Tag Archives: NASA

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Perseverance

Eleven years ago, I got up early to watch Curiosity land on Mars. Yesterday, it was evening and just as terrifying. If I was up for utterly scaring myself, landing the way Perseverance and Curiosity did would be my choice.

It was that same surreal experience knowing Perseverance had already landed or not as the signal arrived eleven minutes behind. And then over so quick. Especially the last part from heat shield separation to free fall and powered descent and Sky Crane and touchdown. Suddenly it was there, in its lime green square with no cables running up to the descent module, just sitting there calm as can be.

And everyone going mental. Except Dr. Swati Mohan who was in the EDL Commentary chair with purple hair and silver stars, who’s been on the project since it began eight years ago, and was calm and focussed on the job all the way.

And then the images came in. And there’s a drone! And there’s microphones!

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Australia Burning

It’s the satellite images that upset me the most. The vastness of it, the whole east coast of Australia burning, smoke so thick it blankets New Zealand. This is what the end of invasion, colonialism, genocide, and white supremacy looks like.

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InSight

Nothing quite like silent apprehension bursting into raucous celebration when a lander touches down on another planet. This is the first image, a couple of minutes after landing, dust-cap still on the camera, wide-angle distortion, horizon cutting a slice at the upper edge, a single rock centre-bottom, above the shadow of InSight.

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Drone Day Berlin 2017

I love me some drone. I love it more when my awesome friends drone. Justine will be. Tomorrow, Saturday, afternoon, in Berlin, drone-ing bits of NASA. It’s going to be most excellent! (& If you’re not in Berlin, and are in Canada, then Drone Day has you sorted.)

Drone Day Berlin 2017

The sky opened and out came dr(((o)))ne

Please join us in an afternoon celebration of Drone Day (droneday.org) on a cloud of sound. Around the world people will be making drone sounds on this day.

You are absolutely welcome to come.

There will be drone, experimental, and ambient sounds. There will be paper and some art supplies for you to use. There will be free tea for you to drink. Come listen, relax, draw, work on quiet creative projects, explore your meditative mind, or catch some droned out ZZZs. Take some time for your ears.

There is an elevator and there are accessible bathrooms. Please contact us if you would like to arrange a ground-floor pickup.

Droners:
Justine Lera
Verónica Mota
Mike Verdone
Tiffany Conroy
You?

Saturday, May 27 at 15:00 – 17:30
SoundCloud HQ, Rheinsberger Str 76/77, 10115 Berlin, Germany.

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Curiosity

I got up early to to watch the MSL Curiosity land on Mars. Utterly amazing! 7 Minutes of terror! Wow, and live tweeting, Google Hangout with some of the most incredible astronomers, live feeds from NASA and ESL … pictures arriving from Curiosity and making it to Twitter within minutes of landing, and computer simulation of the entire landing. Really beautiful.

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water flowed on Mars within last seven years

Continuing on from yesterday’s quotes from HAL as post titles, I was giddy with anticipation about NASA‘s Mars announcement today, and had to wait till I got home before the immensely satisfying statement of liquid water on Mars in the past seven years. Well there’s the balloon-puncturing ‘may have flowed’, emphasis on the scientific absence of hubris and so on, but…

“These fresh deposits suggest that at some places and times on present-day Mars, liquid water is emerging from beneath the ground and briefly flowing down the slopes. This possibility raises questions about how the water would stay melted below ground, how widespread it might be, and whether there’s a below-ground wet habitat conducive to life. Future missions may provide the answers,” said Malin.

— Science Blog

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