Self professed NASA geek that I am, since the advent of the computer I've watched and follow as many NASA missions as possible.
I was listening and watching when the Mars rovers 'Spirit' and 'Opportunity' left Earth and when they landed on Mars.
I was listening and watching when the Cassini/Huygens mission took off and arrived at Saturn and watched and listened with baited breath as the European Space Agency's 'Huygens' lander detached from the Cassini probe and made it's descent to the surface of Titan.
There's a ton more missions I was 'there' for.... A couple of missions my 'name' is onboard the craft as some missions allowed you to submit your name and it would ride with whatever mission it was to its destination and beyond. I had a certificate for one of them, but can't find it anymore..
When the Mars rovers 'Spirit' and 'Opportunity' landed on Mars I haunted that mission site for months, pouring over every photo made available, marveling at the Martian landscapes...
It has been a while since I caught up with those rovers, 'Spirit' sadly is dead in it's tracks having it's batteries drained because of all the Martian sand on it's solar panels... But one of the amazing thing about these rovers was that their mission times have been obliterated. Each rover was only supposed to 'work' for just a short while and ended up working, Spirit for 6 years and Opportunity had been going but since the last Mars wide dust storm, it's solar panels, which like past landers were 'mysteriously' cleaned off by Martian 'dust devils' hasn't been so lucky this time.. and sadly as of yesterday has not been operational.
Curiosity was launched in 2011 and landed on Mars in 2012. It's been traveling around it's area on Mars pretty much proving that Mars HAD water and lots of it at one point. All of these rovers have been crucial at finding out what has happened in Mars' ancient past.
In December 2012, Curiosity's two-year mission was extended indefinitely. On August 5, 2017, NASA celebrated the fifth anniversary of the Curiosity rover landing and related exploratory accomplishments on the planet Mars. The rover is still operational, and as of January 29, 2019, Curiosity has been on Mars for 2304 sols (2367 total days) since landing on August 6, 2012.
The other night, I saw news that Curiosity had taken a 'selfie' and was now leaving it's current site at Vera Rubin ridge and was going to drive on to it's next target.
So after reading up on Curiosity's latest adventure, I decided to check out some of the images that NASA provides for the general public (and US tax payers) can see what these millions of dollars missions are up to...
The imagery from Curiosity has been OUTSTANDING... jaw dropping... So, I am going to provide some links to photos that Curiosity has taken on Mars and the reason why I'm giving you links is because to truly appreciate the wonders of this ancient planet that once had vast amounts of water and MAYBE, maybe even life.
When these links load, if you mouse over or click on the photo, it'll zoom in and I hope, like myself, you will be blown away by these Martian landscapes... I think there's NOTHING like it on Earth... Similar, sure, but this place is truly alien
This 360-degree mosaic from the Mast Camera (Mastcam) on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover looks out over a portion of the Bagnold Dunes:
https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/pia11241_reduced.jpg
This view from the Curiosity Mars rover's Mastcam shows a dark mound, called "Ireson Hill," which rises about 16 feet above redder layered outcrop material on lower Mount Sharp, Mars, near a location where Curiosity examined a linear sand dune in February 2017. [One of my favorites]
https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/pia21718.jpg
The Mast Camera (Mastcam) on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover captured this view of "Vera Rubin Ridge" about two weeks before the rover started ascending this steep ridge on lower Mount Sharp.
https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/pia21851-fig1_1790mr009245_sitesphericalflt_wscale.jpg
To view more of these absolutely stunning photos from mars, go to the 'Curiosity' Image landing page:
https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/msl/images/index.html
And click on any photo, which will take you to a page with the expanded photo BUT to see the image in stunning detail, below the notes on the image it says, 'View Image Feature', click on that link and it'll take you to a page with the photo with a write up beneath, if you click on THAT photo, it will expand to a zoomable view.
Enjoy!
Our Ancient Cataclysmic Filled Past!
And of course one of my other passions is our planets ancient history and what and who lived before the last ice age and during the time of the Younger Drias period (just after the last major ice age).
Two of the best people that you can listen to on this subject are Randall Carson, a geologist who has opened a HUGE can of worms by exploring MASSIVE ancient tidal wave flows that went from Canada and across the US... These are inland TIDAL WAVES... What causes these? Well, during the ice age, some glaciers would have upon them form lakes and over time these lakes wold grow and grow on and in these ice age glaciers, periodically these 'ice dams' would burst and send millions and millions of gallons of water cascading over the South US... It is also been hypothesized that large fragments of a meteor that they now KNOW smashed into the Greenland ice sheet, hit all over parts of the North American ice sheet and this caused massive melting that turned into ginormous inland tidal waves, the size of which is not even believable, unless you watch this podcast because they explain how this happened and what it did and what it left behind....
The crazy thing for me is, that as a child we traveled through these areas and I only can wish I knew then what I know now... Just amazing. So check out this Joe Rogan Podcast from 2017 with Graham Hancock (Author of Fingerprints of the Gods and Magicians of the Gods) and Randal Carlson... You WILL be blown away...
First some images:
Enjoy!
I was listening and watching when the Mars rovers 'Spirit' and 'Opportunity' left Earth and when they landed on Mars.
