| FLYBY ALERT!
Space shuttle Discovery launched on May 31st. Get your flyby
alerts from Space
Weather PHONE |
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MOON-MARS TONIGHT:
Have you been looking for Phoenix?
It's on that little red dot right beside the Moon. Tonight, after
sunset, go outside and look west. The Moon and Mars are gathered
together only a few degrees apart. This makes Mars and all its
inhabitants easy to find: sky
map.
PHOENIX UPDATE: Phoenix's
scoop has dumped its load (pictured below) into the TEGA furnace,
but the material may not have made it past a screen designed to
protect the system from clogging. "I think it's the cloddiness
of the soil and not having enough fine granular material [to pass
through the screen]," says science team member Ray Arvidson
"In future, we may prepare the soil by pushing down on the
surface with the arm before scooping up the material to break it
up, then sprinkle a smaller amount over the door." [more]
WHITE CLOD:
The crumbly material in this photo is about to be dumped into a
furnace on Mars. The furnace is an oven inside the Phoenix lander,
and the material is a
scoop of Mars itself:
On June 5th, Phoenix's robotic arm gathered this sample of topsoil
from a spot called "Baby
Bear." It contains one of the mysterious white clods seen
here and there on the ground around Phoenix and also contained in
previous test scoops. Is it ice, salt, or something new and unexpected?
A trip to the furnace may tell. Phoenix's Thermal and Evolved Gas
Analyzer (TEGA) is a combination high-temperature furnace and mass
spectrometer. Material vaporized by the furnace is "sniffed"
by the mass spectrometer to determine its chemical composition.
Stay tuned for updates.
3D BONUS: Put on
your 3D
glasses and take a look at this
image of Phoenix's scoop holding the white clod and poised to
pour it through the open doors of TEGA's furnace. Patrick Vantuyne
of Belgium created the anaglyph using right- and left-eye images
from Phoenix's stereo camera. more: Mars
Yeti, One
small step..., Vines,
Scoop
Two.
CORONA LIGHT:
Yesterday, when the International Space Station (ISS) cut through
the evening twilight over Tucson, Arizona, photographer Scott Peshia
had his
camera ready and captured the flyby. He calls this snapshot
Corona Light:
The ISS in blue sky? That's right, absolute darkness is no longer
required to see the ISS. The growing space station is now brighter
than Venus and more than one reader has reported seeing it in broad
daylight. Space shuttle Discovery is currently docked to the ISS,
which makes the complex brighter still. It's a beautiful sight.
Please try our Simple Flybys tool to find out
when to look.
Also, be alert for flares. Dave Nelson of Stoughton,
Wisconsin, reports "I just watched the ISS go over tonight
(June 6th)--a nice pass almost directly overhead. Then, as the ISS
headed east, it flared better than any Iridium!" This is caused
by sunlight glinting off one of the station's many flat surfaces.
ISS flares are currently unpredictable; they are a breathtaking
surprise.
more images: from
Mike Borman of Evansville, Indiana; from
Dan Earl of Grass Valley, Oregon; from
Bryan of Babylon, New York; from
Steve Newcomb of Oakland, Maryland; from
Paco Bellido of Córdoba, Spain;
May
2008 Aurora Gallery
[Aurora Alerts] [Night-sky
Cameras]
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