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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 …
Mars Art Galleries!
Apparently I am not the only person who has had the idea of posting “artistic” images of Mars! In the past week I’ve come across two sites with collections of Mars Art images. So in lieu of posting my own image this week, I’ll point you to these sites who had the idea before me! First is a site by Jim Plaxco called simply the Mars Art Gallery. It has …
5 November 2008
Second Enceladus "Skeet Shoot" Successful
On Halloween, Cassini flew by the south pole of Enceladus again, and snapped some stunning high-resolution photos from an altitude of ~1,700 km. To give you an idea of the resolution, here’s a comparison. First, a view of Enceladus from the recent flyby with a resolution of about 12 meters (40 feet) per pixel. Next, a view of the earth at a comparable scale. It’s a Landsat 7 image, so …
2 November 2008
Obama on Space
Ian O’Neill over at AstroEngine has a really excellent post about the upcoming election and what effect it might have on NASA’s future. I encourage you to go check it out. The post ends with this video. I know that this is pandering to florida voters, but I really really hope that it isn’t just vote pandering: (Note: I had issues embedding the video, so click the picture and it …
1 November 2008
Mercury in Color
Check out this true color and exaggerated color view of Mercury, taken by MESSENGER during the recent flyby! In one of my classes on Thursday, we were speculating about why Mercury craters seem to have such long rays on the fresh craters. Our conclusion was that it’s probably just the higher gravity. Mercury is small but very dense, so it’s surface gravity is greater than the moon’s. So with equivalent …
31 October 2008
Phoenix Epitaph Contest
Sad that Phoenix is on its way out? Want some cool NASA swag? Then head on over to Wired and submit an epitaph for Phoenix! If you win, you get official mission gear. Many of the sumbissions are great. I like: ” Will I Dream ? “ because I’m a sucker for sci-fi references (2001: A Space Odyssey), and: Here lies One Whose Name was writ in Water because of …
Phoenix hanging in there
Yesterday, Phoenix went into safe mode, where the spacecraft shuts off all but the most vital systems due to some sort of fault. In this case it related to shutting off the heater for the arm and was totally expected. But when controllers here on Earth tried to communicate, they got no response. Is phoenix dead? Not yet. The twitter feed reports that phoenix is still alive, but will be …
30 October 2008
Kids These Days…
You may have heard a while back that Buzz Aldrin thinks that science fiction is the reason that kids aren’t interested in real space travel: “I blame the fantastic and unbelievable shows about space flight and rocket ships that are on today. All the shows where they beam people around and things like that have made young people think that that is what the space program should be doing. It’s …
29 October 2008
It's Getting Dark…
Phoenix is losing power by the day as it gets darker near the Martian north pole. This press release discusses how NASA engineers are trying to keep Phoenix alive for as long as possible. Most notably, they are turning off the heater for the robotic arm, meaning it will probably be unable to move very soon. For more information, check these posts at the Planetary Society blog and Cumbrian Sky. …
26 October 2008
The Science of Chandrayaan: Part 2
Last time I described the Indian-made instruments on the Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft. But the mission is a huge international collaboration, and there are six more instruments to talk about made by countries around the world. Let’s take a look: An X-ray image of the moon. Chandrayaan-1 X-Ray Spectrometer (C1XS) – “Wait a second!” I hear you saying. “Didn’t you talk about an x-ray spectrometer last time?” Well, yes, but x-rays have …
