Tootfinder

As the Artemis II mission heads for a flyby of the moon,
the Orion crew module is testing one of NASA’s most ambitious upgrades to space communications yet:
a laser-based system called O2O.
Short for Orion Artemis II Optical Communications System,
O2O caps more than two decades of work by NASA and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Lincoln Laboratory
to build better high-bandwidth links for deep space.
The system is designed to send data down to …

NASA’s Artemis II laser communications system is beaming 4K video from the moon
A new laser system aboard NASA’s Orion spacecraft is sending sharper video and more data back to Earth

The #Moon in a perfectly fitting #easteregg shape in the live stream #ArtemisII right now. Two new updates: https://www.nasa.gov/blogs/missions/2026/04/04/artemis-ii-flight-day-4-crew-completes-manual-piloting-demonstration/ and just in https://www.nasa.gov/blogs/missions/2026/04/05/artemis-ii-flight-day-5-crew-starts-day-with-suit-demo/

The Moment Spaceflight Felt New Again
Watching Artemis II launch stirred something deeper than excitement—something human. After decades of routine spaceflight, this mission reminded me what it feels like to hold your breath, hope, and believe again.
http://www.bobmuellerwriter.com/the-momen…

The Moment Spaceflight Felt New Again – Bob Mueller
Artemis II rekindles the wonder of human spaceflight, blending nostalgia, risk, and hope as we take our first steps back toward the Moon.

More #MareOrientale in this new #ArtemisII #Moon image - https://www.flickr.com/photos/nasa2explore/55190158269/in/album-72177720307234654 - than in the first one with a long focal length presented. The lunar flyby webcast https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-j1uxBmis0 will begin at 17:00 UTC today and the lunar observations run from 18:45 UTC to 1:20 UTC on 7 April - as explained in the press conference tonight we will mostly get images from the exterior cameras with astronaut commentary of what they see; real photographs like this one will be downloaded later during the day and the following ones.

Oh the Americans want to increase their war budget by a few bucks, just a mere increase of ~40 percent. Germany also proudly moved to the top 5 of #military spenders worldwide. But money’s scarce y’all.
Can we have a moonshot beyond virtually shooting at the moon or burying souls for #AI assets?…

The Artemis II moon mission is one of the first times NASA has let astronauts fly with smartphones, giving them modified iPhones for taking photos and videos (Kalley Huang/New York Times)
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/03/technology/iphones-artemis-nasa.html…

How iPhones Found Their Way Into Space
The astronauts traveling in the Artemis II spacecraft were allowed to bring smartphones with them. Sadly, they can’t connect to the internet.

Artemis II reminded me what spaceflight used to feel like—uncertain, human, and a little terrifying.
Not just “cool.” Something more. 🚀
#Artemis #Space

The Moment Spaceflight Felt New Again – Bob Mueller
Artemis II rekindles the wonder of human spaceflight, blending nostalgia, risk, and hope as we take our first steps back toward the Moon.

I think the bigger story here is that we didn’t notice a meteor narrowly missing Earth.
In a rare event, the moon got a massive new crater https://ground.news/article/in-a-rare-event-the-moon-got-a-massive-new-crater

NASA is building a nuclear reactor for the Moon by 2030 — and testing the nuclear propulsion that could carry humans to Mars in the decade after — under a new directive that revives a space-nuclear ambition the agency has been quietly chasing since Apollo
https://spacedaily.com/d-nasa-is-building-a-nuclear-reactor-for-the-moon-by-2030-and-testing-the-nuclear-propulsion-that-could-carry-humans-to-mars-in-the-decade-after-under-a-new-directive-that-revives-a/

There is now some lunar surface detail visible in #ArtemisII photographs showing the Moon behind the Orion: from the JSC album https://www.flickr.com/photos/nasa2explore/albums/72177720307234654/with/55186770575 which should also be monitored for new mission images dropping.

New album launch is tomorrow!
Black Moon

• YouTube
• Tidal
• Amazon Music

Got the invite 🥰

‘Highly Plausible’ Aliens on Europa Are Earthlings’ Descendants, Study Says https://www.404media.co/highly-plausible-aliens-on-europa-are-earthlings-descendants-study-says/

First Photos From NASA Moon Flyby Show Setting Earth and Eclipse (Katrina Miller/New York Times)
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/07/science/nasa-artemis-moon-flyby-photos.html
http://www.memeorandum.com/260407/p81#a260407p81

Meta releases Forum, a Reddit-like standalone app for Facebook Groups, with a feed showing Group conversations and an AI-powered "Ask" feature, on iOS (Mariella Moon/Engadget)
https://www.engadget.com/2179165/meta-forum-groups-app/

Meta quietly released a new Reddit-like app called Forum - Engadget
Meta is testing a new dedicated app for Facebook Groups called Forum.

