthals and anatomically modern humans first appeared between 300,000 and 200,000 years ago - the former in europe, and the latter in africa. about 50,000 years ago, modern humans started colonizing the other continents, eventually replacing the neanderthals and all other hominins. the domestication of dogs began around 35,000 years ago. at the end of the last ice age, around 12,000 years ago, modern humans (and their dogs) had populated nearly the entire planet. the agricultural revolution began soon after in west asia and resulted in more and more humans adopting a sedentary lifestyle in permanent settlements with increasingly complex societies. the gradual accumulation of knowledge and technology eventually culminated in the industrial revolution, which began about 250 years ago and resulted in an unprecedented rise in population growth.

between 200 and 100 years ago, the global population of humans nearly doubled – from 1,000,000,000 to 2,000,000,000. within the next 50 years it doubled again, and then again in the 50 years following that. half of the 117,000,000,000 modern humans that have ever lived, lived in the past 2,000 years. only about 9,000,000,000 people, or less than 8%, lived in the 200,000 years before the agricultural revolution – about the same number as the current living human population. 7% of all humans that have ever existed are alive today, still sharing that same rock that happens to be very wet, in that same inconceivably large universe. billions of years spent developing sentience and sapience, on a very wet rock in a very large universe, and you're worried about the fabric covering my skull? take a step back and reassess the situation maybe

science fact of the day- planets!

generally speaking, planets come in two flavors: rocky and gaseous. rocky planets vary a good deal in size, and in the field of exoplanet research, they'll classified by either "super" or "sub" earths, depending on their mass (ie any planet smaller than earth, such as mars, is a sub-earth, while a rocky planet more massive, which we don't have in our solar system, is a super-earth.) right now, super earths are the most commonly observed type of rocky exoplanet, because of their greater size, but because there are none in our own solar system, we don't know a great deal about them. another way to classify rocky planets would be based on the internals- whether or not they have plate tectonics. Earth is the only planet that does right now, which is important because its possible tectonic movements are influential or even needed for life. generally, the masses of rocky planets ranges from about 10% of earth (roughly the mass of mars and mercury, the smallest known planets) to about 10 ish earth masses, at which point a planet would much more likely be an ice giant

ice giants are one of the two subclasses of gaseous planet. their mass is greater than 10 times that of earth, but im not sure what the upper bound is. the reason ice giants are great big gassy planets rather than rocky worlds with a mild to medium atmosphere is their mass, and an important factor which is the escape rate of gas. as sunlight hits a planet, photons from the sunlight randomly impart momentum onto atomspheric particles. sometimes, itll be enough for the particle to fly away from the planet, never to return. thus, atmospheres naturally become somewhat thinner over time. heavier molecules/atoms take much more energy to burn away, and so they tend to remain in atmospheres. this principle is why most moons don't have atmospheres- they don't have enough gravity to hold on to any particles at all- and why mercury doesn't- it's too hot, any particles just leave. but just because a planet can hold some gases doesn't mean it can hold all of them. crucially, helium and hydrogen are the most abundant elements in the universe- making up abotu 75% and 25% of all mass respectively. when the solar system formed, first, dense, rocky cores accreted. some of them remained small, and they became the rocky planets, while others continued to grow. if they grew to a certain point, they drew in more and more hydrogen and helium without it immediately leaving back into space, and so they quickly began to grow. however, some were limited because there simply wasn't as much hydrogen left. because hydrogen is so light, the pressure that the sun exerts on molecules through just light (called the solar wind) is enough to push them out of the solar system. by the time Neptune and Uranus were large enough to begin acreting hydrogen, there simply wasn't as much left because of this process, meaning they were stuck with 10-20 times the mass of earth.

but, if the planet was just a bit younger, then they could've kept growing. and growing. and growing and growing and growing and growing and by god that's a big fucking planet. gas giants are the most massive class of planets, ranging from a few dozen times the mass of earth to hundreds or even thousands of times it. one way to put jupiter's mass into perspective is this fact: image the mass comparison of earth and neptune- it's about 1 to 17. but when comparing neptune to jupiter, it's 1 to 19. jupiter is just that massive. gas giants are the lucky ones who grew earlier on, able to grab much more of that sweet sweet hydrogen before it evaporated into space. this is actually why saturn is smaller than jupiter- it's believed to have simply formed a bit later. gas giants do not have nearly as many ices or other chemicals as the ice giants, mostly because theres just so much more hydrogen. that said, if you ventured inside one, you'd likely find mostly the same- a thickening atmosphere with violent storms before you reach a supercritical ocean, which finally covers a small rocky core. one interesting fact abuot gas giants is that sccientists speculate that it rains diamonds on them- the tempratures and pressures are so high that natural carbon is pushed into becoming a diamond, which causes it to gain density and plumet down as a sharp, lethal downpour. we don't know for sure that it happens, but it's a safe bet.

this is like a lot longer than a normal one btw theyre not always this long

Happy Birthday, Richard O'Brien, the most wonderful man on earth!

