MetaFilter posts tagged with astronomy and mars

Please Prepare For Landing

msalt — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 10:33:36 -0800

1,512 high-resolution images of Mars from the viewpoint of an airplane passenger. Previous photos: 1 2 3

Race To Mars

richlach — Fri, 07 Sep 2007 11:35:01 -0800

"Somewhere on the planet are ten-year-olds who, someday, will be the first people to set foot on Mars" 300 scientists and space-experts contributed to what's billed as "a realistic vision of the first Human Mission to Mars" -- Race to Mars. Discovery Channel Canada used Hollywood special effects, but for added realism rather than ray-guns and aliens. On the website, you can argue about whether they got it right. www.racetomars.ca

Space Oddity

madamjujujive — Sun, 10 Jun 2007 22:22:40 -0800

Mars and Beyond - 50 years ago, this animated episode of Tomorrowland aired on Disneyland a few months after the launch of Sputnik - an entertaining melange of astronomy, sci-fi, pop culture, science, speculation, and surreality. Walt himself and Wernher von Braun make guest appearances and clip 5 is particularly trippy. (Parts 2, 3, 4, 5, 6)

The sun and mars

vronsky — Sat, 19 May 2007 15:28:54 -0800

Mars as art and the sun as art.

Face on Mars

grateful — Tue, 24 Oct 2006 07:03:12 -0800

Stunning video flyby of the "Face on Mars". Oh, and this one too. via

Spirit photographs Phobos and Deimos

brownpau — Sat, 10 Sep 2005 22:33:01 -0800

Two Moons Passing in the Night. Mars rover Spirit took these sequential photos of Martian moons Phobos and Deimos passing overhead in the night sky. Those rovers are still going strong!

90 Sols in 90 Seconds

fatbobsmith — Tue, 18 May 2004 12:59:07 -0800

With all this talk of wars in distant countries, it's easy to forget that there's exciting things going on just 300 million km from your back porch. NASA has provided 90 second videos of the first 90 sols of the Spirit [5MB .mov] and Opportunity rovers [5MB .mov].

Life On Mars's Meethane Traces Thought To Be Detected

y2karl — Sun, 28 Mar 2004 22:38:34 -0800

Life on Mars? Methane has been found in the Martian atmosphere which scientists say could be a sign of present-day life on Mars. It was detected by telescopes on Earth and has recently been confirmed by instruments onboard the European Space Agency's orbiting Mars Express craft. Methane lives for a short time in the Martian atmosphere so it must be being constantly replenished. There are two possible ways to do this. Either active volcanoes, but none have yet been found on Mars, or microbes. The Independent has it as Methane find on Mars may be sign of life. The second group to detect signals of methane in the Martian atmosphere is led by Michael Mumma of Nasa's Goddard Space Flight Centre in Maryland, who used powerful spectroscopic telescopes based on Earth. This team is even believed to have detected variations in the concentrations of methane, with a peak coming from the ancient Martian seabed of Meridiani Planum, which is being explored by a Nasa rover. This could indicate a subterranean source of methane which is pumping out the gas, either due to some residual geological activity or because of the presence of living organisms producing it as a waste gas. Asked whether the continual production of methane is strong evidence of a biological origin of the gas, Dr Mumma said: "I think it is, myself personally." As to how...

Mars Rover, Quicktime.

kozad — Sat, 17 Jan 2004 09:17:12 -0800

Next Best Thing to Being There. A Quicktime Mars Rover Simulation.

Lunar Photo of the Day

jasonspaceman — Wed, 07 Jan 2004 05:11:22 -0800

Lunar Photo of the Day started January 1st, 2004 to document human's never ending obsession with the moon. LPOD now joins APOD, MPOD, and ESPOD as quality picture of the day websites.