Artemis II sets new record as astronauts travel farther from Earth than ever before
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2026/apr/06/artemis-ii-astronauts-record-moon-earth-distance?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other…

🇺🇦 #NowPlaying on KEXP's #MorningShow
Duran Duran:
🎵 New Moon on Monday
#DuranDuran
https://open.spotify.com/track/1M7UOCmCrPH1JFPRnrOoJu

Crosslisted article(s) found for physics.atom-ph. https://arxiv.org/list/physics.atom-ph/new
[1/1]:
- Atomic-referenced Hz-linewidth lasers via fiber interferometric stabilization
Changmin Ahn, Hansol Jeong, Seoyeon Yang, Junyong Choi, Igju Jeon, Hanseb Moon, Jungwon Kim

Will any of this actually happen? Let alone by the times written into this picture shared today? Whatever, the long press release #NASA tries to be heading now ...

This is now my new favorite #NASA photograph! 🌏🌙
#space

Astronauts Dedicate Moon Crater to Carroll Wiseman, Wife of NASA Commander (Katrina Miller/New York Times)
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/06/science/moon-crater-carroll-reid-wiseman.html?unlocked_article_code=1.Y1A.lwMD.2lH2SyODm8Jb&smid=nytcore-ios-share
http://www.memeorandum.com/260406/p101#a260406p101

Each April, during the week of the new moon,
International Dark Sky (IDS) Week invites people to reclaim the experience of wonder
Timed for the darkest nights of the lunar cycle, the observance encourages individuals and communities to turn off unnecessary lighting and reconnect with the stars.
What began as a small grassroots effort has grown into a global movement with profound ecological, cultural, and spiritual implications.
The event traces its origins to 2003, …

Into the Night: International Dark Sky Week Begins
International Dark Sky Week begins as advocates urge a return to darker nights. As light pollution grows, the observance highlights ecological harm, threatened species, and even the spiritual loss of the stars that once shaped human ritual, story, and connection.

Rob Navias: "From the pages of Jules Verne to a modern day mission to the moon, a new chapter of exploration of our celestial neighbour is complete. This mission is over but the melody lingers on."
Me:
#ArtemisII

Kickstarter retracts stricter rules on mature content after creator backlash, and says it adopted the tougher rules because of its payment processor Stripe (Mariella Moon/Engadget)
https://www.engadget.com/2177414/kickstarter-mature-content-policy-stripe/

Kickstarter Rolls Back Its Mature Content Policy After Outcry
Kickstarter is going back to its previous rules around mature content after creators criticized the new policy it introduced last week.

Assuming we can generate rocket fuel up there, I think it makes sense to use the moon to launch missions deeper into the solar system.
Read the full article: The Moment Spaceflight Felt New Again
▸ #Artemis

The Moment Spaceflight Felt New Again – Bob Mueller
Artemis II rekindles the wonder of human spaceflight, blending nostalgia, risk, and hope as we take our first steps back toward the Moon.

Here is the new #MoonBase NASA website: https://www.nasa.gov/moonbase/ - at the presser it was also announced that Blue Origin, AstroLab and LunarOutpost have been chosen to build and deliver Lunar Terrain Vehicles while Firefly will build the vehicle to carry the Moonfall probes: https://bsky.app/profile/genejm1017.bsky.social/post/3mmrmpih4yc22. Meanwhile three NASA-sponsored Moon landings are planned for the remainder of this year: https://nitter.net/NASA/status/2059338624651387312#m

Artemis II astronauts race to set a new distance record from Earth and behold the moon's far side (Marcia Dunn/Associated Press)
https://apnews.com/article/artemis-moon-nasa-lunar-flyby-fac19b4b1676af2717adafa992f32be4
http://www.memeorandum.com/260406/p61#a260406p61

The SMC Blind Spot: A Failure Mode Analysis of State-of-the-Art Beat Tracking
Jaehoon Ahn, Tae Gum Hwang, Moon-Ryul Jung
https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.12287 https://arxiv.org/pdf/2605.12287 https://arxiv.org/html/2605.12287
arXiv:2605.12287v1 Announce Type: new
Abstract: Over the past two decades, the task of musical beat tracking has transitioned from heuristic onset detection algorithms to highly capable deep neural networks (DNN). Although DNN-based beat tracking models achieve near-perfect performance on mainstream, percussive datasets, the SMC dataset has stubbornly yielded low F-measure scores. By testing how well state-of-the-art models detect beats on individual tracks in the SMC dataset, we identify three distinct failure modes: octave errors, continuity errors, and complete tracking failure where all metrics fall below 0.3. We reveal that state-of-the-art models tend to generate "confident-but-wrong" activations. Furthermore, we show that the standard DBN's default minimum tempo of 55 BPM prevents it from inferring the correct tempo for 21\% of SMC tracks, forcing double-tempo predictions on slow music. By exposing such fundamental oversights, we provide concrete directions for improving beat and downbeat detection, specifically emphasizing training data diversification and multi-hypothesis tempo estimation.
toXiv_bot_toot

Evidence of Recent Material Transport within a Binary Asteroid System: #DART Mission Data Reveals that Asteroids Throw ‘Cosmic Snowballs’ at Each Other: https://cmns.umd.edu/news-events/news/jessica-sunshine-tony-farnham-new-nasa-dart-mission-data-reveals-asteroids-throw-cosmic-snowballs - astronomers found evidence that rocks continuously travel between Didymos and its smaller moon Dimorphos, reshaping our understanding of how near-Earth asteroids evolve over time.