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GumbyTheCat
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A blog for the purpose of communicating my views on the intersection of science, religion and society. Written by a layman, for other laypeople with an interest in science. Recurring themes include the evolution vs. creation debate, and astronomy. I
Recent Posts Tagged With 'space exploration'
The Pale Blue Dot Vs. Organized Religion
Above is a famous photograph taken of the Earth (I added the arrow, of course) by Voyager 1 in 1990 from 4 billion miles away (about 6 light-hours). The late astronomer Carl Sagan called this view of Earth the "Pale Blue Dot", and had this to say ab...
Images From Science: Mars Sedimentary Rock Field
Good evidence of vast amounts of water on Mars billions of years ago. This oblique view of periodic layering in Martian sedimentary layers was derived from three-dimensional modeling based on a stereo pair of images taken by the High Resolution Imag...
Europa - Haven For Life?
When we think of the possibility of extraterrestrial life, we tend to think of it as manifesting itself on planets. It's an understandable reaction, considering that all life that we know exists, exists on a planet. Our efforts at finding life...
The Search For Life On Mars, Part I
Note: I've decided to start a small multi-part series on our attempts to find life (or conditions suitable for life) on Mars using lander and rover missions. It will be just a slight overview, by no means comprehensive, as such a detailed treatment ...
Ticket To Ride
XCOR's 2-seater Lynx spacecraft. Image credit: XCOR Aerospace It's a well known fact that my blog's readers are all successful multimillionaires who are just itching to find new things to throw their money at. Well, I'm here to help y'all out. ...
Images From Science: ISS
The Boston Globe has hit another home run with its Big Picture series. Their recent posting of a collection of high resolution images involving the International Space Station is nothing short of breathtaking. Go here for all the images. The top im...
Tool Bag Follies Redux
Poor Heidemarie Stefanyshyn-Piper. The astronaut, who lost the $100,000 tool bag while working on gears on the International Space Station, admitted that she made a mistake by not checking to see if the sack was tied down, and said she’s still sma...
Has Anyone Seen My Hammer?
Hey! Get back here! Anyone who works with tools on a regular basis knows how easy it is to misplace or lose them. If I'm on a large job, I can usually count on finishing the job with at least one less screwdriver or paintbrush than I started wi...
Zero-Gravity Urophagia
Relax, people... it's a picture of lemonade. I've always thought of astronauts as utterly rational, no-nonsense types, people who were so focused on their jobs that they had no time for anything else... certainly nothing kinky. Well, as it tu...
The Resilience Of Spirit
Look at all that dust! Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell University The Mars rover Spirit had a pretty close call this week. A dust storm around Gusev Crater cut into the amount of sunlight reaching the solar array, leaving the rover in se...
Phoenix, We Hardly Knew Ye
Phoenix begins its journey to Mars, on August 4, 2007. Well, it looks as if the Mars Phoenix Lander has given up the electronic ghost. Dust storms that have limited the craft's solar panels' light-collecting ability, plus the start of Martian ...
Images From Science: Mars Express HRSC
Echus Chasma, one of the largest ancient water source regions on Mars. The cliff is approximately 4000 meters high! Cydonia - Location of the so-called "Face On Mars". Candor Valley.Water ice in a polar crater. Martian valley....
Quickies From Outer Space
The refrigerator-sized tank of ammonia coolant that I talked about yesterday re-entered the atmosphere just south of Tasmania, and any pieces that survived reentry fell harmlessly into the ocean between Tasmania New Zealand and Australia. The image ...
Fore!
A depiction of the trackable objects in orbit around Earth in low Earth orbit (LEO–the fuzzy cloud around Earth), geostationary Earth orbit (GEO — farther out, approximately 35,786 km (22,240 miles) above Earth) and all points in between. D...
Calling All Mars Dorks
Ahhhh... a NatGeo special made just for me. Or, at least, that's what I choose to delude myself into believing. Those of us who enjoy all things Mars owe it to themselves to check out the National Geographic Channel's new special, Five Years On Mar...
Phoenix: Beginning Of The End
Well, as the old saying goes, all good things must come to an end. In this case, the "good thing" is the Mars Phoenix Lander. Although it has practically doubled its expected lifespan on the arctic plains of Mars, the lander has no control over the...
Mercury Flyby Results
The analysis of the recent Messenger flyby of Mercury is complete, and some good science has been the result. First on the list is the vastly increased mapping of the planet's surface. The probe imaged an area larger than the continent of South Ame...
Cydonia Mensae: The 'Face' On Mars
Pareidolia: A psychological phenomenon involving a vague and random stimulus (often an image or sound) being perceived as significant. Common examples include seeing images of animals or faces in clouds, the man in the moon, and hearing hidden messag...
I'm Back!
Ahhhh.... I'm back. Farmhouse done, check deposited. I've slept 24 hours out of the last 48! It's good to be done with that place. Until I get my bearings and catch up with my news sources from the wacky worlds of science and religion to entertain ...
Baby Steps
I've started following a blog I just discovered a few days ago called the Science Musings Blog. The author, Chet Raymo, does a wonderful job and fellow science and philosophy geeks owe it to themselves to check it out. In one post, he makes note o...
Cassini Flyby Of Enceladus Tomorrow
False color image of one of Enceladus's ice and water vapor plumes. Image credit: NASA Seems like I've been blogging about a lot of flybys lately. If I didn't know any better, I'd think we had hundreds of probes roaming through the solar system. One ...
Images From Science: Mercury
NASA's Messenger probe streaked past Mercury for the second time this year yesterday. It took some amazing pictures, three of which are featured here. Launched in August 2004, Messenger - short for MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry, a...
Stardust Capsule Gets A Home
The Stardust sample return capsule as it was found after it parachuted back to Earth. The cometary particle capture-and-return capsule from the NASA Stardust Mission went on public display today at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum's 'Milestones o...
How To Fix A Broken Space Telescope
In my previous post, I talked about the malfunction with the data collector on board the Hubble Space Telescope. My new blog buddy Stephanie Barr over at Rocket Scientist (who is exactly like me, except she actually knows what she is talking about), ...
Oriental Prognostication
How do you get your spacesuit so crisp and clean, Mr. Lee? Some chatter between Chinese mission control and taikonauts (Chinese astronauts) during the launch of the current Shenzou 7 mission: "After this order, signal lights all were switched on, va...
Perspective
Stephanie over at Rocket Scientist has a little gem of information I just had to steal: Our entire 50 year space program has cost us $810.459 billion. The last 7 years of Iraqi and Afghanistan warfare have cost us $604 billion.Kinda puts the cost of ...
Opportunity, Take A Hike
Opportunity is currently at Victoria Crater; it is going to attempt to reach the much larger crater Endeavour. Image courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech. The Mars Rover Opportunity is about to embark on what could be its final journey. After Opportu...
New Horizons Gets New Software
The Pluto-bound New Horizons probe was awakened from its slumber for its second annual health checkup. Controllers at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory also transmitted updated software to the spacecraft that is an improvement on its exis...
Tardigrades From Outer Space
The tardigrade, which sort of looks like the result of an adulterous encounter between the Michelin Man and a potato bug in a sleazy motel room. According to the late Douglas Adams of Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy fame, he joked that...
Asteroid Flyby Successful
Note the line of small craters running vertically on the right side of Steins. This is an indication that the asteroid was repeatedly hammered by a stream of meteroids as it rotated. The source of this meteoroid stream is hypothesized to possibly be ...
