NASA and Smithsonian to Host 10-Year Anniversary Events for Mars Rovers

Monday, July 21, 2014

NASA and Smithsonian to Host 10-Year Anniversary Events for Mars Rovers

NASA and Smithsonian to Host 10-Year Anniversary Events for Mars Rovers:

This image taken by the panoramic camera on the Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity shows the view of Victoria Crater from Duck Bay. Opportunity reached Victoria Crater on Sol 951 (September 27, 2006) after traversing 9.28 kilometers (5.77 miles) since her landing site at Eagle Crater.
› Full image and caption

January 06, 2014

NASA and the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum (NASM) in Washington are sponsoring events to commemorate 10 years of roving across the Red Planet by the Mars Exploration Rovers (MER).

Anniversary activities will showcase the images and achievements of Spirit and Opportunity, both launched by NASA in the summer of 2003. Activities also will highlight how Mars robotic exploration and discovery will aid plans for a future human mission to Mars.

Spirit and Opportunity completed their three-month prime missions in April 2004 and went on to perform extended missions for years. The rovers made important discoveries about wet environments on ancient Mars that may have been favorable for supporting microbial life. Although Spirit ceased communicating with Earth in March 2010, the Opportunity rover continues its work on the Red Planet.

Anniversary events include:

On Tuesday, Jan. 7, starting at 7:30 a.m. PST (10:30 a.m. EST), NASA and the museum will facilitate two panel discussions on Mars robotic and human missions. Held in the museum's Moving Beyond Earth gallery, participants will discuss the MER program and its scientific successes. Participants also will provide updates on the agency's activities to advance a human mission to Mars in the 2030s.

Panel I: Moderator - Pamela Conrad, Curiosity rover scientist, NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.

-- John Grant, supervisory geologist at the Center for Earth and Planetary Studies, NASM, and science operations working group chair for the MER mission

-- Steven Squyres, professor of astronomy, Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., and principal investigator for the Mars Exploration Rover mission

-- David Lavery, program executive, Solar System Exploration, NASA Headquarters

Panel II: Moderator - James Green, director, Planetary Science, NASA Headquarters

-- John Grunsfeld, astronaut and associate administrator, Science Mission Directorate, NASA Headquarters

-- Mary Voytek, director, Astrobiology, NASA Headquarters

-- John Connolly, acting Chief Exploration Scientist, NASA Headquarters

-- Alyssa Carson, NASA Passport Winner and student from Baton Rouge, La.

NASA Television and the agency's website will provide live coverage of the event. The discussion will also be Webcast live at http://www.livestream.com/mars .

The public can ask questions via Twitter using the hashtag #10YrsOnMars.

The museum is featuring a new exhibit, "Spirit & Opportunity: 10 Years Roving Across Mars," with more than 50 mosaic and panoramic photographs taken by the rovers. From a view of the sun setting over the rim of a crater, to a study of "abstract dunes," to a shot of rover tracks disappearing over the horizon, the images were chosen for their scientific and aesthetic content by MER mission team members.

On Thursday, Jan. 16 at 7 p.m. PST (10 p.m. EST), JPL will host a public celebration of a decade of the twin Mars Exploration rovers. The event will be held in the Beckman Auditorium on the California Institute of Technology campus, 1200 E. California Blvd., Pasadena.

The participants are:

-- Charles Elachi, director, JPL

-- Steve Squyres

-- John Callas, project manager, Mars Exploration Rover Project, JPL

-- Bill Nye, chief executive officer of the Planetary Society, Pasadena, Calif.

The event will be streamed live on the Web at http://ustream.tv/NASAJPL .

Friday, Jan. 17, 7 p.m. PST: JPL will host a public lecture delivered by John Callas, entitled "The Mars Exploration Rovers: A Decade of Exploration," at the Vosloh Forum on the campus of Pasadena City College, 1570 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena.

Thursday, Jan. 23, 11 a.m. PST (2 p.m. EST), JPL will host a media briefing on the Opportunity rover's decade of exploration. NASA Television and the agency's website will provide live coverage of the event. Reporters and the public can ask questions from NASA centers and via Twitter using the hashtag #10YrsOnMars.

Participants will include:

-- John Callas

-- Steve Squyres

-- Ray Arvidson, Mars Exploration Rovers deputy principal investigator, Washington University in St. Louis, Mo.

The discussion will also be webcast live at http://ustream.tv/NASAJPL . For NASA TV streaming video, downlink and scheduling information, visit http://www.nasa.gov/nasatv .

JPL manages the Spirit and Opportunity rovers for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. For more information on the rovers and the Mars Exploration Program, visit http://www.nasa.gov/mars .

