Now it is just waiting for ESA's BepiColombo probe to arrive - it departs in January 2017, makes 2 fly-bys of Venus, 5 of Mercury before entering orbit in January 2024.
A collection of discussions, links, stories, news and whatever else I find interesting in the fields of computing, information, science, privacy, semantics, mathematics and so on...
Showing posts with label NASA. Show all posts
Showing posts with label NASA. Show all posts
Friday, 1 May 2015
Goodbye Messenger
One of the first posts here was about NASA's Messenger probe to Mercury, and today its mission ended. Here's Messenger's final image and tip of the hat, or a beer or two to NASA's engineers!
Now it is just waiting for ESA's BepiColombo probe to arrive - it departs in January 2017, makes 2 fly-bys of Venus, 5 of Mercury before entering orbit in January 2024.
Now it is just waiting for ESA's BepiColombo probe to arrive - it departs in January 2017, makes 2 fly-bys of Venus, 5 of Mercury before entering orbit in January 2024.
Sunday, 3 August 2014
Messenger 10 year Anniversary
One of the first posts I made on this blog was about the Messenger probe to Mercury - at the time it had just made the 3rd fly-by before orbit insertion about 18 months later. On 1st August it celebrated 10 years since its launch.
So a large beer to all involved!
So now we have Messenger at Mercury, Venus Express performing dangerous aerobraking manoeuvres in Venus' atmosphere, a fleet robots trundling over Mars - not forgetting a small fleet of satellites around the planet, Juno on its way to Jupiter and venerable Cassini still going strong around Saturn.
Then there are the three that I'm most anticipating:
So a large beer to all involved!
So now we have Messenger at Mercury, Venus Express performing dangerous aerobraking manoeuvres in Venus' atmosphere, a fleet robots trundling over Mars - not forgetting a small fleet of satellites around the planet, Juno on its way to Jupiter and venerable Cassini still going strong around Saturn.
Then there are the three that I'm most anticipating:
- Dawn's arrival at Ceres in February 2015
- New Horizons arrival, or rather fly-by, of Pluto in July 2015
Can't wait!
In the meantime:
Thursday, 18 October 2012
Two things: Mars and Mathematics
An interlude to my hiatus of posting...trying to write a paper based on the earlier DNT article...
There are couple very nice things I want to post here, mainly for future reference and because, well just because :-)
The first is a panorama of Mars taken by Curiosity found via the Bad Astronomy blog (regular and compulsory reading): what would it look like if you could stand (where Curiosity is) on Mars...
As explained by Phil Plait, these pictures were stitched together by Denny Bauer from a series of pictures from Curiosity's MastCam - amazing work-
This I rate in the same category as the Titan surface picture taken by Huygens, and talking of Huygens I found (via BadAstronomy) a link to a posting about the surface of Titan being somewhat like wet sand which then led to an article about Huygen's landing and then to an ESA page which details the landing with a video reconstruction. I know that Curiosity's landing was pretty spectacular and we have videos, but Huygens did it much, much further from home after a longer journey onto a moon that was a complete mystery - isn't science amazing!
Then there is a posting on n-Category Cafe about set theory and order theory and the dependence of one on the other: The Curious Dependence of Set Theory on Order Theory (Tom Leinster). The posting the question:
and offers two answers: yes and no ....
Rather than go into the mathematics, the discussion of the point is fascinating from two angles: firstly, that isn't it amazing how results in one area of mathematics appear to be inextricably linked with results in seemingly unrelated areas. I guess elliptic curves and modular forms via the Taniyama-Shimura conjecture is a good example. Secondly the discussions open up quite a debate on the philosophy of mathematics and ends up discussing computer programming, data structures and the Axiom of Choice.
Then there's Einstein's letter on religion which is being auctioned on eBay in which he detailed his views and more importantly his understanding of religion; this is a quote from a 1930's essay by Einstein:
:-)
There are couple very nice things I want to post here, mainly for future reference and because, well just because :-)
The first is a panorama of Mars taken by Curiosity found via the Bad Astronomy blog (regular and compulsory reading): what would it look like if you could stand (where Curiosity is) on Mars...
