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NASA’s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE), launched in 2009, spent the next fourteen and half years studying the Universe in infrared wavelengths. During that time, it discovered thousands of minor planets, star clusters, and the first Brown Dwarf and Earth-Trojan asteroid. By 2013, the mission was reactivated by NASA as the Near-Earth Object Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (NEOWISE), which was tasked with searching for Potentially Hazardous Asteroids (PHAs). For ten years, the NEOWISE mission faithfully cataloged comets and asteroids that could pose a threat to Earth someday. Unfortunately, NASA announced on July 1st that it would be decommissioning this planetary defense mission, which is expected to burn up in our atmosphere later this year. On Thursday, August 8th, the mission was decommissioned after the final command was sent from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California and related to the spacecraft by the Tracking and Data Relay Satellite (TDRS) system. However, the scientific data NEOWISE collected during its ten years of operation will continue to inspire new discoveries! The decision to end the mission was made because of an uptick in solar activity that’s been heating Earth’s upper atmosphere, causing it to expand and create drag on the spacecraft. This will cause NEOWISE to drop too low in its orbit to provide accurate scientific data, and NEOWISE does not have a propulsion system to maintain its orbit. Past and present mission members attended the decommissioning ceremony, which took place at the Earth Orbiting Missions Operation Center (EOMOC) at NASA JPL and the agency’s headquarters in Washington, D.C. Animation of the many Near-Earth Objects (NEOs) that share Earth’s orbit. Credit: NASA. The remaining scientific data was downlinked shortly after science operations officially ended on July 31st. Said Nicola Fox, associate administrator of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate at NASA HQ, in a recent NASA press release: “The NEOWISE mission has been an extraordinary success story as it helped us better understand our place in the universe by tracking asteroids and comets that could be hazardous for us on Earth. While we are sad to see this brave mission come to an end, we are excited for the future scientific discoveries it has opened by setting the foundation for the next generation planetary defense telescope.” During its nearly fifteen years of operations, the space telescope exceeded its scientific objectives (not once but twice) by remaining in operation far longer than expected. When it first launched as the WISE mission in 2009, the mission was intended to scan the infrared sky for seven months. By July 2010, the mission had accomplished this objective with far greater sensitivity than previous IR surveys and depleted its supply of solid hydrogen coolant a few months later. The mission was then extended until February 2011 under the name NEOWISE to complete its survey of the Main Asteroid Belt, at which point it was put into hibernation. However, analysis of the WISE/NEOWISE data revealed that it could still operate without coolant and make precise observations of less faint objects like comets and asteroids that are heated by the Sun as they fly closer to our planet – in short, Near-Earth Objects (NEOs). By 2013, NASA recommissioned the space telescope under the Near-Earth Object Observations Program, which morphed into NASA’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office (PDCO) in 2016. Data processing for WISE and NEOWISE takes place at the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). This illustration shows NASA’s NEO Surveyor against an infrared observation of a starfield made by the agency’s WISE mission. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona Said Amy Mainzer, the principal investigator of NEOWISE and NEO Surveyor at UCLA: “After developing new techniques to find and characterize near-Earth objects hidden in vast quantities of its infrared survey data, NEOWISE has become key in helping us develop and operate NASA’s next-generation infrared space telescope. It is a precursor mission. NEO Surveyor will seek out the most difficult-to-find asteroids and comets that could cause significant damage to Earth if we don’t find them first.” The NEOWISE mission conducted about 1.45 million infrared measurements of more than 44,000 solar system objects, which were used to create all-sky infrared maps. This included 215 of the more than 3,000 NEOs detected to date and 25 new comets. This included the long-period comet C/2020 F3 NEOWISE that appeared in the night sky during the summer of 2020 and was the brightest comet seen in the northern hemisphere since Comet Hale–Bopp streaked across the sky in 1997. “The NEOWISE mission has been instrumental in our quest to map the skies and understand the near-Earth environment. Its huge number of discoveries have expanded our knowledge of asteroids and comets, while also boosting our nation’s planetary defense,” said Laurie Leshin, the director of NASA JPL. “As we bid farewell to NEOWISE, we also celebrate the team behind it for their impressive achievements.”  In addition to leaving behind volumes of scientific data, WISE and NEOWISE helped pave the way for NASA’s next-generation infrared space telescope. This mission, the Near-Earth Object Surveyor (NEO Surveyor), will be the first purpose-built mission dedicated to monitoring potentially hazardous NEOs. Once operational, it will seek out some of the faintest NEOs, such as asteroids and comets with low albedos (meaning they don’t reflect much visible light) or those that approach Earth from the direction of the Sun. This telescope is currently under construction and will launch no earlier than 2027. Further Reading: NASA The post NASA’s Says Goodbye to its Asteroid-Hunting NEOWISE Mission appeared first on Universe Today.