Let this magnificent creature be the happiest on the entire planet! May all the gods and fate protect him, may inspiration never leave his life, and may his heart be full of warmth and joy)))

I want to tell you a little about how I got into this beautiful universe, which was created by the amazing Richard O’Brien, which appeared thanks to the phenomenon of his existence and creativity, and which literally saved my life.

I was born and raised in a country and at a time where the bulk of my generation knew absolutely nothing about his “Rocky”, and I greatly regret this. Personally, I myself watched it relatively recently, a few years ago after I found out that it was one of Freddie Mercury’s favorite films (I just went to the cinema to see “Bohemian Rhapsody”, just for fun). I really liked Rocky. When I saw Riff Raff, I thought - wow, what a colorful guy! Very much to my taste). And how he sings, what energy is in his voice when he calls light into his life in “Over at the Frankenstein place”, what willpower is to defeat the main ... villain, or hero, depending on how you look at it). But “on the wave” of Freddie, I was captivated by Frank-n-Furter performed by Tim Curry. I also thought that the film was excellent, especially considering the years of release, everything was beautiful, high quality, understandable and appropriate. In general, a living classic and style icon. However, I still wasn't a fan). I didn’t even realize the significance of Richard for this creation, looking between the lines, and almost immediately conveniently forgetting who played whom. Because immediately after this, several events happened in my life that made me forget about films, and hobbies, and in general, all kinds of entertainment, in general, not very good events.

When, after a couple of years, everything went a little back to normal, I wanted to watch something in the noir style (I like, among other things, noir, as well as gothic and a little horror, although I watch everything that is filmed, in my opinion, good, because in almost any style you can find good examples). I read good reviews for the movie "Dark City" and decided to watch it.

My God! The effect was simply amazing! The film evoked a strong reaction and response in me! I just fell in love with it, with its idea, atmosphere, scenery, characters, and most of all I was hooked by the image of Mr. Hand. I was simply hypnotized by him, he was so good! What grace, what manners, figure, but most importantly - what eyes! Expressive and deep, bright, like stars, and piercing right through you, like two daggers, and at the same time looking a little reproachfully, but understanding everything! Beautiful eyes for which you can give your soul and heart, if demanded. And his smile! It was like I saw heaven when he smiled at Emma in the pier scene, it was just incredible! It was as if the warm sun warmed me in the middle of winter, as if the brightest star in the universe had been lit... He was simply amazing)

Oh, how I wanted to develop his storyline! How I wanted a battle between him and Murdoch, and not just with Mr. Book)) Considering the grace and artistry, skill and photogenicity, colorfulness and appearance of Richard O’Brien, it would be incredible and exciting! He was simply created for such things, and I sincerely don’t understand why so few of him were filmed, including in such films, because he is simply the decoration of everyone in which he played. I think martial arts with dance elements would suit him perfectly). And how I wanted to preserve the inquisitive and most humane of the Strangers! I cried at the end of the film - from the happiness that people will gain relative freedom and the joy of seeing the light, and also from the fact that Mr. Hand died. Some will consider me crazy, and probably very naive, but in my fan version of events it seems to me that if it were not for the memories of the killer that were injected into him, Mr. Hand would still have turned out to be a person, an individual.

Be that as it may, the image of Mr. Hand turned out to be simply magnificent, “Dark City” was a gorgeous film, and I became interested in the actor who played Hand (I didn’t recognize him right away, although I saw that his face seemed familiar to me, and especially his incredible eyes). When I realized that this was the same actor who played Riff Raff in Rocky, I was simply delighted and decided to continue my acquaintance by reading more about him).

