Mars 2020 Video: Mars for the Funny Bone

I just came across a short but funny video about all those robotic missions that we have been sending to Mars. The title of the video is Mars: 2020: Springtime. The URL is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yjiGH9QNiU0

And yes, there is life on Mars - at least according to the video.

Ad Astra, Jim

Cry Baby Cry for Mars Global Surveyor

I received a very depressing email from NASA JPL the day before yesterday. It was a press release titled "NASA'S Mars Global Surveyor May be at Mission's End".

For those of us with a keen interest in Mars, the wait for a Mars orbiter mission was an excruciatingly long one. Many years had elapsed since the Viking orbiters had ceased operations, and the failure of the Mars Observer mission only lengthened the wait. We got a taste of the martian surface with the Mars Pathfinder mission.

The arrival of Mars Global Surveyor at Mars was a cause for celebration. Pictures of Mars returned by its cameras blew away the 20 plus year old photographs from the Viking orbiters. These new pictures of the martian surface became the core of numerous presentations I created describing the red planet. They are also the primary source of images for the Mars Art Gallery.

Mars Global Surveyor, which was launched on November 7, 1996, has lasted longer than any other mission to Mars and has returned over 240,000 photographs of the red planet. The last contact from MGS was on November 2. Remarkably, NASA is using the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter to try and photograph Mars Global Surveyor in order to visually inspect the spacecraft. NASA JPL still has some small hope that communications with MGS can be reestablished.


The press release included a few of Mars Global Surveyor's significant discoveries, which I quote here:

- The spacecraft's camera found gullies cut into many slopes that have few, if any, impact craters. This indicates the gullies are geologically young. Scientists interpret this as evidence of action by liquid water, essentially in modern times.

- The mineral-mapping infrared spectrometer found concentrations of a mineral that often forms under wet conditions, fine-grained hematite. This discovery led to selection of a hematite-rich region as the landing site for NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity.

- Laser altimeter measurements have produced an unprecedented global topographic map of Mars. The instrument revealed a multitude of highly eroded or buried craters too subtle for previous observation, and mapped canyons within the polar ice caps.

- The magnetometer found localized remnant magnetic fields, indicating that Mars once had a global magnetic field like Earth's, shielding the surface from deadly cosmic rays.

- The camera found a fan-shaped area of interweaving, curved ridges interpreted as evidence of an ancient river delta resulting from persistent flow of water over an extended period in the planet's ancient past.

- A long life allowed Global Surveyor to track changes through repeated annual cycles. For three Martian summers in a row, deposits of carbon-dioxide ice near Mars' South Pole shrunk from the previous year's size, suggesting a climate change in progress.

Let's all keep our fingers crossed for Mars Global Surveyor.

NASA's Mars Global Surveyor May Be at Mission's End

Ad Astra, Jim

Enter the NSS Space Settlement Art Contest

The National Space Society is sponsoring an art contest in which artists are to create visions of a spacefaring future - a future of space settlement, be they on the Moon, on Mars, on asteroids, or orbiting independently in space. Twelve winning entries will be chosen to illustrate the NSS 2008 Space Settlement Calendar. Judges include world-renowned space artists David A. Hardy and Pat Rawlings. The deadline for entries is January 31, 2007. Artists may submit multiple pictures to the contest.

The Grand Prize winner will have their artwork featured on the calendar cover and as one of the monthly images. This winner will receive a Beyond-Earth Enterprises 8 ounce Flight Container for sub-orbital rocket launch and return (valued at $1,500.00); a physical copy of Mojoworld 3 Professional 3D software (valued at $480.00); a $250.00 cash prize; a 1 year complimentary membership in the National Space Society, which includes a subscription to Ad Astra magazine; and a complimentary copy of the calendar.

There will be four First Prize winners in the categories of Best Lunar Settlement, Best Mars Settlement, Best Asteroid Settlement, and Best Orbiting Settlement. In addition to being published in the calendar, each of the four First Prizes winners will receive a physical copy of Mojoworld 3 Professional 3D software (valued at $480.00); a Beyond-Earth Enterprises Large Photo Kit for sub-orbital rocket launch and return (valued at $74.95); a $100.00 cash prize; a 1 year complimentary membership in the National Space Society, which includes a subscription to Ad Astra magazine; and a complimentary copy of the calendar.

The remaining seven winning entries will each appear in the calendar and the artists will each receive an electronic download copy of Mojoworld 3 Professional 3D software (valued at $480.00); a Beyond-Earth Enterprises DNA Flight Kit for sub-orbital rocket launch and return (valued at $34.95); a 1 year complimentary membership in the National Space Society, which includes a subscription to Ad Astra magazine; and a complimentary copy of the calendar.

