Tag Archives: Curriosity

Long Range Sensors Detect…

  • Cassini–Fabulous pictures of Saturn, rings, and moons.
  • Cassini’s final view of Earth from Saturn
  • Lego’s Saturn 5 kit
  • The largest SETI initiative ever
  • How does sound travel on Mars?
  • 27 best Hubble images on its 27th anniversary


Cassini–Fabulous pictures of Saturn, rings, and moons.

https://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/

http://www.astronomy.com/news/2017/04/the-final-days-of-cassini

http://www.skyandtelescope.com/astronomy-blogs/cassini-survives-first-grand-finale-dive/?

Cassini’s view of Earth from Saturn

Click on the image to see more resolution–Earth is a dot near centre, bottom.

And what Earth looks like from other planets

http://www.astronomy.com/news/2017/04/cassinis-final-image-of-earth

Lego’s Saturn 5 kit

http://www.astronomy.com/news/2017/04/apollo-saturn-v-lego-set

The largest SETI initiative ever

http://www.astronomy.com/news/2017/04/breakthrough-listen–initial-results

How does sound travel on Mars?

http://www.astronomy.com/news/2017/04/how-loud-is-the-curiosity

27 best Hubble images on its 27th anniversary

http://www.astronomy.com/news/2017/04/best-of-hubble-images

Long Range Scanners detect…

  1.   This week’s observing highlights
  2.  Aurora Alert: Possible CME impact on the 9th
  3.   China’s Radio Telescope goes on line
  4.  Curiosity finds a meteorite on Mars
  1. This week’s observing highlights:

webvic16_nov11ev-534x360

 

 

 

 

 

 

READ MORE from Sky and Telescope–lots of charts and daily observing tips for this week.

2)  Aurora Alert: Possible CME impact on the 8th,  SpaceWeather.com   A magnetic filament on the sun erupted Nov. 5th, hurling a cloud of debris into space. NOAA forecasters say the resulting coronal mass ejection (CME, movie) could strike Earth’s magnetic field on Nov. 8th. G1-class gromagnetic storms and bright Arctic auroras are possible when the CME arrives. Free: Aurora Alerts

china-radio-telescope3) China’s Radio Telescope goes on line:  The world’s largest radio telescope began searching for signals from stars and galaxies and, perhaps, extraterrestrial life Sunday in a project demonstrating China’s rising ambitions in space and its pursuit of international scientific prestige….Measuring 500 metres in diameter, the radio telescope is nestled in a natural basin within a stunning landscape of lush green karst formations in southern Guizhou province. It took five years and $180 million US to complete and surpasses that of the 300-meter Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico, a dish used in research on stars that led to a Nobel Prize.  (Meanwhile, the Arecibo might be mothballed for lack of funds, more in a later post.) READ MORE

pia211344) Curiosity finds a meteorite on Mars: The dark, smooth-surfaced rock at the center of this Oct. 30, 2016, image from the Mast Camera (Mastcam) on NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover was examined with laser pulses and confirmed to be an iron-nickel meteorite. It is about the size of a golf ball.   READ MORE

Remote Sensors detect…

Robot looks up
  •  Frozen water found on asteroid
  • Planet 9 may be affecting our solar system
  • NASA’s MRO takes picture of Schiaparelli crash site
  • Curiosity and Opportunity still on the job
  • Juno update

1) Asteroid   has frozen water on its surface: 16 Psyche, a metallic relic of the early solar system, just got weirder.

New research suggests that the asteroid 16 Psyche may have traces of water splattered across its surface. Infrared observations reveal the characteristic absorption of unexpected volatiles, hinting at impacts by water-bearing rocks crashing into the iron-rich asteroid that is suspected to be the relic core of a failed planet. READ MORE

2) Is Planet 9 (no, not Pluto!) messing with our solar system?

Earlier this year an announcement raised a tantalizing possibility: a ninth planet lurking in the outer reaches of our solar system. The announcement turned the astronomy and planetary science world upside down.

Caltech astronomer Michael Brown and theoretical astrophysicist Konstantin Batygin found evidence for a possible 10 Earth mass planet that may be tilting long-orbiting dwarf planets on their sides and shepherding them into clusters far past the orbit of Neptune in highly eccentric orbits. In the last several months, more and more papers have been published about the possible planet and how it might prove an explanation for other strange things happening in our solar system. READ MORE

3) NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has identified new markings on the surface of the Red Planet that are believed to be related to ESA’s ExoMars Schiaparelli entry, descent and landing technology demonstrator module.

A pair of before-and-after images taken by the Context Camera (CTX) on NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter on 29 May 2016 and 20 October 2016 show two new features appearing following the arrival of the Schiaparelli test lander module on 19 October.

One of the features is bright and can be associated with the 12-m diameter parachute used in the second stage of Schiaparelli’s descent, after the initial heat shield entry. …

The other new feature is a fuzzy dark patch roughly 15 x 40 metres in size and about 1 km north of the parachute. This is interpreted as arising from the impact of the Schiaparelli module itself following a much longer free fall than planned, after the thrusters were switched off prematurely.

BTW, the loss of the lander is not a disaster for the ESA, the orbiter is doing fine. READ MORE

4) They’re aging, a bit wobbly, and some parts don’t work anymore, but they’re hanging in there…  They’re even taking selfies!  READ MORE

http://www.skyandtelescope.com/astronomy-news/curiosity-opportunity-udpate/?

5) Juno Update (October 19)  An anomaly caused the spacecraft to enter electronic hibernation at 1:47 a.m. EDT. The spacecraft acted as expected during the transition into this “safe mode,” restarted successfully, and is healthy. High-rate data has been restored, and the spacecraft is conducting flight software diagnostics. All instruments are off, and the planned science data collection for today’s close flyby of Jupiter did not occur. Scott Bolton (NASA) explained at the ongoing meeting of the Division of Planetary Sciences that the problem was with valves in propulsion system. Find more information from NASA’s recent press release. Meanwhile, data from the first perijove flyby are still revealing intriguing results, showing that Jupiter’s belt-zone structure extends at least 400 km deep!