I was listening and watching when the Cassini/Huygens mission took off and arrived at Saturn and watched and listened with baited breath as the European Space Agency's 'Huygens' lander detached from the Cassini probe and made it's descent to the surface of Titan.
There's a ton more missions I was 'there' for.... A couple of missions my 'name' is onboard the craft as some missions allowed you to submit your name and it would ride with whatever mission it was to its destination and beyond. I had a certificate for one of them, but can't find it anymore..
When the Mars rovers 'Spirit' and 'Opportunity' landed on Mars I haunted that mission site for months, pouring over every photo made available, marveling at the Martian landscapes...
It has been a while since I caught up with those rovers, 'Spirit' sadly is dead in it's tracks having it's batteries drained because of all the Martian sand on it's solar panels... But one of the amazing thing about these rovers was that their mission times have been obliterated. Each rover was only supposed to 'work' for just a short while and ended up working, Spirit for 6 years and Opportunity had been going but since the last Mars wide dust storm, it's solar panels, which like past landers were 'mysteriously' cleaned off by Martian 'dust devils' hasn't been so lucky this time.. and sadly as of yesterday has not been operational.
Curiosity was launched in 2011 and landed on Mars in 2012. It's been traveling around it's area on Mars pretty much proving that Mars HAD water and lots of it at one point. All of these rovers have been crucial at finding out what has happened in Mars' ancient past.
In December 2012, Curiosity's two-year mission was extended indefinitely. On August 5, 2017, NASA celebrated the fifth anniversary of the Curiosity rover landing and related exploratory accomplishments on the planet Mars. The rover is still operational, and as of January 29, 2019, Curiosity has been on Mars for 2304 sols (2367 total days) since landing on August 6, 2012.
The other night, I saw news that Curiosity had taken a 'selfie' and was now leaving it's current site at Vera Rubin ridge and was going to drive on to it's next target.
So after reading up on Curiosity's latest adventure, I decided to check out some of the images that NASA provides for the general public (and US tax payers) can see what these millions of dollars missions are up to...
The imagery from Curiosity has been OUTSTANDING... jaw dropping... So, I am going to provide some links to photos that Curiosity has taken on Mars and the reason why I'm giving you links is because to truly appreciate the wonders of this ancient planet that once had vast amounts of water and MAYBE, maybe even life.
When these links load, if you mouse over or click on the photo, it'll zoom in and I hope, like myself, you will be blown away by these Martian landscapes... I think there's NOTHING like it on Earth... Similar, sure, but this place is truly alien
This 360-degree mosaic from the Mast Camera (Mastcam) on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover looks out over a portion of the Bagnold Dunes:
https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/pia11241_reduced.jpg
This view from the Curiosity Mars rover's Mastcam shows a dark mound, called "Ireson Hill," which rises about 16 feet above redder layered outcrop material on lower Mount Sharp, Mars, near a location where Curiosity examined a linear sand dune in February 2017. [One of my favorites]
https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/pia21718.jpg
The Mast Camera (Mastcam) on NASA's Curiosity Mars rover captured this view of "Vera Rubin Ridge" about two weeks before the rover started ascending this steep ridge on lower Mount Sharp.
https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/pia21851-fig1_1790mr009245_sitesphericalflt_wscale.jpg
To view more of these absolutely stunning photos from mars, go to the 'Curiosity' Image landing page:
https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/msl/images/index.html
And click on any photo, which will take you to a page with the expanded photo BUT to see the image in stunning detail, below the notes on the image it says, 'View Image Feature', click on that link and it'll take you to a page with the photo with a write up beneath, if you click on THAT photo, it will expand to a zoomable view.
Enjoy!
Our Ancient Cataclysmic Filled Past!
And of course one of my other passions is our planets ancient history and what and who lived before the last ice age and during the time of the Younger Drias period (just after the last major ice age).
Two of the best people that you can listen to on this subject are Randall Carson, a geologist who has opened a HUGE can of worms by exploring MASSIVE ancient tidal wave flows that went from Canada and across the US... These are inland TIDAL WAVES... What causes these? Well, during the ice age, some glaciers would have upon them form lakes and over time these lakes wold grow and grow on and in these ice age glaciers, periodically these 'ice dams' would burst and send millions and millions of gallons of water cascading over the South US... It is also been hypothesized that large fragments of a meteor that they now KNOW smashed into the Greenland ice sheet, hit all over parts of the North American ice sheet and this caused massive melting that turned into ginormous inland tidal waves, the size of which is not even believable, unless you watch this podcast because they explain how this happened and what it did and what it left behind....
The crazy thing for me is, that as a child we traveled through these areas and I only can wish I knew then what I know now... Just amazing. So check out this Joe Rogan Podcast from 2017 with Graham Hancock (Author of Fingerprints of the Gods and Magicians of the Gods) and Randal Carlson... You WILL be blown away...
First some images:
This is called 'Dry Falls' in Washington State and was caused by MASSIVE ancient flows of water. It hard to imagine, but from the 'green pastures' to the ground in the forefront of the photo is a drop over 1000ft
Joe Rogan Podcast with Graham Hancock and Randall Carlson
Enjoy!
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