And... I disappeared! I entered his world through the back door, fell through and fell like Alice through the rabbit hole into Wonderland, and this door to Richard O’Brien’s universe was Dark City, not Rocky). It turned out to be not just an actor, not just a person, but an absolutely incredible, unimaginable, bright and brilliant personality! Divinely talented, versatile, smart, sarcastic, but at the same time very kind, very complex and deep, beautiful, sophisticated, fragile and at the same time very strong and strong-willed - and all this is one incredible person! I embarked on a journey through his universe, and this journey is still ongoing, and he never ceases to amaze me, and never disappoints me. I learn many things from him, his philosophy of life, I can understand his point of view, I like his perception of this world, I feel the energy in him that is kindred to me (no matter how arrogant it may sound, sorry).

Thanks to Richard O'Brien, I came out of a deep depression. If I may say so, he saved my soul. I am incredibly grateful to him! The fact that I discovered his world, gave my life more color, I wanted to live again. I realized that this world is not as bad as I began to think. Looking through his work, listening to songs, interviews, enjoying shows with his participation - in particular, “The Crystal Labyrinth” (in which you can see him in all his beauty, live, close and a lot) and “The Ink Thief”, I heal my heart from old and new wounds, I draw inspiration and strength - and thank him for this, thank you a thousand times! I think he will never be forgotten; I think he left a mark on this world forever. I think that with his creativity he did something very important in life for each of his fans, helped a huge number of people realize themselves, and for the whole society he showed what real freedom is, what it means to truly live for art and embody art, to be yourself and a muse for others, to be the Sun, and inspire others with your pure, positive thousand-megawatt energy! Happy Birthday to the most wonderful person in the universe! Happy Birthday Richard O'Brien!

