Opportunity
passes 13 mile mark and gets a spring cleaning: The rover
Opportunity has surpassed 13 miles of travel on the Martian surface. Martian winds helped clean dust off the solar
panels, boosting the rover’s power production and allowing back to back drives. Find out more about the rover status from
Mars Daily at http://www.marsdaily.com/reports/Wind_Cleans_Solar_Panels_999.html.
Spirit
sleeping: The rover Spirit appears to be in sleep mode. If the rover does not get enough sunlight to
keep power output at an acceptable level, the rover goes into a deep sleep and
all energy is used to recharge the batteries.
Hopefully the batteries will recover and Spirit will be able to resume
communications and explorations in the future.
http://www.marsdaily.com/reports/Spirit_Still_Silent_999.html
Seasons on
Saturn’s moons? Scientists are studying data from the Saturian moon
Titas which has liquid methane lakes on its surface. One of the lakes – Ontario Lacus – is about
the size of Lake Ontario and shows what appear to be seasonal changes in lake
the lake level similar to those seen on earth. More details about the Ontario
Lacus and the work being done by Caltech researchers can be found at http://www.saturndaily.com/reports/Caltech_Scientists_Measure_Changing_Lake_Depths_On_Titan_999.html.
See a video tour of the lake at:
http://www.saturndaily.com/reports/See_Beautiful_Ontario_Lacus_Cassini_Guided_Tour_999.html.
Hot
discovery by Hubble: The Hubble Telescope found a giant gas planet with a
tail resembling a comet in a tight orbit around its star. The tail is thought to be the planet’s
atmosphere being torn off by stellar winds from the star as it orbits once
every 3.5 days. Check out your July
issue of The Astrophysical Journal or http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/NASA_Finds_Super_Hot_Planet_With_Unique_Comet_Like_Tail_999.html.
Earth’s
Atmosphere rebounds following collapse: The upper layer of the atmosphere,
called the thermosphere recently contracted and is not expanding back to its
former size. This has happened in the
past, and can occur during solar minimums.
However, this collapse was bigger than usual and carbon dioxide is being
suspected as a culprit. Carbon dioxide
acts as a coolant in the thermosphere and increased levels may have contributed
to the larger than normal collapse. http://www.spacemart.com/reports/A_Puzzling_Collapse_Of_Earth_Upper_Atmosphere_999.html.
Solar
Eclipse of 2010: A total solar eclipse was seen in relatively isolated
locations last week. Images can be found
at several sites on the internet. A
composite image of the sun and the eclipse is at http://www.skynightly.com/reports/Composite_Image_Of_2010_Eclipse_999.html.
On Easter Island, unique photos were captured by
photographers from around the world. An
Eclipse photo gallery can be found at
http://www.spaceweather.com/eclipses/gallery_11jul10_page2.htm.
One of my favorites is posted on the astronomy.com blog by
Michael Bakich,. The photo is the last
one in the list and was taken by George Willis. http://cs.astronomy.com/asycs/blogs/astronomy/archive/2010/07/13/on-the-road-easter-island-and-the-moai.aspx.