Author: I-70 Scout

By MARCIA DUNN
AP Aerospace Writer

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) _ Attention asteroid aficionados: NASA is set to launch a series of spacecraft to visit and even bash some of the solar system’s most enticing space rocks.

The robotic trailblazer named Lucy is up first, blasting off this weekend on a 12-year cruise to swarms of asteroids out near Jupiter _ unexplored time capsules from the dawn of the solar system. And yes, there will be diamonds in the sky with Lucy, on one of its science instruments, as well as lyrics from other Beatles’ songs.

NASA is targeting the predawn hours of Saturday for liftoff.

Barely a month later, an impactor spacecraft named Dart will give chase to a double-asteroid closer to home. The mission will end with Dart ramming the main asteroid’s moonlet to change its orbit, a test that could one day save Earth from an incoming rock.

Next summer, a spacecraft will launch to a rare metal world _ an nickel and iron asteroid that might be the exposed core of a once-upon-a-time planet. A pair of smaller companion craft _ the size of suitcases _ will peel away to another set of double asteroids.

And in 2023, a space capsule will parachute into the Utah desert with NASA’s first samples of an asteroid, collected last year by the excavating robot Osiris-Rex. The samples are from Bennu, a rubble and boulder-strewn rock that could endanger Earth a couple centuries from now.

“Each one of those asteroids we’re visiting tells our story … the story of us, the story of the solar system,” said NASA’s chief of science missions, Thomas Zurbuchen.

There’s nothing better for understanding how our solar system formed 4.6 billion years ago, said Lucy’s principal scientist, Hal Levison of Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado. “They’re the fossils of planet formation.”

China and Russia are teaming up for an asteroid mission later this decade. The United Arab Emirates is also planning an asteroid stop in the coming years.

Advances in tech and design are behind this flurry of asteroid missions, as well as the growing interest in asteroids and the danger they pose to Earth. All it takes is looking at the moon and the impact craters created by asteroids and meteorites to realize the threat, Zurbuchen said.

The asteroid-smacking Dart spacecraft _ set to launch Nov. 24 _ promises to be a dramatic exercise in planetary defense. If all goes well, the high-speed smashup will occur next fall just 7 million miles (11 million kilometers) away, within full view of ground telescopes.

The much longer $981 million Lucy mission _ the first to Jupiter’s so-called Trojan entourage _ is targeting an unprecedented eight asteroids.

Lucy aims to sweep past seven of the countless Trojan asteroids that precede and trail Jupiter in the giant gas planet’s path around the sun. Thousands of these dark reddish or gray rocks have been detected, with many thousands more likely lurking in the two clusters. Trapped in place by the gravitational forces of Jupiter and the sun, the Trojans are believed to be the cosmic leftovers from when the outer planets were forming.

“That’s what makes the Trojans special. If these ideas of ours are right, they formed throughout the outer solar system and are now at one location where we can go and study them,” Levison said.

Before encountering the Trojans, Lucy will zip past a smaller, more ordinary object in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. Scientists consider this 2025 flyby a dress rehearsal.

Three flybys of Earth will be needed as gravity slingshots in order for Lucy to reach both of Jupiter’s Trojan swarms by the time the mission is set to end in 2033.

The spacecraft will be so far from the sun _ as much as 530 million miles (850 million kilometers) distant _ that massive solar panels are needed to provide enough power. Each of Lucy’s twin circular wings stretches 24 feet (7 meters) across, dwarfing the spacecraft tucked in the middle like the body of a moth.

Lucy intends to pass within 600 miles (965 kilometers) of each targeted asteroid.

“Every one of those flybys needs to be near-perfection,” Zurbuchen said.

The seven Trojans range in size from a 40-mile (64-kilometer) asteroid and its half-mile (1-kilometer) moonlet to a hefty specimen exceeding 62 miles (100 kilometers). That’s the beauty of studying these rocks named after heroes of Greek mythology’s Trojan War and, more recently, modern Olympic athletes. Any differences among them will have occurred during their formation, Levison said, offering clues about their origins.

Unlike so many NASA missions, including the upcoming Dart, short for Double Asteroid Redirection Test, Lucy is not an acronym. The spacecraft is named after the fossilized remains of an early human ancestor discovered in Ethiopia in 1974; the 3.2 million-year-old female got her name from the 1967 Beatles song “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.”

“The Lucy fossil really transformed our understanding of human evolution, and that’s what we want to do is transform our understanding of solar system evolution by looking at all these different objects,” said Southwest Research Institute’s Cathy Olkin, the deputy principal scientist who proposed the spacecraft’s name.

One of its science instruments actually has a disc of lab-grown diamond totaling 6.7 carats.

And there’s another connection to the Fab Four, a plaque attached to the spacecraft includes lines from songs they wrote, along with quotes from other luminaries. From a John Lennon single: We all shine on . . . like the moon and the stars and the sun.

Tyler Swarr, aquatic biologist for CPW, holds up a brown trout from Antero Reservoir on Wednesday, Oct. 6 when officials conducted the brown trout spawn there in South Park (photo by Jason Clay/CPW)

FAIRPLAY, Colo. – Each fall, brown trout spawn in the mountain creeks and rivers across Colorado. It is also when aquatic biologists, hatchery staff, wildlife officers and volunteers for Colorado Parks and Wildlife come together to conduct its annual brown trout spawning operation at North Delaney Butte Lake and Antero Reservoir.

A quota is set to collect the number of eggs necessary to meet the needs for hatchery production, which CPW uses to augment natural reproduction across Colorado’s creeks, rivers and reservoirs.

This year, that quota was 1.1 million brown trout eggs. It took just three working days at those two brood stock bodies of water to meet the quota of fertilized eggs that get sent to CPW’s Mt. Shavano Hatchery in Salida and its Poudre Rearing Hatchery in Larimer County.

The hatcheries will rear the fish to a fingerling size, around three inches, before being stocked out across Colorado in 2022. Those brown trout fingerlings will get stocked back into both Antero Reservoir and North Delaney Butte Lake to ensure a strong brood stock population, but also across many other reservoirs and rivers.

“Some of them will come back and be stocked into Antero and some will go to North Delaney as well, so we can come back in three or four years and still will have fish,” said Tyler Swarr, aquatic biologist leading the brown trout spawning operation at Antero Reservoir. “The rest of them will get stocked out across the state.” 

CPW stocks more than 700,000 brown trout annually to provide exceptional fishing opportunities.

Crews at Antero Reservoir were able to collect and fertilize 227,026 brown trout eggs from 117 females during its lone spawning day on Wednesday, Oct. 6.

At North Delaney Butte Lake in North Park, CPW’s team needed just three days (Oct. 5-7) to gather 888,574 eggs to surpass the quota of 1.1 million fertilized brown trout eggs for the year.

“2021 was another good brown trout spawn year at North Delaney,” said Kyle Battige, aquatic biologist leading the brown trout spawning operation there. “We saw many year classes present, handled over 1,500 brown trout in three days and I’m happy overall with the current condition of the brood lake” 

Brown trout spawn in the wild occurs over the months of October and November. It is temperature dependent.

“River fish spawn a little bit later since it is colder,” Swarr said. “Since reservoirs absorb a lot more solar radiation, they are warmer, so they’ll actually spawn earlier here than they will in rivers.”

In the reservoirs, the silt from the wave action can cover the eggs and prevent them from getting the fresh oxygen they need to grow and hatch. In a river setting, brown trout will lay eggs in the gravel on the river bottom. Those eggs typically get laid in places of upwelling where there is a crest of a riffle and you have a plunge that causes the water to travel through the gravel, slowly turning the eggs and delivering oxygen to them.

“Our spawning operation helps to sustain some of our brown trout fisheries in the state and provides a little bit more fishing diversity for anglers,” Swarr said.

Brown trout are a hard-fighting fish and have beautiful coloration that matches the autumn season. Brown trout are golden brown with vibrant black, red and orange spots.

“The cool thing about them in the state of Colorado is they are resistant to whirling disease since they evolved with that in Europe,” Swarr said. “So, they’ve become kind of the bread and butter of our wild trout fisheries, at least in our northeast region, because really most of the brown trout in the state of Colorado are naturally reproducing wild populations and we don’t have to stock them to the numbers we do with rainbows. Rainbow trout are still impacted heavily by whirling disease.”

You can learn more about whirling disease by visiting our website.

CENTENNIAL, Colo. – The Colorado National Guard Joint Force Headquarters Force Protection element, in cooperation with the Arapahoe County Sheriff’s Office, will conduct an annual active threat response exercise at the Colorado Department of Military and Veterans Affairs campus, 6848 S. Revere Pkwy, Centennial, CO, from approximately 9 a.m. to noon, Oct. 14, 2021.

“Our purpose is to ensure the value and safety of our service members and civilians and take advantage of training and integration opportunities between the Services and with our community partners,” U.S. Army 2nd Lt. Robert McFatridge, force protection officer in charge, said.

This training will educate and prepare DMVA employees for an active threat situation and evaluate response procedures while interacting with civilian first responders.
Anyone working nearby or traveling in the local area may witness a higher-than-normal police presence during the exercise.
Participants will use blank rounds, mainly fired indoors.

If there’s reason to believe that a real world active threat is underway, don’t hesitate to call 911.
This annual training increases preparedness and is not in response to any heightened threat level or direct threat to any person or property.
In order to simulate a realistic training environment, this event is not open to the public.

Wildlife officers Scott Murdoch (left) and Dawson Swanson (right) hold up the tire that was on this bull elk for over two years (photo courtesy of Pat Hemstreet)

PINE, Colo. – An elk with a tire around its neck for at least the last two years was finally freed of the obstacle Saturday evening when Colorado Parks and Wildlife officers were able to tranquilize the bull and remove the tire.

Wildlife officers Dawson Swanson and Scott Murdoch had to cut the antlers off the bull elk in order to remove the tire. That occurred Saturday around 8 p.m., roughly one mile south of Pine Junction on private property off of County Road 126.

“I am just grateful to be able to work in a community that values out state’s wildlife resource,” Swanson said. “I was able to quickly respond to a report from a local resident regarding a recent sighting of this bull elk in their neighborhood. I was able to locate the bull in question along with a herd of about 40 other elk.”

Wildlife officers aged the bull as a four-and-a-half year-old weighing over 600 pounds and had five points on each of its antler beams.

“It was tight removing it,” Murdoch said of pulling the tire off the bull’s neck, even after cutting its antlers off. “It was not easy for sure, we had to move it just right to get it off because we weren’t able to cut the steel in the bead of the tire. Fortunately, the bull’s neck still had a little room to move.

“We would have preferred to cut the tire and leave the antlers for his rutting activity, but the situation was dynamic and we had to just get the tire off in any way possible.”

Once the tire was off, wildlife officers Swanson and Murdoch were surprised to see the condition of its neck after having that tire on it for over two years.

“The hair was rubbed off a little bit, there was one small open wound maybe the size of a nickel or quarter, but other than that it looked really good,” Murdoch said of the bull’s neck. “I was actually quite shocked to see how good it looked.”

It was the fourth attempt wildlife officers had made in the last week to try to tranquilize this bull. Saturday evening, officer Swanson was in a neighborhood looking for this elk that was reported in the area earlier in the day. He found it in a group of elk and maneuvered into a location where he thought it was going to cross. Swanson was able to successfully tranquilize the bull. Murdoch arrived to aid in the removal operation before the two set him free, many pounds lighter.

“Tranquilizer equipment is a relatively short-range tool and given the number of other elk moving together along with other environmental factors, you really need to have things go in your favor to have a shot or opportunity pan out,” Swanson said. “I was able to get within range a few times that evening, however, other elk or branches blocked any opportunities. It was not until shortly before dark that everything came together and I was able to hit the bull with the dart. One the bull was hit with the dart, the entire herd headed back into the thick timber. This is where I was able to find the bull. 

“Due to a number of factors, including the bull’s physical condition related to the rut, the tranquilizer effectiveness was minimized. I contacted (Murdoch) and along with some further assistance from neighbors, we were able to remove the tire and the bull was back on his feet within a matter of a few minutes after administering a reversal (to wake it from the sedation).”

Swanson and Murdoch estimated that the bull elk dropped roughly 35 pounds between the removal of the tire, his antlers and the debris that was inside the tire.

“The tire was full of wet pine needles and dirt,” Murdoch said. “So the pine needles, dirt and other debris basically filled the entire bottom half of the tire. There was probably 10 pounds of debris in the tire.”

This bull elk has spent the past couple of years traveling back and forth between Park and Jefferson Counties. He would disappear for long periods of time, particularly in the winter, and was acting as expected from a wild animal, not wanting to be around human presence. That is much different than some of the resident elk people often see in towns such as Evergreen or Estes Park.

At the end of May and into June 2021, four attempts were made to catch up with this bull in the Pleasant Park area of Conifer. Sightings of him picked back up in September and early October near the town of Pine (one of which you can see here in this video). Murdoch felt the rut (breeding season) played a helpful role in catching up with the bull.

“In the winter we weren’t getting any reports of him,” Murdoch said. “In the springtime, we would get an occasional report or see him in a little bachelor herd. The rut definitely made him more visible. There was a bigger bull in the group he was with on Saturday, but he is getting to be a decent size bull.”

The first time wildlife officers became aware of this elk with a tire around its neck was in July 2019 (click here to see a photo from that sighting). While conducting a population survey for Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep and mountain goats in the Mount Evans Wilderness, wildlife officer Jared Lamb saw the bull through a spotting scope.

At the time the bull appeared to be a younger one, likely two years old.

“Being up in the wilderness, we didn’t really expect to be able to get our hands on the elk just because of the proximity or the distance away from civilization,” Murdoch said. “It is harder to get the further they are back in there and usually the further these elk are away from people, the wilder they act. That certainly played true the last couple of years, this elk was difficult to find, and harder to get close to.”

Since the original sighting by wildlife officer Lamb, a handful of other sightings came in over the following year.

A trail camera near Conifer picked up the bull with the tire twice in 2020, first on June 5 and later on July 12. A separate trail camera also captured it on Aug. 12, 2020.

[Watch] 2020 video with Wildlife Officer Murdoch discussing the circumstances with this bull elk

The saga of this bull elk highlights the need for residents to live responsibly with wildlife in mind. That includes keeping your property free of obstacles that wildlife can get tangled in or injured by. Wildlife officers have seen deer, elk, moose, bears and other wildlife become entangled in a number of man-made obstacles that include swing sets, hammocks, clothing lines, decorative or holiday lighting, furniture, tomato cages, chicken feeders, laundry baskets, soccer goals or volleyball nets, and yes, tires. 

This elk would have gotten the tire around its antlers either when it was very young, before it had antlers, or during the winter when it shed its antlers. It could have been a big stack of tires that the elk stuck its head in, wildlife officers have also seen it where people feed animals who come in and put their heads in things that they then walk away with. 

CPW recommends that if you see wildlife entangled in something or with debris wrapped around it, that you report it immediately to wildlife officials. That can be accomplished by calling CPW’s Denver office at 303-291-7227.

Photos Below (top to bottom, left to right)
Row 1, Left Photo: Locating the bull elk after darting it with the tranquilizer (courtesy of Pat Hemstreet)
Row 1, Right Photo: Wildlife officer Dawson Swanson attempting to cut the tire off (courtesy of Pat Hemstreet)
Row 2, Left Photo: Wildlife officer Dawson Swanson with the elk after removing the tire (courtesy of Pat Hemstreet)
Row 2, Right Photo: Another photo of the bull elk as it was being approached (courtesy CPW)
Row 3, Left Photo: The bull elk with the tire on it (courtesy CPW)
Row 3, Right Photo: Approaching the bull elk after tranquilizing it (courtesy CPW)
Row 4, Left Photo: Trail camera picture from July 12, 2020 (courtesy of Dan Jaynes near Conifer, Colo.)
Row 4, Right Photo: The first sighting of this bull with the tire around its neck was from wildlife officer Jared Lamb in July 2019 during a survey for bighorn sheep and mountain goats (courtesy Jared Lamb/CPW)

82 Cases in 14 Colorado counties

REMOTE (October 8, 2021): Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), in cooperation with Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE) and the FDA, is investigating a multistate outbreak of Salmonella Thompson that sickened 102 people in 14 states. Colorado was heavily impacted with 82 of the ill people living in 14 Colorado counties. The cases have been linked to seafood manufactured or processed by Northeast Seafood Products, Inc. of Denver. According to CDC, the majority of sick people are either Colorado residents or reported traveling to Colorado during the week before they got sick. Only two people did not report traveling to Colorado during the week before they got sick.

Today, (October 8, 2021), Denver-based Northeast Seafood Products, Inc. recalled Haddock, Monkfish, Bone-in Trout, Grouper, Red Snapper, Red Rock Cod, Ocean Perch, Pacific Cod, Halibut, Coho Salmon, Atlantic Salmon Portions, Lane Snapper, Tilapia, All Natural Salmon Fillet, Pacific Sole, and Farm Raised Striped Bass. These products were sold to restaurants and Albertsons, Safeway, and Sprouts supermarkets in Colorado. The Pacific Cod sold through Sprouts is not being recalled. A full list of recalled products is available on FDA’s website. At this time, Northeast Seafood Products, Inc. has temporarily shut down production

Consumers, restaurants, and retailers should not eat, sell, or serve any recalled seafood. FDA recommends that anyone who might have purchased or received recalled product, check their refrigerators and freezers and throw away recalled product.

Learn more: 

https://www.cdc.gov/salmonella/thompson-10-21/index.html

https://www.fda.gov/food/outbreaks-foodborne-illness/outbreak-investigation-salmonella-thompson-seafood-october-2021 

A full list of recalled products is available on FDA’s website.

Aurora, CO –  The Colorado Division of Fire Prevention and Control (DFPC) is teaming up with Aurora Fire Rescue (AFR) to promote this year’s Fire Prevention Week^TM campaign, “Learn the Sounds of Fire Safety^TM.”

“It’s important to learn the different sounds of smoke and carbon monoxide alarms. When an alarm makes noise—a beeping sound or a chirping sound—you must take action!” said Mike Morgan, DFPC Director. “Make sure everyone in the home understands the sounds of the alarms and knows how to respond. To learn the sounds of your specific smoke and carbon monoxide alarms, check the manufacturer’s instructions that came in the box, or search the brand and model online.”

“Fire Prevention Week is an opportunity to enhance community awareness related to fire safety. The focus this year is related to the sounds of alarms,” said Aurora’s Fire Chief Fernando Gray Sr. “As a reminder, Aurora Fire Rescue operations personnel provide and install free smoke alarms in Aurora in conjunction with other supporting programs coordinated by our prevention and community engagement teams to make the community safer!”

DFPC is teaming up with Aurora Fire Rescue to host fire musters and live building fire demonstrations with a Side-By-Side NFSA Trailer demonstration. Bring the family and learn about fire safety, meet the men and women on the front lines of fire, and watch a live burn demonstration!  

EVENT SPECIFICS: Both media and community are welcome to join.

Who: Aurora Fire Rescue Chief Gray, DFPC Director Morgan, & DFPC Section Chief Brunette

When: Saturday, October 9, 2021 

          Presentation and Remarks: 11:00am

          Demonstration and Muster: 11:30-1:00

Where: Aurora Municipal Center, 15151 E Alameda Parkway, Aurora, CO,80012

Live Streaming: We will be live streaming the event on the DFPC Facebook page at https://fb.me/e/1QeEwZS7B

What:             Adams County Public Works will once again host the annual Snow and Ice Inspection Day event. Attendees are invited to view Adams County’s fleet of trucks and snow removal equipment and talk with Public Works personnel. Adams County Public Works maintains the entire roadway network throughout unincorporated Adams County and prides itself on reliable and quality work to ensure the safety and readiness of personnel and equipment for the upcoming 2021–2022 snow season.

Who:              Adams County Public Works

Where:           Adams County Public Works/Fleet Building

                        4955 E. 74^th Ave., Commerce City, CO 80022

When:            Friday, Oct. 8, 11:30 a.m.

Why:              With winter around the corner, Adams County residents will soon be impacted by snow on county roads. This is a great opportunity to meet staff face to face with any questions before the busy snow season.

FORT COLLINS, Colo. – Colorado Parks and Wildlife is announcing an emergency public fish salvage at Johnstown Reservoir, effective immediately (Wednesday, Oct. 6).

The fish salvage has been enacted so the Town of Johnstown can completely drain the reservoir to allow for emergency repairs to be made on the dam.

Because the entire fishery may be lost, CPW has enacted the public fish salvage in order to optimize use of the resource. The fish salvage will be effective through Nov. 1.

The following emergency salvage regulations apply only to Johnstown Reservoir:

– The emergency fish salvage is permitted only at Johnstown Reservoir and only during daylight hours (sunrise to ½ hour after sunset).
– All anglers must have a valid Colorado fishing license in accordance with state statutes. 
– No commercial angling is allowed.
– Only angling methods that are currently legal at the reservoir are allowed.
– Current size, bag and possession limits for all species are suspended for Johnstown Reservoir until the emergency public fish salvage is terminated.
– Notification of the emergency public fish salvage opening and closure will be made through press releases, and signs will also be placed at the reservoir.
– Angling is prohibited from the dam located on the east side of the reservoir, as well as 500 feet west of the dam along the north and south shoreline.
– Anglers shall assume any and all liability and shall hold the Town of Johnstown harmless from any and all damages, either direct or consequential.
– A Town of Johnstown angling permit will be waived for anglers during the emergency salvage.

Johnstown Reservoir has been stocked with trout as well as warm water species. Other fish species in the reservoir include largemouth and smallmouth bass, bluegill, common carp, channel catfish, black and white crappie and walleye.

Entrance area to the Dog Off Leash Area at Cherry Creek State Park (photo courtesy of CPW)

AURORA, Colo. – The heavily used dog off leash area at Cherry Creek State Park – a popular spot for dog owners that sees over one million visitors of the two- and four-legged kind a year – will be temporarily closing Oct. 11-15 so park staff can conduct needed maintenance and enhancement work. 

This is the third time that the dog off leash area will be closed. It was also closed in October of 2020 and 2019 for four days. This allows for staff and contractors to conduct work on the natural resources and trails while improving access for all visitors. 

“We are dedicated to being active caretakers of this highly valued public land,” said Park Manager Jason Trujillo. “It has gotten to the point where it is so busy down there we can’t get any work done without interrupting the experiences of visitors and this maintenance work cannot be conducted safely while the area is open.”

In 2021, the dog off leash area has continued to experience very high visitation and use. The dog park offers a great outlet for the public dealing with the stresses of our times. The staff, volunteers and partners of Colorado Parks and Wildlife are dedicated to the long term protection and preservation of this resource.  

“It is hard to have a sustainable resource when it is so heavily used,” Trujillo said. “The work we are doing will be a balance of resource protection and additional improvements. We appreciate the patience of our visitors during the brief period the dog off leash area will close.”

Improvements this year will include the addition of concrete to improve access from the parking lot to the entry to the dog off leash area, temporary fencing that will allow reseeding of native grasses to flourish and for weeds to be managed, resurfacing of the trails, restriping of the parking lot at 12 mile south and a new message board at the entrance station. 

The trail work will consist of contractors adding crusher fine gravel to elevate the trail and assist with erosion control concerns. 

Park staff will be looking at this type of major maintenance work twice a year – once in the fall and once in the spring. If anyone wishes to volunteer to help with this project, they can contact the park by calling 303-766-6562.