JPL is managed for NASA by Caltech.

Guy Webster 818-354-6278

Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

guy.webster@jpl.nasa.gov

Dwayne Brown 202-358-1726

NASA Headquarters, Washington

dwayne.c.brown@nasa.gov

Alison Mitchell 202-633-2376

Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum

mitchellac@si.edu

2014-004

FASHION WEEK - USA Fashion and Music News
GOOGLE NEWS - Google News Blogger
PALCO MP3 - Download Music Legally Direct From Artist
LAST FM - Download Music Legally Direct From Artist
WOMEN COMMUNITY - Women Communty Photography Videos Beauty
DISNEY CHANNEL - Photos and Music News
BABY JUSTIN BIEBER - Google Images Google News
LADY GAGA - Google Images Google News
UNIVERSE PICTURES - Google Images Nature Pictures
VICTORIA´S SECRET COMMUNITY - Victoria´s Secret Fashion Show Photos

No comments:

Post a Comment

NASA Photos Photography

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is the United States government agency responsible for the civilian space program as well as aeronautics and aerospace research. President Dwight D. Eisenhower established the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in 1958 with a distinctly civilian (rather than military) orientation encouraging peaceful applications in space science. The National Aeronautics and Space Act was passed on July 29, 1958, disestablishing NASA's predecessor, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA). The new agency became operational on October 1, 1958.

UFO SIGHTINGS PHOTO PHOTOGRAPHY

The Oxford English Dictionary defines a UFO as "An unidentified flying object; a 'flying saucer'." The first published book to use the word was authored by Donald E. Keyhoe. The acronym "UFO" was coined by Captain Edward J. Ruppelt, who headed Project Blue Book, then the USAF's official investigation of UFOs. He wrote, "Obviously the term 'flying saucer' is misleading when applied to objects of every conceivable shape and performance. For this reason the military prefers the more general, if less colorful, name: unidentified flying objects. UFO (pronounced Yoo-foe) for short." Other phrases that were used officially and that predate the UFO acronym include "flying flapjack", "flying disc", "unexplained flying discs", "unidentifiable object", and "flying saucer". The phrase "flying saucer" had gained widespread attention after the summer of 1947. On June 24, a civilian pilot named Kenneth Arnold reported seeing nine objects flying in formation near Mount Rainier. Arnold timed the sighting and estimated the speed of discs to be over 1,200 mph (1,931 km/h). At the time, he described the objects' shape as being somewhat disc-like or saucer-like, leading to newspaper accounts of "flying saucers" and "flying discs". In popular usage the term UFO came to be used to refer to claims of alien spacecraft. and because of the public and media ridicule associated with the topic, some investigators prefer to use such terms as unidentified aerial phenomenon (or UAP) or anomalous phenomena, as in the title of the National Aviation Reporting Center on Anomalous Phenomena (NARCAP).

UFO PHOTO PHOTOGRAPHY

UFO - Unidentified Flying Object An unidentified flying object, or UFO, in its most general definition, is any apparent anomaly in the sky that is not identifiable as a known object or phenomenon. Culturally, UFOs are associated with claims of visitation by extraterrestrial life or government-related conspiracy theories, and have become popular subjects in fiction. While UFOs are often later identified, sometimes identification may not be possible owing to the usually low quality of evidence related to UFO sightings (generally anecdotal evidence and eyewitness accounts). Stories of fantastical celestial apparitions have been told since antiquity, but the term "UFO" (or "UFOB") was officially created in 1953 by the United States Air Force (USAF) to serve as a catch-all for all such reports. In its initial definition, the USAF stated that a "UFOB" was "any airborne object which by performance, aerodynamic characteristics, or unusual features, does not conform to any presently known aircraft or missile type, or which cannot be positively identified as a familiar object." Accordingly, the term was initially restricted to that fraction of cases which remained unidentified after investigation, as the USAF was interested in potential national security reasons and/or "technical aspects" (see Air Force Regulation 200-2). During the late 1940s and through the 1950s, UFOs were often referred to popularly as "flying saucers" or "flying discs". The term UFO became more widespread during the 1950s, at first in technical literature, but later in popular use. UFOs garnered considerable interest during the Cold War, an era associated with a heightened concern for national security. Various studies have concluded that the phenomenon does not represent a threat to national security nor does it contain anything worthy of scientific pursuit (e.g., 1951 Flying Saucer Working Party, 1953 CIA Robertson Panel, USAF Project Blue Book, Condon Committee).

Photos of Nature | Nature Photography What is The Universe

Photos of Nature | Nature Photography What is The Universe

Monday, July 21, 2014