Mars is currently, enveloped
(nasa.com) - - Storm chasing takes luck and patience on Earth -- and even more so on Mars.
For scientists watching the Red Planet from data gathered by NASA's orbiters, the past month has been a windfall. "Global" dust storms, where a runaway series of storms creates a dust cloud so large it envelops the planet, only appear every six to eight years (that's three to four Mars years). Scientists still don't understand why or how exactly these storms form and evolve.
In June, one of these dust events rapidly engulfed the planet. Scientists first observed a smaller-scale dust storm on May 30. By June 20, it had gone global.
For the Opportunity rover, that meant a sudden drop in visibility from a clear, sunny day to that of an overcast one. Because Opportunity runs on solar energy, scientists had to suspend science activities to preserve the rover's batteries. As of July 18th, no response has been received from the rover.
Luckily, all that dust acts as an atmospheric insulator, keeping nighttime temperatures from dropping down to lower than what Opportunity can handle. But the nearly 15-year-old rover isn't out of the woods yet: it could take weeks, or even months, for the dust to start settling. Based on the longevity of a 2001 global storm, NASA scientists estimate it may be early September before the haze has cleared enough for Opportunity to power up and call home.
When the skies begin to clear, Opportunity's solar panels may be covered by a fine film of dust. That could delay a recovery of the rover as it gathers energy to recharge its batteries. A gust of wind would help, but isn't a requirement for a full recovery.
While the Opportunity team waits in earnest to hear from the rover, scientists on other Mars missions have gotten a rare chance to study this head-scratching phenomenon.
The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, Mars Odyssey, and Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN (MAVEN) orbiters are all tailoring their observations of the Red Planet to study this global storm and learn more about Mars' weather patterns. Meanwhile, the Curiosity rover is studying the dust storm from the Martian surface.
Source: https://mars.nasa.gov/news/8354/storm-chasers-on-mars-searching-for-dusty-secrets/
Now I beleive, and as far as |I trust NASA's imagery, that there are them there rovers on Mars. But like 'flatearthers', there are people who do not believe there are rovers there, much less ANY probe in our solar system, nor has there been any... I don'\t subscribe to such lunacy (Ha! Lune-acy!)
So people who do NOT believe in the rovers having landed on Mars always have these "proofs", like there's a photo, totally out of context that's like a 'shadow' of the rover and people say that it shows a technician working on the rover. They believe the rovers are right here on Earth in a desert somewhere and then the photo's are all touched up to make it look like they are on Mars.
So, an actual mystery on Mars is that in photos NASA takes to check out the condition of the rovers NASA scientists were shocked to see that the solar panels, which only days before had quite a bit of sand on them, are now, wiped clean!!
it took them a bit, but they now know there is wind on Mars, it does have a thin atmosphere, so these winds, which can obviously whip up a global sandstorm, in some places create dustdevils. So NASA believes that these dustdevils are what inadvertently keeps the solar panels pretty dust free and thus helping to give the rovers the longevity they've enjoyed.
So, given this global sandstorm. even I was wondering, how the hell is this rover going to come out of this? I mean, isn't it gonna be buried? Do they just 'rev 'er up' and dry to shake off all the Martian sand? Has this happened before? What did they do then? Why does Elsa speak in tongues at me?
This is currently the 'atmospheric opacity' or how well you can see on Mars currently:
That ain't tooo good ya know...
But they are the 'Little Rovers That Could' so hopefully we'll get some more years out of them anyhow.
There are new rovers headed to Mars shortly and in a few years I believe the UK has another rover heading to Mars. Hopefully this one lands correctly as the last one more or less splattered itself on the Martian surface instead of landing.
On my nightly walks, I usually cut across the front of the Legislature building.. It kinda gives me pride to know I've done some pretty crazy shit in there.
When I worked for Modern Building Cleaning, because I was young and rarin' to go to work, they'd get me to do all kindsa odd jobs, from washing all the indoor windows in Carleton place to stripping the wax off the floor of the Christ Church Cathedral (I looked like I had been working in an abattoir because the tile was this ceramic and it mixed with the chemical to strip the wax and turned blood red, my co-worker and I were covered in head to toe with this stuff, we wore full, like painter suits)..
At the Legislature another worker, who's name was Billy, we had the task of swapping out the dead lightbulbs, fluorescent tubes for fresh ones. In the massive rooms, they all have massive chandeliers.
So it meant being on pretty much the top rung of 30ft ladders.
But the BIG job was the main hallways huge chandelier, that hung some 70ft up from the floor and of course I cannot find a picture of the damn room or chandelier!
Now the hallway that this light hangs in is quite something. This photo below, you see a rail around a hole in the floor. When you stand at this rail, and look downwards, there is the New Brunswick coat of arms on the floor in the main room, and as you walk around it, it kinda is like an optical illusions.. Of course there not a photo I could find of the damn thing... Anyhow, the story revolves around this rail and upwards...
