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Geeking Science: Dust to Dust

Erin Penn

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech.

On the left is a selfie from the InSight lander in December 2018, on the right is one from June 2021. (The Planetary Society)

Martian dust finally claimed the InSight on December 18, 2022, when it stopped responding to communication. (NASA, 2022) Originally planned for a 2018-2020 lifespan, the lander, like so many of it’s Martian relatives, push onward, doubling the mission time.

The primary mission was a seismometer to track Marsquakes. No one was sure if anything would be detected at all before sending the testing equipment, and the risk proved worthwhile, resulting in over 1,300 seismic event with the biggest one on May 2022 (during the bonus time mission) of a magnitude of 5, with vibrations continuing through the planet for at least six hours. (NASA, undated) Those seismic events have given a look at the Mars interior – proving it has a crust, mantle, and core with the crust thinner than expected. In addition the quakes indicate, Mars is still very much a living planet with a molten core.

In 2021, a magnitude 4 Marsquake ended up being attributed to a meteoroid strike. The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter found the impact site … with churned up water ice previously buried underground. (Treisman)

Thank you InSight for your long service. Dust to dust.

Bibliography

Foust, Jeff. “NASA confirms impending end for InSight.” SpaceNews. May 18, 2022. https://spacenews.com/nasa-confirms-impending-end-for-insight/ – last viewed 12/20/2022.

Malik, Tariq. “This may be the last Mars photo from NASA’s InSight lander before it dies on the Red Planet.” Space.com. December 20, 2022. https://www.space.com/mars-insight-lander-possible-final-photo – last viewed 12/20/2022.

NASA. “InSight Mission News – Mission Updates.” December 19, 2022. https://mars.nasa.gov/insight/news-and-events/status/#:~:text=12%2C%202022-,As%20of%20Dec.,range%20from%200.6%2D0.7). – last viewed 12/20/2022.

NASA. “InSight Top Science Results: Detected First Quake on Another Planet.” (undated). https://mars.nasa.gov/insight/mission/science/results/ – last viewed 12/20/2022

The Planetary Society. “Space Snapshot.” The Downlink. May 27, 2022. (email newsletter)

Treisman, Rachel. “Goodnight, sweet spacecraft: NASA’s InSight lander may have just signed off from Mars.” npr.org. December 20, 2022. https://www.npr.org/2022/12/20/1144402999/nasa-insight-mars-lander – last viewed 12/20/2022.

Editing Rant: Too Much Tell

Erin Penn

Photo by Jason Rosewell on Unsplash

Doing a book review for “Soothe the Savage Beast” anthology back in 2018, I broke down each of the stories about what I liked or didn’t like about them. Just one or two short sentences. On one of the short stories within the anthology, I made an editing comment:

In the Quest of the Beast by Jean Rabe – (Hey, the SCA showed up!) I didn’t like the ending because I know women SCAdians are a little more kickin’ than portrayed. Still, the Main Character was a young college student and not a fighter. Good, “safe” monster story. (For editors out there, this story has too much “tell” and that creates an emotional distance in the story.)

A reader contacted me on goodreads through the messaging available on the site: “What does too much “tell” mean?”

My response: 

Tell is when the author writes stuff like – “He said with anger.” instead of “He said, his hand in a fist with the knuckles turning white.” or “All his friends loved him.” instead of “When he arrived, Julie and Adams jumped up to greet him.” – Show is action, let the reader draw their own interpretation from items presented. Tell is a direct narrative, telling the reader things – including how to react. While both are needed, <they need to balance> – too much show can slow down a story, while too much tell keeps the reader from getting involved because they are not being drawn in mentally. 

The fellow reader got back to me:

Okay. I admit that the story with too much tell in it and it wasn’t super great either, but since Jean Rabe is the most famous writer in the book, well, it wouldn’t bother an editor at all. Between it and <another short story in the anthology> caused me to give it four stars instead of five. 

Take-aways. (1) Even more causal readers notice when someone breaks the “show, don’t tell” rule even if they can’t articulate it. (2) Doesn’t matter how famous you are or how great you have been in the past, poor writing habits are poor writing habits. They are easy to develop, especially when looming deadlines tidal wave across the desk one after another. Make sure to surround yourself with people who will keep you honest.

Flash: Sleeper Agent

Erin Penn

Photo provided by freedigitalphotos.net

I keep my head down beside my sleeping coworkers, cursing quietly in my mind. Our new boss is a mentalist. Fuck, fuck FUCK! No wonder O’Connell sold the startup for a song. We all had thought he had caved because the new release had been pushed back until after Christmas.

The Sleeper stood behind Emily, caressing her long blond hair, adjusting her thoughts to be more accepting of the new direction to take our app development Kingsley had announced. And maybe a little more. I had seen how he had looked at her when the powered started the meeting.

What to do before he got to me, the project manager for Boundless and unregistered powered.

I don’t have a clue. I know I’m a neutral, because my brother can’t burn me. He’s a minor pyro – like can create a single flame about the size of a match – and I think the only registered pyro in existence not dragged off immediately to become a solider, but with his eyes, bottle caps glasses are the kindest description, spaghetti muscles, and limited powers, what would they do with him? Me, powers don’t work on me, but it won’t be obvious until the asshole touches me. I’m as much a nerd as my brother and have similar lack of muscles, so punching his lights out isn’t an option.

Jason is getting the treatment now, whatever it is. One more body between me and him. Time to make a decision.

(words 245; first published 3/12/2023, from a FB visual prompt for a writing group I belong to – aiming for 50 words

Book Review: A Fistful of Dust

Erin Penn

Amazon Cover

A Fistful of Dust by A.G. Carpenter

BOOK BLURB ON AMAZON

During my last days on Malachee, I told Diamondback Jack it didn’t matter how many souls I sent to an early grave, I could only die once for my sins.

Turns out, I was wrong.

Tashndelu of the High Sand got her revenge on the man who defiled and murdered her mother and did his damnedest to kill her, but now she has to pay the price. For his death, and all the others she caused in her quest for vengeance.

Now she lives, if you can call it that, in the custody of the Company that rebuilt her, working off the cost of her resurrection as a living test subject for new regenerative tech to the tune of one death for every life she took. When she has died once for every person she has killed, she‘ll finally face whatever judgment or peace lies in the grave.

She took one hundred and fifty other souls as she hunted down the thirteen men responsible for her mother’s murder.
That’s one hundred and sixty-three deaths that she owes the company, and she feels every one of them.

Now she’s come to the one place she never planned to see again, in the company of a man willing to put a bullet or six in her just to see how the tech works. Against all odds and against her will, Tashndelu of the High Sand has returned home.

There will, once again, be blood.

 

MY REVIEW

Breathtaking voice buried in this Weird West. When I first read A.G. Carpenters Touch: A Trilogy, especially Of Lips and Tongue – the Southern Gothic voice sat me on a porch in a creaky rocking chair with a glass of sweet tea in the heat of July evening, waiting for true dark to creep across the land. A Fistful of Dust may be even better than Touch for the pureness of genre voice. This time the (western) voice swept me across the stars to the new desolate, unforgiving frontier where woman and man would murder for water and kill for justice.

Carpenter is a master of voice and story and has crafted a tale for those that love westerns and science fiction in A Fistful of Dust.

(Read through Kindle Unlimited)