Another year about to end. To celebrate I made up some wallpaper of this Cassini image of Saturn (Credit: NASA / JPL /Space Science Institute). I had to modify it just a little so I hope the folks at NASA don’t mind too much. It doesn’t want to align either, oh well.

Here’s wishing everyone a happy and safe New Years Eve and a great year ahead. See you tomorrow!

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It’s snowing outside — hard. The fact that it’s snowing and the new year is just a couple of days away makes me think of summer of course. At least is isn’t as bad as in Colorado recently.

What’s summer without summer camps for the kids? NASA Academy is probably a cut above the stereotypical cheesy camps I think of.

Hey click the thumbnail and you will get a bigger version. It’s a self portrait of, and by. Steve Robinson while he was doing a repair job in space back in August. During the repair job, he pulled gap filler from between Discovery’s heat shield tiles. It might take you a second to realize what it is.
Image Credit: NASA / Steve Robinson

A short one anyway, it’s only 1.5 Mb hopefully not too painful for dial-ups:

~~SEE THE MOVIE~~

The image shows Saturn’s moons Janus (right and the larger) and Epimetheus (left). The moons are interesting because they actually switch orbital positions so between the two, the moon that is closer to the planet changes about every 4 years. Epimetheus is the moon that has a geyser thought to be water, and is probably adding to the rings of the planet.

Image Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute

Space Technology 6 is a project in NASA’s New Millennium Project. One of the parts of ST6 is to improve a spacecrafts ability to make intelligent decisions on what information to gather and what to send back to the ground. The basic idea is to allow a spacecraft to make decisions for itself, allowing it to operate without the continuous link with ground controllers. The question is: will it work?

We are about to find out, and we’re going to do it with one of the most incredibly successful missions NASA currently has going — the Mars Rovers. Using new software uploaded to the rovers, the rovers can take multiple images and the software will look for differences between them. This is different than just looking at file size or some other simple solution; the software will be able to distinguish between the sky and the ground. It’s even more sophisticated than that too; a rover can have a template of what it is looking at, and the template can be updated as the rover gets closer, even compensating for the changing geometry of the view. So if the rover is looking at some particular rock, as the perspective changes, it will know it’s the same rock, think of it as visual target tracking. Put usual target tracking together with the ability for the rover to know where it is safe to reach out with its robotic arm, the rovers can now “go and touch” using the tools on the arm.

One of the most exciting new abilities the software brings to the rovers is an improved ability for them to navigate away from hazards. Accomplished by creating better maps of their local area, the rovers now can think several steps ahead instead of going about obstacle avoidance one step at a time and using trial and error methodology. I do wonder how that will work out with Opportunity, avoiding obstacles like rocks is one thing, but keeping itself from getting stuck is another. The little rover has been stuck twice.

It’s a good mission to experiment on though, the mission was expected to last 90 Martian days is going to be starting its fourth year in 2007, Spirit on January 24th, and while its useful with these rovers, it will provide a baseline for the development of software for the planned “Mars Science Laboratory”, a “next generation” rover being readied for launch in 2009.

Source: NASA / JPL

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I did a post a little while ago on a green meteor. A number of people have been seeing meteors so I thought I’d put up a link to the American Meteor Society. The site has a lot of great resources; including reports of fireballs. If you look closely you can follow some fireballs by looking at the data.

You can add your own sightings too. Before reporting however, take a look at the form to see the kind of information they want, which you will find quite detailed. I would encourage observations be reported.

The art and science of planet hunting got a boost today thanks to the launch of the Convection Rotation and planetary Transits or COROT from Baikonur in Kazakhstan.

The spacecraft has the capability to study the acoustic waves that ripple across the surface of stars. Think about that and those little pin-points of light in your night sky for a second. This thing can study surface disturbances on them. While the spacecraft is carrying a 12 inch telescope it’s still amazing.

The spacecraft can also detect the tiny amount that a star will dim when a planet crosses in front of it i.e. transits, again amazing.

Some of the techniques used ot find exo planets are very innovative. I would get some argument by a few, but I still say planet hunting is about as much an art as a science.

This mission is being led by French national space agency, CNES.

Image: CNES

Source: ESA