Wolmania - Friday, October 8, 2021

Good morning, dear reader. I was going to write some stuff about how Kyrsten Sinema is infuriating but you already know about that so I'll talk about something else that's important to me: the new macro photography mode on iPhones. I really like it, but it's only available on the brand new iPhone 13 Pro, which most people won't get. So I think it's nice that Halide (an iOS camera app) has introduced a new feature allowing all iPhone models to do macro photos. It's very impressive and lets everyone in on the fun that obnoxious early adopters have been hoarding. Honestly that post is way too extensive to just squeeze into a link in the newsletter preamble but whatever, this is my newsletter and it's free, so deal with it. And if you like photography you should really check out Halide, which is a pretty great app and well worth paying for (unlike this newsletter).

Okay so let's get to the space stuff.

Item 1: a link

NASA's Lucy Mission: A Journey to the Young Solar System

NASA’s Lucy spacecraft will launch in October 2021 on a 12-year journey to Jupiter’s Trojan asteroids. The Lucy mission will include three Earth gravity assists and visits to eight asteroids.

Lucy’s primary mission of 12 years is NASA’s longest yet. To sustain such an ambitious pursuit, the team had to plan not only for the longevity of the spacecraft — which was partly modeled on New Horizons — but also of its people. From conceiving the mission, to submitting proposals to NASA, to getting selected and building the spacecraft, some team members have already worked on Lucy for more than a decade – and the spacecraft hasn’t even launched yet! Some will spend much of their adult lives working on this mission. And if Lucy continues to an extended mission, it could fly for many decades.

“It could well be that by the time Lucy is done, or out of gas, that my son who was just born will be the age that I am now,” said Englander, who is 37 years old, “and that is just really cool!”

You know what? That is really cool.

Also if you click through there’s a very fun video depicting Lucy’s trajectory around Jupiter and the Trojan Asteroids.

Item 2: a list

iPhone 13 and 13 Pro Colors, Ranked

1. Pink
2. Gold (Pro)
3. Blue
4. Sierra Blue (Pro)
5. Midnight
6. (PRODUCT) RED
7. Silver (Pro)
8. Graphite (Pro)
9. Starlight

(Sorry the layout is so annoying here with the text and images but I'm told that great design is defined by its use of negative space so maybe it's good???)

Bonus: iPad Mini Colors, Ranked:

1. Purple
2. Space Gray
3. Pink
4. Starlight

Item 3: a media recommendation

Item 4: a photograph

See ya!

Thats it for this issue. Thanks for reading - see you next week.