Juling and Fluusa craters, an Oblique Mosaic

 

Juling and Fluusa craters, an Oblique Mosaic

LAMO 32 - LAMO 33

Weekly Read & Watch List - Week of Feb 28

Week of February 28, 2016

This section is a curated list of articles, white papers, concepts, events, videos, and data releases. Some listed items may not be current but are nonetheless quite interesting.

Articles & Sites of Interest

• NASA: NASA Aeronautics Budget Proposes Return of X-Planes
• ESA: Schiaparelli: the ExoMars Entry, Descent and Landing Demonstrator Module
• Centauri Dreams: An Exoplanet Changing Over Time 
• Elsevier: Why Science Needs to Publish Negative Results 
• BBC: What would happen if aliens contacted Earth 
• In a Hubble first, UA astronomers take images of an exoplanet changing over time 
• NASA: Pulsar Web Could Detect Low-Frequency Gravitational Waves
• NASA: Tools and Talent at Michoud to Complete SLS Core Stage Welding in 2016
• SKA: New Fast Radio Burst discovery finds ‘missing matter’ in the Universe
• AstroSociety: Science Fiction Stories with Good Astronomy & Physics - A Topical Index
• ESA: Fuelling the Trace Gas Orbiter
• NASA: Orion Test Hardware in Position for Solar Array Test
• ESO: ATLASGAL Survey of Milky Way Completed
• Discovery: 'Space Men' - Ascending to Earth's Deadliest Frontier
• Slate: Astronomers Find Another Small Icy Body Out Past Pluto
• Space Policy Online: House SS&T Lays Out Work Plan for 2016, Including NASA and NOAA
• PRD: The Hunt for Free Floating Planets in Our Galaxy
• NASA: Where’s My Data? Keeping Track of New Horizons’ Treasure of Information

Concepts & White Papers

• arxiv: Constraints on the location of a possible 9th planet derived from the Cassini data
• arxiv: Cosmologists in Search of Planet Nine: the Case for CMB Experiments 
• arxiv: Discovery of Rotational Modulations in the Planetary-Mass Companion 2M1207b: Intermediate Rotation Period and Heterogeneous Clouds in a Low Gravity Atmosphere 
• NASA: Project Mercury Drawings and Technical Diagrams
• arxiv: Neptune's Orbital Migration Was Grainy, Not Smooth
• NTRS: The Pioneer mission to Jupiter
• NTRS: Objectives and goals in space science and applications 1968
• NTRS: Planetary exploration: Space in the seventies
• JGR: Cryovolcanism on Titan - New results from Cassini RADAR and VIMS (sci-hub)
• arxiv: Evolution and Magnitudes of Candidate Planet Nine
• arxiv: Transiting Planet Candidates Beyond the Snow Line Detected by Visual Inspection of 7557 Kepler Objects of Interest

Events & Involvement

• Mar 1 - PBS: Space Men @ 9PM-EST

Videos

• James Webb Space Telescope Deployment In Detail
• Discovery: Telescope 
• NASA: Preparing America for Deep Space Exploration Episode 12 - Built for Exploration 
• USGov Hearing: Unlocking the Secrets of the Universe - Gravitational Waves
• USGov Hearing: The Space Leadership Preservation Act and the Need for Stability at NASA 
• ESO: ESOcast 81 - Red Sprites
• SETI: Exoplanets spectroscopy with diffraction primary objective telescopes 
• Feb 28, 1885: The American Telephone and Telegraph Company is incorporated in New York as the subsidiary of American Bell Telephone.
• Feb 28, 1935: Nylon invented by Wallace Carothers of Dupont
• Feb 28, 1953: The chemical structure of DNA is determined in a laboratory by James Watson and Francis Crick
• Feb 28, 1959: Launch of Discoverer 1, a Corona Key Hole class spy satellite prototype, failing to enter the intended polar orbit, crashing near the south pole
• Mar 1, 1872: Yellowstone National Park is established as the world's first national park by President Ulysses S. Grant and the sitting U.S. congress 
• Mar 1, 1936: Hoover Dam is completed 
• Mar 1, 1954: Detonation of Castle Bravo dry hydrogen bomb over Bikini Atoll, resulting in the worst radioactive contamination zone caused by the U.S.
• Mar 1, 1961: President John F. Kennedy establishes the Peace Corps
• Mar 3, 1915: NACA, predecessor to NASA, established after William Howard Taft and the sitting U.S. congress passed the act
• Mar 3, 1938: LNER A4 locomotive, 'The Mallard', becomes fastest steam locomotive in production, capable of speeds greater than 120mph
• Mar 3, 1969: Launch of Apollo CSM-104 & Apollo LM-3 aboard a Saturn V on mission Apollo 9 to perform an inflight test in docking the CSM with the LM
• Mar 4, 1890: The Forth Bridge in Scotland becomes the longest in Great Britain, measuring 520-meters long
• Mar 4, 1913: The U.S. Department of Labor is established by President William Howard Taft and the sitting U.S. congress
• Mar 4, 1986: USSR Vega 1 begins returning image from Halley's Comet
• Mar 5, 1943: UK jet fighter, Gloster Meteor, takes first flight
• Mar 5, 1979: Voyager 1 encounters Jupiter at nearest distance of 276,800-kilometers
• Mar 5, 1981: Sinclair Research launches ZX81, later selling 1.5 million units