The legendary guitarist Michael Schenker will release next September 20 the album “My Years With UFO“, on which he re-recorded several UFO songs with many special guests. Two of them are the Guns N' Roses' members Slash and Axl Rose. In an interview with "Appetite For Distortion" podcast (Transcribed by Blabbermouth), the musician recalled how Axl ended up on his new album. He said that he actually had invited Slash, who then told Axl he was going to record with Schenker. Then the Guns N' Roses singer said he would like to also sing on the album. Michael Schenker tells how Axl Rose ended up on his new album According to Schenker, Axl Rose recorded the songs "Too Hot To Handle", "Only You Can Rock Me" and "Love To Love". However, he only liked the result of "Love To Love" and was the only song he said that could be released with him on vocals. "When Michael Voss, my co-producer, and I, we started putting down my guitars, and as we did that, we had no idea what we were gonna do… nothing had been discussed. And so as we were putting down the music, we thought, 'Oh, what about this?' 'What about that?' What about who?' Everybody had some ideas. And so, actually, everybody who participated on this album was added to the whole idea from different sources and different times." "So, basically, with Axl and Slash — Slash, I was always interested in doing something with him, but I guess when Michael [Voss] first approached him that we're doing the best of UFO and read him the songtitles, he was for it.  When we met in the Frankfurt recording studio, we were both going jam there to 'Mother Mary'. I had my technician there and my amplifier, and Slash brought his guys and his amplifier, and actually Slash ended up playing with my amplifier. And we were supposed to do a jam, but then I realized, 'Hey, Michael [Voss], I already put all my guitars down. Why we are wasting time doing additional stuff. I already like what I did.'" He continued: "So I was more into focusing on Slash and getting great takes and add them to what I already had done. Slash liked that idea. Then also, when he came in, he said, 'Michael, I just told Axl that I was going to do this. That I'm on my way to do this. And he said, 'I wanna sing a song too.' I said to Slash, 'That would be fantastic. Ask Axl which song he would like to do.' And so actually Axl ended up singing 'Too Hot To Handle', 'Only You Can Rock Me' and 'Love To Love'." "But I think they also were on tour at the time. So Axl was not actually happy with his performance on 'Only You Can Rock Me' and 'Too Hot To Handle'. I guess it was too many songs, because they were in the middle of a tour, and he preferred to just focus on 'Love To Love'. He is a perfectionist, I have noticed. So we waited until he was ready. Then finally he went, 'Okay, 'love to love'. I approve. You can release it. And that was it," Michael Schenker said. "Only You Can Rock Me" ended up being recorded with Joe Lynn Turner on vocals and “Only You Can Rock Me” with Joey Tempest (Europe). ‘My Years With UFO’ tracklist “Natural Thing: (feat. Dee Snider, Joel Hoekstra) “Only You Can Rock Me” (Joey Tempest, Roger Glover) “Doctor, Doctor” (Joe Lynn Turner, Carmine Appice) “Mother Mary” (Slash, Erik Gronwall) “This Kids” (Biff Byford) “Love To Love” (Axl Rose) “Lights Out” (Jeff Scott Soto, John Norum) “Rock Bottom” (Kai Hansen) “Too Hot To Handle” (Joe Lynn Turner, Adrian Vandenberg, Carmine Appice) “Let It Roll” (Michael Voss) “Shoot, Shoot” (Stephen Pearcy) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z94FeCcvmrc&pp=ygUZbWljaGFlbCBzY2hlbmtlciBheGwgcm9zZQ%3D%3DThe post Michael Schenker tells how Axl Rose ended up on his new album appeared first on Rock And Roll Garage.

