Always strive to learn something useful. --Sophocles

The Japanese probe, named Akatsuki, has gone dark. Mission control thinks that the craft may have lost its pointing with Earth and are working to reestablish contact.

The probe got off to a slippery start. It launched on a Japanese rocket in 2010, then a burn to lower its orbit fired for only three minutes instead of twelve. This put it in an orbit around the Sun, instead of Venus. After much research and study, they were able to get it into the orbit of Venus by venting a large quantity of fuel oxidizer. The orbiter began "taking data in 2016 about the planet and its atmosphere. In 2018, the mission's lifetime was extended, and it has continued to collect data until this spring."

There are two solar probes that occasionally slingshot around Venus for a gravity assist to boost their orbits, but their scientific gazing is focused on the Sun.

As it happens, a woman on Russet's crew is a specialist and somewhat of a noted expert on Venus and studies it frequently. It's a difficult planet to study as the window that it's above the horizon is very small.

https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/05/our-only-mission-at-venus-may-have-just-gone-dark/

This is pretty spectacular. It suffered a landing mishap when one of its engines failed and it toppled over to land on its face. Still, it got useful data - and the landing itself was quite a success in that it landed within a 100 meter target where it was supposed to. For an unmanned probe launched over 200,000 miles away, that's pretty much a bulls eye!

And then night came. It wasn't designed to survive the night, and the ground crew were resigned to that.

But when the next lunar day came, two weeks later, it woke up!

In the words of Monty Python, there was much rejoicing.

But then the next lunar night arrived, and the ground crew expected that to be the end of the probe.

Then two weeks later, the next lunar day arrived, and it woke up again!

It's not in that great of shape as it has been taking a beating with the lunar nights at over 200 degrees below zero Fahrenheit and the lunar days over 200 degrees above, but as I said before: they must have partnered with Timex because it's taking a licking and still ticking!

https://gizmodo.com/japans-slim-moon-lander-just-wont-die-1851371961

The arsonist, for reasons currently unknown, burst into the offices and doused the building with gasoline, shouting "Drop dead!", before igniting it. Police found knives in the wreckage. People were trapped inside, some fled up to the roof of the structure. He had just previously bought 9 gallons of gas from a nearby station.

The attacker survived but was - hopefully - badly burned and is in hospital, so with luck officials will be able to find out just WTF happened and why he did it. Apparently the man may have thought the studio stole an idea of his without credit or compensation or something, hard to say based on this report.

According to the BBC report, some 36 people are in hospital, many in critical condition.

Kyoto Animation is not a controversial studio. Their animation is not violent or sexual, they make nice, pleasant anime. It is quite a baffling event. I'm not familiar with their content, but they're quite popular. One of their innovations was paying animators a salary rather than a per-cell wage, making for a more relaxed working environment.

Also from the article, "Kyoto Animation, known as KyoAni, was founded in 1981 and has produced popular animation shows including K-On and The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya.

The studio also released a standalone feature anime A Silent Voice in 2016.

One of KyoAni's series, Violet Evergarden, was picked up by Netflix for a global market."

A GoFundMe campaign has started and raised over $300,000 in six hours. It was the first successful anime studio outside of Tokyo. They also publish high school life manga.

This is one of the largest mass casualty events in Japan since World War Two.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-49027178