Environment
“This is an area on Mount Sharp where Curiosity will go”
Tweet More wondrous images from Nasa’s mobile Mars Science Laboratory (MSL), the 900kg rover Curiosity, now safely on the Martian surface in Gale Crater. And it’s only warming up its instruments. Here’s a panaroma of the landing site and the prime mission target, Mount Sharp. Focusing in on Mount Sharp… [Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS] But the images that [...] more »
Curiosity drops in on Mars – in Hi-res
Tweet Nasa’s mobile Mars Science Laboratory (MSL), the 900kg rover Curiosity, may have started roving on the surface of Mars, but there’s still room for more stunning video of its descent. In high-resolution. Audio from mission control can also be heard, counting down the critical events. Video from JPL News This movie from NASA’s Curiosity [...] more »
“Curiosity will soon have a different patch of ground beneath it.”
Tweet Nasa’s mobile Mars Science Laboratory (MSL), the 900kg rover Curiosity, may have damaged one of two sets of wind sensors in its Rover Environmental Monitoring Station (REMS) during its dramatic landing on Mars, but it will still be providing daily weather reports from the Red Planet. And, as a JPL/Nasa press release noted yesterday – with moving [...] more »
Curiosity: “This is a very low-resolution panorama”
Tweet Having survived the seven minutes of terror, and landed successfully at Gale Crater, earlier this week Nasa’s mobile Mars Science Laboratory (MSL), the 900kg rover Curiosity, lifted its 2m high camera mast. And took a look at itself. [Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech] Then it took a look at its new surroundings. In colour. [Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS] [...] more »
“Guess you could consider us the closest thing to paparazzi on Mars”
Tweet Another wondrous image from Nasa’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). This time the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera onboard snapped the Red Planet’s “newest celebrity” – the Curiosity rover and its 51-foot-wide (almost 16 metre) parachute descending towards Gale Crater. [Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona] From the Nasa/JPL press release “If HiRISE took the image one [...] more »
Curiosity: “I’m safely on the surface of Mars”
Tweet If you didn’t manage to catch those ‘seven minutes of terror’ earlier this morning for Nasa’s mobile Mars Science Laboratory (MSL), the massive 900kg rover Curiosity, here’s how it worked out. From NasaTelevision As the Curiosity Rover said on Twitter I’m safely on the surface of Mars. GALE CRATER I AM IN YOU!!! #MSL — [...] more »
Curiosity: “It’s like the Olympics for nerds!”
Tweet Just a quick reminder that, if everything goes to plan, Nasa’s mobile Mars Science Laboratory (MSL), the massive 900kg rover Curiosity, is scheduled to land on the red planet at 6.30am [BST] tomorrow morning. As the Curiosity Rover says itself It’s landing day & I’m hours from Mars! Watch my final @nasa prelanding briefing, [...] more »
Curiosity: “We’re doing something completely novel, hanging it way out there”
Tweet Launched back in November 2011, Nasa’s mobile Mars Science Laboratory (MSL), the massive 900kg rover Curiosity, is scheduled to land on the red planet at 6.30am [BST] on Monday 6 August. [Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ESA/DLR/FU Berlin/MSSS] They’ve successfully repositioned the orbiting Mars Odyssey spacecraft to keep in touch with Curiosity as it descends into Gale Crater [...] more »
“Odyssey is conducting the Gairsoppa project under contract with the UK Department for Transport”
Tweet As the Guardian reports, US company Odyssey Marine Eploration have announced the recovery of “approximately 48 tons of silver bullion from a depth of approximately three miles” from the SS Gairsoppa, 300 miles off the Irish coast. According to Odyssey Marine This initial recovery of bullion from the SS Gairsoppa, a 412-foot steel-hulled British cargo [...] more »
National Trust: “To ensure that no further misunderstanding or misrepresentation of this exhibit can occur, we have decided to review the interpretive materials in this section.”
