Curiosity Landing

Today, the new Curiosity rover will land in a crater on the surface of Mars. It will touch-down at 10:31 p.m PDT. As of now, the rover is in good condition and preparing for landing. Earlier today, members of the Curiosity team made a few adjustments to the rover's landing sequence. At 2:25 PDT this morning, Curiosity was about 261,000 miles away and traveling at about 8,000 mph. You can "watch" the landing tonight on NASA TV. I have made a page on this blog so you can stream it to your computer.

The Moon of Water

A NASA planetary mission has discovered large lakes just under the very rough and icy layer of Jupiter's moon Europa. Underneath these lakes is a vast ocean of liquid water. It is very difficult to study this ocean because the icy layer is ten miles thick! These lakes have the possibility of supporting life.

[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="226" caption="Lake Diagram"][/caption]

That Was Close!

Tomorrow, an asteroid will flyby Earth inside of the Moon's orbit! The last flyby of a large asteroid was in 1976 and the next one will be in 2028. A picture was taken of the asteroid yesterday (left) and it was about 860,000 miles away from Earth.

[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="205" caption="Asteroid On November 7th"][/caption]

Giganto Black Holes

In case you don't know, black holes are bodies of infinite gravity from which nothing can escape, not even light! One telescope that can study these objects is the Chandra X-ray Observatory. It recently found some very large black holes in the southern sky similar to ones found in the early universe. Since Chandra looked at the same part of the sky for six weeks, it could see black holes from up to 950 million years ago! These baby black holes are a little less powerful than quasars; very bright black holes that throw of energy due to gas and dust falling in to them.

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="399" caption="Artist Impression of a Black Hole. Image credit: NASA"][/caption]

God's Garden Hose

There are rivers of water vapor high in the atmosphere that "flow" over parts of the Pacific and can cause serious flooding when they start to rain. The can flood an area the size of Maryland 1 foot (0.3 meters) deep! A sensor called HAMSR (built by JPL) will study these river aboard an aircraft called Global Hawk. HAMSR will measure the density and temperature of the rivers by recording the heat given of by oxygen and water molecules in the atmosphere.

[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="420" caption="HAMSR"] 

[/caption]

NASA's Global Hawk

Maybe?

As it turns out, NASA is planning to launch STS-133 on February 24. Do you think they will stay with that? I don't think so.[polldaddy poll=4534261]

[caption id="" align="alignright" width="389" caption="Image Credit: NASA/Kim Shiflett"][/caption]

1 Day Left!

You only have 1 more day to submit your questions!

Space Vacation

SpaceX Falcon 9d will be a commercial space vehicle and will launch at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station - Launch Complex 40 on December 7, 2010 between 9:03 a.m. and 12:22 p.m. EST.

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="430" caption="Image credit: SpaceX/Chris Thompson"][/caption]

 

 

Here We Go Again...

STS-133 has been rescheduled again until December 17. Really NASA, really?

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="425" caption="Image credit: NASA"][/caption]

I Need Your Help!

Hello, I need you help with making a video with questions from you about STS-133!

Tribute to Discovery

And now, the moment you've all been waiting for, the World Primer of Tribute to Discovery is here! F.Y.I. Normal posting will resume after Thanksgiving.