You are browsing the archive for Ryan Anderson.
18 November 2008
Mike Brown on Planet Images
Mike Brown (planet hunter extraordinaire) has a really interesting and thoughtful post on his blog about his reaction to the announcement that planets around other stars had been imaged. He details the process that he goes through when reading a paper and then preparing to speak to the press about it. Here’s the excellent quote that he gave to a reporter asking about the discovery: I can’t say the pictures …
17 November 2008
An Ancient Ocean on Mars?
Bad Astronomy has a post today about possible evidence for an ancient ocean on Mars, based on this press release. It’s an interesting post, but all the hype confused me. The results that supposedly suggest an ocean on Mars are old, it’s just the interpretation that is new, and that is not very convincing to me. The basis of the argument is that potassium, thorium and iron were transported to …
16 November 2008
Carnival of Space #79
The 79th Carnival of Space is up at One Astronomer’s Noise! Go check it out for your weekly distillation of everything spacey.
15 November 2008
Mars Art: Something Old, Something New
I love this image. It is a view from the Mars Orbital Camera (MOC) showing layered rocks and dunes in the bottom of an unnamed crater in Arabia Terra, Mars. The rocks are extremely ancient sediments, laid down billions of years ago when the planet was young. One of the most impressive things to me is how nice and regular the layers are. The black dunes and the granule ripples …
14 November 2008
Lidless and Wreathed in Flame
I just had an outrageously geeky moment, and needed to share. I think there is something that the Hubble team isn’t telling us about their latest planet-discovery image… Masked image of Fomalhaut and its planet Fomalhaut-b. The Eye of Sauron.
13 November 2008
Beyond the Moon
Today the Planetary Society released a “roadmap” for space exploration, detailing what the Society thinks NASA’s priorities and programs should look like in the near future. It is the product of input from the public as well as closed-door meetings of space exploration experts. I encourage you to take a look at the pdf. The plan outlined in the “Beyond the Moon” document is well thought out and feasible, and …
Extrasolar Planets Imaged by Hubble and Gemini!
There was a big announcement today: the Hubble space telescope has taken an image of a planet orbiting the bright star Fomalhaut! And not only that, the Gemini telescope has taken an image of TWO planets orbiting the star HR8799! Phil Plait has a nice and very excited post about this over at bad astronomy. You can also go straight to the source and read the JPL press release. I’ll …
Tectonics on Mars
Mars is often touted as the “most earth-like” planet, but if you take a look at its surface there are some aspects that are decidedly alien. Sure, there are dry river beds and canyons and volcanoes. But there are also craters. Everywhere. So many that, when Mariner 9 sent back the first spacecraft images of Mars, people were dismayed to see a surface that looked just like the moon! Is …
11 November 2008
Spirit Hit by Dust Storm
Just when things were looking up for Spirit and we had begun driving, over the weekend we got news from the MARCI team that there was a dust storm headed toward Gusev crater. Sure enough, Spirit is being hit hard and power levels are at an all-time low. Here’s the NASA press release. But after five years the rover team knows what it’s doing. There was an emergency set of …
10 November 2008
Phoenix Mission Over
Well, it’s official. Phoenix is dead. JPL sent out a press release today announcing that after more than five months, they stopped hearing from the lander on Nov 2 and have been unable to re-establish contact. Although the mission is over, I’m sure that science results will continue to be announced as the team finally has time to sit down and really analyze the data. Here’s a quick summary from …
