I love Mars, as you all know – and if you didn’t know that, wow, where have you been?!?!? – and I often refer to it, only half-jokingly, as “my real home planet”. I love its volcanoes, its canyons and craters with a passion. I see an image of it taken by an orbiter, a space telescope or even just an amateur telescope and I literally let out a sigh, I find it so beautiful. I love Mars.

But then I see an image like this, and I know that, just like Dorothy said,  there’s no place like home…

Officially, technically, scientifically, that’s an image of Earth taken by the OSIRIS camera onboard the European Space Agency probe “ROSETTA”, which is flying past Earth for the third and final time during  its long journey to rendezvous with a comet – Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko – in 2014. It was taken at around 1.30pm earlier today, from a distance of some 633,000km.

But none of that matters, does it? Not really. That’s a portrait of Home. That’s Where We Live. That’s our lush, sopping wet, sweet-aired green, blue and white oasis shining like a christmas tree ornament, like a beacon of light and life, in the vast, black, unforgiving desert that is space. There may be a thousand, a million, even a billion worlds that look like it “Out There”, and in the centuries and millennia to come voyagers from Earth will travel to, land on and raise families, civilisations and empires upon them, but there will never, ever be another planet that will ever come close to having the heart-stopping beauty of Earth.

Click here to find out more about the image – and see more stunning images of Earth as they come in from ROSETTA…

There was a big news teleconference today, updating everyone on the situation with “Spirit”, the poor Mars rover that has been stuck in a sand trap for the past 6 months. I’ll paste the official press release in at the end here, but basically this was the news:

* Spirit is in big, big trouble, the worst she – or either of the rovers – has ever been in. It’s very possible that she might not get out of this dust trap, and will end her mission where she is now.

* It turns out that the rover actually drove over the lip of and part way onto a small, ancient, buried crater. When her left wheels broke through a layer of brittle “duricrust” covering the crater, they then sank into the talcum powder fine dust filling the crater beneath its crusty surface.  

* To make matters worse, there are rocks underneath the rover, one of which may or may not even be touching the rover’s underbelly.

* The MER team has decided that the best thing to do is to try and reverse the rover out of its current sandtrap, following its own tracks as it were. Driving forwards might just mean all the rover’s wheels get bogged down in the sand, instead of just the ones that are now.

* The first attempt to drive Spirit out of its trap – or “extricate” it – will be made on Monday / Tuesday next week. It is NOT expected that the rover will just “pop out” of the dust trap, and it’s likely that it will take weeks if not months to get Spirit out of where it’s stuck – if that is even possible. It might not be.

* We should know more about the rover’s progress late on Tuesday, when images taken will show how much / if the rover has moved.

So, there you have it. Spirit has been riding her luck for a long time, but her luck might finally have run out. The MER team were being very realistic about the situation – their rover is in deep, deep trouble, and they haven’t figured out a plan that would definitely work. But that doesn’t mean they’re going to stop trying! And, if the worst comes to the worst, and she is stuck, Spirit will still be able to do fantastic science until she stops working. She will be able to monitor the weather; check for seismic activity; study the powdery material she’s bogged down in; make astronomical observations. And, of course, take and send back even more breathtakingly beautiful images of the surface of Mars.

All we can do now is wait and cross our fingers that, for a change, Spirit gets some luck thrown at her, instead of having to fight tooth and nail for every inch she drives.

Big day Monday. Check back here for news.

Here’s the full NASA press release, with a lot more science in it…

News release: 2009-164                                                                      Nov. 12, 2009

The full version of this story with accompanying images is at: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2009-164

“The soft materials churned up by Spirit’s wheels have the highest sulfur content measured on Mars,” said Ray Arvidson a scientist at Washington University in St. Louis and deputy principal investigator for the science payloads on Spirit and Opportunity. “We’re taking advantage of its fixed location to conduct detailed measurements of these interesting materials.”

Oppy is now getting up close and personal with “Marquette Island”, a great slab of layered rock that she first spotted a week or so ago. I’m covering the rover’s trip to Endeavour Crater on my “The Road to Endeavour” blog, and you can find lots of images of this new ‘island’ – like this one, but in colour - there…

Slowly but surely, Oppy is closing in on “Marquette Island”…

More details here… http://roadtoendeavour.wordpress.com

As you read these very words, halfway across the solar system, on the dusty, dune-ripled Meridiani Plain on Mars, the Mars Exploration Rover OPPORTUNITY might be trundling towards yet another meteorite. A couple of days ago she sent back images showing this dark, blocky “something” up ahead…

Since it was spotted lots of MER-watchers have been wondering if it might be yet another piece of nickel iron that’s fallen from the Red Planet’s sky. We should know by this time tomorrow.

Could there be a clue in the fact that it has already been named – like all the fascinating meteorites spotted by Oppy so far – after an American island..? Hmmm!

