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22 May 2008
The Search for Life on Mars: Part 2
In a previous post, I talked about how the idea of life on Mars captivated the mind of the world before the space age, and left off with the arrival of Mariner 4. Now, with the Phoenix landing coming up on Sunday, I thought it would be fitting to continue the story of the search for life on Mars by looking at what past spacecraft have found. When Mariner 4 …
21 May 2008
Dangerous Sunrise
Image credit: Inga Nielsen Ok, apparently I am a sucker for artist’s renditions of active red dwarfs. Today’s picture is the Astronomy Picture of the Day, and shows a concept of what the surface of Gliese876d might look like. This planet is heftier than Earth and orbits closer to its star than Mercury does the sun. However, it orbits a dim red dwarf, which means that even though it is …
20 May 2008
Superflare!
Image credit: Casey Reed/NASA Apparently the tiny little red dwarf star EV Lacertae has quite a temper. On April 25, astronomers detected that this little dim star underwent a colossal flare and became brighter than the sun. Bad Astronomy has the full story, but I felt the need to share this mostly because of the absolutely awesome artist’s rendition of the flare above. I’ve seen a lot of space artwork, …
18 May 2008
New York Geology: Day 2
In an earlier post, I shared some pictures and interpretations from the first day of a two-day whirlwind tour of New York geology. Now without further ado is day 2! Our first stop on Day two was Stark’s Knob, a tall outcrop of basaltic rock jutting out of the middle of an otherwise unremarkable bit of New York countryside. The basalt is in the form of rounded blobs or “pillows”, …
14 May 2008
New York Geology Trip: Day 1
Over the weekend I went on a joint Astronomy/Geology department field trip to visit some cool geologic sites in eastern New York state. As a planetary scientist, it is good to sometimes go out and actually, you know, study an actual planet. I will do my best to describe some of the sights here, but I’m afraid my field geology skills are lacking so I won’t nearly do the locations …
7 May 2008
Dust Devils at the Phoenix Landing Site
It’s finals week in Cornell-land, so I apologize for the lack of posting. As always, I will sate your appetites with a picture. This time, it is an image from the context camera (CTX) on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, showing giant dust devils near the landing site for Phoenix. Coolness! Phoenix is landing on May 25 (only 18 days left!), and will probably be able to catch a glimpse of …
24 April 2008
The Search for Life on Mars: Part 1
Pre-Space Age The prospect of life on Mars has tantalized humans for centuries. We long to find some proof that we are not alone, that the universe is not as empty as it seems, and so we look to the most Earth-like planet in our solar system for signs of life. Early astronomers quickly noticed that Mars shares some properties with the Earth. In 1783, William Herschel discussed the similarities …
14 April 2008
Cape Verde Mosaic
Last week I posted a nice mosaic that Opportunity took of her current target, Cape Verde. Ever since the dust storm last summer, the camera lenses have been a bit clouded up, and it takes some time to fix the images up so that they look a little more normal. A new, touched-up false color version of the image is now available, as well as an approximate true color mosaic. …
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:
1 April 2008
Opportunity Update: Sols 1485-1487
As promised, here is the latest from Opportunity. The goal right now is to drive up to Cape Verde, a 20 foot tall cliff of layered rocks in Victoria Crater. Over the weekend, Opportunity backed up the slope of the crater and re-oriented for the upcoming drive toward the Cape. The following picture, which is a close-up of this fantastic HiRISE image of Victoria Crater, shows where Opportunity is right …