Pluto with a super-cryovolcano? Why not! All the elements are there, just not in the way we normally think of volcanoes. And, cryovolcanoes are the reason why Pluto’s surface looks the way it does. A recent research paper explains why Pluto could be the home of the latest supervolcano discovery in the Solar System. Planetary scientist Dale Cruikshank and a group of colleagues have been studying a strange feature on Pluto called Kiladze Crater. Its existence raises a lot of questions about what’s happening inside Pluto to create this weird landscape. The researchers recently released a paper exploring this region and offering an explanation for its appearance. Kiladze (circled) is likely a super cryovolcano on Pluto. It contains fault structures and collapse pits that formed through cryovolcanism. The crater (or caldara) shape looks distorted, likely from internal stresses and tectonic shifting. Courtesy New Horizons mission (labeled by author). Interior Action Drives Cryovolcanism The team suggests strongly that Kiladze is a super cryovolcano. Cryovolcanism is the process that sends ice “lava” to the surface of Pluto. We’ve seen it across the outer solar system, in some of the moons of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. Like its “sister” form of volcanism here on Earth, some kind of heating melts mantle materials, which can eventually escape to the surface. We’re used to seeing rocky lavas. However, ice and water act as “lava”, too, if conditions are just right. Cryvolcanism at Enceladus, a moon of Saturn. This Cassini narrow-angle camera image looks across the south pole of Enceladus and its geysers of material. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute And, that’s where Pluto comes in because the conditions are ripe for cryovolcanism. During the New Horizons Pluto flyby in 2015, several features drew the attention of scientists as possible cryovolcanic regions. That included a region called Virgil Fossae. It lies to one side of Sputnik Planitia, a prominent heart-shaped surface feature on Pluto. Kiladze lies at the top of the right “lobe” of the heart and its appearance really had Cruikshank and his colleagues debating its cause. Mapping Kiladze New Horizons acquired both images and spectroscopy of Pluto during its flyby in 2015. One thing that became immediately evident about Kiladze is that there’s water ice scattered around it. That’s unusual because methane and nitrogen ice cover most of the surface of Pluto. So, a patch of water ice surrounding a strange-looking feature seemed unusual. Not only that, but the ice contained an ammonia compound. Some kind of activity brought the water-ammonia mixture up from deep below the surface. But what? A labeled map of Pluto’s surface features, including the Virgil Fossae region (another cryovolcanic region) on the planet. Kiladze lies just off the right “lobe” of Sputnik Planitia and to the left of Sleipnir Fossae in this map. Courtesy New Horizons/NASA. According to Cruikshank, heating is the culprit. “For Pluto, internal heat is also expected to be the driver for volcanism seen in some places at the surface, but we don’t know if there is a subsurface global ocean of water plus various chemicals, or simply pockets of water plus chemicals left over from the time Pluto formed and had a hot interior,” he said. “This is a mystery for the next generation of planetary scientists to solve.” Beyond volcanism, Cruikshank and his team considered the possibility that Kiladze is some kind of distorted impact crater. So, they also examined the surface feature for signs of some alternate origin. Aside from the surface materials, the morphology of the region shows evidence of tectonic activity. There are faulted structures and collapse pits and its overall crater shape is distorted. That doesn’t necessarily point to an impact origin, so what happened at Kiladze? The answer lies in Pluto’s interior structure. Pluto, from the Inside Out Pluto is an icy body wrapped around a rocky core. Much of the “bedrock” of the planet is water ice. A “contaminant” of tholins covers the methane and nitrogen surface ice. Tholins are hydrocarbon compounds created as the gases in the atmosphere and ice on the surface are bombarded by cosmic rays and other radiation. The big job for planetary scientists is to look at all the different surface units on Pluto and figure how how they formed. Cryovolcanism is certainly an important part of that surface “calculus”. Cryovolcanism happens at Pluto because something is heating the interior and sending water ice to the surface. The radioactive decay of elements inside the core is the most obvious explanation for the heating. If so, it might create an ocean of liquid water or pockets of slushy water ice. Some scientists suggest that water ice (or icy slush) surrounds the core. This is a general model of what Pluto’s interior may be like. Courtesy New Horizons mission. Clues on the Surface of Pluto Interestingly, there are places on the surface with patches of water ice, mixed with ammonia. That mixture appears to come from the planet’s interior. Interestingly, ammonia lowers the freezing point of water, which allows it to flow as an icy “magma” through Plutonian cryovolcanoes. Cruikshank pointed out that ammonia it could also be in the form of ammoniated salt or hydrate. It’s not completely clear where it originated. He suggests that it was part of the original mix of material from which Pluto (and most other bodies in the Solar System) condensed some 4.5 billion years ago. Pluto isn’t the only place where ammonia exists, just the most distant (so far). “We’re finding evidence of some kind of ammonia in the spectra of numerous transneptunian objects obtained with the Webb space telescope (not yet published), and it is apparently a ubiquitous component of the planets and small bodies,” he wrote in an email. “It is also a critically important component of prebiotic molecules, as shown in lab studies in which amino acid precursors are synthesized.” Understanding Kiladze on Pluto The Kiladze structure is about 44 kilometers across and lies in a sub-region called Hayabusa Terra on Pluto. In the team paper, it’s described as “a super cryovolcano with a resurgent caldera, having a history of one or more eruptions ejecting a thousand kilometers of cryo-lava and possibly an unknown number of eruptions of smaller scale.” In their paper, Cruikshank’s team discusses the possible causes of Kiladze, including that it stemmed from some ancient impact. However, the presence of fresh ice and the lack of a thick layer of tholins are some of the clues that point more to cryovolcanism both in that region and in Virgil Fossae. A high-resolution image of the Kiladze Crater region on Pluto (left) and a map of the spatial distribution of those surface units. Courtesy Al Emran, NASA/JPL. So, When did Kiladze Form on Pluto? It’s pretty likely that Kiladze is relatively young. It’s certainly not as old as the rest of the surface. The team suggests that its eruptive activity took place over the past few million years. The clues lie in the surface coverings. If Kiladze were old, you’d expect to see some kind of built-up surface layer over the most obvious features. This would be true if a constant rain of organic dust particles from the atmosphere had been settling down over the age of the planet. “We have a good idea of the formation and settling time for smog particles on Pluto,” he pointed out, “and if the Kiladze structure had been sitting there for billions of years, the smog particles would obscure the water ice spectral signature detected by the New Horizons spacecraft in 2015. Hence, the conclusion that it is relatively recently formed.” By “recently”, the team thinks that the exposed patches of water ice may only be a few million years old. And, they may not just be from one large eruption. This super cryovolcano on Pluto has likely erupted many times since it formed. Its very presence—along with recent studies of volcanism at Virgil Fossae—gives future researchers some very important clues as they seek to understand this world’s interior structure. For More Information Kiladze Caldera: A Possible “Supervolcano” on PlutoRecent Cryovolcanism in Virgil Fossae on Pluto The post An Unusual Crater on Pluto Might be a Supervolcano appeared first on Universe Today.

what types of people exist in cq? are the only races already shown through the main characters?

