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4 December 2008
MSL Press Conference Tomorrow
At 12 noon EST. I know what the announcement is, but I’m not allowed to tell you! How frustrating is that?! I can, however, draft a post and put it up the moment the news is released… stay tuned tomorrow, I’ll have a lot to say.
3 December 2008
Sand Dunes Quote
Briony has kindly updated my last Mars Art post, adding the sand dunes quote which I referred to. In case you don’t feel like going back to look at that post, here’s the quote: In places vast accumulations of sand weighing millions of tons move inexorably, in regular formation, over the surface of the country, growing, retaining their shape, even breeding, in a manner which, by its grotesque imitation of …
1 December 2008
Hubble Advent Calendar
I am back from Thanksgiving-related travels but am going to be quite busy this month, preparing for a conference, finishing the semester, and getting caught up now that National Novel Writing Month is over, so posting may be a little light. For now, take a look over at The Big Picture. They are doing an advent calendar of Hubble images, unveiling a new image every day from now until Christmas.
29 November 2008
Carnival of Space #81
Sorry for the slow week, but I’ve been busy eating absurd amounts of pie. While I am digesting, you can amuse yourself with tons of great space links over at Tiny Mantras. Enjoy!
24 November 2008
Mars Art: Dunes in Abalos Undae
This week’s Mars Art is a HiRISE view of Dunes in Abalos Undae. Pictures of sand dunes taken by HiRISE never get old for me. There is something about the undulating, regular shapes of dunes that is fascinating and beautiful and peaceful. There is a great quote about dunes in the book “Physics of Blown Sand and Desert Dunes” by R.A. Bagnold that goes on quite poetically about them, but …
23 November 2008
Sample Return Cache on MSL Canceled!
I just heard, via this article at Universe Today, that the sample cache on MSL has been canceled. First, some background. The cache was supposed to be a way to collect samples which would be retrieved in a future sample return mission. Problem is, the cache was sort of slapped on the rover as an afterthought. From what I understand, it was poorly designed, could not hold many samples, and …
More About Mars Glaciers
I posted previously about the announcement that buried glaciers had been discovered on Mars, but now I’ve had time to actually take a look at the article in Science. The important point of the article is not that these formations were discovered (we’ve actually known about them for some time) but that, using radar on the Mars Reconaissance Orbiter, scientists were able to penetrate the surface of these mysterious glacier-looking …
21 November 2008
Holst's 'The Planets'
A month or so ago, Cornell hosted a planetary science conference, and one of the big events associated with that was a performance of Holst’s famous symphony “The Planets”. For each movement, some of us in the astronomy department put together a slideshow to go with the music. The concert was totally awesome, and there is now a video and audio version available online! For me, firefox crashed when I …
Buried Glaciers on Mars!
Gosh, why are there so many news articles about Mars when I’m busy? Here’s the press release, and Bad Astronomy and Universe Today have both weighed in, so I’ll let you read them. Here’s a picture of a Martian glacier:
20 November 2008
MSL Landing Sites Narrowed to Four
I’ve known about this for a little while but it was finally made public: the list of MSL landing sites had now been trimmed to four. You can read the full press release here. The finalist sites are: Gale Crater – The rover would land on an ancient alluvial fan and then work its way up a mound of sediments many kilometers high. Eberswalde Delta – The rover would land …
