Category: Space

Curiosity, your sensors make me curious, who created them?

Seventeen Cameras on Curiosity
Graphic of Cameras on NASA's Curiosity rover.

This graphic shows the locations of the cameras on NASA’s Curiosity rover. The rover’s mast features seven cameras: the Remote Micro Imager, part of the Chemistry and Camera suite; four black-and-white Navigation Cameras (two on the left and two on the right) and two color Mast Cameras (Mastcams). The left Mastcam has a 34-millimeter lens and the right Mastcam has a 100-millimeter lens.

There is one camera on the end of a robotic arm that is stowed in this graphic; it is called the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI).

There are nine cameras hard-mounted to the rover: two pairs of black-and-white Hazard Avoidance Cameras in the front, another two pair mounted to the rear of the rover, (dashed arrows in the graphic) and the color Mars Descent Imager (MARDI).

Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

From where do these sensors come? And what are they all for?

Continue reading Curiosity, your sensors make me curious, who created them?

Scrolling Down Martian Landscape

The highest-resolution panorama ever taken by a rover illuminates unprecedented detail of the red planet’s surface.

“Studying whether there’s life on Mars or studying how the universe began, there’s something magical about pushing back the frontiers of knowledge. That’s something that is almost part of being human, and I’m certain that will continue.” –Sally Ride

Desktop Project Part 26: Carina will keelhaul your brain | Bad Astronomy | Discover Magazine

These are all cool shots, but in the center is something odd: the cluster Trumpler 14, which is such a massive collection of hot stars that their combined light and stellar winds apparently is blowing gas back into that bow shock shape on the lower left. There are something like 2000 stars in that cluster alone, including one monster that has 80 times the mass of the Sun, near the theoretical limit of how big a star can be without tearing itself apart.

http://www.eso.org/public/archives/images/screen/eso1208a.jpg

via Desktop Project Part 26: Carina will keelhaul your brain | Bad Astronomy | Discover Magazine.