In the hope that the principles in this study are correct, I made this little micro-site to quickly answer the question: "Why spend money on space when there are problems here at home?" http://www.ridingwithrobots.org/earth
Where do the rings on the upper half of the planet come from and why do they seem offset from the other rings?
Let's see if I can clearly put this into words: Those are the rings passing in front of the dark side of the planet. They're translucent. The light reflected from the sun-illuminated part of the rings to either is reflecting off the cloud-tops on the night side of the planet, through the rings, to the camera.
One of the interesting parts of this mission is MoonKAM, which let grade school and middle school kids select targets on the lunar surface for the orbiters' cameras to inspect. It returned some pretty interesting (if low-res) images until a solar flare recently took the imaging system down.
If you're interested, there's some more info about GRAIL: today's announcement from NASA, and a public lecture tomorrow with a live feed.
So glad you found it useful, and thank you for saying so.
If, however - just for the sake of familiarity - people still want a link to some random guy's website, here's my latest space-related project: http://www.ridingwithrobots.org/earth
Except it still doesn't have ads. Oh well, what can you do?
The images are enhanced (stretched) color, not false color. According to the official release, the hollows are "very bright and have a blue color relative to other areas of Mercury." As one image caption from NASA explains, "the enhanced-color locator image emphasizes the high reflectance and relatively blue color."
The images you're referring to are enhanced (stretched) color, not false color. According to the official release, the hollows are "very bright and have a blue color relative to other areas of Mercury." As one image caption from NASA explains, "the enhanced-color locator image emphasizes the high reflectance and relatively blue color."
I am both a Utahn and a Mormon. Please understand that the Utah legislature frequently does a poor job of representing either group. While I can't claim to speak for everyone, almost all the Mormons I know think this proposal is stupid, and as the governor (also a Mormon) said, Orwellian. The state legislature is well-known for being right-of-center even for here, and like all legislatures everywhere, for proposing its share of dumb ideas.
Yeah, no arguments. I knew about the Mars Express discovery, and I wish I had included it in the summary. Finding those location-specific 'plumes' also seems pretty important, though.
IANAS, but it appears that since these findings were obtained by a completely different process, they provide important confirmation of the Mars Express data--and extend that knowledge in an important way by adding location-specific information. From TFA:
"According to the team, the plumes were seen over areas that show evidence of ancient ground ice or flowing water. For example, plumes appeared over northern hemisphere regions such as east of Arabia Terra, the Nili Fossae region, and the south-east quadrant of Syrtis Major, an ancient volcano 1,200 kilometers (about 745 miles) across."
I meant to mention that NASA is not the only agency planning future Mars rovers. The European Space Agency is planning the ExoMars mission. (It's facing its own delays, until 2016 in this case.)
Chandrayaan-1 is an orbiter that will be in operation for some time. The Moon Impact Probe just rode along. One purpose for the impactor was to serve as part of a dress rehearsal for a later soft landing mission.
From the source announcement:
"Weighing 34 kg at the time of its launch onboard Chandrayaan-1, the box shaped MIP carried three instruments â" a video imaging system, a radar altimeter and a mass spectrometer. The video imaging system was intended to take the pictures of the moonâ(TM)s surface as MIP approached it. The radar altimeter was included to measure the rate of descent of the probe to the lunar surface. Such instruments are necessary for future lunar soft landing missions. And, the mass spectrometer was for studying the extremely thin lunar atmosphere."
Just a few days ago, Cassini buzzed close by Enceladus and took high-res shots of the fissures where the geysers originate. Earlier this month during an even closer pass, the spacecraft took direct samples of the plume.
You're so right. Instead of wasting money on space-based research all these years, we should have been investing in weather satellites, remote sensing capabilities, worldwide communication networks, faster computers, and...
Um, spend a little time at this gallery or this one or this one or this one for gigabytes of very sharp, gorgeous imagery - some of it in extremely high resolution.
Slashdot Mirror
In the hope that the principles in this study are correct, I made this little micro-site to quickly answer the question: "Why spend money on space when there are problems here at home?" http://www.ridingwithrobots.org/earth
http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/where/index.html http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/interstellar.html http://abyss.uoregon.edu/~js/images/voy_traj.jpg And you can simulate the entire flight and its current position in 3D at http://eyes.nasa.gov/
The Voyager project's chief scientist says not just yet: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2013-107 Also, here's a fairly recent video lecture he gave on the topic that gives some good details: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/events/lectures_archive.cfm?year=2012&month=9
Nitpick with the summary: the rover is not 'one eyed'. It uses a bunch: http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/mission/rover/eyesandother/ That said, it does have that one big laser on its head: http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/mission/instruments/spectrometers/chemcam/ Robots on Mars with lasers. It doesn't get much better.
