Mars Science Laboratory landing this Sunday

[∂an]

After an 8 month journey to the red planet, NASA's Mars Science Laboratory is scheduled to land at the Gale Crater in 3.5 days from now, so thats about 3pm Monday on the east coast of Australia.

 

 

This is arguably the most sophisticated planetary entry, landing and surface exploration vehicle ever built. If it succeeds, it will boost space exploration tremendously in the coming decades. Its the type of technology we need if we are to send people to Mars.

NASA is going to have a live stream of government agency propaganda, interviews with scientists and cool animations etc before and during the entry. But there is a 15 minute or so delay in radio signal transmission from mars, so not really live.

Here is the link for the stream:

http://www.nasa.gov/...satv/index.html

And the schedule:

http://www.nasa.gov/...V_Breaking.html

Might make some interesting entertainment for a monday afternoon <3

Edited August 2, 2012 by kalika

[thistime]

i love this stuff, especially when these kind of streams drop and the reasons people assume

[klip247]

If im not mistaken, this machine will check for microbial life in the soil, my opinion is that mars harbors life somewhere on its body so I will not be surprised if they find it.

[ballzac]

I'm much more excited about the possibility of life on Europa, because it's possibly the only place in the solar system other than Earth that could currently support life as we know it. Of course, even finding fossilised evidence of life would be profoundly meaningful, even more so if it was found not to have a common ancestor with life on Earth.

[∂an]

yeah the moons of saturn and juipter are pretty interesting in terms of searching for life. Enceladus is especially interesting as it looks to be shooting geysers of liquid water from under its surface into space. Also Ganymede is thought to have an ocean of salty water, and also has its own magnetic field that may offer protection from radiation. ESA is planning a mission to Ganymede in the next decade or so, and NASA is going to choose between mars, titan and an asteroid for its next deep space mission (http://www.nature.com/news/nasa-set-to-choose-low-cost-solar-system-mission-1.10982#/three). Titan's liquid hydrocarbon oceans are quite incredible so I hope they select that one.

but the moon and mars are important logistically, as if we can set up outposts there then we don't have to haul so much fuel all at once to the outer planets. also it takes 8 months to get to Mars, 8 years or so to get to the moons of saturn and jupiter. so mars = more results in quicker time with less risk, which is good for apply for funds etc.

Edited August 3, 2012 by kalika

[ballzac]

Just a reminder that this is today. The landing is meant to be at about 3:30 I believe.

[qualia]

Of course, even finding fossilised evidence of life would be profoundly meaningful, even more so if it was found not to have a common ancestor with life on Earth.

i dunno, i personally think that if life on mars had common ancestry with earth life it would be more interesting, to raise questions of extraterrestrial origins of life on earth woul rewrite a whole section of biology and evolutionary theory. either it would be rad to witness first discovery of other life in the universe in my lifetime.

[ballzac]

But it woudn't really rewrite a section of evolutionary theory, it would just add another branch to the tree. Finding live that began independently would imply that life is probably ubiquitous in the universe, which I find a very exciting prospect, and it could potentially provide a whole new type of biology to study. We could only speculate what the life would be like, but both the similarities and differences to Earth-life would be fascinating and profoundly instructive. Whereas if it was related to us, there are certain similarities that would necessarily exist, and while it would be unlike anything we have on Earth, it would not be more different than all the variations we have on Earth in different environments anyway.

[thistime]

watching it live on the local tv channel, exciting stuff.

[ballzac]

I'm trying to watch it online, but my internet seems to be a little slow at the moment and it's buffering every few seconds. Doesn't seem to be a way to change the bitrate.

[thistime]

not trying to spam but have you tried http://www.ustream.tv/nasajpl

[ballzac]

thanks thistime, I was watching it on the nasa website, I'll try the one you linked. Cheers.

[thistime]

no worries, its working here , just a bit jumpy

[ballzac]

Yeah, it's working much better.

[thistime]

[thistime]

they did it!! now the serious wait begins.

[ballzac]

woooooooooot

[whitewind]

Shit all the NASA channels have gone down!

Must be the aliens or something. What do they have to hide?????????

[whitewind]

Actually I have never watched anything like this before, it's a bit boring actually. Watching ustream thanks for the heads up

[thistime]

Shit all the NASA channels have gone down!

Must be the aliens or something. What do they have to hide?????????

 

i think the nasa site dropped from all the viewers. But i love that the " what have they to hide " has already started

[ballzac]

boring??? It was epic. I almost cried. You could feel the excitement.

[qualia]

double plus, not quite tears, but definitely shivers

[at0m]

[planthelper]

so you guys want to bet?

i say, they will find active or fossilised life forms there.

but it's more likely, with the few moons with atmospheres, which got mentioned already.

my believe is that even earth, was "seeded" with different origins of life!!

in school, all teachers always said, life needs air, and not too hot, but the sufuric seafloor vents harbour heaps of life!

[whitewind]

Actually I missed it all so all I got was the tail end and then it stopped with a very mysterious shot of the first image. I'm a bit sad I missed it oh well I'm sure it can be seen retrospectively