11 November 2008
Spirit Hit by Dust Storm
Just when things were looking up for Spirit and we had begun driving, over the weekend we got news from the MARCI team that there was a dust storm headed toward Gusev crater. Sure enough, Spirit is being hit hard and power levels are at an all-time low. Here’s the NASA press release. But after five years the rover team knows what it’s doing. There was an emergency set of …
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 …
7 November 2008
Carnival of Space #78
The carnival of space is here again! This week’s carnival is being hosted over at Simostronomy. You should go check it out, I hear there’s cotton candy.
6 November 2008
Phoenix Blogs!
Now that the mission is winding down, the Phoenix lander had broken out of the confines of twittering and is writing a few longer blog entries over at Gizmodo! Also, over at Wired, they have announced the winners of the Phoenix epitaph contest. The #1 choice was: Veni, Vidi, Fodi (I came, I saw, I dug)
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 …
3 November 2008
Vote Adama in '08
Can’t decide who to vote for? (hint: Obama) Courtesy of io9, here are some sci-fi alternatives to the current candidates. Adama ’08!
2 November 2008
Mars Art: Dust Devil Tracks
In this scene, taken by the Mars Orbital Camera (MOC) on Mars Global Surveyor, dust devils have swirled and gyrated back and forth, lifting the bright dust off of the surface and leaving complicated dark-toned streaks. There are many more examples of this, including some where the dust devils have been caught in the act! I’m posting this as Mars Art because it looks for all the world to me …
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 …
