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16 May 2011
Utah Mars Analogs
Greetings from Los Angeles! I’m in California this week for the 5th and final MSL Landing Site Workshop. Since that is sure to provide some tasty blog-fodder, I thought I should sit down and write about my trip to Utah two weeks ago.
Why did I go to Utah? Because the latest MSL camera team meeting was held in Moab, and I was hoping to give a brief presentation about some work I’ve been doing on the side (in all my copious free time) with the calibration data for the Mastcams. Unfortunately, I can’t write about what happened at the business part of the meeting because then I would have to kill you. Or more likely Mike Malin would kill me. It turned out there wasn’t time for me or my adviser to give our presentations, but it was still a great trip because after the “sit in a room all day and watch powerpoint presentations” part of the meeting, came the field trip!
31 July 2010
Big Sky Country
Well folks, I’m headed off to Big Sky Country tomorrow (aka Montana)! I’ll start the week at the MSL camera team meeting, where I will get all sorts of cool news about the MastCam, MAHLI and MARDI cameras which I will not be able to share with you.* After that, the lot of us will pack up and head to Glacier National Park to learn about the geology of the …
22 July 2010
New Deep Sea Vents Discovered in the Caribbean
Here’s the second of my recent Universe Today Articles: scientists have discovered new deep sea vents in the Caribbean that will teach us more about sunless ecosystems. Good to know if we ever want to look for life in the oceans of Europa some day! Check out the article here.
6 June 2010
Solar System Tour: Earth
This is Earth, the third planet from the sun. I’m hoping, of all the planets, you’re most familiar with this one. Hopefully, though, you’re about to learn a little more about home. When seen from space, one of the most striking features of the Earth is all the water. Our planet’s surface is about 70% water. Earth is the only planet known with liquid water currently on the surface. Mars …
12 January 2010
How to cure the Avatar Blues
I was innocently browsing through my twitter list yesterday when I came across this article on CNN. The gist of it is that many people are experiencing depression after watching Avatar because the fictional world depicted is so beautiful and amazing that life back here on earth seems drab and boring. Many people have responded to this story with shock and derision, and this definitely hints at some pre-existing issues …
30 November 2009
Rings around the Earth – Implications
Last week I posted a video that speculates what it would look like if the Earth had rings like Saturn. Well, over at Quantum Rocketry, Joe Shoer has two excellent follow-up posts. First he calculated what the rings would really look like with gaps caused by Earth’s moons rather than just copying and pasting Saturn’s rings. Here’s a simulated image, but you should check out the full post for more …
23 November 2009
If Earth had Rings
There’s a great video making the rounds showing what it would look like if Earth had a ring system like Saturn’s, including some gorgeous views from the ground. Of course, rings probably wouldn’t be stable with our moon, or at least would look very different, but that doesn’t take away from the coolness of this video. Enjoy!
9 September 2009
If This is Socialist Propaganda, Please, Send More
Surely by now you have heard that president Obama attempted to brainwash our nation’s children with socialist propaganda yesterday. It is apalling, isn’t it? An outrage! But have you actually heard or read what he said? I’ll let his words speak for themselves: I want to start with the responsibility you have to yourself. Every single one of you has something that you’re good at. Every single one of you …
30 August 2009
Fire near JPL
Apologies for the silence on the blog lately. I’ve been trying to get caught up with work since I got back from the north woods of Michigan last sunday. However, I thought I should take a minute and mention the forest fires in LA that are threatening JPL . People on the MER team have been sending occasional updates and photos over the last few days as the fires inch …
10 July 2009
Solar System Creator
As I mentioned last month, on top of research and grad school duties, I’m in the process of planning out a sci-fi novel. It began with the month-long outlining challenge “Midsommer Madness” over at the Liberty Hall writing site, and I am continuing with it in my spare time. I am trying to make my novel grounded in reality whenever possible. It is set in a known star system, 55 …
