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4 July 2008
Happy 4th!
A little patriotism from Phoenix: And, from the edge of human exploration: It’s the USA’s spirit of exploration and innovation that has gotten us to these distant places, and let’s keep that spirit alive in the years to come!
3 July 2008
Phoenix update: More ice, newer panorama
Emily over at the Planetary Society has a fantastic update on Phoenix. Highlights include: * Phoenix has been scraping away at the icy-soil layer at the Snow White trench, and has begun sampling the soil-ice interface. The team was hoping to deliver a sample of this to TEGA, but concerns about the potential for short-cicuiting in TEGA have slowed down progress on this, and we probably won’t see ice samples …
2 July 2008
Spore
Have you heard of the game Spore? It is a computer game being released this fall and is the first game in quite a while that I am considering buying, despite the fact that I have no time to play games anymore. Here is an old video of an early version of the game: Here’s the gist of it (paraphrased from the wiki article): The game begins with a comet …
26 June 2008
Phoenix landing site panorama – almost done!
One of the goals of the Phoenix mission is to create a full color panorama of the landing site, and the team is well on their way to completing it! Emily over at the Planetary Society has put together what’s available so far, and has created this beautiful mosaic (image links to full res): As Emily mentions, the team still has to fill in the area immediately around the lander, …
24 June 2008
Phoenix hilarity
My old thesis title: “Composition and morphology of aeolian deposits in the north polar region of Mars and implications for sediment transport.” My new thesis title: “Why the #$%#& are there polar bears at the north pole of Mars?”
23 June 2008
Phoenix updates: TEGA interview, new images
First off, Astrobiology Magazine has posted a great interview with the TEGA (Thermal and Evolved Gas Analyzer – the ovens) principal investigator Bill Boynton. The interview provides a really great overview of how TEGA works, and what the team is hoping to see. The interview pretty much answered all the lingering questions that I had, as well as some that people have posted in the comments recently. In particular, here’s …
21 June 2008
The Great Canadian Adventure – Part 2: Gypsumville and Salt Springs
After our trip to the mine tailings, we headed to the remains of an ancient 40 km impact crater. The crater is totally invisible, but the rocks tell the story plain as day. Our first stop was just outside the town of Gypsumville. We drove through swampy, bumpy back roads into the middle of nowhere and stopped next to an unassuming patch of rock and gravel. At first it didn’t …
20 June 2008
The Great Canadian Adventure: Part 1 – The Price of Gold
After our trip to Great Sand Dunes National Park, where we compared dunes on Earth to those on Mars, we flew up north to Winnipeg, Canada. There we met up with a bunch of geologists and spent three days exploring a bunch of interesting sites in Manitoba. The first site was an old mine tailings dump from a gold mine in the area. When mining for gold, the rocks are …
14 June 2008
Which is Earth?
We had another great day at Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve today, with lots of pictures, but it also involved a lot of hiking and I’m tired. So instead of a full post, I will refer you to my adviser’s post about our first day at the dunes, over at the Planetary Society blog. I’m also stealing the image that he posted over there, comparing granule ripples on …
13 June 2008
Sand Dunes!
Greetings folks! I’ve been silent for a few days because I am in the midst of a lot of traveling. On Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday this week I was at a team meeting for the Mars Color Imager (MARCI) and Context Camera (CTX). Rather than spend a lot of time explaining what that means, I will do what I always do and link to the planetary society blog. My adviser …
