ERIK MARTIN WILLÈN: September 2025

Tuesday, September 30, 2025

NASA Selects Blue Origin to Deliver VIPER Rover to Moon’s South Pole

This artist’s concept shows Blue Origin’s Blue Moon Mark 1 lander and NASA’s VIPER (Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover) on the lunar surface.

Credit: Blue Origin

As part of the agency’s Artemis campaign, NASA has awarded Blue Origin of Kent, Washington, a CLPS (Commercial Lunar Payload Services) task order with an option to deliver a rover to the Moon’s South Pole region. NASA’s VIPER (Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover) will search for volatile resources, such as ice, on the lunar surface and collect science data to support future exploration at the Moon and Mars.

“NASA is leading the world in exploring more of the Moon than ever before, and this delivery is just one of many ways we’re leveraging U.S. industry to support a long-term American presence on the lunar surface,” said acting NASA Administrator Sean Duffy. “Our rover will explore the extreme environment of the lunar South Pole, traveling to small, permanently shadowed regions to help inform future landing sites for our astronauts and better understand the Moon’s environment – important insights for sustaining humans over longer missions, as America leads our future in space.”

The CLPS task order has a total potential value of $190 million. This is the second CLPS lunar delivery awarded to Blue Origin. Their first delivery – using their Blue Moon Mark 1 (MK1) robotic lander – is targeted for launch later this year to deliver NASA’s Stereo Cameras for Lunar-Plume Surface Studies and Laser Retroreflective Array payloads to the Moon’s South Pole region.

With this new award, Blue Origin will deliver VIPER to the lunar surface in late 2027, using a second Blue Moon MK1 lander, which is in production. NASA previously canceled the VIPER project and has since explored alternative approaches to achieve the agency’s goals of mapping potential off-planet resources, like water.

“NASA is committed to studying and exploring the Moon, including learning more about water on the lunar surface, to help determine how we can harness local resources for future human exploration,” said Nicky Fox, associate administrator, Science Mission Directorate, NASA Headquarters in Washington. “We’ve been looking for creative, cost-effective approaches to accomplish these exploration goals. This private sector-developed landing capability enables this delivery and focuses our investments accordingly – supporting American leadership in space and ensuring our long-term exploration is robust and affordable.”

The task order, called CS-7, has an award base to design the payload-specific accommodations and to demonstrate how Blue Origin’s flight design will off-load the rover to the lunar surface. There is an option on the contract to deliver and safely deploy the rover to the Moon’s surface. NASA will make the decision to exercise that option after the execution and review of the base task and of Blue Origin’s first flight of the Blue Moon MK1 lander. This unique approach will reduce the agency’s cost and technical risk. The rover has a targeted science window for its 100-day mission that requires a landing by late 2027.

Blue Origin is responsible for the complete landing mission architecture and will conduct design, analysis, and testing of a large lunar lander capable of safely delivering the lunar volatiles science rover to the Moon. Blue Origin also will handle end-to-end payload integration, planning and support, and post-landing payload deployment activities. NASA will conduct rover operations and science planning.

“The search for lunar volatiles plays a key role in NASA’s exploration of the Moon, with important implications for both science and human missions under Artemis,” said Joel Kearns, deputy associate administrator for exploration, Science Mission Directorate, NASA Headquarters. “This delivery could show us where ice is most likely to be found and easiest to access, as a future resource for humans. And by studying these sources of lunar water, we also gain valuable insight into the distribution and origin of volatiles across the solar system, helping us better understand the processes that have shaped our space environment and how our inner solar system has evolved.”

Through CLPS, American companies continue to demonstrate leadership in commercial space advancing capabilities and accomplishing NASA’s goal for a commercial lunar economy. NASA’s Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley led the VIPER rover development and will lead its science investigations, and NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston provided rover engineering development for Ames.

To learn more about CLPS and Artemis, visit: https://www.nasa.gov/clps

Source: NASA Selects Blue Origin to Deliver VIPER Rover to Moon’s South Pole - NASA

Drinking too little puts body under extra stress

Drinking too little water could increase our vulnerability to stress-related health issues, according to a new study from scientists at LJMU.