Data

• Mar 1: Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) Release #36

Activities

• OSIRIS-REx paper model

Spacecraft Updates

• Feb 28: Juno - 799,917,000 km from Sol, 69,939,000 km to Jupiter @ 26,044-km/h
• Feb 28: New Horizons - 5,206,153,000 km from Sol, 286,555,000 km from Pluto, 1,281,132,000 km to KBO-JimGreene @ 51,998-km/h
  
• Feb 28: Voyager 1 - 20,070,061,000 km from Sol @ 61,233-km/h
  
• Feb 28: Voyager 2 - 16,530,316,000 km from Sol @ 55,419-km/h

Blog Entries

• Weekly Read & Watch List - Week of Feb 21  
• LAMO 31
• LAMO 32 
• LAMO 32 - Reoriented 
• Juling Crater - H39-L32 
• LAMO 33 
• LAMO 33 - Reoriented
• LAMO 34 
• LAMO 35 
• Saturday Morning Films - Feb 27  

LAMO 35

LAMO image 35 has been released to the JPL Photojournal.

LAMO 35 features an unnamed region east of Guaue crater, in the northern hemisphere. Much of the area is saturated with small impacts. The crater rim to the north appears to be quite old due to its heavily impacted and worn state. However, interestingly, the area appears to return a strong blue signature which would typically suggest a recent impact in the area. Such an impact is not present in this image. The source of the ejected, blue material is likely to be from nearby Guaue crater. As noted on the Photojournal entry, the imaged region is centered at approximately 30.8 degrees north latitude, 95.9 degrees east longitude.

LAMO 35 - PIA20389

Imaging Map (2016-02-26)

Saturday Morning Films - Feb 27

Saturday Morning Films feature approximately one hour worth of old film reel videos, sometimes with a theme, but often without.

This Saturday: 1964-65 New York Worlds Fair

World's Fair Report with Lowell Thomas - 1961

Unisphere: Biggest World on Earth - 1964

To The Fair - 1964

LAMO 34

LAMO image 34 has been released to the JPL Photojournal.

LAMO 34 shares many features with LAMO 29 and others that are just to the northwest. Ejected material from a crater just out of the imaged region, on the right, appears to be draped over much of the lower portion of the imaged region, giving an overall, smooth appearance to the terrain. The visible crater on the right appears to be rather old, due to the presence of a high number of regionally large interior basin impacts, and the degree of mass-wasting around the rim.

LAMO 34 - PIA20388

Imaging Map (2016-02-25)

LAMO 29 / LAMO 34 comparison

LAMO 33 - Reoriented

Here is an orientation corrected version of LAMO 33, as if you were looking obliquely across the surface from an orbiting platform. Fluusa crater is at the left most point.

Orientation Corrected LAMO 32

LAMO 33

LAMO image 33 has been released to the JPL Photojournal.

LAMO 33 is an extreme oblique view, looking over the craters Fluusa at top center and the northern expanse of Meanderi, in the bottom right. The landscape in the imaged region is heavily cratered to the point of saturation, and incredibly varied in altitude. The topographic map shows this region is be a portion of a long section of terrain which is highly varied in elevation, from the far southern hemisphere stretching northward above 40 degrees northern latitudes. Much of the imaged region is quite old. This is correlated with the color map, with exception to a portion of the ejecta blanket from Juling crater, which is located just outside of the imaged region on the left.

LAMO 33 - PIA20387

Imaging map (2016-02-24)

Updated 2016-02-25 - Fixed links to pictures. Sorry folks.

Juling Crater - H39-L32

Juling crater from HAMO 39 to LAMO 32

This is a synthetic animation, created from morphing HAMO image 39 to LAMO 32. This is done by placing a point cloud over each image, designating locations from one image to the other. 

LAMO 32 - Reoriented

Here is a orientation corrected version of LAMO 32, as if you were looking obliquely across the surface from an orbiting platform.

Orientation Corrected LAMO 32

LAMO 32

LAMO image 32 has been released to the JPL Photojournal.

LAMO 32 features an oblique view across Juling crater. Juling crater is approximately 20 kilometers in diameter and appears to be a result from a relatively recent impact, evidenced by the very well defined rim and the strong blue tint to the surrounding area.

