It has been a while time since my last "Around the web" post, and I have bookmarked more articles than I can reasonably make brief comments on. Here are a few... THE DEATH OF GOOGLE READER -- Since the untimely demise of Google Reader a couple weeks ago, I haven't been keeping up on the …
Tag: Mars
Around the web 12/1/2012
NUKE THE MOON!!!! -- U.S. had plans to nuke the moon -- The U.S. Government really wanted to explode a nuclear weapon on the moon in the late 1950s, sort of as a macho "We're better than the Soviets" thing. One of the researchers on this project was a graduate student named Carl Sagan. BIG NEWS …
Martian barchans
Is Ansel Adams still alive and in orbit around Mars? From Astronomy Picture of the Day, April 22, 2012: Flowing Barchan Sand Dunes on Mars. Barchans are crescent-shaped sand dunes, with two horns that point downwind. They form in areas of limited sand supply; on this image you can see that the dunes occupy less than …
Tharsis Tholus from Mars Express
From the European Space Agency: Battered Tharsis Tholus volcano on Mars The latest image released from Mars Express reveals a large extinct volcano that has been battered and deformed over the aeons. By Earthly standards, Tharsis Tholus is a giant, towering 8 km above the surrounding terrain, with a base stretching over 155 x 125 …
Seven years of Opportunity
The rover Opportunity has been on the surface of Mars for over seven years now. From Astronomy Picture of the Day for January 29th: Opportunity at Santa Maria Crater. The panorama is much more detailed on the APOD site. The description from APOD: Celebrating 7 years on the surface of the Red Planet, Mars exploration …
I touched Mars and survived!
I had the privilege of visiting the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History a few months ago and got to touch a piece of Mars! The Naklha meteorite fell to the Earth near Alexandria, Egypt, in 1911, and is most famous for killing a dog (no human has been killed by a meteorite in recorded …
NASA going nowhere?
From Yahoo! News: Senators to NASA chief: Go somewhere specific President Obama's budget proposal would axe NASA's planned trip to the moon. So where should NASA send astronauts? The long-term goal is to send astronauts to Mars, but what are good shorter-term objectives? Here are two items that caught my attention regarding a future trip …
Mars dust devil trails
Today's Astronomy Picture of the Day: Martian Dust Devil Trails The APOD description for this image: Who's been marking up Mars? This portion of a recent high-resolution picture from the HiRISE camera on board the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter shows twisting dark trails criss-crossing light colored terrain on the martian surface. Newly formed trails like these …
A cheaper way to get humans to Mars: One-way tickets
NASA's Astrobiology Magazine has the text of a presentation given by physicist Paul Davies: A One-way Ticket to Mars. The greatest expense in sending a group of astronauts to Mars is actually getting them back to Earth. Davies estimates that we may be able to save up to 80% of the costs by sending a …
Continue reading A cheaper way to get humans to Mars: One-way tickets
Sand dunes on Mars
From today's Astronomy Picture of the Day: Flowing Barchan Sand Dunes on Mars This view includes crescent-shaped barchans as well as lonitudinal dunes. The prevailing wind is from the right to the left. Grace and Peace
More Martian gas
Yesterday I wrote briefly about the ongoing release of methane from the crust of Mars. This is the topic of today's Astronomy Picture of the Day: Here's the description from APOD: Why is there methane on Mars? No one is sure. An important confirmation that methane exists in the atmosphere of Mars occurred last week, …
Martian methane
From LiveScience.com: Mars Methane: Geology or Biology? Plumes of methane gas detected over certain locations on Mars in 2003 could point to active geological processes on the red planet, or perhaps even to methane-burping microbes deep below the Martian surface, a new study reports. There is no firm evidence for life on the red planet, …
Mars climate change recorded in rocks
Patterns in sedimentary layers on Mars could be the result of cyclical climate change caused by regular variations in the tilt of the planet's axis: Climate on Earth is controlled by similar cyclical changes in the Earth's orbit and axial tilt, which leads to alternating glacial and interglacial periods. LiveScience article: Mars Wobbles Created Climate …
Glaciers on Mars, part 2
Today's Astronomy Picture of the Day: Radar Indicates Buried Glaciers on Mars. Explanation: What created this unusual terrain on Mars? The floors of several mid-latitude craters in Hellas Basin on Mars appear unusually grooved, flat, and shallow. New radar images from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter bolster an exciting hypothesis: huge glaciers of buried ice. Evidence …
