Archives for October 2008
Sun setting on Phoenix
Published on 29 Oct 2008 at 7:18 pm.
1 Comment.
Filed under Uncategorized.
The Sun rises and sets. That’s a fact of life that is an everyday occurrence to most of us. But, for much of the Phoenix lander’s life on the surface of Mars, sunrises and sunsets didn’t happen. At a Martian latitude of 68° 13′ N, the Sun does not set near […]
Lunar Space Debris
Published on 28 Oct 2008 at 8:52 pm.
3 Comments.
Filed under moon, space debris, space exploration.
From the time that the first satellite was placed into orbit around the Earth, we have had space debris. The rocket that launched Sputnik also orbited Earth. Every launch creates more debris. Old satellites still orbit Earth. In the early days, when satellites needed to use cameras to image Earth, they […]
CoS Number 76
Published on 26 Oct 2008 at 3:19 pm.
1 Comment.
Filed under blogging.
The 76th edition of the Carnival of Space is now live. This time, it is being hosted at As(si)tronomi, a Swedish language site. However, for all my English speaking readers, the carnival is still in English. The host explains that she is a young woman hoping to become an astronomer some day. It sounds to […]
India shoots for the Moon
Published on 22 Oct 2008 at 10:40 am.
2 Comments.
Filed under space exploration.
India’s space agency, ISRO, has successfully launched that nation’s first payload beyond Earth orbit. That payload is the Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft. It will join China’s Chang’e 1 and Japan’s Kaguya (SELENE) spacecraft, which are already in orbit around the Moon. The United States is now planning to launch its Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter in the spring of […]
Read ‘India shoots for the Moon’
CoS 75
Published on 18 Oct 2008 at 1:11 pm.
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Filed under blogging.
The 75th edition of the Carnival of Space is being hosted this week by Lab Lemming. So, go check it out. There is a nice assortment of space-related blog posts from the past week there for you to peruse.
-Astroprof
Racing Rockets
Published on 17 Oct 2008 at 10:23 am.
2 Comments.
Filed under aeronautics.
In one of the early episodes of Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace we see a young Anakin Skywalker racing his pod racer in what seemed to me to be a part of the movie designed just to show off the special effects. The technology used for the pods in the movie is not […]
Reviving HST
Published on 16 Oct 2008 at 5:12 pm.
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Filed under space telescopes.
The Hubble Space Telescope has been given the appropriate commands to switch to its backup data handling system. So far, from what I have read, things seem to be going well. The backup has not been used since the spacecraft was launched nearly two decades ago, but it seems to be working. We’ll know for […]
