Tonight, July 5, look west and you’ll see a temporary “Belt of Three Stars”. Saturn, Mars and the star Regulus are sitting by Leo in a chance alignment that literally will only happen tonight. Very cool.
Thanks to the ‘What’s Up’ blog at Discovery for this tip.
With thanks to Jason, here is an awesome page about atmospheric effects on Mars, including this great dust devils animation. Mars has a rich atmosphere and this is the first planet for which we are really starting to understand the climate.
I can see why everyone loves Mars these days. Planets are just cool. Poor old Pluto…
The white stuff on Mars sublimated, meaning it can’t be salt and pretty much must be ice. Congrats to the Mars Phoenix team (and whoever picked their landing site). Surely this goes down as one of the best animated GIFs for many years.
These images were acquired by NASA’s Phoenix Mars Lander’s Surface Stereo Imager on the 21st and 25th days of the mission, or Sols 20 and 24 (June 15 and 18, 2008).
These images show sublimation of ice in the trench informally called “Dodo-Goldilocks” over the course of four days. In the lower left corner, lumps disappear, similar to the process of evaporation.
YouTube - Phoenix Descends - a video from Bad Astronomy which I rather enjoyed.
This HiRISE image shows a 10km crater on the northern polar plains of Mars, called Heimdal. This isn’t the point though. The bright spot highlighted is the Phoenix lander descending to the surface. This incredible picture was captured on May 25th by the HiRISE camera onboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. The orbiter was 760 kilometers away from Phoenix when picture was taken.
This has to be one of the most incredible images taken in 2008. It says so much about what is going on in space exploration at the moment. If Phoenix finds what it is looking for, namely evidence of water ice and habitability, then this image will become truly iconic.
This image also came in just minutes after the event took place and spread virally throughout the internet within hours. The world is interested in what is happening on Mars. As a race, we seem to be captivated by our neighbouring planet. It seems to have taken control of our ambitions. Manned missions and more probes will cement this obsession in the coming decade(s).
To be able to image one craft from another proves that we have created reliable, durable methods for exploring other worlds. The longevity of NASA’s martian rovers and the new, larger version of this mission heading to Mars next year (Mars Science Laboratory) have created a tangible, real perspective on the planet. It no longer seems so alien. Of course it is when people set foot there that we will feel as if we are truly capable of great things again.
It may well be that what we are discovering on Mars is something we are in short supply of at the moment here on Earth: optimism for the future.
Plantetary landers are far from my speciality, so I’ll not dwell on Phoenix too long. Last night’s landing was well-covered by the blogosphere and in particular (took the BBC ages to catch up in fact), I was following the MarsPhoenix Twitter feed and The Planetary Society. The University of Arizona has an excellent webpage covering the mission and of course NASA also has much to say. Both are great sites and easy to read.
If, as my brother-in-law would say, you want to skip to the end: here are the pictures! First up is the first image sent back of the surface. It is black and white because that way they could send the image quickly and more easily in order to test out the lander. Phoenix has 14 colour filters and will be able to send full colour pictures later on.
Above we have a false colour image (UV and infrared filters) showing the hexagonal features of the ground in this arctic region. Below is a tall panorama showing the vast plains that are indicative of the geographical region on Mars, where Phoenix has landed.
The Mars lander, Phoenix will be touching down near the North Pole of the red planet on May 25th. It is an exciting mission, which is setting out to explore the notion of life on Mars as well as looking into the planet’s water history.
There’s no point in me regurgitating a load of facts here; The Planetary Society has a great lowdown on the Phoenix lander and recent news regarding the mission.
I just wanted to mention that there is a great Twitter feed for the Phoenix mission which will keep you up to date if you’re that way inclined.
Planets move relative to the stars always moving from west to east in the sky. Well almost always. Every once in a while, a planet will slow down in its apparent slide across the constellations each night. For a few nights it may even appear to have stopped. Then it will start moving in the opposite direction, to the west. Eventually, it will stop once again, and begin its movement back towards the east, as it had done initially.
This is called retrograde motion and it confounded astronomer for centuries. Their confusion was due to their incorrect modelling of the solar system. If you have the Earth in the centre of everything, then the planets simply won’t move as they should all the time. There is an excellent, fuller description of retrograde motion, and its history, on the Science U website.
