Posts Tagged ‘ mars ’

Ever wondered about the track’s humanity has left on other worlds? If so, you’ll probably appreciate this infographic from Karl Tate and Space.com.

Source Space.com: All about our solar system, outer space and exploration

It’s a fairly intuitive image, so there’s not a lot I need to say. I’m jealous of the miles of tracks that were laid down by the Apollo astronauts in their moon buggies. Could you imagine?

I hope to live long enough to see just as many human-driven miles on Mars.

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(Image Credit: NASA/Hubble)

(Image Credit: HiRISE, MRO, LPL (U. Arizona), NASA)

(Image Credit: HiRISE, MRO, LPL (U. Arizona), NASA)

Astrophysicist, and renowned promoter of science, Neil deGrasse Tyson, sat down for an interview on The Daily Show with John Stewart. As always, Neil’s commentary drips of a passion for discovery and exploration. Science and comedy mix well!

Here is one great graphic. It depicts nearly every dedicated mission that humans have, or have attempted to, send to Mars.

Click image for larger version, or visit the source for an even larger version/ (Credit: Credit: Jason Davis / astrosaur.us)

The image creator, Jason Davis, explains how he decided which missions should be included:

I only counted missions that had Mars as the end destination. Additionally, multi-craft missions only count once — unless two landers were sent on two different rockets. Represented in the center of the poster across the planet’s surface are all of the successful landers.

The Planetary Society also has the image available as a poster in their store. (Buying the poster from them not only gets you a cool poster, but supports an important group as well.)

Here is one great graphic. It depicts nearly every dedicated mission that humans have, or have attempted to, send to Mars.

Click image for larger version, or visit the source for an even larger version/ (Credit: Credit: Jason Davis / astrosaur.us)

The image creator, Jason Davis, explains how he decided which missions should be included:

I only counted missions that had Mars as the end destination. Additionally, multi-craft missions only count once — unless two landers were sent on two different rockets. Represented in the center of the poster across the planet’s surface are all of the successful landers.

The Planetary Society also has the image available as a poster in their store. (Buying the poster from them not only gets you a cool poster, but supports an important group as well.)

It’s being reported that the Russian Space Agency, Roscosmos, is publicly recognizing the dwindling possibility to regain contact and control of its latest Mars (Mars’ moon, Phobos, actually) mission, Phobos-Grunt. Phobos-Grunt launched on November 9 and made it into Earth orbit; however, it failed to fire its engines that would have sent it on its way to Mars’ moon Phobos.

According to the BBC:

Engineers have tried in vain to contact the spacecraft, and Roscosmos deputy head Vitaliy Davydov said the situation now looked very grim.

“One should be a realist,” he was quoted as saying by RIA Novosti.

Later, another Russian news agency, Interfax, quoted Davydov as saying that Phobos-Grunt might fall from orbit anytime between late December 2011 and February 2012.

This is unfortunate news on a couple of fronts. First, losing the mission to Phobos is tremendously disappointing. The research that would have been gained from that mission would have been remarkable. The second reason this situation is particularly unfortunate is that it’s not quite known what kind of consequences Earth might face when Phobos-Grunt drops out of orbit and comes crashing back down to Earth. It is currently holding quite a bit of fuel — the fuel that would have taken it to Phobos — and the design of fuel tanks often allows them to survive re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere more successfully than other spacecraft components.

To be certain, both professionals and amateurs alike will be keeping their eyes on Phobos-Grunt and crunching the numbers to try and ascertain what might happen within the next few months if — and it is seemingly highly likely at this point — it comes back down to Earth.

Any developments will be reported here.

At around 10am EST (7 PST) this morning, the Mars Science Laboratory carrying the Curiosity rover, lifted off from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The powerful Atlas V rocket had no hesitation after it ignited and propelled the MSL off of the launchpad. Within a few minutes, the MSL was in orbit. 44 minutes after launch the spacecraft separated from the rocket putting it on a trajectory to reach Mars in August of 2012.

Good travels, Curiosity!