So, when standing at the rail and looking straight up, some 40 ft in the air from here is a massive chandelier AND the only way to get at those lightbulbs, at least at that time (circa 1992/'93) was to put a fucking ladder on those rails and then climb said ladder to the bulbs...
When I heard this plan, I was thinking in my head like, 'No fucking way....'
Our boss Randy, Billy and I, strapped down a couple of planks across that oval, then a 30ft ladder was put on it... Now, we didn't even draw straws and Billy was about as tall as I am, maaaybe even a fraction of an inch shorter, but there was NO way on earth I was going up on that contraption... With the ladder being on the rails and Billy being on the top step, the 'THIS IS NOT A STEP" step... on his tiptoes, could just get the lightbulbs out...
My job became pretty neat. I got to go up the back stairwell, which is closed to public and go all the way up it's winding steps into the very top of the Legislature.
So, at the top of this winding stairwell, there was a trap door, I popped that open and I was at the top of the building, THE very top.. Amazing view, lots of graffiti... I didn't have a pen or pencil to add my name.. In the center of this octagonal room, there was a trap door in the floor, opening this, I was looking straight down at Billy on top of the ladder, below the chandelier... And it was straight down from there....
So I would lower a bucket to Billy and he'd put in some of the fixture to clean and any burnt lightbulbs... Certainly I had the safer of the jobs.
Even my Dad's proud of me for this story as there are few people, I'm the only one he knows, that have been up there.
Like I said before, working in Janitorial, at least for me, was one of the best jobs I ever had. I've never worked directly for the public, like no store front cash or restaurant... Janitorial for the most part, I was on my own and MOST of co-workers when I did have them were pretty decent.
I've stood on the rooftop of Kings Place and looked down at the drunkards stumbling about in the snow, drank beers with my bud Jim Boucher on top of the Centennial building, walked through the tunnels beneath the downtown core (Centennial and some other building downtown used to have pretty accessible entries to the tunnels, if you were inside the building and had access to the basements...
Did 12 hour shifts at the NB Power warehouse way out in Marysville and used the buildings PA system to blast Metal throughout the entire complex. Was locked in the Fredericton library for 8 hour shifts with about 4 hours of available work, so for the rest of the time, I'd go to the music section of the library and blast out tunes.
It was a fun time. wouldn't change my past for anything.
Oh, heads up Fredericton, it's already creeping in..... Found this snow on my walk tonight JULY 25th...
Tomorrow, rain, pain, feel it coming already and they are forecast, so hopefully some thunderstorms!
(nasa.com) - - Storm chasing takes luck and patience on Earth -- and even more so on Mars.
For scientists watching the Red Planet from data gathered by NASA's orbiters, the past month has been a windfall. "Global" dust storms, where a runaway series of storms creates a dust cloud so large it envelops the planet, only appear every six to eight years (that's three to four Mars years). Scientists still don't understand why or how exactly these storms form and evolve.
In June, one of these dust events rapidly engulfed the planet. Scientists first observed a smaller-scale dust storm on May 30. By June 20, it had gone global.
For the Opportunity rover, that meant a sudden drop in visibility from a clear, sunny day to that of an overcast one. Because Opportunity runs on solar energy, scientists had to suspend science activities to preserve the rover's batteries. As of July 18th, no response has been received from the rover.
Luckily, all that dust acts as an atmospheric insulator, keeping nighttime temperatures from dropping down to lower than what Opportunity can handle. But the nearly 15-year-old rover isn't out of the woods yet: it could take weeks, or even months, for the dust to start settling. Based on the longevity of a 2001 global storm, NASA scientists estimate it may be early September before the haze has cleared enough for Opportunity to power up and call home.
When the skies begin to clear, Opportunity's solar panels may be covered by a fine film of dust. That could delay a recovery of the rover as it gathers energy to recharge its batteries. A gust of wind would help, but isn't a requirement for a full recovery.
While the Opportunity team waits in earnest to hear from the rover, scientists on other Mars missions have gotten a rare chance to study this head-scratching phenomenon.
The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, Mars Odyssey, and Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN (MAVEN) orbiters are all tailoring their observations of the Red Planet to study this global storm and learn more about Mars' weather patterns. Meanwhile, the Curiosity rover is studying the dust storm from the Martian surface.
Source: https://mars.nasa.gov/news/8354/storm-chasers-on-mars-searching-for-dusty-secrets/
Now I beleive, and as far as |I trust NASA's imagery, that there are them there rovers on Mars. But like 'flatearthers', there are people who do not believe there are rovers there, much less ANY probe in our solar system, nor has there been any... I don'\t subscribe to such lunacy (Ha! Lune-acy!)
So people who do NOT believe in the rovers having landed on Mars always have these "proofs", like there's a photo, totally out of context that's like a 'shadow' of the rover and people say that it shows a technician working on the rover. They believe the rovers are right here on Earth in a desert somewhere and then the photo's are all touched up to make it look like they are on Mars.