Yesterday’s APOD was of Mars undergoing retrograde motion. It is a lovely image, and one I shall be using to illustrate the concept next time I do a talk. Thanks to Tunc Tezel from Turkey for taking it and sharing with us all.
Will Gater, who helped us out with the NAM Blog recently, is hosting the 49th Carnival of Space. There are some nice articles in it this week, particularly Out of the Cradle’s post on growing plants on other planets and Riding with Robots Victoria Crater animation.
Dugg from Daily Galaxy: NASA is serious about launching the most difficult mission ever attempted by the human race - putting an astronaut on Mars. The voyage will cover hundreds of millions of miles and take two and half years round trip.
This is an awesome, and much discussed post from the Planetary Society blog: http://www.planetary.org/blog/article/00001305/
…think to yourself: this is Mars. I’m staring through the eyes of a rover that was only supposed to survive three months, maybe six, possibly a little longer; yet it’s been four Earth years since Spirit landed, and it’s still ticking. That’s probably the number one lesson you can teach your friends from this silly little story: the image came down from Mars only two months ago. Both rovers are still up there, and they’re still working, still studying the surface of Mars for us after all this time.
Enjoy.
I’ll put this one to you as simply as possible. It’s a picture from one of the Mars rovers that appears to show a person (or a rock), walking along the Martian surface. This person (or rock, probably) looks so much like that classic Big Foot picture that it makes me laugh. Anyway, this Martian person (or rock, honestly I think it may be just a rock everyone) is going all over the web, so I thought I’d put my two pennies in: I think it’s a rock.
Images from The Sun.
I love NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day, known to its friends as APOD. So to honour that Great website, which has been running for more than a decade, I here present my own personal top ten list of APODs. They may not be quite the same as anyone else Top Ten but they represent some of the best things about the APOD site as well as being some of the most impressive images.
10: Mars Then and Now
Two images of Mars taken over 100 years apart. The first was drawn by Eugene Antoniadi in 1894, the second is from Hubble during the close approach of Mars in 2003. Its interesting to see what they got right and what they got wrong. Notably the extensive system of Martian Canals, which Percival Lowell was so adamant existed and proved the presence of Martians.
Credit: Tom Ruen, Eugene Antoniadi, Lowell Hess, Roy A. Gallant, HST, NASA
More Historical APODs - Yuri Gagarin, Voynich Manuscript
9: The Surface of Europa
Back in January 1998, when this image appeared on APOD, the Galileo Mission was still sending back amazing new pictures from Jupiter and it’s Moons. This was around the time I first discovered APOD and have been checking it ever since.
Credit: Galileo Project, JPL, NASA
More Groundbreaking APODs - Shadow of Saturn, Pluto’s True Colours
8: Bubble vs Cloud
This 2005 APOD captured my imagination for some reason. You can really see a three-dimensional effect in this beautiful picture. The actual title of the image is ‘ NGC 7635: The Bubble Nebula’ but the phrase ‘Bubble vs Cloud’ stuck with me somehow. It just got me thinking about how dynamic all of these giant objects are, even if we will never see it for ourselves.
Credit: Russell Croman
More APOD Nebulae - The Eagle Nebula, Orion Nebula, Carina Nebula
7: Close Up of the Face on Mars
After years of being told by people that there was a giant human face on Mars that an ancient civilisation had once created it was satisfying to see it for real and notice that ‘hey, there is no face’.
Credit: Malin Space Science Systems, MGS, JPL, NASA
More Debunking APODs - Equinox Eggs, Green Flash, The Moon Illusion
6: Binary Black Hole
This composite image shows the x-ray in blue and the radio in pink. You can see two black holes in the middle, which are each streaming out relativistic particles. These two objects are 300 million light years away! This APOD from April 2006 was the first time I had ’seen’ a black hole in any convincing sense.
Credit: X-Ray: NASA/CXC/D.Hudson, T.Reiprich et al. (AIfA); Radio: NRAO/VLA/NRL
More Unseeable APODs - Dark Matter, Neutrinos
5: A Sun Pillar
One of the things APOD does best is show not only planets, nebulae and other distant objects, but also some cool, Earth-bound astronomical tit-bits. This Sun Pillar is created by ice crystals in the atmosphere. They are best seen during the colder months.