Tweet As the BBC report, after a fortnight of stonewalling and denials, and temporarily closing comments at their press blog, the National Trust has announced that they intend ”to review the interpretive materials” in the controversial section of their Giants’ Causeway Interpretive Centre. [Have the Geological Society had a word in their shell-like? - Ed] They’re [...] more »
Dwarf Planet Gains Fifth Moon…
Tweet Not that it didn’t already have five moons. At least. ANYhoo… As I was saying this time last year, when Hubble spotted a fourth moon orbiting Pluto. The Hubble Space Telescope has been looking at the twin dwarf planet system of Pluto and Charon ahead of Nasa’s New Horizons mission expected arrival in the [...] more »
Bovine TB and badgers: “This approach has not been tried anywhere else…”
Tweet The different approaches of the various administrations in the UK and Ireland to attempting to eradicate bovine tuberculosis [TB] in wild animals, specifically badgers, are worth noting. They are all in response to the EU Directive 64/432/EEC which, as the Welsh adminstration’s website notes, ”requires Member States to provide plans showing how they will eradicate bovine TB in [...] more »
Memo to the National Trust…
Tweet The “intellectual baboons” behind young-Earth creationism at the National Trust’s Giants’ Causeway Interpretive Centre are singing your praises in letters to the editor and op-eds in the News Letter ‘Caleb’ had engaged over many months with elected representatives and the National Trust on this. The step taken by the Trust is a small, but welcome, [...] more »
Giants’ Causeway Interpretive Centre: “The National Trust fully supports the scientific explanation for the creation of the stones 60 million years ago”
Tweet Which is fine, but misses the point. The National Trust continues to try to defend its decision to give in to the lobbying of the Caleb Foundation and include young-Earth creationist beliefs in the Giants’ Causeway Interpretive Centre. [Are they after the crank pound? - Ed] Maybe… and maybe not. Yesterday’s NT press office blog [...] more »
Giants’ Causeway Interpretive Centre: “This is, as far as we are aware, a first for the National Trust anywhere in the UK, and it sets a precedent for others to follow…”
Tweet John’s professed concern is misplaced. As the National Trust press release on the “new state-of-the-art visitor centre” at the Unesco World Heritage Site Giants’ Causeway noted New interactive displays and activities inside the visitor centre include an animation of the legend of Finn McCool and an innovative hand-held audio guide. Such distractions aside, and without [...] more »
LHC: “we have observed a new particle consistent with a Higgs boson. But which one?”
Tweet That’s what they’ll be trying to work out over the next few years. Matt Strassler’s probably the man to go to for more on the options ahead. But, for now, the news from Cern is that they have, almost certainly, found “that damned elusive particle“, a Higgs boson. Earlier this morning one of the [...] more »
Cynicism about NI politicians is fed by #Stormont’s unwillingness to openly engage…
Tweet Some of the recent actions of our Executive Ministers have betrayed an attitude of defensive paranoia when it comes to interventions from civil society. It was revealed earlier this month, for instance, that Arlene Foster wrote a haughty letter to the Co-op, reprimanding them for organising a screening of the anti-fracking documentary Gaslands in Belfast. [...] more »
WHC requests UK Government “to halt the proposed development of a golf resort at the World Heritage property ‘Giant’s Causeway and Causeway Coast’”
Tweet The BBC reports that the World Heritage Committee (WHC) of Unesco has agreed to request “the state party of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland to halt the proposed development of a golf resort at the World Heritage property ‘Giant’s Causeway and Causeway Coast’ until its potential impact on the outstanding universal [...] more »
Voyager: “We are approaching the solar system’s final frontier”
Tweet Here’s a short informative video from Science at Nasa on the indications that Voyager 1 is about to enter into the vastness of interstellar space. (Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech) Space, remember, is very very big. And on that note, because I can, here again is some wondrous time-lapse video of the night-sky above the ESO Very Large Telescope array [...] more »
“Northern Ireland is the only part of these islands that does not have National Parks”
Tweet The Northern Ireland Environment Minister, the SDLP’s Alex Attwood, may have a shortlist of potential National Parks - the Mournes, the Causeway Coast and Antrim Glens, and the Fermanagh Lakelands – but he doesn’t have the required legislation in place. As the BBC report notes The minister said he hopes to designate two of the [...] more »
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Books
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The Irish political journalist’s problem with partial disclosure…
Tweet The nod and wink politics of Ireland’s last two or three decades as practised par excellence by Bertie, Albert and Charlie is ultimately what has the Republic in the stew it’s in. Don’t get me wrong, the effective monitoring of those exercising of power does not demand full disclosure of everything all the time. [...] read our review »
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Spare us a phoney row about racism, we’ve got enough on
Tweet A silly media row about racism just had to figure in the riots’ post mortem. Was the Tudor history expert David Starkey racist on Newsnight when he said: The whites have become black. A particular sort of violent, destructive, nihilistic, gangster culture has become the fashion. And black and white, boy and girl, operate [...] read our review »
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“You can see Newton’s mind at work…”
Tweet To add to the open access treasure trove at the Royal Society, Cambridge University Library is putting online some of its collection of books, maps, manuscripts and journals. We have called the first phase of our work on the Cambridge Digital Library the Foundations Project, which runs from mid-2010 to mid-2013 and has been made [...] read our review »
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