On one portion of the rim, the terrain appears to be well compacted and stable resulting in a series of exposed, jagged spurs, as the areas around this hardened soil have slumped away. The crater basin appears to be well filled with slumped material from the rim, giving the floor of the crater a rather lumpy appearance. An ejecta blanket also appears to extend from the top edge of the crater in the imaged region, extending upwards, giving the nearby area a smooth appearance in contrast with the areas near the bottom.

All together, this suggest that Juling crater is rather recent impact in a mixed soil area. The strong blue tint could indicate the presence of volatiles which could further explain the softness of much of the surrounding soil, and the rapid slumping that has occured.

As noted in the Photojournal entry, the imaged region is centered at approximately 33.6 degrees south latitude, 168.7 degrees east longitude.

LAMO 32 - PIA20386

Imaging Map (2016-02-23)

LAMO 31

LAMO image 31 has been released to the JPL Photojournal.

LAMO 31 features an unamed crater and region, northwest of Mondamin crate in the southern hemisphere. A smooth ejecta blanket surrounds the crater in upper right portion of the imaged region. This suggests that the impact was relatively recent. A much larger and older crater is near the center of the region. The rim of this crater has been mostly worn away from other impacts over time. A small portion of another possible crater rim sits just to the left of the fresh crater, near entirely wiped away from the more recent impact.

LAMO 31 (PIA20385)

Imaging Map (2016-02-22)

Weekly Read & Watch List - Week of Feb 21

Week of February 21 , 2016

This section is a curated list of articles, white papers, concepts, events, videos, and data releases. Some listed items may not be current but are nonetheless quite interesting.

Articles & Sites of Interest

• Thirty-Meter Telescope officials reviewing sites outside of Hawaii
• Universal Science: Novel Calibration Tool Will Help Astronomers Look for Habitable Exoplanets
• DSFP: What If Galileo Had Fallen to Earth?
• Webb Update: Winter 2016
• SLS Highlights: January 2016
• NASA: The Many Faces of Pluto and Charon
• Archive.org: Usborne Book of the Future
• Universal Science: Rarity of Jupiter-like planets means planetary systems exactly like ours may be scarce
• Accessing the Kepler Mission data
• AstroBio: Volcanoes Light Up Atmospheres of Small Exoplanets
• BBC: What if cosmonauts were the first to walk on the Moon? 
• Planetary Society: A new hope for a microphone on Mars - Enhancing Mars 2020 science with sound
• NASA Spaceflight: NASA moves to enforce early switch to EUS for SLS
• Hubble Space Telescope: First Detection of Super-Earth Atmosphere
• NASA / JAXA: New X-ray Space Observatory to Study Black Holes and History of Galaxy Clusters
• inverse: NASA Watch's Keith Cowing Is the Agency's Biggest Critic and Most Obsessive Fan
• ScienceNews: Support grows for a return to ice giants Uranus and Neptune
• NASA: Welding Wonder Delivers Confidence for SLS Core Stage
• Galaxy Monitor: China To Relocate Thousands For World’s Largest Telescope
• NASA: NASA Introduces New, Wider Set of Eyes on the Universe
• NASA: WFIRST Mission
• Centauri Dreams: WFIRST - Moving Closer to a Mission 
• CosmosUp: Why Is It So Hard To Go To Europa?
• spaceREF: Measuring The Rotation of an Extrasolar Planet
• Nature: The truth about exoplanets
• NASA: NASA Engineer Awaits Launch of CubeSat Mission Demonstrating Virtual-Telescope Tech
• PopSci: Jack Northrop and the UFO-Lookin' Flying Wings
• Chandra: ew X-ray Observatory Comes Online
• How does misinformation spread online?
• Bob Gilruth, the Quiet Force Behind Apollo
• Popular Mechanics: How Mir Became Humanity's Foothold in Space
• Orbital ATK: Space Launch System Solid Rocket Booster QM-2 Test Update
• Library of Congress Magazine Vol. 5 No. 1: Jan.-Feb. 2016 

Concepts & White Papers

• NTRS: OSIRIS-REx Orbit Determination Covariance Studies at Bennu 
• NTRS: JWST Pathfinder Telescope Risk Reduction Cryo Test Program 
• arxiv: Detection of an atmosphere around the super-Earth 55 Cancri e 
• arxiv: The inner edge of the habitable zone for synchronously rotating planets around low-mass stars using general circulation models 
• NTRS: Overview and Status of the Laser Communication Relay Demonstration 
• NTRS: Apollo A-7L Spacesuit Development for Apollo 7 Through 14 Missions 
• NTRS: Apollo Spacesuit Modifications for the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project (ASTP) Spacesuit 

