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- Written by: Mara Johnson-Groh
After 30 years in orbit, mission operations for the joint NASA-JAXA Geotail spacecraft have ended, after the failure of the spacecraft’s remaining data recorder.
Since its launch on July 24, 1992, Geotail orbited Earth, gathering an immense dataset on the structure and dynamics of the magnetosphere, Earth’s protective magnetic bubble.
Geotail was originally slated for a four-year run, but the mission was extended several times due to its high-quality data return, which contributed to over a thousand scientific publications.
While one of Geotail’s two data recorders failed in 2012, the second continued to work until experiencing an anomaly on June 28, 2022. After attempts to remotely repair the recorder failed, the mission operations were ended on November 28, 2022.
“Geotail has been a very productive satellite, and it was the first joint NASA-JAXA mission,” said Don Fairfield, emeritus space scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, and NASA’s first project scientist for Geotail until his retirement in 2008. “The mission made important contributions to our understanding of how the solar wind interacts with Earth’s magnetic field to produce magnetic storms and auroras.”
With an elongated orbit, Geotail sailed through the invisible boundaries of the magnetosphere, gathering data on the physical process at play there to help understand how the flow of energy and particles from the Sun reach Earth.
Geotail made many scientific breakthroughs, including helping scientists understand how quickly material from the Sun passes into the magnetosphere, the physical processes at play at the magnetosphere’s boundary, and identifying oxygen, silicon, sodium, and aluminum in the lunar atmosphere.
The mission also helped identify the location of a process called magnetic reconnection, which is a major conveyor of material and energy from the Sun into the magnetosphere and one of the instigators of the aurora.
This discovery laid the way for the Magnetospheric Multiscale mission, or MMS, which launched in 2015.
Over the years, Geotail collaborated with many of NASA’s other space missions including MMS, Van Allen Probes, Time History of Events and Macroscale Interactions during Substorms mission, Cluster, and Wind.
With an orbit that took it as far as 120,000 miles from Earth at times, Geotail helped provide complementary data from remote parts of the magnetosphere to give scientists a complete picture of how events seen in one area affect other regions. Geotail also paired with observations on the ground to confirm the location and mechanisms of how aurora form.
Although Geotail is done gathering new data, the scientific discoveries aren’t over. Scientists will continue to study Geotail’s data in the coming years.
Mara Johnson-Groh works for NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.
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- Written by: LAKE COUNTY ARTS COUNCIL
Lake County Arts Council, in partnership with Lake County Office of Education, will provide a series of Arts Integration Trainings highlighting multiple artforms for Lake County teachers, providing materials and insight on how teachers can easily apply each artform into their classroom.
Approximately 20 Arts Integration classes will be held over 2023-24 calendar year. The workshops will be held in various locations around the county.
Arts integration fosters diverse representation in classrooms; by centering the teaching around student thinking and the arts, focus will be on the student experience and connections, as opposed to the teacher's culture and expertise.
“I am very excited to see this program take off. More commonly we see funding for arts projects, not necessarily teaching moments,” said Barbara Clark, executive director for the Lake County Arts Council. “This one is special because it gives us the opportunity to teach basic concepts that will allow teachers to take control of that art form and use it how they see is most appropriate for their classroom.”
Lake County Arts Council was featured as part of a larger announcement from the California Arts Council, with grant awards for its Cycle B programming totaling more than $41 million across more than 900 grants supporting nonprofit organizations and units of government throughout the state.
All told, the projected sum of grants to be awarded for 2022’s regular program funding cycle is more than $72 million — the biggest annual investment in the California Arts Council’s 46-year history, largely supported by the $40 million one-time boost in support for the agency’s creative youth and arts education development programs.
“The resilience and creativity of California’s arts and cultural field in these last three years has been remarkable,” said California Arts Council Director Jonathan Moscone. “We are proud to be able to support the great work that California's artists, culture bearers and cultural workers are doing within our communities as an indelible part of our state’s identity.”
Cycle B’s programs include five funding opportunities for arts education and creative youth development, and related arts workforce development. Additionally, the cycle offered funding opportunities for administering organizations to regrant funds for folk and traditional arts and individual artists fellowship programs.
Operational support for statewide and regional arts service organizations and networks was also available during this round of grant funding.
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- Written by: Rotary Club of Lakeport
The theme of this year’s event will be “Under the Sea.”
Tickets, which are available on the club website, cost $70 per person.
That will get you a complete crab dinner featuring two pounds of hot cracked crab and a pound of fresh shrimp, as well as tossed salad and warm bread rolls.
