Martian Chronicles has Moved!

That’s right folks! As of today, this blog has moved over to the AGU Blogosphere! So, head over to check out my new digs and update your bookmarks and RSS feeds While you’re there, take a look at the other excellent blogs that are part of the network. I’ll keep cross-posting here for a little [...]

The Tubes of Mars

Last week was my birthday, and I unexpectedly got a gift in the mail from my cousin. We don’t normally exchange birthday gifts, but she came across a t-shirt called “Tubes of Mars” and just had to buy it for me. Apparently, this line of shirts is capitalizing on various wacky conspiracy theories and they [...]

RIP Mandelbrot

Outpost Tavern and the End of an Era

The Outpost Tavern burned down Friday night. The Outpost was a rickety little tavern in Houston a couple miles from Johnson Space Center, famous as a hang-out for astronauts and other NASA folks. It went out of business earlier this year and it has apparently now met its fiery demise. I first visited the Outpost [...]

Martian Chronicles is Moving!

Big news folks! Sometime next week, this blog will be moving over to the American Geophysical Union‘s new blog network! AGU is the organization responsible for the Journal of Geophysical Research – Planets, which is one of the most important journals in planetary science, particularly for the terrestrial planets. AGU also hosts the enormous “fall” [...]

John Huchra

Over the weekend I learned that observational cosmologist John Huchra passed away on Friday. I only met him once, when I was a summer intern at the Harvard-Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory. He very graciously gave the group of summer interns an hour and a half of his time and told us about his research, and about [...]

Russia’s Steampunk Lunar Lander

I always found the contrast between Soviet and US engineering fascinating. The goals were generally similar, but while the US seemed to aim for elegant, lightweight, optimized designs, Soviet spacecraft always look like they’re bolted together out of cast iron or something. That’s why I love this gallery of photos of the Soviet lunar lander [...]

The 4th MSL Landing Site Workshop: Day 3 – Final Discussion

We wrapped up the landing site workshop on wednesday afternoon by revisiting each of the four sites and discussing them in turn. Unfortunately, the way that we did this was very disappointing, and made for a frustrating afternoon. The discussion was centered around a word document that was projected up on the screen in the [...]