The Mars Rover Exploration Mission

June 18, 2011 Leave a Comment

In 2003, NASA embarked on a mission to explore the planet Mars with the use of two land rovers. The primary purpose of the mission was to analyze the past presence of water on the red planet and to see if any water was currently present. The rovers would collect pieces of rock and use specialized equipment to analyze the material. This information would then be sent back to NASA scientists on Earth.

Artist's rendering of a Mars Exploration Rover. 

Image via Wikipedia

When the rovers landed on Mars, they were deployed from the ship in two different places. One rover was deposited at Gusev Crater and the other was deposited at Meridiani Planum, which was on the opposite side of Mars. Scientists thought this was the best way to get an accurate sample of the rocks and minerals on the planet.

Rover Analyzing Equipment

Both of the rovers were equipped with highly-specialized equipment for the collection of specimens and exploration. Here is a list of some of the equipment.

  • Panoramic camera.
  • Microscopic imager for close-up photos of rocks and minerals.
  • Tools for rock abrasion. This is so the rovers could remove dust and other particles so that they could examine things better.
  • Spectrometer tools to measure thermal emissions and take x-rays.
  • Magnets to collect dust particles that are magnetic.

There was no set ending date for the Mars Rover Exploration Mission as of 2011, and the land rovers will probably never be collected. This was also not the first attempt to explore Mars. Some previous rovers have disappeared or lost contact with Earth for various different reasons. The whole exploration of Mars is going to be a slow process.

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Patterns of Planets

March 20, 2011 Leave a Comment

Planet is an outer space body which orbits around stellar remains or star which has enough mass to get spherical by gravity of its own but do not has enough mass to possess high temperature nuclear reactions as the stars do. Planets are also considered holy and divine as the gods are evolved from them. Planets are generally divided into two major groups, the first one is of larger planets of low density gases and the second one is of smaller rocky planets. By orbiting around a star, planets usually make solar systems. Our planet earth is also a planet of our solar system, which consists of total eight planets which revolve around a star named Sun. In an order of alignment away from the sun, our solar system consists of four terrestrial planets named Mars, Earth, Venus and Mercury respectively and then there are four larger planets of low density gases named Neptune, Uranus, Saturn and Jupiter. In our solar system more than one satellite which are natural, revolve around the six planets and along with it in a solar system there are also some dwarf planets and small bodies of solar systems which are about hundreds to thousands in number. In all of the terrestrial planets of our solar system, the earth is the largest one, while as a whole the largest planet of our solar system is Jupiter. The two planets of our solar system, Neptune and Uranus are also known as ice giants as they have a significant higher proportion of rock and ice on them. In our solar system there are currently five dwarf planets which are named as Eris, Makemake, Pluto, Haumea and Ceres. Dwarf planets have many similar characteristics to that of the planets but also have notable differences like they are not dominant in their orbits.

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Astronomy and the Mayans

March 3, 2011 Leave a Comment

Several ancients civilizations showed advanced knowledge is the stars and constellations but few can match the mastery of the Mayan civilization in this field. The Mayan civilization generated worldwide curiosity recently for their possible prediction of he end of the world in 2012. Even Hollywood could not resist the charm of this culture and churned out a few movies based on this subject. The Mayan calendar is known to be the most accurate, even more precise that the current Gregorian calendar in use globally. The calendar was able to predict events such as eclipses for the next 6000 years with an error quotient of only one day. The Mayan calendar was diving into cycles that lasted 3 million years, with each cycle being subdivided into units of 20, 400, 8000 and 158,000 years.

The calendar was used by the Mayans to make tough calculation to find a day of week for a certain date that could be hundred or thousands of years in the past or future. The concept of zero that was accepted by the world much later was already in use by the Mayans. They also used days of the calendar to make complex and accurate astronomical measurements even though they did not have a decimal system or fractions. After observing the revolution of Venus for a thousand years, the Mayan noted that its year lasted 584 days, close to the 583.92 days calculated by modern astronomical methods. It is difficult to decipher the true extent of Mayan astronomical knowledge as most of their astronomy was interlinked with their religion. The Mayans recorded their history, findings, culture and genealogy in the form of highly complex hieroglyphics are still being decoded today. New discoveries are being made every day about the achievements of this great civilization. For reasons yet unknown, at the peak of their advancement, the great Mayan cities were abandoned sometime around 840 AD and their entire culture mysteriously disappeared.

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Future of NASA

February 23, 2011 Leave a Comment
The NASA insignia.

Image via Wikipedia

National Aeronautics and Space Administration popularly known as NASA is one of the biggest organization that has been undertaking many missions to explore space. NASA has launched a number or mission some of which have been successful and some have failed. Yet NASA continues to explore the space and make some researches. It was during the 1990’s decade when National Aeronautics and Space Administration faced a number of problems like reduction in its annual budgets and congressional forces. The administrator of NASA during the 1990’s was Daniel Goldin adopted an approach to reduce the costs incurred. He invented some better and cheaper methods to tackle the problems and deliver the performance.

This methodology was not a success and was widely criticized. This methodology was again evaluated on certain grounds. Therefore after that failure NASA executed an affordable and sustainable program based on robotic and human programs for exploring space and its surroundings. This method used scientific knowledge to develop and acquire systems and fundamentals to learn more about the planet Earth. The future of NASA is very bright as they have many missions yet to undertake. NASA has also become a hub for attracting young talents and youth to learn more about National Aeronautics and Space Administration. The future mission of NASA is to explore planets like Jupiter and cover half of the solar system.

It has a larger and improved Mars Science Laboratory under construction which is to be launched in the year 2011. Although National Aeronautics and Space Administration has faced a number of challenges but it has still conquered its hopes and ideas. The New Horizons mission of NASA plans to explore the planet Pluto and study its existence and features. There are also many job openings at NASA year on year. The youth can easily apply for such openings and can be a part of such a prestigious organization of the world.

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