Hello there Reader! I hope you're having a great week.

Welcome along to all the recent new subscribers! Make yourselves at home, and feel free to drop me a line to tell me a bit about you.

Writing continues apace on the third and final Martian book, and I've included a short snippet at the end of this email if you're curious. Bear in mind it's a very early first draft, and might well change before publication. It also doesn't include any spoilers, big reveals or hints as to what might be happening! I'm still on track for releasing it by the end of this year, and there will be special offers available for you, my wonderful newsletter subscribers... so stay tuned for that!

But I'd like to ask you something. What are you reading at the moment? Do you have any recommendations for books that you enjoyed, and which you think your fellow subscribers might like? Let me know, and I might include them in future newsletters. I've had some ads running for the books, and one of the surprises was people chatting in the comments under them about other 'War of the Worlds' sequels, and related books. Some of them I've heard of and read, but others still were new to me. Don't feel it has to be Mars-related, though, I'm always open to new reading experiences.

I've included one of my own in this newsletter, I hope you check it out.

Space News

Take a dive into a black hole

NASA recently used one of their colossal supercomputers to simulate what you might see if you fell (or dove) into a black hole.

The Discovery computer is usually used for climate modelling, but the scientists were able to borrow 0.3% of its capacity to run this visualisation. To keep things simple, they assumed the black hole wasn't rotating (most real ones are, but the complexity of the relativistic calculations would render the process too complex for the time they had available).

It took five days, generated ten terabytes of data, and would have taken the average laptop over a decade to do.

The black hole they modelled is approximately the same as the one which is at the centre of our Milky Way galaxy, and it's believed that most if not all galaxies are accreted around a similar singularity.

Obviously in reality, you'd be ripped apart by tidal gravitational forces long before you saw anything this cool. Or perhaps burned up by the accretion disk, glowing hot enough to emit X-rays. Or, more accurately, you'd die long before you even reached the nearest star, let alone the centre of our galaxy.

The best part is that it's not just a cool visualisation - it's based on actual scientific calculations. And after you are wowed by the stunning visuals, they even explain in detail what it is you're seeing and why. Oh, and they have another explainer of what happens if you orbit one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XgF46YYPplI

I even enjoyed the bombastic soundtrack.

(Via Phil Plait's Bad Astronomy Newsletter) https://badastronomy.beehiiv.com/p/take-voyage-black-hole

(Image) Supermassive Black Hole Binary Simulation

These two black holes are just 40 orbits away from merging in this simulation of the light their environment emits as they dance.

Source: youtube.com

Other Books To Check Out

https://books2read.com/u/mvKRz8

One woman. One mission. One chance to save the world.

It's 1952, and the world as we know it is gone. A meteorite has destroyed Washington DC, triggering extinction-level global warming. To save humanity, the world unites to form the International Aerospace Coalition. Its mission: to colonise first the Moon, then Mars.

Elma York, World War Two pilot and mathematician, dreams of becoming an astronaut - but prejudice has kept her grounded. Now nothing - and no man - will stop her from reaching for the stars.

Strange News

Every US National Park Uniquely Visualised

One of my first 3D prints was a model of Mount St. Helens, with a removable piece to illustrate the damage caused by the 1980 eruption. Being able to visualise it in such a clear way was fascinating to me, over and above the possibilities that 3D printing open up.

Now a pair of designers, R. J. Andrews and Wendy Shijia, have begun work on some beautiful visualisations of their own. Imagine you cut a perfect 5 by 5 mile section out of each US National Park, and collected it as a souvenir?

As you can see from the 3D renders in the image above, you get a gorgeous layout of geology and geography. They've not exaggerated the physical scale, something that is often done on models like this to make them appear more dramatic. They even ensured that sea level is the same for all 'chunks' so you can more easily compare and contrast them.

Focusing on such a small area also means they had to pick and choose their exact location and orientation very carefully, something I think you'll agree paid off wonderfully. This was all done using bare elevation data and then painstakingly selecting colours and textures to evoke the correct minerals, ground cover and overall feeling of the location. They tried using aerial photos, but removing shadows proved far too complex and fiddly.

They are also in the early stages of making physical models too, which are very exciting.

The model I printed is available here https://3dprint.com/29192/mount-st-helens-volcano/

Source: charts.substack.com

Other Books To Check Out

Miscellany

The last shipment of coal arrived at the last coal-fired power station in the UK.

Source: westbridgfordwire.com

A 3D printed Martian Tripod (the Jeff Wayne version)

Source: youtu.be

Colouring books based on museum collections of illustrations. (Via https://morgandelaney.info/ )

Source: library.nyam.org

And Finally

Another extract from some recent writing - our poor narrator has an unpleasant encounter.

It was not, I was amazed to see, a Martian fighting machine. Had logic not forsaken me in my terror, I would have realised that one of those vaulting tripods would never have been able to sneak up unheard. Instead, what I now faced across the village green was one of their handling machines. A short, squat body atop much shorter legs than its warrior counterpart, this vehicle clearly sprang from the same design sensibilities. Where the taller behemoth had a few tentacles available to manipulate the heat ray, or captured prey, this had a dozen or more. They writhed around the face of the machine in so organic a manner I wondered if they were the bare protuberances of the creature inside, rather than a mechanical device. But the glint of sun on metal confirmed that only appeared to be alive. Blackie had been swept up by a pair of them, one tightening snake-like around his neck, cutting off any further cries. The other encircled his waist, lifting the giant horse from the ground as easily as I might pick up a mouse. As I stood, transfixed in terror and surprise, another tentacle arced over towards the unfortunate Blackie, and with a blistering speed and gruesome precision pierced his side. The horse twitched, kicked, and would have cried out were he still able, but in a matter of moments the vile probing appendage had drained the life out of him. He shrank before my eyes, withering and wrinkling like a deflating balloon, before falling limp.