For all the contest details go to http://www.nss.org/settlement/calendar/

The National Space Society (NSS) is an independent, educational, grassroots nonprofit organization dedicated to the creation of a spacefaring civilization. For US tax purposes, NSS is a tax exempt 501(c)3 educational nonprofit corporation. NSS is widely acknowledged as the preeminent citizen's voice on space. The society also publishes Ad Astra magazine, an award-winning periodical chronicling the most important developments in space.

Artsnova Digital Art and Space Blog Launched

As you look through my entries on the Digital Mars Blog you will see that some of them are unrelated to Mars. In order to keep this blog devoted exclusively to items about Mars, I have launched another Blog that addresses digital art and photography, space art, astronomy, and presentations.

The URL for the Artsnova blog is http://artsnova.com/blog/.

See you there.

Jim

Spirit Celebrates 1000 Sols on Mars

Today, Oct. 26, 2006, is the 1,000th Sol (a Martian day) that the Mars Exploration Rover Spirit has spent on Mars. It's hard to believe that the two rovers Spirit and Opportunity continue to operate, having exceeded their rated lifetime of 90 Sols by a factor of more than 10. As a sort of celebration, JPL has today released a panoramic image of Spirit's current location on a small hill called "Low Ridge".

Referred to as PIA01907: 'McMurdo' Panorama from Spirit's 'Winter Haven', a small portion of which can be seen above, the panorama was created from individual pictures taken by Spirit's panoramic camera, commonly referred to as the Pancam. The most interesting component of this panorama is the field of rocks that appears in the center of the image. While the image is impressive, its true beauty can only be seen in the full resolution version (a 28 meg JPEG).

Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Astonishing Picture of Victoria Crater

Wow! The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) team just released a picture of Victoria Crater taken by the HiRISE camera. The picture can be seen at http://hiroc.lpl.arizona.edu/images/TRA/TRA_000873_1780/

The picture of Victoria crater, seen in Figure A below, is the destination of the Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity.

Figure A. MRO picture of Victoria Crater
(click picture to enlarge)

For purposes of comparison you may want to check out the picture of Victoria Crater that I created from a Mars Global Surveyor MOC Narrow-Angle Camera image at http://www.marsartgallery.com/victoriacrater.html

What makes the MRO (Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter) picture truely astonishing is that the rover Opportunity can be seen in the picture. Even more astonishing is that the shadow from the PanCam mast can be seen in the full resolution version. The image resolution is 27 centimeters per pixel.

Figure B. Closeup of Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity

(click picture to enlarge)

More about this detailed view of Opportunity is available at http://hiroc.lpl.arizona.edu/images/TRA/TRA_000873_1780/opportunity.html

For more information, the HiRISE (High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment) home page is at http://hiroc.lpl.arizona.edu/ and the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter home page is at http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mro/.

Way to go MRO.

Space Videos on the Net

There is a surprising abundance of space related videos on the web that are hosted by non-NASA web sites. Following is a list of a few of the better ones that I have recently come across.

Video: ISS Assembly Sequence
URL: http://www.tietronix.com/anim/AnimationTop.html
Comments: A nice animation of the full assembly sequence for the International Space Station. Note that to access the video, you've got to do the following:

1) Go to the web page http://www.tietronix.com/anim/AnimationTop.html

2) In the left-side navigation area is a series of small picture icons. Moving your mouse over the image pulls up a larger version in the main area. Clicking on the icon starts the movie.

3) Find the icon for the ISS Assembly Sequence (3rd row, 1st column in the section labeled Space.

4) Click the icon and enjoy.

There are also several other animations available, including Orbiter Reentry Maneuver and Crew Return Vehicle animation.

Video: The Best of Hubble... Part l
URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJW1hof_4_I
Comments: Nice background music for a film that pans various Hubble
Space Telescope images. Not very exciting.

Video: Yuri Gagarin Flight video
URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J2C1FkPz5vU&NR
Comments: Great video overview of the pioneering flight of Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, with a lively soundtrack as well.

Video: Man on the Moon
URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5QX3mE6N-2c&mode=related&search=
Comments: Opening with Kennedy's famous speech "we choose to go to the
Moon", this is a video review of the Apollo 11 mission. Nice song as a soundtrack 6.5 minutes long

Video: Lift Off Soyuz Baykonur
URL:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7635123402210104777&q=gagarin
Comments: At almost 8 minutes, this video could have been shortened to about 4 minutes. It features the launch of a Soyuz to the International Space Station. Most interesting prelaunch are the views of the launch pad. Most interesting postlaunch are the views of the interior of the Soyuz spacecraft.

Meanwhile back at NASA, there is a great video from the Solid Rocket Booster Camera of the SRB's descent back to the surface, complete with sound. I'd give it two-thumbs up.

The video can be found on the "Index to NASA Podcasts" web page at

http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/podcasting/index.html

There is also a nice video of the STS-115 ISS Rendezvous Pitch Maneuver

Enjoy the shows.

Jim, http://www.marsartgallery.com