Farewell, Cassini

Today’s post is a sad post, hence why I did not run with it on Friday. But on Friday, we bid adieu to the little space probe that could, Cassini. This piece is not terribly heavy on the information design, but it does include one diagram—so it counts.

The BBC put together a piece reflecting on the Cassini mission, including its little lander Huygens. If you, like your author, are interested in space-y things, this article is worth the read.

Oh the photos we've enjoyed…
Oh the photos we’ve enjoyed…

Credit for the piece goes to Sue Bridge.

The World’s Fighter Jets

As you know, I am a sucker for military-related things. So here we have a piece from the Wall Street Journal on the leading fighter jets of the world. If you have a bone to pick on which jets were included, please take that up with them and not me.

Of course, speed isn't everything…
Of course, speed isn’t everything…

The screenshot is from the end of an animation where they depict the maximum range and the relative speed of each aircraft against each other.

Credit for the piece goes to Andrew Barnett, Jason French, and Robert Wall.

The Mother Of All Bombs

Yesterday the United States dropped a GBU.43 on a cave complex in eastern Afghanistan. The bomb is better known by its nickname MOAB, Mother Of All Bombs. But just how does the GBU.43 compare to some of the more common—and not so common—weapons in the US arsenal?

What we do know is that yesterday was the detonation of the largest non-nuclear bomb in warfare. We do have an even larger conventional weapon called the Massive Ordnance Penetrator—phrasing?—but its size and warhead are not as large as the MOAB. MOP is instead intended to be used as a super bunker buster.

I'm not even going to try to put Tsar Bomba on here
I’m not even going to try to put Tsar Bomba on here

Credit for the piece is mine.

Building New Railways in America

I wasn’t expecting this piece to fall into the queue for today, but you all know me as a sucker for trains. So today we have this nice set of small multiples from the Guardian. It looks at…I guess we could call it train deserts. They’re like food deserts, except we’re talking about trains.

Some of the US train deserts
Some of the US train deserts

What strikes me is that in a perfect world at least three of these could be on one direct line. You can almost draw a straight line from Columbus, Ohio to Nashville, Tennessee and hit Louisville, Kentucky. Obviously things like property get in the way, but it is something to note.

Credit for the piece goes to Jan Diehm.

Get to Dam Work

Sorry, not sorry.

But also, sorry. This piece was supposed to go up Wednesday after President Trump’s speech where he announced he’d like to spend $1 trillion on infrastructure. But it didn’t post, so you will get two today.

This article from the New York Times dates from about a week or so ago at the height of the flooding out in California. During that deluge, the Oroville Dam emergency spillway partially failed. And a week prior to that, the Twentyone Mile Dam in Nevada burst.

Dams require investment and maintenance along with roads, railways, airports, and well practically all infrastructure. The article leads in with a map locating all those dam locations across the United States and colour codes them by age.

Where are the dam locations?
Where are the dam locations?

The article outlines the potential costs and risks associated with all this dam stuff and is worth a quick read. It also includes some nice secondary graphics about the dam hazard potential in Nevada.

Sorry, not sorry.

Credit for the piece goes to Troy Griggs, Gregor Aisch, and Sarah Almukhtar.

Capturing a US Navy Drone Submersible

Last Friday China seized a US Navy submersible drone—like the drones the Air Force uses but for underwater purposes—in international waters off the coast of the Philippines. This graphic from the Washington Post shows how, while in international waters, the seizure occurred not far outside China’s Nine-dash Line, which they claim as territorial waters.

Where we lost our drone (to China)
Where we lost our drone (to China)

Credit for the piece goes to the Washington Post graphics department.

Tying Up Time Warner and AT&T

AT&T is attempting to merge with Time Warner in order to have more/better control of a content pipeline. But as this Wall Street Journal article points out, the concept of tie-ups between media and telecoms is not exactly new. Especially since the breakup of the old Bell Telephone company.

Merging Time Warner and AT&T
Merging Time Warner and AT&T

Credit for the piece goes to the Wall Street Journal graphics department.

Types of Nuclear Weapons

When I was in high school I began to listen to music. To find music. To find artists. A guy who owned and operated the store next to where I worked recommended David Bowie, that guy whose songs I had heard on Philly’s classic rock radio stations. Back in those days we still had record stores—not that I knew what a record was—and I found a few used CDs—now that kids today would know what a CD is. Over that summer, I picked up a lot of new music. But what struck me about this David Bowie guy is that Space Oddity, Tonight, and Heathen all sounded so different from each other. He was a great one. And while I’m certain there will be some graphic in the future about his timeline—how can there not—today I am going to follow up once more on the North Korean nuclear test after coming across this graphic from Reuters.

You will recall how last week I looked at a New York Times post that explained the differences between a few different types of nuclear weapons. Well, here Reuters illustrates those differences.

Types of nuclear weapons
Types of nuclear weapons

Credit for the piece goes to S. Scarr.

Your State’s Power Sources

By now you should all know that I am a sucker for small multiples. They are a great way of separating out noise and letting each object be seen for its own. You should also know that I am a sucker for things industrial, e.g. nuclear power. So when you put the two together like NPR did earlier this month, well, I am going to be a huge fan.

All 50 states
All 50 states

Credit for the piece goes to Alyson Hurt.

How We’re Talking to New Horizons

So New Horizons is long since gone from Pluto. But it will still take 16 months to send back all the photographs and science. Why so long? Because so far away. 3 billion miles away. Put another way, light from the sun takes eight minutes to reach Earth as it travels at, well, the speed of light. Radio signals that travel at the speed of light take 4.5 hours to reach Earth from Pluto. So imagine trying to send large data files that far away at a download speed less than that of a 56k modem, for those of you old enough to remember such a thing.

But what receives these radio signals? NASA’s Deep Space Network of antennae that allow NASA to communicate with spacecraft and such things that are in, wait for it, deep space. These antennae are scattered throughout the world, but in this screenshot taken Monday, you can see just what the antennae at the various complexes are doing. Here, we see New Horizons (NHPC) just prior to its flypast communicating with the large antenna at the Madrid complex. The lack of signal lines indicates that it is preparing to setup, takedown, or is tracking the spacecraft.

From early Monday night
From early Monday night

As a fun aside, I left the tab open in the browser and a few hours later came back to find the Deep Space Network sending signals to the Mars rover Opportunity (MER1), the Chandra X-Ray Observatory (CHDR), and the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) amongst others.

Opportunity is still chugging along on Mars
Opportunity is still chugging along on Mars

Credit for the piece goes to the NASA graphics department.