Missing Piece

Phoenix, which is a lander working on Mars, apparently found the key substance.
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2010-286&cid=release_2010-286&msource=09286&tr=y&auid=6934719

Phoenix found perchlorate. According to the web site, this substance can be a clue to the method to search life on Mars, and it might have been in the soil which Viking Mars lander caught.
Viking Mars lander might also have found it, but this lander could not prove the existence.
So, they call this discovery the missing piece.

It looks interesting.

Here is the picture of Phoenix for NASA site.

She Started Sleeping

Hey, what happened with Spirit, one of Mars Exploration Rovers?
The rover team can not get the response from Mars.

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2010-252&cid=release_2010-252&msource=2010252&tr=y&auid=6731633

It is winter in the area where she is working. Apparently, she can not move because of cold.
Although they are designed to work for one or two years, they have been working for 6 years!!!
In several years, they have worked hardly.
In this picture, Spirit has a mobility trouble. Her left-front wheel is caught by sand.
Maybe, she became tired after her hard work.

Desert on Titan

Wow! I found this picture on NASA's web site!

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2010-251&cid=release_2010-251&msource=c20100729&tr=y&auid=6723160


The upside picture is the surface of Titan, the largest moon of Saturn, and the downside picture is Namibian desert.
Their sand dunes look similar. Scientists says that the atmosphere of Titan causes this pattern.

I want to look at the colored surface of Titan.

Catenary

It has been long time since I posted last one.

I was thinking about catenary (Not only this one).
When I was a child, I thought the shape of a hanging rope was the parabola.
But, it is actually the other like called catenary.

Catenary is expressed like this.
y=a cosh(x/a)

The method how to derive the expression is explained here. (this page is Japanese)
http://aozoragakuen.sakura.ne.jp/taiwa/taiwaNch04/node48.html

Program Making Maps

I made a program to make azimuthal equidistant projection maps.


I made this image with it.



The program actually transforms equirectangular projection to azimuthal equidistant projection.

I'll explain how to code on my site.

Famous Charactor in Space

You can play a video game in space.
Pac-man showed up on a satellite.　Although today is April 1, this image is not fake!

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2010-103

This is Mimas, one of the satellites orbiting around Saturn. The colored image shows temperature of the surface. Yellow area is hotter than blue area. But, the surface is totally cold.

The size of Mimas is smaller than that of the Moon.
So, Don't worry. He cannot eat Earth.

European Space Exploration

I found a video about space exploration in Europe.



Their plan is cool.