Lost and Found

Amazing news today from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter’s HiRISE team: they found the European Space Agency’s Beagle 2 lander (built by a team headed by the late Colin Pillinger) and it seems to be intact on the surface of Mars. This is great news for ESA and the British lander team, especially in light of the abuse heaped on Dr. Pillinger when the Beagle 2 landed on Christmas day 2003 and then went silent. It looks as if the lander made it to the surface safely, but may not have opened all its petals. Nor did the rover send any radio signals.

What might have caused the lander to settle down as it did, without ever contacting Earth? No one has a good answer yet. You can learn more about how Beagle 2 was found in the video below.

What’s Up in January

As most of you know, I’ve also got a little astronomy video I’ve been doing for a few years through Astrocast.TV. It’s called Our Night Sky and the producers wanted me to share a short look at what’s up each month.  It’s a favorite in the classroom and several museums and an observatory that I know of having it as part of an exhibit. This month, of course, we have a great comet, some planets, and deep-sky objects, and I touch on all of them in the January episode. If you’re wondering what’s up out there, check this out. It’s only about five minutes and gives you a quick overview of this month’s sky delights.

Learning Astronomy

Speaking of learning and doing astronomy, many of us in the astronomy community teach the subject in one way or another. I’ve done it in the classroom, under the dome, through my fulldome and flatscreen documentaries, and my books (such as my Astronomy 101) and articles in all types of publications online here and here and in print. It’s such a fascinating topic and fun to share with others. But, I’m not the only one.

Take Phil Plait, for example. He’s one of my friends and astro-writing colleagues, and he’s the original Bad Astronomer (you can read him on Slate). Well, Phil has a new Youtube feature out called “Crash Course Astronomy”. You can check it out below. Word is, there’ll be many episodes!