Saturn

Nasa's Cassini spacecraft produced this view of Saturn, taken while Cassini was in Saturn's shadow. The Sun blocked by the planet backlit both Saturn and its famous rings.

Larger view of NASA photo (#35) and other intriguing space shots.

Curiosity

Four months ago today NASA landed the Curiosity vehicle on Mars, a planet about 60 million miles from Earth right now. The distance between the Earth and Mars varies between about 35 million and 250 million miles, which makes landing something on the red planet a tricky bit of astronomic calculation. I believe the feat is best described  with the phrase - "This is rocket science."

Here is a video of landing, not an artist rendition or a computer simulation but actual video footage from the spacecraft as it descends to the Martian surface.

And, of course, we have the NASA website with up-to-date photographs, videos from Curiosity on the surface of Mars. So it's been four months, have you taken a look recently? Do you have a sense of the significance of such scientific endeavors, yes even in the face of all the problems we have back here on this planet.

We live in incredibly interesting times, why not take a peek?

A Far Off Image

The moon Phobos partially eclipsing the Sun. A shot taken, of course, from the surface of Mars.

More Curiosity Rover photos here.

A Blotch on Mars

After a rocket-powered descent stage, also known as the sky crane, delivered NASA's Curiosity rover to Mars on Aug. 5, 2012; it flew away and fell to the surface. Possible multiple impacts from that collision are revealed in blue in this enhanced-color view taken by the High-Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

The main crash site is seen at right, shaped like a fan. Farther from the site are several smaller dark spots, which are thought to be secondary impacts from debris that continued to travel outward. The impact sites are darker because the lighter, reddish top layer of soil was disturbed, revealing darker basaltic sands underneath.

The full image for these observations can be seen at here. 

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data analysis from NASA website

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Adventuresome. Likes to travel. Into long lonely drives on red planets. Seeking signs of life.