Something I do when I am having a difficult time getting to sleep is go to yahoo.com and look at all the news stories that pop up. I get my mix of celebrity gossip, technology information, global happenings...it's a plethora of information, and I can normally find something that will bore me enough to help me get to sleep. This definitely wasn't the case tonight (as evidenced by this late-night post). After reading articles about Miley Cyrus' tattoo, tricks for your iPhone, and a legally blind beauty queen, I found not one, but two NASA articles. The first is about a massive vortex forming on the south pole of Titan, Saturn's largest moon. I'll be honest and say I really just wanted to see the pictures, but I did read the article. I kept skimming over more yahoo articles until I found one that I knew I had to read then watch the attached video. This second NASA article is about the Mars rover, Curiosity, that will be landing very soon.
At my first NASA experience this summer, our whole theme revolved around the Curiosity, so I'm kind of a mini-whiz on it. Needless to say, when I saw the article about it, my inner NASA nerd started jumping for joy! I'd seen videos about how the intricate landing process will go, but the commentary this one provided added a little something.
Just some background details before I give you the video: Curiosity is much bigger than our last Mars rovers...like the size of a car kind of big. Because it is so big, and therefore heavier, we can't land it by bouncing it around in a giant inflatable marshmallow capsule like we did with Spirit and Opportunity
Spirit and Opportunity each had their own landing marshmallow (my term, not NASA's) that basically bounced around like a superball until it came to a halt. Then the marshmallow opened, the rover's solar panels went out, and as soon as it powered up with the help of the sun, it was off collecting data. Spirit and Opportunity landed in early and late January (respectively) of 2004 and if my memory serves me correctly, were expected to work for 90 days before the Martian soil would cover the solar panels and the rovers would stop collecting data. However, the soil blew off, and the rovers surpassed their expected survival rate by far. After about 6 years, Spirit got stuck in some bad soil in a spot where it couldn't get enough sun to power it, and eventually stopped sending back information. In those six-ish years, Spirit had traveled about 4.8 miles...yes, you read that right. Less than a mile a year!
Curiosity will be landing on August 6th at 5:31 AM from the UTC, which is the Coordinated Universal Time. I believe most of Texas is 6 hours behind that, which means if there is some possible viewing party for it, I'll be staying up late to watch it! Curiosity's goal is to study the Martian climate and geology, and collect data for future manned missions to Mars.
I strongly encourage you to go look up some information about the rovers before Curiosity lands. It's some interesting stuff, and it's happening right now! Be sure to check out how long it takes to communicate and send signals from Earth to the rovers on Mars...it should be surprising!
As promised, here are the links to the articles:
Mars rover, Curiosity:
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/mars-rover-landing-seven-minutes-terror-194446094.html
Titan's vortex:
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/technology-blog/stunning-vortex-appears-saturn-moon-puzzles-scientists-200752158.html
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