Whatever it turns out to be, “Marquette Island” has, like “Block Island”, “Shelter Island” and “Mackinac Island”, been named after a small island off the coast of the US. But have you ever wondered why NASA been naming great chunks of starstone, found out on the plains of Mars after islands? I know I did, after Mackinac was given its name, which led to a bizarre internet coincidence I’ll describe later.

So. Islands. On a purely visual level it definitely makes sense. The Meridiani Plain that Oppy is crossing is, in effect, a vast sea of dust, with dunes of dust and sand rippled across it like waves frozen in a moment in time. Anything that sits on top of or between those dunes does look very much like an island.

But why THESE islands? Is there some special selection criteria for naming a martian meteorite after an island? After “Mackinac” was christened – and I wrongly, at first, thought it hadn’t been named after an island, but was set straight by several people! - I decided to try and find out, and after an email to the Public Affairs office at NASA (hi Veronica! ) I had my answer…

“Mackinac was proposed by James Ashley at Arizona State University. He’s  the Payload Downlink Lead and Payload Uplink Lead for the Miniature Thermal Emission Spectrometer, and a Mineralogy/Geochemistry Science Theme Group Lead for mission planning sessions.”

Here’s what James had to say about it…

“Yes indeed; when I sense an opportunity to suggest a name for a cobble on Mars, I choose a Michigan island because… …I was born and raised in Grand Rapids, Michigan.  So we now have the unofficial names of Isle Royale, Drummond, and Mackinac Island for three of the rocks that we have come across since exiting Victoria Crater (Mackinac is the only one of these three to be imaged close up).  For reasons that are familiar to Michiganders, Mackinac Island is one of my favorite places to visit back home. ”

Aha! Mystery solved! Well, at least as far as Mackinac was concerned. What about the other islands tho? Why had they been chosen? Was it for a specific reason – maybe someone on the MER team had a personal or family link with an island that made them want to honour it, and immortalise it on Mars? Or was there just a “My First Big Book Of Islands” sitting on a desk at JPL that people were opening at random to help them choose names?

There was one certain way to find out. I decided to email the man who is responsible for giving the world “Spirit” and “Opportunity”, and all their hundreds of thousands of photographs; the engineer who designed, built and landed on Mars arguably the two most successful unmanned spacecraft in the history of planetary exploration; the amazing scientist who was recently awarded the “Carl Sagan Medal” in recognition of his amazing achievements in spreading the word about space exploration through his work on the MER mission – Steve Squyres.

Now, obviously, Steve is a very busy guy, and I was quite prepared to not hear back from him, what with his ridiculously busy schedule and everything. But, generous with his time as ever, Steve emailed me back just a few days later, and shone a light on the naming process for these fascinating meteorites…

“We are naming the isolated rocks that we find out in this sea of sand and sulfates after islands. Beyond that, there isn’t much rhyme or reason to it. We have a long list of island names from which we can draw as desired. What name gets assigned is pretty much at the whim of who’s on the science team the day the rock is found. In this particular instance, the suggestion came from James Ashley, a member of the team with a strong interest in meteorites. Why he suggested Mackinac I don’t know, but it was a good name, consistent with our naming convention, so that’s what we went with.

Cheers, SS“

So, there you have it! Personally I like the fact that it’s not a cold, scientific selection process, but an absolutely human one, ‘pretty much at the whim of who’s on the science team the day the rock is found’ as Steve put it.

So, let’s take a look at the meteorites Oppy has found on her meandering trek across Meridiani, and at the islands they’re named after.

First, “Block Island”. Block Island remains the largest meteorite spotted on Mars so far – a huge, heavy chunk of gnarled, gnawed iron that sits on Meridiani Planum like a worn down statue, or a piece of a temple. What was it named after? Well, it turns out it was named after this island, off the coast of New England…

Next was “Shelter Island”, which was named after this island, a little to the west of Block Island…

And then, my personal favourite, “Mackinac”…

As I said earlier, it was this meteorite that set me on my quest to uncover the reasons behind the meterites’ names in the first place. Soon after I posted the above picture of Mackinac on Twitter, to my surprise and delight I saw it had been reTweeted ( that’s ‘forwarded to other people’, for those of you who don’t use Twitter) by Mike Forrester, a Twitter user who actually lives ON Mackinac Island, and writes a blog about it! I sent him a message, thanking him for using it, and soon we had struck up something of a correspondence. Mike told me he had passed on my picture to a local school, and – and here’s where it all really got started, I guess – he asked me why NASA had chosen to name the meteorite after his beautiful island home..? I replied that basically NASA named just meteorites encountered by Oppy after US islands, but didn’t know why one was chosen over another… and that got me wondering about it. That’s when I emailed JPL, and Steve Squyres, too…

When I checked out Mike Forrester’s blog, a picture came up of a beautiful hotel that looked very, very familiar…