Michael Peter Balzary or simply Flea, is the bassist and one of the co-founders of Red Hot Chili Peppers. He has been rated by many artists as one of the most talented bass players of the past decades and influenced a whole generation of musicians. In an interview with Team Coco (Transcribed by Ultimate Guitar), Flea said that, in his opinion, Paul McCartney is the greatest Rock bass player of all time. Flea says Paul McCartney is the greatest Rock bass player "I think Paul's the greatest rock bass player. He's just great. I mean, there are so many guys that are great in different ways. But Paul's bass playing is so lyrical and melodic, and it's just so beautiful. One of the things I've heard is that he put the bass on after. A band like mine, the bass sometimes the song starts with bass lines. So coming first, or the music comes first." "Whereas I think Paul and John and George, when they wrote songs and Paul would do the bass. After multi-tracking came in, at the beginning of them, they just went and played live and would do it after. Like 'Sgt. Pepper's', the melody is already there. So then he's doing, like a counter melody, so the bass is like a melody as opposed to just rhythm, and that's amazing. He's amazing," Flea said. Flea already had the chance to meet Paul McCartney. They were photographed when both of them went to see a Chris Rock stand-up comedy show in Los Angeles in 2022. https://www.reddit.com/r/beatles/comments/1duy34w/paul_mccartney_and_flea_red_hot_chili_peppers/ https://www.reddit.com/r/RedHotChiliPeppers/comments/yzy9nn/ak_with_sir_paul_mccartney/ Flea and the vocalist Anthony Kiedis are the only original members of Red Hot Chili Peppers. They are the only ones who were part of all the releases of the band. The drummer Chad Smith only joined the band in 1988 and the guitarist John Frusciante was part of the band from 1988 to 1992, 1998 to 2009 and returned in 2019.  The post Flea says Paul McCartney is the greatest Rock bass player appeared first on Rock And Roll Garage.

Deep Purple is currently promoting their new album "=1" but besides talking about the new release, the band's vocalist Ian Gillan is always asked about the past of the band and frequently about the former guitarist Ritchie Blackmore (Who left the band in 1993). In an interview with Ultimate Classic Rock, the musician recalled a feud between Deep Purple and Yes one night that ultimately made Ritchie Blackmore decide to set the stage on fire so that the Progressive Rock couldn't play after them. Curiously, the two bands will tour together this year. Ian Gillan recalls feud with Yes that made Blackmore set the stage on fire "We were doing a festival (in) Plumpton, the first rock, jazz, and blues festival that became the Reading Festival, run by Jack Barrie at the Marquee. He'd put on some absolutely great bands." "Of course, we'd worked with most of them in those days. It was fantastic. They were all good in their own way – but I think Yes were a bit miffed because they wanted to close the show, and it wasn't in their contract." "It was (in our contract) that Deep Purple would close the show, so they refused to leave the hotel room. Jack said, 'Guys, would you mind going on a bit earlier? I don't want to push you but it would help me and it would help the crowd.' 'Yeah sure, okay, no worries.' Then, Ritchie decided that if we weren't going to close, nobody was." Ian Gillan continued: "He ordered some gasoline to be brought in. He threw it all over the equipment and then had the roadie light a broom, which had a petrol-soaked rag on the end of it to ignite the lot. Of course, it did ignite – because the fumes just exploded. Within a half-hour, there were blue lights flashing." "The police, the fire brigade and ambulances were all coming in and there was complete chaos. Everything was on the front page of the Sunday papers the next morning, and it was all quite rock 'n' roll," Ian Gillan said. Deep Purple continued after Blackmore decided to leave for good more than three decades ago. Since then they had in his place Joe Satriani (From 1993 to 1994) and Steve Morse (From 1994 to 2022). Now the band’s guitarist is Simon McBride. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yCj7ZnW135E&pp=ygUPZGVlcCBwdXJwbGUgeWVzThe post Ian Gillan recalls feud with Yes that made Blackmore set the stage on fire appeared first on Rock And Roll Garage.

