Mars Images on your iPhone
Mark Powell of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory has created an iPhone/iPad app lets you browse through the most recent images from the Mars Rover Opportunity. You can download Mars Images from the Apple App Store for free (also available for Android). I’ve been checking for new images daily for eight years now – this is going to […]
Show and Tell
I had written earlier about my 4-year old friend Jack’s fascination with the Mars rovers, and got this report from his mother about Jack taking the rover model I bought him to preschool for show and tell (although I guess these days they call it “sharing”): Jack began his presentation by doing his impression of the airbag-encased […]
Kids and Rovers
A recent comment from a reader about her 2-1/2 year old grandson’s reaction to watching a National Geographic show about the Mars Rovers and Mars Phoenix Lander (and his creative suggestion about how to save Spirit) reminded me that I’ve been meaning to write about my 4 year old friend Jack and his obsession with […]
Another Martian Avalanche
The HiRISE camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has captured another great image of an avalanche on Mars: Image Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona The images shows a cloud of dust caused by frozen carbon dioxide breaking loose from the top of a large cliff (lower-left corner of the image) and carrying additional debris from the cliff […]
Spirit Digs Up Soft Soil
When the wheels of NASA’s Mars Exploration Rover Spirit dug into a patch of ground on its way to getting stuck, it exposed the color variations shown in this false color image taken on sol 1892: Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell University For a sense of scale, the two rocks near the upper right corner of this […]
Free Spirit
NASA’s Mars Exploration Rover website has a new Free Spirit page tracking the efforts to get Spirit “unstuck” from its sand trap. Engineers are mixing diatomaceous Earth and clay in the on-earth rover testbed to attempt to recreate conditions similar to the ones in which Spirit has gotten stuck on Mars so that a sequence […]
Opportunity’s Shadow
This self-portrait of Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity was taken on sol 180 in July 2004 as the rover began it’s descent into Endurance Crater: Image credit: Mars Exploration Rover Mission, JPL, NASA Endurance seems so long ago, and Opportunity has continued on to Victoria Crater and ultimately will attempt to reach Endeaver Crater after a […]
A Passion for Mars
My son Brian sent a copy of “A Passion for Mars” by Andrew Chaikin as a Father’s Day gift. It covers everything from the early Mariner missions to Spirit and Opportunity and beyond. I really enjoy Chaikin’s writing, and especially liked “A Man on the Moon“, his earlier book on the Apollo program that served […]
Sunset on Another World
Another of my favorites – a sunset on Mars as captured by the Mars Exploration Rover Spirit on May 19th, 2005: Image credit: NASA/JPL/Texas A&M/Cornell If you click on the image to see a larger version, you can clearly see the sun sinking behind the rim of Gusev crater in the distance.