Aaaggghhh!!! Where had I seen that hotel?!?! It was maddening! Then it came to me… I’d seen it in one of my all-time favourite films… and this might shock, amuse or horrify some of you when you see what it is, you have been warned…

“Somewhere In Time” was a chick-flick before the term was even invented, and I love it to bits. If you aren’t familiar with the film, Christopher Reeve plays a writer who travels back in time to be with a beautiful actress – played by Jane Seymour- who he fell in love with after seeing her portrait on a gallery wall. Sadly, he is stopped from being with her when he is thrust back to his own time, and he then basically starves himself to death pining for her… but when he dies the lovers are reunited…

By now you’re either going “Awwwwww!” or “Bleughhh!!” into a bucket! But I don’t care, it’s a beautiful story, with great characters, and even if it is cheesier than a warehouse full of mature cheddar it’s just a lovely, escapist film. And come on, you can’t watch rockets and starships and aliens ALL the time..!

Anyway… that hotel looked so familiar because it is featured in the film. Personally I think that’s quite a spooky chain of events… my favourite martian meteorite comes to be named after an island which has the hotel featured in one of my favourite films, and I only found out about it after someone I didn’t even know existed saw my picture on Twitter! I LOVE the internet!

But now we have “Marquette Island” – which island is it named after? here it is…

Strange shape, isn’t it? I can’t wait to see what shape its namesake on Mars turns out to have..!

So, there you have it – the story behind the naming of the meteorites found on Mars by Opportunity so far. I’m sure many more are just sitting there, waiting to be found. No doubt there are lots of US island names ready and waiting to be used, but here I’d like to officially start an internet campaign to have one named after an island that the good people at NASA and JPL probably won’t be aware of – this one…

That’s “Craggy Island”,  home of these wonderful people…

Oh go on NASA, name a meteorite Craggy Island, you know you want to. Ah, go on, go on, go on…

(CUMBRIAN SKY gift for “Father Ted” fans – “My Lovely Horse“) (and if you’ve never seen or even heard of it, take a look…!)

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P.S. If you’d like to see some more images, showing the meteorites and their islands, here you are – please click on the pictures to bring up full size versions…

Wow… (and I’m only using that word ‘cos I can’t possibly use the swear word I wanted to when I first saw the images half an hour ago!)… Cassini has been sending back new images of the plumes gushing out of Enceladus’ south pole, and they’re amazing…

Closer…

… and closer still…

Tweaking and enhancing and generally piddling about with one of the images results in this startling view…

I’m pretty stunned by these images, and to be honest, after doing this stuff, after living space and space exploration for all these years it takes a lot to actually stun me… I mean, I’m sitting here in my flat in Kendal, at 6.40 in the morning… I will be heading out to work in less than half an hour, walking through curtain after curtain of lashing, icy rain, and I’ll get there literally soaked to the skin… but I’ll get there with a head full of images of geysers of icy water spewing out of a moon orbiting Saturn, remembering something my good UMSF friend nprev said… that yesterday, when Cassini flew though these plumes, because some scientists believe that the material in these plumes contains bacteria or micro-organisms that shelter and thrive in the water below the pole, for the first time in human history perhaps a machine built by mankind touched alien lifeforms… I just can’t shake that thought when I look at these glorious pictures…

And trust me, now you won’t be able to, either…

This week’s Carnival of Space is the 127th… and it can be found at the Next Big Future blog…

http://nextbigfuture.com/2009/10/carnival-of-space-127.html

Look at this picture – no, properly. Look At This Picture…

Do you know what that is? I won’t blame you if you don’t. Here, I’ll give you a clue… it’s this, but seen from above…

That’s the Apollo 17 landing site, as seen by NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. You can see the descent stage of the Lunar Module very clearly. You can also see something… else…

Yes, you read that correctly. That little line of dark pixels is the very flag, planted on the Moon, by the Apollo 17 astronauts, after they stepped down from the hatch of the lunar module and Walked On The Moon. The same flag that you can see Gene Cernan standing next to on this iconic image…

… the same flag you can see both Gene Cernan and Jack Schmidt standing beside here…

Many people are surprised that the flag is still standing there; for years it’s been assumed that the flags planted by the Apollo astronauts would have been reduced to tatters of bleached fabric, or even to dust, by decades of exposure to UV radiation and celestial sand-blasting the relentless rain of micrometeorites. So this picture is both surprising and exciting. It suggests that, even though it toppled over when the Eagle’s ascent stage blasted off from the Moon, the Stars and Stripes planted by Armstrong and Aldrin is still there, lying on the ground, waiting to be photographed – or even salvaged – in the future. Wouldn’t that be something?

