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21 October 2008

Fresh Craters

Today marks my twenty-fourth revolution around the sun! To commemorate this momentous occasion, I am going to be a lazy blogger and just let you drool over some HiRISE images instead. The image above is a small crater in the polar layered deposits. It’s filled with ice because the crater walls keep the floor shaded, so frost can collect there. You can read more about this crater at the HiRISE

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6 October 2008

Planets as Art

I’m often struck by how beautiful landscapes are when seen from above, whether they are on Mars, Earth, or anywhere else. With the high-resolution images from HiRISE this is especially true; with such a close view, the scale and context can be lost, and the images become more akin to abstract textures. Here’s a great example: It’s a dune field inside a crater on mars, but it looks like rumpled …

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26 September 2008

Plumbing on Mars: HiRISE Reveals Groundwater Cracks

This image from the HiRISE camera on the Mars Reconaissance Orbiter, shows cracks in the rocks on Mars that once formed the underground plumbing through which groundwater traveled. Groundwater flow on Mars has been speculated for a long time, but it takes powerful cameras like HiRISE to actually find the evidence. These cracks resisted erosion because they were filled with minerals deposited by groundwater, so now we can see them …

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17 September 2008

Potential MSL Site: Mawrth Vallis

The Mawrth Vallis landing site is actually a set of four possible landing ellipses in an area with huge clay mineral signatures that is cut by a meandering outflow channel. There was some grumbling in the past about the fact that Mawrth advocates proposed four ellipses when everyone else followed the rules and only submitted one, but in the end I think it hurt them. They ran way over time …

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20 August 2008

How to Look at Mars

There is so much Mars data out there that it hard to keep track of all of it! Thankfully there are some useful tools that let anyone look easily look at orbital data of anywhere on the planet. The first is a program called “jmars“. This java-based program distributed by Arizona State University lets you overlay all sorts of global datasets, from MOLA topography to THEMIS nighttime infrared maps to …

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27 May 2008

HiRISE is my Hero

Another amazing image from HiRISE, this time of the Phoenix lander, heat shield and parachute on the ground: Phil Plait over at Bad Astronomy has a detailed interpretation of what we’re seeing here. What struck me was how much darker the landing site looks compared to its surroundings. The dust on Mars is generally lighter than the rocks underneath, so the dark halo around the lander means that its rockets …

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Phoenix Descends with a Dramatic Backdrop

You know the mind-blowingly awesome HiRISE image of Phoenix descending to the martian surface on its parachute? It just got better. Check this out: Phoenix was actually in front of the 10km Heimdall crater from HiRISE‘s perspective! It looks like it is falling right into the giant hole in the ground! Phoenix actually didn’t land in the crater but still. Best. Picture. Ever. (Hat-tip to Emily at the Planetary Society …

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10 April 2008

Carnival of Space #49

Hey everyone, check out the latest Carnival of Space over at Will Gater’s blog! Also, you need to go take a look at the spectacular HiRISE images of Phobos that were just released. Here’s a low resolution teaser:

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12 March 2008

Spiders on Mars?!

Yes, it’s true –there are multi-legged, creepy-crawly looking things on Mars. The HiRISE camera has taken pictures of a slew of these things. But don’t worry, arachnophobs – they won’t bite or lay eggs under your skin at night. They’ll just spit.   The “spiders” are actually systems of channels near the south pole of Mars, as Dr. Candy Hansen explained during one of this morning’s LPSC sessions. These channels …

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11 March 2008

Layers and Swiss Cheese

No, this isn’t a post about sandwiches. There just happen to be layers and swiss cheese (terrain) in the ice caps on Mars. The morning session that I attended today was all about the north and south polar ice caps, and what people are seeing there, especially with new high-resolution data. The poles of Mars are really interesting because every winter the atmosphere condenses out to form layers of carbon …

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