As explained by Phil Plait, these pictures were stitched together by Denny Bauer from a series of pictures from Curiosity's MastCam - amazing work-
This I rate in the same category as the Titan surface picture taken by Huygens, and talking of Huygens I found (via BadAstronomy) a link to a posting about the surface of Titan being somewhat like wet sand which then led to an article about Huygen's landing and then to an ESA page which details the landing with a video reconstruction. I know that Curiosity's landing was pretty spectacular and we have videos, but Huygens did it much, much further from home after a longer journey onto a moon that was a complete mystery - isn't science amazing!
Then there is a posting on n-Category Cafe about set theory and order theory and the dependence of one on the other: The Curious Dependence of Set Theory on Order Theory (Tom Leinster). The posting the question:
Is it strange that results about sets should depend on results about order?
and offers two answers: yes and no ....
Rather than go into the mathematics, the discussion of the point is fascinating from two angles: firstly, that isn't it amazing how results in one area of mathematics appear to be inextricably linked with results in seemingly unrelated areas. I guess elliptic curves and modular forms via the Taniyama-Shimura conjecture is a good example. Secondly the discussions open up quite a debate on the philosophy of mathematics and ends up discussing computer programming, data structures and the Axiom of Choice.
Then there's Einstein's letter on religion which is being auctioned on eBay in which he detailed his views and more importantly his understanding of religion; this is a quote from a 1930's essay by Einstein:
"To sense that behind anything that can be experienced there is something that our minds cannot grasp, whose beauty and sublimity reaches us only indirectly: this is religiousness. In this sense, and in this sense only, I am a devoutly religious man."Quite profound and I'll finish with an xkcd cartoon:
:-)
Saturday, 29 September 2012
Solar Flare Video
Found this via Phil Plait's amazing Bad Astronomy blog*:
On August 31st the Sun produce an immense solar flare: click here for a picture from Nasa with the Earth to scale or better still just go straight to the 1900x1200 version. I've made a crop of the picture below just to give a teaser:**
Now Nasa and the Goddard Space Flight Center have released a video of the event:
Make it full-screen and switch to 1080p, sit back and be impressed....
* You really should read this blog every day
** Using NASA Imagery and Linking to NASA Web Sites
On August 31st the Sun produce an immense solar flare: click here for a picture from Nasa with the Earth to scale or better still just go straight to the 1900x1200 version. I've made a crop of the picture below just to give a teaser:**
Now Nasa and the Goddard Space Flight Center have released a video of the event:
Make it full-screen and switch to 1080p, sit back and be impressed....
* You really should read this blog every day
** Using NASA Imagery and Linking to NASA Web Sites
Sunday, 11 December 2011
Mission to Europa
Space.com have an article about NASA sending a lander to Europa, or at least a proposal thereof:
Jupiter's Moon Europa Is Target for Possible NASA Lander
by Mike Wall, SPACE.com Senior Writer
Date: 09 December 2011 Time: 03:22 PM ET
This I think should be a priority, and should have been the mission flown rather than the relatively boring Juno probe. Europa is extremely interesting from the point of view that it probably, or even more than likely, has life due to its icy surface and liquid water ocean underneath. The only other places that have these possibilities (as we understand at present) are Enceladus and Titan - the latter having been visited by the truely amazing Huygen's lander by ESA.
So this gets me thinking, space probes are extraordinarily expensive as they tend to be one off constructions. However building on mass production techniques would it be possible (almost certainly economically better) to mass produce probes. Make them light-weight with a small RTG, standardised components: visible light cameras, IR cameras, magnetometer, various particle detectors etc.
Make two batches, one orbiter and one lander and take advantage of systems such as SpaceX which provide low cost launching facilities. There needs to be done work on getting the launchers to provide the capabilities to get the things out of Earth orbit.
Now if you built, say, ten or even twenty (NASA's Surveyor programme made seven landers of a standardised design) you could quite easily send two or more to whatever target, or maybe just one to the "easy" targets and two to the "harder" ones.
