Blog Archive

Cosmoquest Astronomy Hour, Wednesday: What's up with Curiosity on Mars, with guest: me!

Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2012/08/15 05:00 CDT | 11 comments

I'm hosting this week's Cosmoquest Astronomy Hour, and rather than having a special guest I'll be speaking myself about what's going on with Curiosity, and will leave lots of time to answer people's questions. Join me at 1600 PDT / 2300 UTC at cosmoquest.org/hangouts.

An attempt to colorize part of a Navcam image of the eastern flank of Aeolis Mons with the Mastcam thumbnail color panorama released on sol 3.

Curiosity sol 9 update

Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2012/08/15 01:21 CDT | 1 comments

An update on Curiosity's status as of sol 9, and a look ahead to the next month or two of commissioning activities.

Video, sound, and timeline of Curiosity's descent

Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2012/08/14 04:56 CDT | 7 comments

A fantastic video produced by Brian Lynch combines the thumbnail images from Curiosity's Mars Descent Imager (MARDI) with the audio from the control room during landing night and a detailed timeline from spaceflight101.com.

Curiosity's Marsdial is on Mars!

Posted by Bill Nye on 2012/08/14 04:24 CDT | 6 comments

Following the successful landing of the Curiosity rover, it is gratifying indeed to see the third MarsDial© photometric calibration (cal) target on the planet Mars. It is something near and dear to me personally, and it's good for all of us, because it helps us do good science.

Curiosity and the Media: A Response

Posted by Casey Dreier on 2012/08/14 10:48 CDT | 9 comments

Wherein I address a particular comment on my previous post calling me out for a lazy attack on "the media." I work through what I meant by media and how I think it tends to (unintentionally) misrepresent the relative cost and benefits of space missions.