Archive for the ‘Relinking’ Category

One Astronomer’s Noise is hosting this week’s carnival – and she’s nice enough to include me in the run-down of people who talked about the new exoplanets last week!

Thanks Nicole!

The deadline is approaching for my icon competition! In fact … it’s tomorrow!

This week’s Carnival of Space is hosted by Tomorrow is Here – and Alice’s Astro Info is featured, so don’t miss it!

Results

We think http://alicesastroinfo.wordpress.com is written by a man.

Check it out:
Tomorrow is Here

The Main Idea:

The Phoenix Mars Lander’s weather instrument (a LIDAR – like radar, only with a laser) detected snow falling from clouds above the Phoenix Lander on 9/29/2008. The snow sublimed before it hit the ground, but we’re in Seattle, we’re used to celebrating snow that doesn’t hit the ground.

More?

I know, I’m sorry, I’m really late posting this. But this is a “Mars has Water!!” discovery that I actually think merits some kerfuffle (of the last eight I think there have been about two of discoveries that do).

So here’s the thing – we’ve known for since forever that there is ice on Mars (though we verified it in 1970), and in 2006 we saw evidence of water that had actually been flowing within the last year. All the other announcements are varying levels of confirmation of these facts. For instance just a month or two ago, Phoenix watched ice subliming. Before that, the various rovers and landers have imaged clouds (that include H2O) in Mars’s atmosphere.

This is DIFFERENT. This is the missing section of the water cycle – not water on the surface, not water evaporating or subliming, not water in clouds, but water falling back down again!

So, if that closed the water cycle what are we still waiting to find? We still want to see liquid water, and I wouldn’t mind seeing some of that falling snow actually hit the ground, but I’m not going to hold my breath for that one.

More Posts About the Snow:

Bad Astronomy: Snow Place like Mars
Universe Today: Snow is Falling From Martian Clouds
Martian Chronicles: Phoenix Sees Snow and Carbonates on Mars!

The Press Release:

NASA Mars Lander sees Falling Snow

“Wow, what a day. Great day to get out in the park and meet some new planets in this JANUS YOU STOP THAT RIGHT NOW beautiful solar system. Really, you work all week, on a Saturday you just need to enjoy the TETHYS GET OFF OF PANDORA GET OFF GET OFF TETHYS NO JANUS DON’T YOU GET INVOLVED TETHYS GET OFF GET GET little bit of relaxation. Maybe I’ll get to see that little blue-green number out by COME ON PALLANE COME ON STOP SNIFFING COME ON I HAVE PLACES TO BE Mars. Hope I don’t run into Uranus, though. He’s a nice enough guy but all those toilet jokes, jeez. Wow, I thought it was going to be cold, but the sun is IAPETUS GET OFF THAT COMET I’m so sorry, ma’am IAPETUS NO WAIT TETHYS YOU LEAVE PANDORA ALONE NO JANUS I SAID GET DOWN DIONE TELESTO NO IAPETUS Oh, no, is that Terra, KIVIUQ DO NOT GO OVER THERE NO KIVIUQ IAPETUS DON’T ENCOURAGE JANUS ALL OF YOU STOP THIS RIGHT NOW BEBHIONN SKOLL HYRROKKIN THAT’S IT ALL OF YOU ARE GOING TO THE POUND YOU HEAR ME THE POUN-

Oh, hey, Terra. Moons, huh? But you gotta love ‘em anyway. They’re a planet’s best friend.”

Buy one of your own … or buy one for me (hint hint!)

Check out this week’s carnival, election-style, at Lounge of the Lab Lemming!

You know how I warned you that if I wasn’t careful I was going to turn into the science music video blog? Well … I warned you. Here’s another (thanks Martian Chronicles).

Who says scientists aren’t cool?

If you’re not following Martian Chronicles, you should be. He just linked over to some hilarious NASA music videos.