Mars & Space News Roundup
On Sunday, May 25, NASA and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s Mars Phoenix Lander is scheduled to physically land on the Red Planet, near Mars’ arctic region. Phoenix is designed to study the history of water and the habitability potential in the Martian arctic’s ice-rich soil. Science museums across the country will carry a live feed from NASA during the landing sequence. If you’re in the Denver area, the Denver Museum of Nature and Science is already selling tickets to the event. Some details:
Phoenix on Mars—Live!
Sunday, May 25
4:00 - 9:30 p.m.
Phipps IMAX Theater
$7 member adult, $10 nonmember adult, $5 child/student
For reservations, call 303-322-7009 or 1-800-925-2250, Monday through Friday, between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m.
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Additional Mars news includes revitalized plans for a sample return mission. The Mars Science Laboratory could begin the process of collecting samples. A dedicated sample return mission could launch in 2020. Scientists and engineers are busy poring over the avalanche of data already sent by current Mars probes.
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A different Space.com article entitled, “Saturn’s Atmosphere Does the Wave,” an upper atmospheric wave has been detected moving back and forth across the planet.
The wave pattern ripples back and forth in Saturn’s upper atmosphere due to bands of different temperatures at various altitudes. Changing temperatures force the wind to keep whipping back and forth from east to west, causing the entire region to move like a wave.
NASA’s Cassini spacecraft provided a space-based infrared snapshot of Saturn’s wave in action, allowing scientists to compare it with similar atmospheric patterns on Earth and Jupiter. Earth’s wave takes about two years and Jupiter’s wave takes more than four Earth years, but changes on Saturn may occur over much longer periods of up to 30 Earth years, or one Saturn year.
Cool.
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The first space lawyer has graduated from the University of Mississippi.
The university offers the only dedicated aerospace law curriculum in the nation from an American Bar Association-accredited law school, and requires courses on U.S. space and aviation law, international space and aviation law, and remote sensing; participation in the publication of the Journal of Space Law; and independent research.
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Genesis 1, a prototype module for a private space station, has completed its 10,000th trip around the Earth. It was built by Bigelow Aerospace and was launched in July, 2006 to test its self-inflation abilities and operations in Earth’s orbit.
A larger version, Genesis 2, was also successfully launched in 2007. It also continues to operate today. Bigelow Aerospace plans to use full-scale versions, BA-330 modules, for manned missions. The assembly of the first manned station is scheduled to begin in 2011.
