Next Mission to Mars on the Pad

I’m excited to see that the MAVEN mission to Mars is ready to go for launch on November 18 — next Monday. It’s been a long haul for the mission planners and scientists, and for a while there it looked like MAVEN might miss its launch window due to the GOP-led government shutdown. If that had happened, the mission could possibly have had to wait a couple of years to launch. But, the mission was declared an essential program due to the fact that the orbiter is going to be providing part of the communications link for other Mars missions already in place, and so the spacecraft made its deadlines.

MAVEN is not a “pretty pictures” mission. It is aimed at studying the atmosphere of Mars and will take critical measurements of the Martian upper atmosphere. What it finds will help scientists understand climate change in the Red Planet’s history. MAVEN, which stands for “Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution” mission, is the first spacecraft devoted to exploring and understanding the Martian upper atmosphere. Once it arrives at Mars, it will place itself into an orbit that lets it pass through and sample the entire upper atmosphere each time it goes through.  The spacecraft will investigate how the loss of Mars’ atmosphere to space determined the history of water on the surface. Water on Mars is a huge area of study now, and the relationship between water on Mars in the past and water found there now is still being determined.

To  learn more about MAVEN, check out the mission Web site here. And, if you can, tune in on Monday the 18th, when the mission is set  to launch aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas V 401 rocket during a window of opportunity that opens at 1:28 p.m. to 3:28 p.m. Eastern Standard Time from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station Space Launch complex 41. Cheer on this University of Colorado-based mission to Mars!

All of Humanity is Also in the Image

I woke up today, flipped open my iPad at breakfast, and was greeted with this image.  Wow!!

Just click on the image. I’ll wait.

This fantastically gorgeous image of Saturn was created on July 19 2013 when the Cassini spacecraft passed through Saturn’s shadow and turned to image the planet, seven of its moons, its inner rings — and a special treat.  If you know where to look, deep in the background, lay planet Earth. As Carl Sagan once told us, everybody you know, you love, every living being that know about in the solar system was captured as a tiny dot in the background of a Saturn image.

Go look at the image again. It’s clickable and will open a huge version for you to explore. Find Earth?  It’s one of those dots.  Here’s an annotated version to help you out.

The Cassini mission planners encouraged everybody to go out and wave at Saturn that day. And, a lot of us did.  We did, up here at our place in the mountains. We had visitors that day from Lithuania, and together we all turned, looked at the spot in the sky where Saturn lay, and waved and laughed.  So, we’re in there. So are you, whether you waved or not.

Lots of people sent in pics of themselves waving on what came to be known as “The Day Earth Smiled.”

Were you there?