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blufiveAs half the world is reporting, NASA's Spirit rover[1] has landed safely on Mars and is sending back pictures like there's no tomorrow, albeit only black-and-white ones until later today.
Getting slightly less coverage, but also noteworthy, Stardust made a successful flyby of comet Wild 2 on Friday, collecting samples of the particles in its coma for return to Earth.
What with another Mars rover en route, Mars Express settling into its orbit ready to begin mapping, and Cassini-Huygens due to arrive at Saturn in July it's going to be an interesting year...
[1]While I applaud NASA's efforts in making the site accessible to children and those without a scientific/engineering background, did they have to dumb the page down that much? Especially as it gets pretty techie, pretty quickly, if you follow the links.
Getting slightly less coverage, but also noteworthy, Stardust made a successful flyby of comet Wild 2 on Friday, collecting samples of the particles in its coma for return to Earth.
What with another Mars rover en route, Mars Express settling into its orbit ready to begin mapping, and Cassini-Huygens due to arrive at Saturn in July it's going to be an interesting year...
[1]While I applaud NASA's efforts in making the site accessible to children and those without a scientific/engineering background, did they have to dumb the page down that much? Especially as it gets pretty techie, pretty quickly, if you follow the links.
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Date: 2004-01-06 11:03 (UTC)Cassini is Saturn's version of the Galileo probe, and will go into orbit around Saturn to study the planet, moons and rings. Huygens is a European-made probe, currently riding piggyback on Cassini, which will attempt to land on Titan, the largest of Saturn's moons, and the only moon in the Solar system with a worthwhile atmosphere.
Unlike Galileo, Cassini managed to open its high-gain antenna, so there should be pictures galore. It's already taken a few, like this view from way off to one side of Saturn, where you can see the shadow the planet casts across the rings - impossible to see from Earth.
Exciting as the current Mars stuff is, Cassini-Huygens is the one that's got me REALLY interested.
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Date: 2004-01-06 12:20 (UTC)It's amazing. i'm really looking forward to it's findings.