Sigh. I meant to say: to either *side*
Where do the rings on the upper half of the planet come from and why do they seem offset from the other rings?
Let's see if I can clearly put this into words: Those are the rings passing in front of the dark side of the planet. They're translucent. The light reflected from the sun-illuminated part of the rings to either is reflecting off the cloud-tops on the night side of the planet, through the rings, to the camera.
One of the interesting parts of this mission is MoonKAM, which let grade school and middle school kids select targets on the lunar surface for the orbiters' cameras to inspect. It returned some pretty interesting (if low-res) images until a solar flare recently took the imaging system down. If you're interested, there's some more info about GRAIL: today's announcement from NASA, and a public lecture tomorrow with a live feed.
I don't know if anyone has made that happen yet, but someone did put together this animation of the rotation: http://cchh023.tumblr.com/image/36728440116
So glad you found it useful, and thank you for saying so. If, however - just for the sake of familiarity - people still want a link to some random guy's website, here's my latest space-related project: http://www.ridingwithrobots.org/earth Except it still doesn't have ads. Oh well, what can you do?
"Transmission" by The Perry Bible Fellowshiop: http://pbfcomics.com/248/
The images are enhanced (stretched) color, not false color. According to the official release, the hollows are "very bright and have a blue color relative to other areas of Mercury." As one image caption from NASA explains, "the enhanced-color locator image emphasizes the high reflectance and relatively blue color."
The images you're referring to are enhanced (stretched) color, not false color. According to the official release, the hollows are "very bright and have a blue color relative to other areas of Mercury." As one image caption from NASA explains, "the enhanced-color locator image emphasizes the high reflectance and relatively blue color."
I am both a Utahn and a Mormon. Please understand that the Utah legislature frequently does a poor job of representing either group. While I can't claim to speak for everyone, almost all the Mormons I know think this proposal is stupid, and as the governor (also a Mormon) said, Orwellian. The state legislature is well-known for being right-of-center even for here, and like all legislatures everywhere, for proposing its share of dumb ideas.
Yeah, no arguments. I knew about the Mars Express discovery, and I wish I had included it in the summary. Finding those location-specific 'plumes' also seems pretty important, though.
Doesn't look like it, no. But the Mars Science Laboratory rover mission, slated for launch in 2011, has not been assigned a final landing target yet.
IANAS, but it appears that since these findings were obtained by a completely different process, they provide important confirmation of the Mars Express data--and extend that knowledge in an important way by adding location-specific information. From TFA: "According to the team, the plumes were seen over areas that show evidence of ancient ground ice or flowing water. For example, plumes appeared over northern hemisphere regions such as east of Arabia Terra, the Nili Fossae region, and the south-east quadrant of Syrtis Major, an ancient volcano 1,200 kilometers (about 745 miles) across."
I meant to mention that NASA is not the only agency planning future Mars rovers. The European Space Agency is planning the ExoMars mission. (It's facing its own delays, until 2016 in this case.)
Chandrayaan-1 is an orbiter that will be in operation for some time. The Moon Impact Probe just rode along. One purpose for the impactor was to serve as part of a dress rehearsal for a later soft landing mission. From the source announcement: "Weighing 34 kg at the time of its launch onboard Chandrayaan-1, the box shaped MIP carried three instruments â" a video imaging system, a radar altimeter and a mass spectrometer. The video imaging system was intended to take the pictures of the moonâ(TM)s surface as MIP approached it. The radar altimeter was included to measure the rate of descent of the probe to the lunar surface. Such instruments are necessary for future lunar soft landing missions. And, the mass spectrometer was for studying the extremely thin lunar atmosphere."
Original source and lots of multimedia
Congratulations on another amazing fly-by, and thanks for posting the pix so quickly for us all to enjoy.
Just a few days ago, Cassini buzzed close by Enceladus and took high-res shots of the fissures where the geysers originate. Earlier this month during an even closer pass, the spacecraft took direct samples of the plume.
You're so right. Instead of wasting money on space-based research all these years, we should have been investing in weather satellites, remote sensing capabilities, worldwide communication networks, faster computers, and...
Oh, wait...
Yes, the probe can take color images. The colors on Mercury are quite muted, though. Here's an example.
Um, spend a little time at this gallery or this one or this one or this one for gigabytes of very sharp, gorgeous imagery - some of it in extremely high resolution.
There are plenty of color pictures from this mission and other current Mars missions on NASA's site and on the Phoenix team's site and on many amateur sites.