Born in Toronto, Canada back in 1945, Neil Young started his musical career in 1963 and became in the following decades one of the most prolific and successful songwriters of all time. Besides being a praised solo artist he was also a member of Buffalo Springfield and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. Only as a solo artist, he simply released, until 2024, 44 studio albums and 22 live albums. So it's really hard for him to answer which are some of his favorite songs but he once revealed which is one of them and explained why. The song that Neil Young said is one of his favorites In an interview with Dan Rather back in 2013 (Transcribed by Rock and Roll Garage), the Canadian musician was asked which were some of his favorites from his career. Young explained that they were actually all the same to him and always left that to the audience to choose. However, when Dan Rather asked him about “Harvest Moon”, the musician revealed that the song was actually one of his favorites. "That's one of my favorite songs because it's a real song about real feelings I kind of remember when I first started writing the melody and everything I was on my boat in the Caribbean. I started writing this melody and then finally the whole thing came to me (and) then I had the words. What really touched me about that song, even more than singing the song, even though it was fun to do it and make the record. Linda Ronstadt came in and put these beautiful vocals on and it blew my mind how well it all turned out." He continued: "But the thing was that people come up to me now and they say we played that at our wedding, we played that song when we first met, things like that. A romantic atmosphere of the song, there's something about it that brings that out on people. So it's interesting, it's nice to see it's like if you're a farmer and you're out there and you're throwing these seeds out and everything. Then you reach in this other bag and throw out the seeds." "Suddenly there's like eight or ten cows out there just all checking out those seeds. Now, what's the difference between that one and the other ones? I don't know but there they are. They're all beautiful, blue-eyed, big eyelashes, cows, looking at you, you know. It's all good, it's perfect. They're so happy to have the food. I mean, what happened? I don't know what happened. But that's the same thing that happened with that song," Neil Young said. "Harvest Moon" is the title track of the 1992 album released by the musician, which he co-produced with Ben Keith. Other famous tracks from that record are "Unknown Legend" and "From Hank to Hendrix". The song "Harvest Moon" was also released as a single at the time, peaking at number 5 on Canadian charts. Although he co-produced the album with Ben Keith, this track was produced by only Neil himself. He said "Harvest Moon" was a sequel to "Harvest" (1972) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2MtEsrcTTs 20 years before releasing "Harvest Moon", Young had released one of the most important albums of his career: "Harvest" (1972). That record had songs like "Heart of Gold", "Old Man" and "The Needle and the Damage Done". In an interview with Q magazine in 1992, the musician said that he felt that "Harvest Moon" was a sequel to "Harvest". “Now that it’s created, it seems to be related to Harvest. But when I started work on it, I had no idea that it was gonna be like that. The first thing I did was to finish a song called You And Me, which I’d started writing in 1975. Then I wrote a few more songs until I had enough to start thinking about doing a session." "I began to figure out which musicians to use. Once I’d written down the various names and started calling them, I realized, this is the same band I used on Harvest. So it was the songs which dictated who I played with. Luckily, there was no problem getting the guys together again. Everybody was available; it all happened real easy,” Neil Young said.The post The song that Neil Young said is one of his favorites appeared first on Rock And Roll Garage.