Events & Involvement

• Dec 8-13 2015: Division of Planetary Sciences meeting 2015
  
• Jan 4-8: AAS 227 Press Conference Webcasts
• Feb 9: Geology After Pluto
• Feb 11-15: AAAS 2016 Annual Meeting - Day 1 - Day 2 - Day 3 - Day 4 - Day 5
• Feb 21-26: 2016 Ocean Sciences Meeting
• Feb 23: The Breakthrough Initiative - Listen and Megastructures at KIC 8463
  
• Feb 24: Webinar - Explore, Discover, and Use Field Campaign and Related Data @ 2:00PM-EST
• Feb 26-27: Review of Progress Toward the Decadal Survey Vision in New Worlds, New Horizons in Astronomy and Astrophysics - Meeting 4 - videos from previous meetings

Videos

• Planetary Society: S.O.F.I.A. 
• Space Exploration | Our Universe
• ESA: ExoMars 2016 - launch to Mars
• ESA: How ESA is Preparing Astronauts for Missions to the Moon
• ESA: Uniting the Trace Gas Orbiter and Schiaparelli
• Oribtal ATK: QM-1 Static Test Fire
• Tokamak VS Stellarator
• NASA Goddard: WFIRST - The Best of Both Worlds
• NASA: Listening to the Stars
• SpaceRip: Giants on the Cosmic Frontier
• Equipment for an amateur [chemistry] lab - Part 1 - Part 2
• Feb 21, 1803: Pen-y-Darren Ironworks debuts the first self-propelling steam locomotive in Wales
• Feb 21, 1842: John Greenough is granted the first U.S. patent for the sewing machine
• Feb 22, 1996: Launch of Space Shuttle Columbia on mission STS-75  - Post flight press conference
• Feb 22, 1995: The Corona reconnaissance satellite program, active from 1959 to 1972, is declassified to the public - Corona program overview
• Feb 23, 1941: Element 94, Plutonium, is first isolated by Dr. Glenn T. Seaborg
• Feb 23, 1896: Invention of the Tootsie Roll
• Feb 23, 1987: Supernova 1987a is captured in the Large Megallanic Cloud
• Feb 23, 2011: Launch of Space Shuttle Discovery on mission STS-133 - Post launch press conference
• Feb 26, 1896: Discovery of the physical property, radioactivity
• Feb 26, 1966: Launch of unmanned Apollo CSM-009 on mission AS-201
• Feb 27, 1919: The Grand Canyon is declared a national park by President Woodrow Wilson and the sitting U.S. congress
• Feb 27, 1929: The Grand Teton range is declared a national park by President Calvin Coolidge and the sitting U.S. congress (partial video) 

 

Data

• Feb19: New Horizons LORRI release (non-raw)

Activities

• NASA Invites Public to Send Artwork to an Asteroid - Deadline: March 20, 2016

Spacecraft Updates

• Feb 17: WFIRST entered phase A for design
• Feb 21: Juno - 798,714,000 km from Sol, 73,173,000 km to Jupiter
• Feb 21: New Horizons - 5,197,875,000 km from Sol, 278,199,000 km from Pluto, 1,289,488,000 km to KBO-JimGreene
• Feb 21: Voyager 1 - 20,060,250,000 km from Sol
• Feb 21: Voyager 2 - 16,521,621,000 km from Sol

Blog Entries

• Weekly Read & Watch List - Week of Feb 14, 2016
• New Horizons 2015-02-12 release
• LAMO 27
• SDO - 2016-02-16 
• LAMO 28 
• LAMO 29 
• LAMO 30 
• New Horizons 2015-02-19 release 
• Saturday Morning Films - Feb 20

Saturday Morning Films - Feb 20

Saturday Morning Films feature approximately one hour worth of old film reel videos, sometimes with a theme, but often without.

This Saturday: Atomic energy on the ground and in space. 

Nuclear Propulsion in Space 

First Nuclear Reactor in Space 

The Magic of the Atom

The Nuclear Look 

New Horizons 2015-02-19 release

The New Horizons team released another set of images. They are split into the separate observations. A thumbnail representative of the type of images is at the top of each observation as well. Herobrine has decided to stop providing lists of images in lieu of a great image compounding site that catalogs each release.

O_RING_DEP_LORRI_305B - Ring search, outbound, low-resolution with LORRI

 

2015-11-01 - 19:58:15.770

lor_0308713814_0x633_sci_3.jpg 2015-11-01 - 19:58:15.770, T:'PLUTO', R:131406389.229, E:0.2

LAMO 30

LAMO image 30 has been released to the JPL Photojournal.

LAMO 30 features the northern rim of Fejokoo crater. On the rim is a small amount of bright material, likely uncovered during a mass-wasting event in the past, resulting in the buildup within the crater basin near the center of the imaged region. As noted in the Photojournal entry, the imaged region is centered at approximately 32.1 degrees north latitude, 312.8 degrees east longitude.

LAMO 30 - PIA20384

Imaging Map (2016-02-19)