People who drink less than the recommended daily fluid intake experience a greater stress hormone response, which is associated with an increased risk of heart disease, diabetes and depression.

A new study, published August 22, 2025 in the Journal of Applied Physiology, and reported in The Conversation, found that individuals who drank less than 1.5 litres of fluid – or seven cups of tea – per day had a cortisol response to stress that was over 50% higher than those who met daily water intake recommendations.

Study lead Professor Neil Walsh, a physiologist in LJMU’s School of Sport and Exercise Sciences, said: “Cortisol is the body’s primary stress hormone and exaggerated cortisol reactivity to stress is associated with an increased risk of heart disease, diabetes and depression.”

“If you know you have a looming deadline or a speech to make, keeping a water bottle close could be a good habit with potential benefits for your long-term health.”

Poor long-term health

With the project funded by Danone R&I, Neil and his team divided healthy young adults into two equally sized groups, representing the lowest and highest 25% for daily fluid intake. The ‘low fluid’ group consisted of individuals who typically drank less than 1.5 litres of fluid per day (water, hot drinks etc.). The ‘high fluid’ group included individuals who regularly met the daily water intake recommendations — 2 litres for women and 2.5 litres for men. Both groups were matched for key factors known to influence stress responses such as psychological characteristics and sleep.

Participants maintained their usual drinking habits for one week, during which hydration levels were monitored in blood and urine samples. Then participants underwent the Trier Social Stress Test, widely used to simulate real-world stress through a mock job interview and a mental arithmetic task.

Dr Daniel Kashi, a member of the study team, said: “Both groups felt equally anxious and experienced similar increases in heart rate during the stress test. However, only the ‘low fluid’ group showed a significant increase in saliva cortisol in response to the stress test.”

He added: “Although the low fluid group did not report being thirstier than the high fluid group, they had darker and more concentrated urine, clear signs of poor hydration. An important observation was that poor hydration was associated with greater cortisol reactivity to the stress test. Exaggerated cortisol reactivity to stress has been associated with poor long-term health.”

Why is dehydration harmful?

The answer lies in the body’s water-regulation system, which is closely connected to the brain’s stress-response centre. When the body senses dehydration, whether due to inadequate fluid intake or excessive fluid loss, it triggers the release of a hormone called vasopressin. Vasopressin acts primarily on the kidneys, promoting water reabsorption to maintain blood volume and electrolyte balance. This conservation mechanism comes at a cost. Sustained vasopressin release places additional strain on the kidneys, which must work harder to concentrate urine and manage electrolyte balance.

Vasopressin also acts on the brain’s stress-response centre, the hypothalamus, where it can influence the release of cortisol. This dual role for vasopressin helps maintain blood volume and electrolyte balance but also increases cortisol.

The researchers say that while further long-term studies are needed, the findings reinforce current water intake recommendations — approximately 2 litres of fluid each day for women and 2.5 litres for men.

Hydration helps us manage stress

“Being hydrated may help your body manage stress more effectively,” added Dr Kashi. A practical way to check your hydration status is to monitor your urine colour — light yellow typically indicates good hydration.

“If you know, for example, that you have a stressful schedule, maybe a looming deadline or a speech to make, keeping a water bottle close could be a good habit with potential benefits for your long-term health.”

Source: https://www.ljmu.ac.uk/about-us/news/articles/2025/8/22/dehydration-and-stress-study

Source: Drinking too little puts body under extra stress – Scents of Science

Inside the Visualization: Aerosols - NASA Goddard - EARTH

100 Years Of The Rolls-Royce Phantom: All 8 Generations At Pebble Beach | Cars & Bikes | Forbes

BEST BAD PARKING REVENGES CAUGHT ON CAMERA - Binge Central

Short Clips - Angelina Jolie & Denzel Washington - The Bone Collector (1999) - Crime - Drama - Mystery - Thriller (1)

Source: I samlarens spår (1999) - IMDb

Hannah Montana: The Movie - Miley Cyrus 2009 Interview - Historic Films Stock Footage Archive

Spotlight on Location / The Making of "Jaws" Pt. 1/2 (Roy Scheider, Robert Shaw, Richard Dreyfuss)

Funny and Weird Clips (3707)

Monday, September 29, 2025

NASA Flew Over a Fire — to Better Understand Future Ones - NASA Goddard - EARTH

NASA Data Powers New Tool to Protect Water Supply After Fires - EARTH

Wildfire-scorched terrain above a water body underscores risks to downstream supplies.

