The University of Arizona, Tucson, which operates HiRISE, has just released a new batch of photos taken from a camera flying over the planet Mars.
“Each full image from HiRISE covers a strip of Martian ground 6 kilometers (3.7 miles) wide, about two to four times that long, showing details as small as 1 meter, or yard, across,” according to NASA’s Web site”
Good call Buzz. From The Tech Herald:
Legendary Moon walker and NASA spaceman Buzz Aldrin has said the race to establish a permanent Moon base should be the result of international cooperation with the real focus on a manned mission to Mars.
Speaking in a lengthy interview with Popular Mechanics magazine, Aldrin said the next race to be the first to host a manned presence on the Moon should not be a financially damaging “space race” but an international effort combining the resources of China, Europe, India, Japan and Russia.
“By renouncing our goal of being first on the Moon (again), we would call off Space Race II with the Chinese and encourage them to channel their ambitious lunar efforts into the consortium,” Aldrin said.
He added that the Mark II mission to the Moon is, in fact, a “damaging” detour from what should be NASA’s principal objective — namely, the preparation for a manned mission to Mars.
“The agency’s current Vision for Space Exploration will waste decades and hundreds of billions of dollars trying to reach the moon by 2020 — a glorified rehash of what we did 40 years ago,” he said. “Instead of a steppingstone to Mars, NASA’s current lunar plan is a detour.”
Approaching his 80th birthday, Aldrin was in no mood to hold back on criticism of the American space administration’s plan. In its place, Aldrin proposed a radical program he named the “Unified Space Vision,” which, controversially, calls for a permanently manned presence on Mars by 2035.
“Here’s my plan, which I call the Unified Space Vision,” he told the magazine. “It’s a blueprint that will maintain U.S. leadership in human spaceflight, avoid a counterproductive space race with China to be second back to the moon, and lead to a permanent American-led presence on Mars by 2035 at the latest.”
“That date happens to be 66 years after Neil Armstrong and I first landed on the moon — just as our landing was 66 years after the Wright Brothers’ first flight,” Aldrin said.
The Phoenix Mars Mission is officially over. The lander was powered by solar panels, and the approaching Martian winter has basically cut off its power supply. The craft is not expected to last through the winter. But Phoenix lasted two months longer than anticipated, so the $475 million was worth it - it discovered water on the planet. Read more…
Check out WatchMojo’s profile on the Phoenix Mars Mission:
According to Popular Mechanics:
The Phoenix Mars Mission has been a shining success for NASA. Not only did the craft reach Mars and land successfully, it also found ice in the martian soil and saw snow in the sky. But the Phoenix is now racing against time to complete more of its groundbreaking research before the harsh martian winter brings its death, said the project’s science leader, Peter Smith of the University of Arizona, at the first session of the Popular Mechanics Breakthrough Conference in New York [15 October]. “It’s down to the wire,” Smith said at a panel discussion with two other Phoenix project leaders, Ed Sedivy from Lockheed Martin Space Systems and Barry Goldstein of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Read more…
Find out more about the Phoenix Mars Mission in this WatchMojo video:
The Phoenix Mars Lander has detected snow falling from clouds on the red planet. Data shows that this snow tends to evaporate before it hits the ground, but scientists will be conducting more research to see if it is possible for the snow to land on the ground. A key aim of the Phoenix Mars mission is to find favorable conditions for life on Mars. Read more…
A “beheaded” glacier in Antarctica’s Dry Valleys, seen in an undated photo, resembles gullies in Martian crater walls.
Deep hollows (such as these, top and far left) can catch Martian snow, which melts and carves out gullies, says a study released in August 2008.
According to Richard A. Lovett
A deep-drilling site in Northampton County, Virginia, explores the Chesapeake Bay impact structure in September 2005.
A study of the site released in June 2008 has found an unexpected abundance of life in some areas of the crater, offering a hint of possible locations to search for life on highly-cratered Mars.
According to Kimberly Johnson
In a breakthrough that likely provides scientists with their best opportunity ever to investigate extraterrestrial life, NASA’s Phoenix Mars Lander has apparently spotted liquid ice on Mars.
“These little clumps completely disappearing over the course of a few days, that is perfect evidence that it’s ice,” said Peter Smith, principal investigator for the Phoenix mission, which earlier this week had sparked a hot debate among researchers as to whether it had found ice—or scooped up disappearing chunks of a “sublimated” material that might have just been salt. Read more…
According to Matt Sullivan
You, too, could pull a Homer Simpson and become an astronaut. Canada is looking for two people to start work in August, 2009. All you need to do is apply (and be somewhat qualified, presumably). It’s worth looking into. Read more…
The formation of an Idaho canyon thousands of years ago has given scientists a clearer picture of how water sculpted the surface of Mars.The chasm in the western United States has a shape once thought to be characteristic of slower, sustained groundwater flows, but new research suggests that was carved by ancient torrential floods.
Comparable canyons on Mars may share a similarly violent history, scientists at the University of California at Berkeley say.
A plentitude of Martian canyons—once thought to be evidence of gradual erosion—supported the theory that rain never fell on the red planet, said lead author Michael Lamb. Read more…
According to Anne Minard
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