Sunday, November 25, 2018

Nov 25 - Landing on Mars Is Still Hard

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Artist's concept of a spacecraft approaching Mars prior to landing. Image via NASA/JPL-Caltech.

Landing on Mars is still hard

There's a reason space engineers describe landing on Mars as "7 minutes of terror." Read more.

On Monday … Watch the Insight Mars landing

NASA engineers hope to broadcast word of a successful touchdown at 20:00 UTC (3 p.m. EST; translate UTC to your time). It's the 1st Mars landing in 6 years! How to watch.

How will NASA know when InSight touches down?  

Signals from Mars will take 8 minutes to travel to Earth on Monday. By the time we hear that InSight has reached the top of Mars' atmosphere, the lander will have already touched down safely ... or crashed. Read more.


Artist's concept of the InSight Mars spacecraft landing on Mars, via NASA.

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Kids tees, long sleeved tees, lunar phase posters, toys, and more. Your support means the world to us and allows us to keep going. Click here to shop

Tonight … The Moon and the Twins

The stars are Castor and Pollux in the constellation Gemini. The represent the legendary Twins of sky mythology. From mid-northern latitudes, they appear over your eastern horizon with the moon by around 8 to 9 p.m. From the Southern Hemisphere, they all ascend in the east a bit later in the evening. Read more.

Here's where InSight will touch down on Monday

InSight will touch down on the western edge of a flat, smooth expanse of lava plain called Elysium Planitia, about 4 degrees north of Mars' equator. "If it were an ice cream, it would be vanilla," quipped Bruce Banerdt, InSight's principal investigator. Read more.
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