Credits: USFS/Cecilio Ricardo

When wildfires scorch a landscape, the flames are just the beginning. NASA is helping communities across the nation foresee and prepare for what can follow: mudslides, flash flooding, and contaminated surface water supplies.

A new online tool called HydroFlame, built with support from NASA’s Earth Science Division, relies on satellite data, hydrologic modeling, and artificial intelligence to predict how wildfires could affect water resources, from tap water to the rivers and streams where people fish. The project is being developed with the University of Texas at Arlington, Purdue University, the U.S. Geological Survey, and other partners.

For now, the tool includes data only for Montana’s Clark Fork Basin, where it is being piloted. But new applications are underway in California and Utah. Researchers will soon begin fieldwork in Los Angeles County to collect on-the-ground data to refine HydroFlame’s predictive approach — an important step toward expanding it beyond the pilot site.

“As wildfires intensify across the country, so do their ripple effects on regional water resources,” said Erin Urquhart, program manager for NASA’s water resources program at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “HydroFlame could help communities in the U.S. see what’s coming and plan for it, before a fire becomes a water crisis.”

That kind of foresight is exactly what local officials are looking for.

“For someone managing a trout fishery or drinking water supply, knowing when a stream might be overwhelmed with debris after a fire can mean the difference between preparedness and a crisis,” said Morgan Valliant, who is part of the project’s advisory group and the associate director of ecosystem services for Missoula Parks and Recreation in Montana. “This tool could let us move from reacting to planning.”

When fire reshapes land

In the wake of a wildfire, charred hillsides are often unstable. With the protective blanket of plants burned away, rain that once soaked gently into the soil can race downhill, sending ash, debris, and sediment into rivers and reservoirs. That runoff can trigger flash floods and contaminate drinking water.

Severe wildfires can also bake soil into a water-repelling crust. With less absorption, the same slopes can swing from drought to destructive floods, and those runoff risks can persist for decades.

HydroFlame, developed by a team led by Adnan Rajib at the University of Texas at Arlington, is built to anticipate those extremes.

"NASA is constantly pushing the boundaries when it comes to sensing and predicting fire," Rajib said. "But there is still a huge gap when it comes to translating that fire information in terms of water. That’s where HydroFlame comes in."

The tool will include three components:

a historical viewer that maps past fire impacts on streamflow and sediment
a “what-if” scenario builder to simulate future fires
a predictive tool that generates weekly forecasts using near-real-time satellite data as initial conditions

When a wildfire is identified, the tool will identify how severely areas are burned across watersheds and track shifts in vegetation, soil wetness, and evapotranspiration, or the release of water from the land and plants to the atmosphere. HydroFlame uses data from satellite missions and instruments including MODIS (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer), Landsat, and SMAP (Soil Moisture Active Passive).

Those observations, combined with stream records from gauged rivers, feed into simulations of possible fire-driven changes in water flow and quality. A machine-learning component will fill in where gauges are absent, making it possible to predict impacts up to two weeks in advance

This screenshot shows HydroFlame, a NASA-supported online tool that will help U.S. communities better understand and forecast how wildfires may affect water supplies in their region.

A. Rajib

The historical viewer, which is publicly accessible, lets users explore how past fires altered streamflow and sediment levels across the basin. The other components are still in development: The prototype of the “what-if” scenario builder tool is expected to launch in December 2025, with the full version planned for May 2026.

