18,000 km/s

H A U L I N G A S S ! ! !

Each is moving at ~6% of the speed of light!

The paper linked to in the article says the thrusters have a specific impulse of 600s, and a thrust-to-power ratio of about 50 mN/kW.

Compared to the xenon ion thrusters used on the Dawn spacecraft, these new multi-mode thrusters produce more thrust, but are significantly less efficient. Dawn’s thrusters have a specific impulse of 3,100s and a thrust-to-power ratio of about 36 mN/kW.

Even so, it means satellites can be built with one small fuel tank that can power high efficiency electrospray thrusters to make slow maneuvers, or use the same fuel as a monopropellant to quickly get out of (or into) the way of something. ASCENT monopropellant thrusters can have a specific impulse slightly better (240 Isp) than traditional hydrazine monopropellant thrusters (235 Isp).

To be fair, primordial black holes are a candidate for explaining what dark matter is.

…There is a range of masses, , usually described as the ‘asteroid mass window’, where PBHs can make up all of the DM…

source: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0550321324000609

Went to school as an elvish impersonator.

Maybe the “Epstine didn’t kill himself” people will have something to say about that.

Changing USA’s constitution requires a 2/3’s vote in both House of Representatives and Senate, plus ratification by 3/4’s of the States (i.e. 38 States).

Right now, neither side has the numbers to pass a constitutional amendment.

Republicans control 28 states, Democrats have 18, and 4 are split.

At the Federal level, the House and Senate are both close to an even 50/50 split.

Moscow’s puppet president is starting to feel the noose tighten. When his term ends, so does his legal immunity and likely his freedom.

It is rather curious.

Its disappointing, but not surprising. US battery tech and charging infrastructure isn’t advanced enough yet to support EV pickups or SUVs. Its just barely adequate for small, aerodynamic sedans that are not towing/hauling anything. An EV pickup needs a deeper battery and a charging station capable of refilling it on a timescale competitive with the ~5 minutes it takes to refill a tank of gas for several hundred miles range.

check the modlog to see if you’re banned from that community?

sloppy/paste

This author claims the minimum safe distance from a supernova is about 160 light years.

WOH G64 is 160,000 light years away, so we’re probably fine.

There’s a probe in that box.

USA not liking a Russian-aligned island neighbor is similar to China not liking a USA-aligned Taiwan providing a military launchpad on their maritime border.

It will be interesting to see which strategy turns out to be more effective: China’s carrot and stick approach to reclaiming Taiwan, or USA’s belligerent vendetta against Cuba.

I don’t know if this is the full explanation, but the article does touch on how the LPM can be tweaked to match physical tests:

The trick is to incorporate experimental measurements to fine-tune the model. If a physics simulation doesn’t agree exactly with experimental data, it is often difficult to figure out why and tweak the model until they agree. With AI, incorporating a few experimental examples into the training process is a lot more straightforward, and it’s not necessary to understand where exactly the model went wrong.

Suspect or not, you get the same surveillance treatment as suspected domestic terrorists do.

The other side also gets to vote for when the war is over.

As the wars in Ukraine and Iran have shown, its impossible to stop 100% of drone attacks and drone manufacturing.

Cargo ship insurance companies will have a vote too regarding when the Strait of Hormuz is “open”.

“Cultivating strategic depth for Israeli regional hegemony” is what they’ll call the invading and colonizing.

and Senators