European Space Agency's webpage about the Mars Express / Beagle 2 project.

warhol — Tue, 23 Dec 2003 19:25:44 -0800

Mars ho! In about 24 hours, the Beagle 2 lander will descend to the surface of Mars, courtesy of the European Space Agency. After a few mighty bounces, encased in a giant rubber ball, the lander will open up and allow its instrument payload to start sampling the surface. This is the first in a trifecta of landers destined for Mars during the next month. NASA's landers, Spirit and Opportunity, land on January 3rd and January 24th.

Mars is getting close, real close

john — Fri, 18 Jul 2003 18:57:03 -0800

"This summer Mars will be the brightest it will ever be in our lifetimes." On August 26–27 Mars will be the closest it has been in 60,000 years. Some viewing tips can be found here. You can generate different viewpoints with NASA's Solar System Simulator as some have done recently.

Earth from Mars

aladfar — Thu, 22 May 2003 12:21:11 -0800

Pale Blue Dot: The Earth and Moon as photographed from Mars. Just in case you needed a bit of perspective.

Is there Life on Mars?

anyanka — Wed, 22 Jan 2003 16:36:53 -0800

Is there Life on Mars? As NASA announce a nuclear-powered Mars and beyond project, British scientists are looking forward to the launch of the Beagle 2 which will search for signs of life on the Red Planet. Is this the return of the Space Race in a new form? And will they find any sign of life?

adrianhon — Sun, 26 May 2002 07:35:10 -0800

Next Thursday, NASA will announce the discovery of huge water ice oceans on Mars. Lying less than a metre beneath the surface south of 60° latitude, the water ice reservoirs if melted would form an ocean 500m deep covering the entire planet. NASA insiders believe these findings could result in a manned landing within 20 years.

Zool — Mon, 04 Mar 2002 18:22:39 -0800

Huge ice field found on Mars The Mars Odyssey orbiter has found a vast field of water ice stretching from the Martian south pole to 60 degrees south.

crasspastor — Mon, 30 Jul 2001 00:00:58 -0800

Did the Viking landers find life on Mars 25 years ago? Some scientists think so. I have too much faith in planetary scientists and the newly minted field of exobiology, to believe this is a just a ploy to rekindle waning public interest in space exploration. I think this is genuine 20/20 hindsight coupled with better scientific understandings of life existing in the extreme hinterlands of possibility. . .

zeoslap — Mon, 26 Feb 2001 17:46:00 -0800

It's official. There was life on Mars!!! "I am convinced that this is supporting evidence for the presence of ancient life on Mars,'' said Kathie Thomas-Keprta, an astrobiologist at the space center and the first author of a study appearing Tuesday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

lagado — Tue, 09 Jan 2001 19:40:08 -0800

New career option! Be slave worker on the Martian surface!
This is pretty cool, actually. It's an internet based pilot study run by NASA to identify and classify all of the craters on the surface of Mars. This is a big job. All you need is a IE 5 or Netscape 6 web browser. Since its inception on November 17, web users combined have contributed 111,938 crater-markings and 26,877 crater-classification.

Brilliantcrank — Fri, 27 Oct 2000 21:04:31 -0800

NASA to announce 2005 mission to Mars. Forget the mapping missions. Send over some monkeys already!

Mark — Sat, 12 Feb 2000 21:01:47 -0800

Adding to the list of weird shaped rock formations found on Mars is the heart shaped plateau, just in time for Valentine's Day.

grant — Tue, 07 Dec 1999 20:04:56 -0800

The Mars Polar Lander was located - briefly on eBay anyway... For a starting bid of a cool ten million, you could have owned a piece of American space ephemera. As of tonight, it still appears in the search results. You gotta love how eBay is fast becoming the place for current event-based consumerism. Vintage virus containers anyone?

mathowie — Tue, 16 Nov 1999 17:33:36 -0800

A Mars Lander is set to touch down on Mars sometime between December 1st and December 20th of this year. Keep your eyes peeled on this mars site, it will be the primary location of new information about the mission. I doubt if they find water on Mars though...