HydroFlame's ability to capture compounding factors — drought before a fire, flooding afterward — and simulate their cascading effects on water systems is what makes it different from other tools, Rajib said. “Many traditional models treat each fire as a one-off,” he said. “HydroFlame looks at the bigger picture.”

Just as important, the tool is built for people who aren’t experts in satellite data.

“It’s a practical starting point for scenario planning,” said Kelly Luis, associate program manager for NASA’s water resources program and an aquatic ecosystem scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. The tool’s “what-if” function, she explained, will let water managers, city planners, and other officials apply their local knowledge. For example, they might zero in on the rivers and streams most important to a city’s water supply. “That kind of insight is essential for building solutions that are both scientifically grounded and locally relevant.”

For watershed organizations or local and state agencies with limited staff and resources, that ease of use is crucial — saving time and effort while helping keep costs down.

“These groups need holistic ways to understand potential impacts of fires to their rivers and streams and plan, without always having to bring in someone from the outside,” said Amy Seaman, the executive director of the Montana Watershed Coordination Council. Seaman works with community watershed organizations across Montana and is also part of the project’s advisory group.

This effort is part of a broader NASA focus on understanding how fire reshapes water systems and what that means for American communities.

A real-world trial in Los Angeles

Rajib’s team put HydroFlame’s predictive capabilities to the test during the January 2025 wildfires in Los Angeles. As fires burned through the region, researchers ran real-time model simulations using NASA satellite data, tracking changes in vegetation, soil moisture, and burn severity almost as they happened. By the end of the month, the team had generated forecasts for mud and debris flows expected in February.

This false-color Landsat 9 image, acquired Jan. 14, shows burned areas from the 2025 fires in and around Los Angeles, highlighting unburned vegetation (green) and burned land (light to dark brown) using shortwave infrared, near infrared, and visible light. Similar types of NASA fire data are used in HydroFlame.

NASA Earth Observatory

Those predictions turned out to be accurate. In early February, mudflow events struck the areas of Altadena and Sierra Madre in Los Angeles County, following the Eaton Fire. HydroFlame had been run specifically for that fire and flagged both neighborhoods as at risk, Rajib said.

“It wasn’t a formal, data-verified result because we didn’t have ground sensors in place,” Rajib said. “But it was a practical validation. The timing and severity of what we modeled lined up with what occurred.”

Rajib’s team is now working with NASA JPL, the University of California, Merced and Los Angeles County to formally test and expand the tool in the Los Angeles area. The team plans to begin collecting on-the-ground data no earlier than Friday, Sept. 26. That work will include installing stream sensors to measure sediment levels in the county’s streams during California’s rainy season and integrating those data into the tool — a step toward building an early-warning system.

HydroFlame invites those interested in the tool to share their ideas and feedback, and to get involved, through a web form available on the project’s Explore Tools webpage.

Source: NASA Data Powers New Tool to Protect Water Supply After Fires - NASA Science

Comet 3I/ATLAS - NASA’s Webb Space Telescope Observes Interstellar Comet - UNIVERSE

Cataloguing the journey of comet 3I/ATLAS through the solar system. Because the object comes from outside our solar system, it is just passing through – so we use all the tools at our disposal to observe it before it disappears back into the cosmic dark. A host of NASA missions are coming together to observe this interstellar object, which was first discovered in summer 2025, before it leaves forever. While the comet poses no threat to Earth, NASA’s space telescopes help support the agency's ongoing mission to find, track, and better understand solar system objects.

NASA/James Webb Space Telescope

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope observed interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS Aug. 6, with its Near-Infrared Spectrograph instrument. The research team has been analyzing insights from Webb’s data, and a preprint is available online. Webb is one of NASA’s space telescopes observing this comet, together providing more information about its size, physical properties, and chemical makeup. For example, NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope and the recently launched SPHEREx mission have also observed the comet. While the comet poses no threat to Earth, NASA’s space telescopes help support the agency’s ongoing mission to find, track, and better understand solar system objects.

Alise Fisher

Source: NASA Marsquake Data Reveals Lumpy Nature of Red Planet’s Interior - NASA