er..Mars has winters? I thought that a planet's rotation axis had to be tilted for it to have winters.
Posted by Z at December 29, 2004 8:38 PMCheck out that large rock in the middle of the Spirit shot. It's much larger than the rest, and it's almost semi-spherical, while all the other rocks around it are jagged. Odd...
Z, yes, Mars has seasons and it's rotational axis is tilted (though that tilt has dramatically changed over the eons.)
Right now the Martian winter is still happening but the coldest days are behind us and the MERs have safely weathered the worst of it. More important than the temperature, though, is how low the sun has been in the Martian sky. The lower in the sky, the more oblique the angle to the solar panels on the MERs which charge their batteries and allow them to keep the heaters on their most critical components running.
--Asa
Posted by Asa Dotzler at December 29, 2004 10:48 PMthis has easily made to top of best science stories of 2004 list.
http://www.sciencemag.org/sciext/btoy2004/
Thanks for keeping tabs on the rovers- without you I would have forgotten them already!
Posted by Joey at December 30, 2004 7:35 AMAsa, thanks for keeping me apprised on local JPL events concerning our planetary neighbor! I've been doing other JPL related stuff (it concerns that big parade that happens in these parts new year's day). JPL's got a float. Saw Mark Adler there up on the scaffold level where I was, greeted him with a "hi!" (the friendly greeting of one who recognizes, that is, knows the other) then realized that he doesn't know me from Eve.
Anyway, take a look! Also, there'll be a webcam on JPL's float, too. Details at my site.
Posted by Susan Kitchens at December 30, 2004 8:17 AMSusan, those are some great photos!! I really appreciate the time you put into blogging this great behind the scenes stuff.
--Asa
Posted by Asa Dotzler at December 30, 2004 8:55 AMPBS documentry : "welcome to mars" on January 4th
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/mars/
Posted by ohman at December 31, 2004 12:42 AMThe axis of Mars is tilted, but also its orbit around the sun is much more eccentric than Earth's, which has a significant effect on its seasons.
Here is a page about Martian seasons:
http://cmex-www.arc.nasa.gov/CMEX/data/MarsEssy/seasons/seasons.htm
The one-year Mars retrospectives are nice, but I want to hear more about what the Cassini science team thinks about the recent pictures of Iapetus. That giant ridge on the equator is pretty remarkable-- maybe it's too early to be entertaining any hypotheses about what it is:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Iapetus_mosaic.jpg