So… and come on, you knew this was coming… looks like the Apollo Moan Hoax Believers have been slapped across the face with a wet fish yet again! We now have a photograph of a flag standing on the Moon, right where it was thrust into the lunar surface by astronauts. As far as I’m concerned that’s it, Game Over. Of course, die-hard Hoax Believers won’t buy it, not for a moment; they have too much time and face invested in carrying on with their little crusade to back down now. They’ll say that “a few pixels prove nothing”, that it’s just a Photoshop job by someone at NASA. Whatever. They can go on believing what they want to… while the rest of us laugh at them, knowing that in the “My Big Book Of Stupid Things To Believe”, believing that the Moon landings were faked is right there at the top of page 1.

I genuinely wish that these Hoax Believers would all have an epiphany, at the same time, that would open their eyes to the wonder, drama and beauty of Apollo, because they are missing out on so much! I mean, what’s better for getting the most out of life? a) believing, and telling others, against all the overwhelming and unquestionable evidence there is,  that the Moon landings were hoaxed and billions of people have been lied to for a generation, or b) being able to go outside on a clear night, look up at the sky, see the Moon shining there and think “Some of us… some of my stupid, brilliant, arrogant, kind, selfish, generous, destructive and creative species actually stood on that…”?

What would it take? What would it actually take to convince these people that It Actually Happened? I honestly despair for them. I mean, the people who lurch onto the auditions stage on X FACTOR in their shell suits and fajke gangsta jewelry, convinced they can sing when really they can’t carry a tune in a rucksack are deluded, but Moon Hoax Believers make them seem like pictures of sanity and reason. And if you’re one of them, and found that last remark insulting, well, sorry, but I don’t care! You don’t deserve any tolerance, or understanding, or reasoning with, not when there are pictures like this…

Look at it, Hoax Believers! How did NASA fake that image, a portrait of of Apollo 17’s landing site, taken by one of her crew, from far away? That was his home – that tiny, fragile, oasis of a spacecraft, sat in the middle of a vast, dusty plain with mountains behind it..! Why doesn’t that breathtaking image fill you with wonder, like it does countless millions of other people? How come you are so immune to the sheer beauty of that picture? How can you look at it and NOT feel your heart race a little faster, thinking “Look what we did… look what we did..!”..?

And how can anyone look at this brilliant picture and not feel a shudder of pride and wonder run through them..?

That’s all the Saturn V launches in a line. Doesn’t that picture just grab you by the throat and shake you? Look at all that power, all that energy… look at how beautiful those rockets were, how majestically they rose into the air… This poster puts it so well…

Which is a really good point, one that is totally passed over by Hoax Believers. They’re not, as far as I know, disputing the fact that they all launched, that they weren’t faked, right? How can they, when hundreds of thousands of people witnessed those launches in person, standing at the Cape, shielding their eyes from the Sun, staring open-mouthed at the ascending rockets as the crackling blast wave from lift off flapped their hideously checked trousers and migraine-inducing patterned skirts around them?

This is one of those questions that makes me want to jab my finger between the eyes of every Hoax believer and ask them “Tell me, why your precious, beloved Hoax would need so many launches? Why not just launch Apollo 11, fake that landing, then say “Ok, enough – we did it…” and walk away from it all?”

Answer: because there was no conspiracy, there was no hoax, it was not faked. And anyone who chooses to believe othwise is an idiot.

Hmmm. I just received an email alert telling me that there’s a lot of “auroral activity” at the moment… no promises, but MIGHT be worth keeping an eye on the skty after dark tonight (Wed)…

Hi all, I’m happy to be able to report that last night’s Eddington AS “MoonWatch” was a success – okay, a limited one, but a success nonetheless.

The weather was pretty poor, as you all probably noticed, with the Moon hidden for most of the time behind swiftly-moving veils of high murky cloud, so glimpses of it were fuzzy as well as few and far between. But it did peep out now and again, so we still managed to show the Moon and its craters to a total of at least 50, maybe 60 people between 7pm and 8.20 when the clouds finally swallowed the Moon completely…

And the view really was very pretty, with mighty Clavius and the rest of the southern craters standing out really well in each telescope’s eyepiece – until the Moon was hidden from view yet again.

There were a lot of very impressed people there last night, and it was hard at times to prise them away from the eyepieces! There were lots of “Wow!” and “That’s cool!” comments as people bent down – or peered up – to look into the eyepieces, and everyone was genuinely grateful for the efforts of the optimistic EAS members who came down to the Park…

I can’t help wondering how many more people we would have had if the sky had been clear – several hundred, I reckon, easily – but I guess we’ll never know.

Hopefully the sky will be clear at our next MoonWatch at the Brewery Arts Centre next month – I am sure many more people will come down to take part in that if it is

So, thanks to everyone who came down to take part in our official Autumn 2009 MoonWatch – especially to Glyn Jones, who took the above photos of the event for me, after my stupid ***** **** **** camera batteries died on me…!!