News Briefs: Astronomy, Astophysics & Space Exploration
Moderators: Mr. Titanic, Charlie P., ed_the_engineer
I apologize for falling behind in my Mars & Saturn updates ... been busy.
Mars:
* One of the rovers is currently stuck in a sand dune, and has been for 2 weeks ... but the other is still going strong.
* One of the rovers actually located, and photographed, an iron meteorite (the first ever found on another planet). I'll try to locate a photo for that. [Edit: done - see below]
Saturn:
I'll ping Charlie for some captions, to which I'll add photo links.
Mars:
* One of the rovers is currently stuck in a sand dune, and has been for 2 weeks ... but the other is still going strong.
* One of the rovers actually located, and photographed, an iron meteorite (the first ever found on another planet). I'll try to locate a photo for that. [Edit: done - see below]
Saturn:
I'll ping Charlie for some captions, to which I'll add photo links.
Last edited by Darb on Wed May 18, 2005 6:49 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Last edited by Darb on Wed May 18, 2005 6:52 pm, edited 2 times in total.
Last edited by Darb on Wed May 18, 2005 6:50 pm, edited 1 time in total.
- wolfspirit
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"Alien" spacecraft, yes, UFO, no.Brad wrote:Now THAT is an ironic first !magicfan241 wrote:Now that is cool.
Did anyone else besides me get a good belly laugh at the incongruity of a camera in Martian orbit taking a picture of a UFO from Earth ?
It is not a Unidentified Flying Object; It is neither undentified, nor flying. The likeliest candadate is Viking 2 in orbit., and since it is not of Martian manufacture, it is an alien spacecraft.
Solitudinem fecerunt, pacem appelunt
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[Mock Rant]
I spent hundreds of millions of imaginary taxpayer dollars, and thousands of imaginary man-years of labor, getting that joke into near martian orbit, only to have it shot down. Well, at least it wasnt another one of those pesky English-Metric conversion errors like the one that cause us the Climate Orbiter back in 1999 ... that would have been truly embarassing.
[/Mock Rant]
I spent hundreds of millions of imaginary taxpayer dollars, and thousands of imaginary man-years of labor, getting that joke into near martian orbit, only to have it shot down. Well, at least it wasnt another one of those pesky English-Metric conversion errors like the one that cause us the Climate Orbiter back in 1999 ... that would have been truly embarassing.
[/Mock Rant]
The funny thing about english distance units is that they have been redefined based on the metric - an international inch is exactly 25.4mm. This is to say that "english" system of distance is now no more than a bunch of really obscure and nonsensical metric units.
Solitudinem fecerunt, pacem appelunt
Remember the good old biblical days when we could do things like define a 'cubit' as the distance from the tip of one's elbow to the tip of one's middle finger ?
/me demonstrates
Ooops ... sorry about that.
The need for standardization and precision, while improving technology and science by leaps and bounds, has also taken all the poetic fun out of things.
/me demonstrates
Ooops ... sorry about that.
The need for standardization and precision, while improving technology and science by leaps and bounds, has also taken all the poetic fun out of things.
Last edited by Darb on Mon May 23, 2005 5:18 pm, edited 1 time in total.
- wolfspirit
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- Joined: Sat Nov 08, 2003 12:39 pm
Too true!Brad wrote:Remember the good old biblical days when we could do things like define a 'cubit' as the distance from the tip of one's elbow to the tip of one's middle finger ?
/me demonstrates
Ooops ... sorry about that.
The need for standardization and precision, while improving technology and science by leaps and bounds, has also taken all the poetic fun out of things.
The cubit is far from dead; I see it used every day, usually on the freeway, nicely displayed with a perfectly vertical forearm and middle finger at full extension. I can tell from the intensity of the glares and raised voices of the various drivers that they are very serious about their biblical units of measurements.
Some standards never are fully retired.
Solitudinem fecerunt, pacem appelunt