Opportunity Mars Rover Still Working After Eight Years
Category: Space
Amazing engineering that keeps working year after year without a technician so much as touching it.
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 12 Comments •
Aardvarchaeology
Martin Rundkvist's blog. Archaeology, skepticism, Sweden. And books and music and stuff.
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Dr. Martin Rundkvist is a Swedish archaeologist, journal editor, public speaker, chairman of the Swedish Skeptics Society, atheist, lefty liberal, bookworm, and father of two.
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Space:
Curiosity Rover's Message To Finders
Category: Language
On the rover is a sundial cum camera calibration target, designed by Jon Lomberg who already has three pieces of art on Mars.
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 5 Comments •
Comet Tempel 1 Re-Visited
Category: Space
Today the Stardust probe imaged comet Tempel 1 and got a clean shot of the surface where a NASA impactor hit 5½ Earth years ago.
Posted by Martin R at 3:31 PM • 7 Comments •
Mars Rover(s) Still Working After Seven Years
Category: Space
Spirit landed on Mars seven Earth calendar years ago today, Opportunity on 25 January -- and at least Oppy still works fine!
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 9 Comments •
Chiemgau Impact Hypothesis is Dead
Category: Archaeology
The purported site of Phaëton's chariot crash is most likely illusory, as the Chiemgau Impact Hypothesis is not accepted by geological consensus.
Posted by Martin R at 2:02 PM • 12 Comments •
Amateur Impact Hypothesis Makes It Into Major Archaeology Journal
Category: Skepticism
Antiquity's peer review has failed in this case. Before geologists reach a consensus that the Chiemgau craters exist (as seems unlikely right now), archaeologists and historians cannot use them to explain anything.
Posted by Martin R at 8:27 AM • 25 Comments •
Mitchell & Webb Fake the Moon Landing
Category: Humour
Would it have been cost-effective to fake the Moon landing?
Posted by Martin R at 2:52 AM • 3 Comments •
Monday Miscellany
Category: Archaeology
Web gems have been sent my way.ASPEX, makers of scanning electron microscopes, offer to scan your sample for free and post the image on their site. Finally you can learn about the micro-structure of your tear-duct sleep gunk! Pablo...
Posted by Martin R at 8:10 AM • 0 Comments •
Distributed Sun-Staring
Category: Space
You can help forecast coronal mass ejections and other destructive solar activity that humanity needs early warning about.
Posted by Martin R at 5:51 PM • 0 Comments •
Jungle-Covered Impact Crater
Category: Space
Our planet just another crater-pocked space rock, though here surface erosion acts much faster than on nearby worlds, and we have plate tectonics, all obscuring the impact scars.
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 12 Comments •
Mars Rovers Still Working After Six Years
Category: Space
Spirit landed on Mars six Earth calendar years ago today, Opportunity on 25 January -- and both still work fine!
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 4 Comments •
Don't Miss the Geminids
Category: Space
Don't miss the year's best meteor shower! Tomorrow night will be good as well.
Posted by Martin R at 8:36 AM • 4 Comments •
Phobos-bound Tardigrades Portrayed
Category: Space
Stacy L. Mason is an Aard regular and a talented artist. Check out his awesome interpretation of the Swedish tardigrades that are going to Phobos! In other news, I have issues with the lyrics of the Kick-Ass Mystic Ninjas...
Posted by Martin R at 2:33 AM • 8 Comments •
First Interplanetary Travellers Will Be Little Swedes
Category: Space
Those microdaddies will go to Phobos and back, and then biologists will be able to compare them to their stay-at-home buddies to learn what the environment out there in interplanetary space really does to an Earth creature.
Posted by Martin R at 8:43 AM • 3 Comments •
Don't Miss the Perseids
Category: Space
Did you notice something funny about the Google logo yesterday? It was full of falling stars.
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 5 Comments •
Mars Rovers Still Working After Five Years
Category: Space
These machines were originally meant to work for three months, yet they continue to trundle around that cold, distant planet.
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 3 Comments •
Astronomy Nerds In Love
Category: Space
Two of my favourite song writers have revealed themselves as astronomy nerds in love songs. Frank Black in "Sir Rockaby" (1994):How many stars girl Can you both count And then classify? I'm standing here in this big swirl Singing this...
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 5 Comments •
Jeff Had Some Good Last Days
Category: Space
Jeff Medkeff's friend, co-blogging under the pen-name Iatros Polygenos ("mongrel doctor" if my Greek serves me), offers a detailed account of our friend's last days. Turns out that Jeff died during a trip to England where he was having...
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 1 Comments •
Shermer and the Drake Equation
Category: History
Extraterrestrials won't be interested in the political details of small parts of Earth's surface over time.
Posted by Martin R at 4:56 PM • 16 Comments •
Phoenix Lander Contortionist Video
Category: Space
Here's an ace animated film clip showing how the Phoenix Lander manoeuvered its camera/digger arm to take a picture of the surface under its own belly a few days ago. Gives you a good sense of how the thing looks...
Posted by Martin R at 7:59 AM • 2 Comments •
Junior Meets the Astronaut
Category: Children
It was a good talk, ranging from abstruse physics to everyday practicalities of life in space.
Posted by Martin R at 3:10 PM • 5 Comments •
W00t! Phoenix Survived!
Category: Space
It has deployed its solar panels successfully and is transmitting pictures!
Posted by Martin R at 1:47 AM • 1 Comments •
Jeff Medkeff on Automated Optical Astronomy
Category: Space
They aren't looking for planet-sized objects anymore, they're down to bits of rock and ice a kilometer across.
Posted by Martin R at 8:20 AM • 1 Comments •
Mars Rovers Still Working After Four Years
Category: Space
These machines were originally meant to work for three months, yet they continue to trundle around that cold, distant planet.
Posted by Martin R at 8:50 AM • 6 Comments •