Plenty more than what's shown.

You have humans, talpians (Gary/Rachel/host Cstab), blueple (Samantha/Elliot), plant people (host Ching), vixen (host Oxy), elves (host Holly), garbeators (host Hamburger), payans (Maja), orcs (host Jarna), fish people (host Rede)...

Were-animals (Vilmr/Zack) are often considered their own race, but irs circumstantial. Same with vampires (Bonnie).

Then, outside of what you've been shown, there are things like pixies: smaller, bug-aligned people, banshees: long and pale swamp-dwellers, thyll: close to talpians but dwell within caves and rocky structures rather than underground, treeple: slow-moving, humanoid ents, dracks: elemental reptile/dragon people, fawn: reclusive deer people, normals: unsettling race of people that mimic other races.

A few other notes:

If you havent noticed already, unicorns were not listed. They have been wiped to extinction, Jess & Penny being the last two (as far as they can tell) reproductive couple of their kind.

Fish people is also a broad term, as there's many races underwater, but very very few rise above the surface. The ones that do are usually the same kind as Rede's host, and are such a recent phenomenon to the overworld that they have no designated name.

Despite there only being a couple of blueple in the cast, world-wide they are actually the most abundant race of humanoid on the planet.

Talpians are a distant offshoot of orcs! Like, very distant, but they still typically carry their size and broadness to an extent, as well as some remnants of tusks. Gary lacks both the broadness and the tusks, because he's always had trouble eating enough (especially now during such a time of growth in his life), and royals typically have their tusks shortened.

Payans are an offshoot of humans, few and far between, and harbor visions of possible futures.

I think there's probably more out there, because it's a buzzing world that I still haven't covered every inch of, but those would be the ones that exist with certainty :3!

JWST confirms giant planet atmospheres vary widely An international team of astronomers has found the atmospheric compositions of giant planets out in the galaxy do not fit our own solar system trend. Using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), the researchers discovered that the atmosphere of exoplanet HD149026b, a ‘hot Jupiter’ orbiting a star comparable to our sun, is super-abundant in the heavier elements carbon and oxygen – far above what scientists would expect for a planet of its mass. These findings, published in “High atmospheric metal enrichment for a Saturn-mass planet” in Nature on March 27, provide insight into planet formation. “It appears that every giant planet is different, and we’re starting to see those differences thanks to JWST,” said Jonathan Lunine, professor in the physical sciences at Cornell University and co-author of the study. The giant planets of our solar system exhibit a nearly perfect correlation between both overall composition and atmospheric composition and mass, said Jacob Bean, professor of astronomy and astrophysics at the University of Chicago and lead author of the paper. Extrasolar planets show a much greater diversity of overall compositions, but scientists didn’t know how varied their atmospheric compositions are, until this analysis of HD149026b – also known as Smertrios. Smertrios is super-enriched compared to its mass, Lunine said: “It’s the mass of Saturn, but its atmosphere seems to have as much as 27 times the amount of heavy elements relative to its hydrogen and helium that we find in Saturn.” This ratio, called metallicity – even though it includes many elements that are not metals – is useful for comparing a planet to its home star, or other planets in its system, Lunine said. Smertrios is the only planet known in this particular planetary system. Another key measurement is the ratio of carbon to oxygen in a planet’s atmosphere, which reveals the “recipe” of original solids in a planetary system, Lunine said. For Smertrios, it’s about 0.84 – higher than in our solar system. In our sun, it’s a bit more than one carbon for every two oxygen atoms (0.55). While an abundance of carbon might seem favorable for chances of life, a high carbon to oxygen ratio actually means less water on a planet or in a planetary system – a problem for life as we know it. Smertrios is an interesting first case of atmospheric composition for this particular study, said Lunine, who has plans in place to observe five more giant exoplanets in the coming year using JWST. Many more observations are needed before astronomers can discover any patterns among giant planets or in systems with multiple giant planets or terrestrial planets to the compositional diversity astronomers are beginning to document. “The origin of this diversity is a fundamental mystery in our understanding of planet formation,” Bean said. “Our hope is that further atmospheric observations of extrasolar planets with JWST will quantify this diversity better and yield constraints on more complex trends that might exist.” IMAGE....A ‘hot Jupiter’ called HD 149026b, is about 3 times hotter than the rocky surface of Venus, the hottest planet in our solar system. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech