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3 August 2012
Two Mars scientists prepare for Curiosity’s descent to the red planet
Two young AGU member-scientists balance nervousness with excitement over the imminent arrival of the Mars Science Laboratory, a.k.a. “Curiosity,” on the planet’s surface. For Ryan Anderson the journey beginning next week in Mars’ Gale Crater dates back several years when his graduate school advisor asked him, “Hey, you want to look at [Mars] landing sites? Here’s a cool one!” Building on other researchers’ previous studies, Anderson’s subsequent work at Cornell …
20 April 2012
Sadness, frustration, and ultimately admiration surround space shuttle Discovery’s welcome to Smithsonian
On Thursday, I went to the Udvar-Hazy Center to witness Discovery being rolled into the center’s space hangar. There, former U.S. Senator John Glenn, who became the oldest person in space when he launched aboard Discovery in 1998, gave a five-minute speech about the legacy of the space program, praising the ship behind him.
“Space shuttle Discovery is the star with the most extensive record of all the shuttle fleet,” he said, before expressing sadness that the shuttle program had ended, perhaps before its time. As he turned to sit, a man behind me in the audience said quietly, “Godspeed, John Glenn.”
20 December 2010
Unsolved mystery: The case of Martian methane
There is methane in the Martian atmosphere, and it’s relatively abundant. But not only that, it peaks seasonally and in specific locations, suggesting that something–geological, chemical or perhaps even biological–is burping methane. But the problem is that no one knows what is producing the methane, or why it’s like a kid with a short attention span: most of the methane in the Martian atmosphere wanders off in less than a year, much more quickly than dissipating air should.
15 December 2010
What do you want to see on Mars? Tell HiRISE!
The most powerful camera ever sent to another planet wants to know what you’d like to see. HiRISE, dubbed “the people’s camera,” solicits public suggestions when deciding where to shoot. A team from the University of Arizona presented HiRISE, or the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment, on Tuesday (ED23A-0712) with the only poster I’ve seen to pass out 3D glasses.
13 December 2010
Searching for life on Earth
Europa is actually in Alaska. Mars? That’s in Newfoundland. And the Canadian high Arctic. And the Andes. It’s like the ultimate in elaborate cinema: terrestrial oddities serving as stunt doubles for far-flung celestial landscapes–except the scenery is real, and scientists can dive, climb and dig into the exotic vistas. Scientists use these extreme environments to study life as it might exist on the smaller, rocky bodies in our solar system.
GeoSpace is a blog on Earth and space science, managed by AGU’s Public Information staff. The blog features posts by AGU writers and guest contributors on all sorts of relevant science topics, but with a focus on new research and geo and space sciences-related stories that are currently in the news.