So, an actual mystery on Mars is that in photos NASA takes to check out the condition of the rovers NASA scientists were shocked to see that the solar panels, which only days before had quite a bit of sand on them, are now, wiped clean!!
it took them a bit, but they now know there is wind on Mars, it does have a thin atmosphere, so these winds, which can obviously whip up a global sandstorm, in some places create dustdevils. So NASA believes that these dustdevils are what inadvertently keeps the solar panels pretty dust free and thus helping to give the rovers the longevity they've enjoyed.
So, given this global sandstorm. even I was wondering, how the hell is this rover going to come out of this? I mean, isn't it gonna be buried? Do they just 'rev 'er up' and dry to shake off all the Martian sand? Has this happened before? What did they do then? Why does Elsa speak in tongues at me?
This is currently the 'atmospheric opacity' or how well you can see on Mars currently:
But they are the 'Little Rovers That Could' so hopefully we'll get some more years out of them anyhow.
There are new rovers headed to Mars shortly and in a few years I believe the UK has another rover heading to Mars. Hopefully this one lands correctly as the last one more or less splattered itself on the Martian surface instead of landing.
On my nightly walks, I usually cut across the front of the Legislature building.. It kinda gives me pride to know I've done some pretty crazy shit in there.
When I worked for Modern Building Cleaning, because I was young and rarin' to go to work, they'd get me to do all kindsa odd jobs, from washing all the indoor windows in Carleton place to stripping the wax off the floor of the Christ Church Cathedral (I looked like I had been working in an abattoir because the tile was this ceramic and it mixed with the chemical to strip the wax and turned blood red, my co-worker and I were covered in head to toe with this stuff, we wore full, like painter suits)..
At the Legislature another worker, who's name was Billy, we had the task of swapping out the dead lightbulbs, fluorescent tubes for fresh ones. In the massive rooms, they all have massive chandeliers.
So yeah, we had to clean and change the lightbulbs on these puppies
So it meant being on pretty much the top rung of 30ft ladders.
But the BIG job was the main hallways huge chandelier, that hung some 70ft up from the floor and of course I cannot find a picture of the damn room or chandelier!
Now the hallway that this light hangs in is quite something. This photo below, you see a rail around a hole in the floor. When you stand at this rail, and look downwards, there is the New Brunswick coat of arms on the floor in the main room, and as you walk around it, it kinda is like an optical illusions.. Of course there not a photo I could find of the damn thing... Anyhow, the story revolves around this rail and upwards...
So, when standing at the rail and looking straight up, some 40 ft in the air from here is a massive chandelier AND the only way to get at those lightbulbs, at least at that time (circa 1992/'93) was to put a fucking ladder on those rails and then climb said ladder to the bulbs...
When I heard this plan, I was thinking in my head like, 'No fucking way....'
Our boss Randy, Billy and I, strapped down a couple of planks across that oval, then a 30ft ladder was put on it... Now, we didn't even draw straws and Billy was about as tall as I am, maaaybe even a fraction of an inch shorter, but there was NO way on earth I was going up on that contraption... With the ladder being on the rails and Billy being on the top step, the 'THIS IS NOT A STEP" step... on his tiptoes, could just get the lightbulbs out...
My job became pretty neat. I got to go up the back stairwell, which is closed to public and go all the way up it's winding steps into the very top of the Legislature.
So, at the top of this winding stairwell, there was a trap door, I popped that open and I was at the top of the building, THE very top.. Amazing view, lots of graffiti... I didn't have a pen or pencil to add my name.. In the center of this octagonal room, there was a trap door in the floor, opening this, I was looking straight down at Billy on top of the ladder, below the chandelier... And it was straight down from there....
So I would lower a bucket to Billy and he'd put in some of the fixture to clean and any burnt lightbulbs... Certainly I had the safer of the jobs.
Even my Dad's proud of me for this story as there are few people, I'm the only one he knows, that have been up there.
Like I said before, working in Janitorial, at least for me, was one of the best jobs I ever had. I've never worked directly for the public, like no store front cash or restaurant... Janitorial for the most part, I was on my own and MOST of co-workers when I did have them were pretty decent.
I've stood on the rooftop of Kings Place and looked down at the drunkards stumbling about in the snow, drank beers with my bud Jim Boucher on top of the Centennial building, walked through the tunnels beneath the downtown core (Centennial and some other building downtown used to have pretty accessible entries to the tunnels, if you were inside the building and had access to the basements...
Did 12 hour shifts at the NB Power warehouse way out in Marysville and used the buildings PA system to blast Metal throughout the entire complex. Was locked in the Fredericton library for 8 hour shifts with about 4 hours of available work, so for the rest of the time, I'd go to the music section of the library and blast out tunes.
It was a fun time. wouldn't change my past for anything.
Oh, heads up Fredericton, it's already creeping in..... Found this snow on my walk tonight JULY 25th...
Tomorrow, rain, pain, feel it coming already and they are forecast, so hopefully some thunderstorms!
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