Here’s a video about the NASA OSIRIS-REx Mission to an asteroid:
In an effort to better understand Near-Earth Objects, NASA is sending the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft to asteroid 1999 RQ36, a remnant of the early solar system. OSIRIS-REx will study the asteroid’s composition and the evolution of its orbit, and it will return a pristine sample of the asteroid to Earth for further study. Includes interview with Dr. Joseph Nuth, NASA Deputy Project Scientist, OSIRIS-REx Mission.
This video looks like something from a 1950’s sci-fi TV show but is actually made from images of the Comet ISON from the Deep Impact probe: NASA’s Deep Impact Spacecraft Eyes Comet ISON – NASA .
This series of images of comet C/2012 S1 (ISON) was taken by the Medium-Resolution Imager of NASA’s Deep Impact spacecraft over a 36-hour period on Jan. 17 and 18, 2013. At the time, the spacecraft was 493 million miles (793 million kilometers) from the comet.
Curiosity has been getting ready to do its first serious drilling into Mars rocks.
This image shows the results of one test:
The bit in the rotary-percussion drill of NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity left its mark in a target patch of rock called “John Klein” during a test on the rover’s 176th Martian day, or sol (Feb. 2, 2013), in preparation for the first drilling of a rock by the rover.
Emily Lakdawalla describes the drilling preps and also a new picture the rover took of itself : A new rover self-portrait and a new color image of Curiosity from orbit – The Planetary Society
And an amazing shot of Curiosity from space by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter: Color view Curiosity on Mars from HiRISE, sol 157 – The Planetary Society.
I often talk here about the proliferation of citizen science projects. I thought I would scan the blogs of four space related projects at Zooniverse and see what their blogs are talking about these days.
* Planet Hunters – In this project, participants scan data from the Kepler space observatory to look for a drop in the brightness of a star when a planet orbits in front of it as seen from our point of view.
What factors impact transit shape – Planet Hunters blog – This post discusses an effort to make simulated transits look more like the real ones.
Transit of Venus – Image credit Wikipedia
* Galaxy Zoo – With millions of galaxies to classify, this project takes advantage of the human powers of pattern recognition and lets participants decide into which category a galaxy should go according to its shape and features.
Spiral Galaxies and the Future of Citizen Science: a Live Chat – Galaxy Zoo blog – An online chat show brings “Some of the Galaxy Zoo Science Team” together to “talk about a recent paper on measuring spiral arm features via a computer algorithm, including how it compares to human classifications and what this means for the future of volunteer-driven citizen science.” The “also introduce — and have a bit of fun with — the jargon gong.”
* Moon Zoo – With the thousands of images from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera, participants classify the myriad types of lunar surface features.
Flying over Taurus-Littrow – Moon Zoo blog – This post points to dramatically lit images of the Taurus-Littrow site where Apollo 17 landed.
* Planet Four – In this project, participants help “find and mark ‘fans’ and ‘blotches’ on the Martian surface. Scientists believe that these features indicate wind direction and speed. By tracking ‘fans’ and ‘blotches’ over the course of several Martian years to see how they form, evolve, disappear and reform, we can help planetary scientists better understand Mars’ climate.”
to the North! – Planet Four Blog – The project currently only has image data for the Martian southern hemisphere but they will eventually get northern imagery. A JPL video discusses the features in the north that the project wants to investigate
The Planetary Society Hangout on Jan 31, 2013 welcomed Sarah Noble, a lunar geologist and a member of the Research & Analysis program at NASA Headquarters. She talked about the space science program and in particular how space science proposals are reviewed and selected. She also discussed lunar science and declared that the Moon is definitely not a “been there, done that” kind of place. There is a lot of good science left to be done there. She described, for example, NASA’s LADEE mission, which will look at the dust and hyper-thin atmosphere around the Moon.