So my list:
Jupiter's Moon Europa Is Target for Possible NASA Lander
by Mike Wall, SPACE.com Senior Writer
Date: 09 December 2011 Time: 03:22 PM ET
SAN FRANCISCO — NASA is considering dropping two robotic landers on the surface of Jupiter's moon Europa, a body that many scientists regard as the solar system's best bet for harboring life beyond Earth.
Researchers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, Calif., are developing a concept mission that could launch in 2020 and deliver the landers to Europa about six years later. The chief goal would be to investigate whether life could ever have existed on the huge moon, which likely hosts an ocean of liquid water beneath its icy shell.
This I think should be a priority, and should have been the mission flown rather than the relatively boring Juno probe. Europa is extremely interesting from the point of view that it probably, or even more than likely, has life due to its icy surface and liquid water ocean underneath. The only other places that have these possibilities (as we understand at present) are Enceladus and Titan - the latter having been visited by the truely amazing Huygen's lander by ESA.
So this gets me thinking, space probes are extraordinarily expensive as they tend to be one off constructions. However building on mass production techniques would it be possible (almost certainly economically better) to mass produce probes. Make them light-weight with a small RTG, standardised components: visible light cameras, IR cameras, magnetometer, various particle detectors etc.
Make two batches, one orbiter and one lander and take advantage of systems such as SpaceX which provide low cost launching facilities. There needs to be done work on getting the launchers to provide the capabilities to get the things out of Earth orbit.
Now if you built, say, ten or even twenty (NASA's Surveyor programme made seven landers of a standardised design) you could quite easily send two or more to whatever target, or maybe just one to the "easy" targets and two to the "harder" ones.
So my list:
- Europa - ice and water
- Enceladus - ice and water
- Uranus - only Voyager 2 has been there
- Neptune - again only Voyager 2 has been there
- Various asteroids: Pallas (Vesta and Ceres are being visited by Dawn at the moment)
- Near Earth Objects
- Then some other interesting places: Saturn's rings, Iapetus, the odd comet or two (think Giotto style)
Tuesday, 15 November 2011
Voyager 2 and LHC
Been a bit slow this month with things to write - actually plenty to write but little time to actually write here. Anyway, two from that bastion of tech literature, El Reg...
The first is about the current results from the LHC and also an exercise in how to write a science article for the layman:
However it does look like we might have a lightweight Higgs....maybe....
and then over to the still running Voyager probes and in this case the efforts by NASA to keep Voyager 2 running for another 10 years...(El Reg writes space articles in a similar innuendo filled style as LHC articles...)
The first is about the current results from the LHC and also an exercise in how to write a science article for the layman:
LHC results may solve riddle of how universe can exist
and the retort from "a non e mouse":Antimatter bombshell set to explode physics applecartTop boffins at the Large Hadron Collider – mightiest particle-punisher and largest machine of any kind ever assembled by humanity – say that they may have uncovered a vital clue explaining one of the greatest mysteries of physics: namely, how is it that matter itself can exist?
Good to see the Standard Model getting a bit of a run for its money...one paragraph spurred a superb retort in the comments:
One of the things the Hadron Collider can do by means of blasting protons into one another head-on at just a gnat's chuff less than light speed is create all sorts of very rare and exotic particles – and the antimatter versions of themselves. Almost anything you might want in the way of crazy particles will appear in the shattered sub-subatomic wreckage spraying out of the proton pileups on the Collider's 27km underground orbital motorway.
"Almost anything you might want in the way of crazy particles will appear..."
Except, maybe, the Higgs Boson
However it does look like we might have a lightweight Higgs....maybe....
and then over to the still running Voyager probes and in this case the efforts by NASA to keep Voyager 2 running for another 10 years...(El Reg writes space articles in a similar innuendo filled style as LHC articles...)
Voyager 2 finally agrees to a long hard thrust
Probe takes light-ages to return boffins' callsVoyager 2 has finally gotten back to NASA to let engineers know that its switch to back-up thrusters was successful.
The space agency sent the signal last week to advise the old explorer to switch to back-up thrusters in order to conserve energy so it can continue its voyage for another decade.
Not bad when you consider Voyager 2 was launched in August 1977 and a touch over 9 billion (9,000,000,000) miles away...
