16 March 2009
Sedona and Oak Creek Canyon
Today we made our way from Phoenix north to Flagstaff, and on the way stopped to check out some interesting geology in Sedona and Oak Creek Canyon. Sedona is famous for its spectacular red rocks, such as Bell Rock, which we clambered around on today. Bell Rock is made mostly of very fine-grained sandstone formed by windblown sand reworked by the advance and retreat of oceans in the early Permian …
14 March 2009
Rocket Scientista
A friend of mine from undergrad, who is an honest-to-goodness rocket scientist had started a new blog about astronomy and grad school and what it’s like to be a crazy rocket scientist. She just put up a nice post about grad students looking ahead to faculty positions and how we need to take time to appreciate how cool our current jobs are. Here’s an excerpt: While everyone talks about how …
Greetings from Phoenix!
Arizona, not the lander on Mars. After a hectic week of tying up loose ends and running around like a chicken with its head cut off, I now have my proster done for the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference, and am in Phoenix for the Planetary Surface Processes field trip, led by my adviser Jim Bell. Today was mostly travel, but we did have a chance this afternoon to stop …
12 March 2009
House Resolution 67
Recognizing and commending the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), and Cornell University for the success of the Mars Exploration… (Introduced in House) HRES 67 IH 111th CONGRESS 1st Session H. RES. 67 Recognizing and commending the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), and Cornell University for the success of the Mars Exploration Rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, on the 5th …
8 March 2009
MER Calendar!
Check it out! NASA has just released a new calendar with images from the Rovers. It is a 2009-2010 calendar, and spans one mars year (~2 earth years). It is best printed on 11″x17″ paper.
7 March 2009
Carnival of Space #94
This week’s Carnival of Space is up at the Planetary Society Blog! Alas, I am not in the carnival, I’ve been too busy. I’m afraid things are going to be pretty quiet here for the next week, but consider it the prelude to some really exciting blogging coming up: Next saturday I’ll be joining my officemates and adviser on a weeklong geology field trip to Arizona, where we will be …
4 March 2009
Help Name the Space Station
Apparently NASA is looking for a name for the next node of the International Space Station, and they have a website where you can cast your vote! Currently “Serenity” is far ahead of the rest of the options, which, I must say, as a fan of the sci-fi show Firefly, is pretty shiny. Whether you’re a sci-fi fan or not, go check out the site and cast your vote!
Free Books!
Random House is making a bunch of science fiction and fantasy books available to download – for free! I just downloaded Kim Stanley Robinson’s “Red Mars”! Enjoy!
2 March 2009
The Reasons Behind the MSL Delay
There are a pair of excellent articles in this week’s Space Review by Adrian Brown, looking at the Technical and Budgetary reasons that the Mars Science Lab launch was delayed until 2011. Go take a look; these two essays do a great job of distilling a lot of the relevant information on the launch delay into one place.
The MOC "Book": Volcanic Landforms
More about the MOC paper! This is part six of a series of posts looking at the huge 2001 paper summarizing the results from the Mars Orbital Camera (MOC): the first high-resolution camera in orbit around Mars. Check out the previous posts if you want to get caught up: 1,2,3,4,5 Today’s topic is volcanism, something I’ve written a lot about before on the blog. Mars is essentially a volcanic planet, …
