Blog Archive

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.

Pretty picture: Vesta's crater Aelia in high resolution

Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2012/08/13 02:59 CDT | 3 comments

I think my favorite features on Vesta are its streaky craters. Today's image release shows one of the streakiest: Aelia, a little crater on the flank of a larger one, near Vesta's equator.