Tuesday, 6 September 2011
Apollo Landings
Amazing pictures from NASA's LRO Moon orbiter of some of the Apollo landing sites - complete with footsteps, remains of the moon lander and moon buggies....
and as always, The Register have a report too...
Media briefing materials associated with this story can be found here.For example, Apollo 12's landing site complete with their visit to the Surveyor 3 lander:
NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) captured the sharpest images ever taken from space of the Apollo 12, 14 and 17 landing sites. Images show the twists and turns of the paths made when the astronauts explored the lunar surface.
and as always, The Register have a report too...
Eyes on the Solar System
This is seriously cool!
http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/eyes/
"Eyes on the Solar System" is a 3-D environment full of real NASA mission data. Explore the cosmos from your computer. Hop on an asteroid. Fly with NASA's Voyager 2 spacecraft. See the entire solar system moving in real time. It's up to you. You control space and time.
http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/eyes/
"Eyes on the Solar System" is a 3-D environment full of real NASA mission data. Explore the cosmos from your computer. Hop on an asteroid. Fly with NASA's Voyager 2 spacecraft. See the entire solar system moving in real time. It's up to you. You control space and time.
Friday, 12 August 2011
Tuesday, 19 July 2011
Friday, 8 July 2011
Tycho Crater Mountains
Incredible image from AOPD of the central peaks of Tycho Crater on the Moon taken by the Lunar Recon Orbiter ( NASA, Wikipedia ).
The resolution is 1.5m per pixel so there are some spectacular boulders and rock-falls on show.
Friday, 6 May 2011
Pioneers, Voyagers and New Horizons
Thursday, 31 March 2011
Monday, 24 January 2011
Endurance Crater, Mars
Fantastic picture of Endurance crater taken by Odyssey:
http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/jpeg/PIA13794.jpg
The picture is huge!
http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/jpeg/PIA13794.jpg
The picture is huge!
Tuesday, 14 December 2010
Voyager 1
Voyager 1 Has Outdistanced the Solar Wind
by Nancy Atkinson on December 13, 2010
by Nancy Atkinson on December 13, 2010
The venerable Voyager spacecraft are truly going where no one has gone before. Voyager 1 has now reached a distant point at the edge of our solar system where it is no longer detecting the solar wind. At a distance of about 17.3 billion km (10.8 billion miles) from the Sun, Voyager 1 has crossed into an area where the velocity of the hot ionized gas, or plasma, emanating directly outward from the sun has slowed to zero. Scientists suspect the solar wind has been turned sideways by the pressure from the interstellar wind in the region between stars.
Monday, 19 October 2009
Opportunty and the Crater
APOD has a fantastic picture today of a small crater on Mars taken by NASA's Opportunity rover. As the picture is quite large click the above link.
Here's the text from the above:
Here's the text from the above:
Nereus Crater on Mars Explanation: It was along the way. The robotic rover OpportunityMeridiani Plain on Mars has a destination of Endeavour Crater, a large crater over 20 kilometers across which may yield additional clues about the cryptic past of ancient Mars. Besides passing open fields of dark soil and light rock, Opportunity has chanced upon several interesting features. One such feature, pictured above in a digitally stitched and horizontally compressed panorama, is Nereus Crater, a small crater about 10 meters across that is surrounded by jagged rock. Besides Nereus, Opportunity recently also happened upon another unusual rock -- one that appears to be the third large meteorite found on Mars and the second for Opportunity during only this trip. Opportunity has been traveling toward Endeavour Crater for over a year now, and if it can avoid ridged rocks and soft sand along the way, it may reach Endeavour sometime next year.
Credit: Mars Exploration Rover Mission, JPL, NASA; Image Processing: Kenneth Kremer
Friday, 9 October 2009
Nasa and the Moon
More great astonomical stuff from Nasa with the successful crashing of the LCROSS probe into the moon to search for water, lots at Nasa's pages.
And more proof that either science education has serious problems or people are just getting more and more stupid (with a tip of the hat to The Register for pointing out that these people are a serious threat to society).
And more proof that either science education has serious problems or people are just getting more and more stupid (with a tip of the hat to The Register for pointing out that these people are a serious threat to society).
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