Credit: Stan Richard
More Earthbound APODs - Giant Machine, Lenticular Clouds, Aurora
4: Earthrise
This is a Christmas Eve APOD from 2004. The site has never been afraid to put up historical pictures or to be a little poetic when it feels like it. This image was taken around ChristmasEve when the three Apollo 8 astronauts were orbiting the Moon. They returned safely on December 27th, in time to see the 1967 Sunrise back on the Earth.
Credit: Apollo 8, NASA
More Poetic APODs - Martian Love, Huygens Discovery, Liberty Bell
3: Hyperion
Like a 250km sponge, Saturn’s Moon Hyperion is covered in odd craters and has a density so low that it has led researchers to assume it made up of vast deep caverns. This image shows the moon in excellent detail. The images on APOD have steadily improved with improving technology over the years and this amazing Hyperion picture is a great example.
Credit: Cassini Imaging Team, SSI, JPL, ESA, NASA
More High Resolution APOD - Annual Eclipse, Mars HiRISE, ISS Silhouette
2: Blue Lagoon
Sometimes you see a picture that just takes your breath away. This APOD was just such a picture. This wonderful Lagoon Nebula picture, which to me, looks like a painting, was not taken by Hubble as many might think but by a 20″ telescope on Earth.
Credit: Russell Crowman
More Artistic APODs - Moon from Space, Sombrero in IR
1: Venus Near the Moon
Not a grand finale in one sense, but a stunning picture never-the-less. What APOD has always done best are images like these, taken not by massive telescopes but by normal observers with affordable equipment. The stuff you can see with your eyes and appreciate instantly without explanation. This crisp, detailed image of Venus near the Moon sums up what so many of us like about astronomy, and why the subject remains accessible to just about anyone.
Credit: Jay Ouellet
More Backyard APOD - Moon Animation, Station and Shuttle, Blue Moon
So thank you to Astronomy Picture of the Day for many years of service to the internet. May you long continue to wow us on a daily basis.
APOD is also available as a Google Homepage Gadget, a Netvibes Module, an Apple Dashboard Widget, a Wordpress Widget, a Yahoo Widget, a Windows Vista Gadget , as a Twitter Feed and probably loads more.
If you have other APODs you think deserve attention, leave a link in the comments thread so we can all see.
Every year it comes around now, the email that says Mars will be as big as the Full Moon in August this year. It is a junk email that was a misinterpretation of a Mars approach from 2003 and I’m glad to see that the Bad Astronomer is talking about it along with many others.
Don’t believe everything you read in your emails and for the fifth time this week: “no its not true, sorry”.
I had my first day working for SETPOINT Wales yesterday in their mobile planetarium, the Stardome. I went to Crickhowell High School and had a great (if tiring day) giving a space talk and showing, what felt like hundreds of children, the constellations.
The reason I like talking about space is that I like to put across the idea that we are on a round, spinning planet which is orbiting our star, the Sun. I spoke about the solar system and the Milky Way and also a little on black holes. These were Year 9 children which means they were 13/14 years old. I thik on the whole they enjoyed it, and certainly there were a few kids here and there who I could tell were very into it all. So that was nice.
Today I spotted on digg.com/space that there is a great image taken of our little spinning rock, from another neighbouring one. This is just the kind of thing that I really like, because this picture, taken by the Mars Global Surveyor in 2003, shows the Earth and Moon as well as Jupiter and its moons. Both of these planets would be very much visible from Mars. In fact the Earth must appear quite bright in the Martian sky, much as Venus does here. Click for a larger version - which is well worth doing.
So that you can orient yourself, this diagram shows the angle from which the image was taken and below it is a map showing the area of the Earth which was visible at the time of the photo, you can see that the fuzzy blobs visible were in fact the Americas.
Mars is back, and doing things it shouldn’t! Our warring friend started May in the constellation Aquarius, it then moved into Pisces on the 8th. For a really cool thing (if you’re utterly geeky like me) you should look up between the 24th and 29th when it cuts across the corner of Cetus, the constellation of the Whale. Since Cetus isn’t in the zodiac, this is nice sight and hopefully befuddles all those silly astrologers everywhere (It then goes back into Pisces again.)
The only problem you’ll have is that Mars is very low-down in the south-eastern dawn skiey. You also have only a 15 minute window of observation, from about 4.45am, before the sky is too bright anyway. Give it a go or just lie in bed and ‘know’ that Russell Grant is spitting tacks.
Also, Chris Lintott has a link to some lovely Mars images over on his blog.