Also available for an additional $20 is a quart of clam chowder. Local wines can be purchased for $20 a bottle and take-home butter warmers are available for $15.
As part of the crab-packed weekend, Lakeport Rotary is holding an online auction beginning on Friday, Feb. 18, at 9 a.m.
There will also be a number of home-baked desserts auctioned as well. The dessert auction closes at 2 p.m. sharp on Saturday, February 18, and the main auction will close on Sunday, February 20, at 9 p.m.
There are sponsorship opportunities. Those who opt for the $2,000 King Trident sponsorship will receive eight full crab meals, four Lake County wines, four chowders, four warmers and desserts, as well as press coverage and a business promotional video with Crabby the Crab.
The $1,000 Mermaid sponsorship includes four meals, two bottles of wine, two chowders, two warmers and desserts, a Crabby promotional and press coverage.
And, finally, there are $500 Starfish sponsorships which include two meals, one bottle of Lake County wine, one chowder, one warmer and dessert. The same Crabby promotional video and press coverage are included.
This year’s King Trident sponsors already include Adventist Health Clearlake, Sutter Lakeside Hospital and Lake County Tribal Health.
Mermaid sponsors who have already committed include Strong Financial Network and Lakeport Tire and Auto.
Starfish sponsors so far are Nala’s Cleaning Service, Dennis Fordham Law and Bell Haven Flower Farm.
To inquire about sponsorships, please contact event coordinator Faith Hornby at 707-349-3533 or email her at
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- Written by: Rebecca Weber, Oklahoma State University
Disability representation is slowly increasing in books geared toward children and teens.
In 2019 the Cooperative Children’s Book Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison – a library that allows teachers, librarians and researchers to view books before deciding which ones to buy – found that only 3.4% of books it received from publishers included a character with a disability.
The CCBC website recently added a diversity statistics book search with categories for physical, cognitive and psychiatric disabilities or conditions. In 2022, the center received 165 books that included a character with a disability, up from 126 in 2019.
As an academic librarian who also has a disability, I’m happy to recommend the following five children’s books that treat disability as a part of life and living.
1. Maria Gianferrari (author), Patrice Barton (illustrator), “Hello Goodbye Dog” (2017)
Moose loves her girl Zara – and she hates saying goodbye. When Zara goes to school, Moose wants to go too and keeps showing up, even though dogs aren’t allowed. What will Zara, her parents, the principal, her teacher and the other kids in Zara’s class do?
This fun picture book is perfect for preschoolers and kindergartners. While Zara uses a wheelchair, her disability isn’t the focus of the story. Readers will have fun seeing what Moose is up to this time and learn that sometimes dogs can go to school.
2. Kelly Fritsch, Anne McGuire, Eduardo Trejos, “We Move Together” (2021)
All bodies are different – whether disabled or nondisabled – and everyone matters. These are the themes of this easy reader. With its vibrant illustrations, simple text and portrayals of a wide variety of people, “We Move Together” is a great introduction to the concepts of community, disability and accessibility for readers in kindergarten through second grade, while older readers can learn more about accessibility and disability rights in the glossary.
3. Darren Lebeuf, Ashley Barron, “My City Speaks” (2021)
A girl who is blind and her dad explore the city and its sounds. They wait at a crosswalk, play in the park, take a bus, avoid a rainstorm and eat ice cream. Words and pictures help the reader feel the rhythms of the city. Readers in preschool through second grade will enjoy this story because of its colorful illustrations and rhythmic text.
4. Ali Stroker, Stacy Davidowitz, “The Chance to Fly” (2021)
Nat Beacon is the new girl in school with a talent for wheelchair racing, but when the 13-year-old gets the chance to audition for a summer production of the musical “Wicked,” she knows the theater is where she belongs. How does she tell her parents?
This novel for readers in fifth, sixth and seventh grades explores themes of independence, friendship and first love.
5. Melissa See, “You, Me, and Our Heartstrings” (2022)
Daisy and Noah are two of the best musicians in their high school orchestra and dream of attending Juilliard, the prestigious performing arts school in New York City. When their performance of an original piece goes viral, they have to deal with the world’s interpretation of them and their relationship.
This rom-com of a novel combines disability representation with themes of friendship and romance. Great for readers in grades nine to 12.
For more books featuring characters with disabilities, check out the American Library Association’s Schneider Family Book Award. For a wide variety of diverse titles, see We Need Diverse Books.
Rebecca Weber, Associate Professor Library, Oklahoma State University
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.