Beagle 2 - What's happening?

Stu · 2003-12-26 14:15:58

Hi all, from a disappointed but patient UK,

I wish people would stop sounding Beagle's death knell before we even know it's in hospital. All the methods tried to detect a signal from it so far have been, at best, Plan Bs, with limited potential for success. The link with Mars Odyssey was never tried or tested before Beagle's launch, it's really only being tried because the probe's there, and Jodrell Bank is a back-up plan too, as welcome as its efforts are. The best chance for communicationg with Beagle will be - and was always going to be - via Mars Express, so many of us over here (tho, I admit, by no means all of us) are just biding our time until Jan 4th when MEx passes over the intended landing site. If nothing's heard then, well, maybe it'll be time to take stock, but for now let's all just wish Beagle well, sheltering from the wind and the dust devils behind a rock there on Isidis, and send our very best wishes and support to Colin Pillinger and the team, who must be going through absolute agony right now after so many years hard work.

>> While this is a bummer and very bad PR for Mars exploration, I'm stoked that Mars Express made it. I believe that it's going to be a LOT more useful than Beagle.

I couldn't disagree more with that, sorry. How could any probe do something more "useful" than finding life? Just think about it. If Beagle finds life on Mars (you'll note I'm not using the past tense) it will be THE Biggest science discovery for generations, possibly EVER, and will be the catalyst for an explosion in interest in martian exploration, both manned and unmanned. Think about it logically. If Beagle finds some bacteria, inside a rock or under the surface, the demand for a full-scale sample return mission asap will be *deafening*, internationally. And when that happens, and the returned samples give us more data, scientists are going to want even MORE data, of higher quality, so the demand for a **manned** mission to study martian life and its environment properly will be even *more* deafening. There'd finally be a REASON for going to Mars that the public, who would be paying the bill, thru taxes, could appreciate and understand.

We are never going to sell a manned Mars mission on the basis of interesting geology or climatology; people just aren't turned on by rocks. But if Beagle finds life if and when it wakes up it will light a fire under planetary science, and under public interest *in* science, and that's when politicians - ultimately the only people who can initiate a manned Mars program - will see there are votes to be gained from going to Mars. Then we'll see some action, particularly with China declaring its bold intentions to anyone who will listen.

So, I'm really saddened by the thought that anyone could dismiss Beagle like that. I am 1000% behind the MERs, I wish them every success in the world(s), but as exciting as the discovery of water will be for us here, in this knowledgeable community, with its appreciation of the long-term significance of finding water on Mars, it will not cause the man, woman or child in the street to turn over the TV from The Simpsons or Pop Idol to watch the latest news bulletin from Mars. But the discovery of life, well, that will Change Things, and will have consequences for the short-term exploration of Mars that the discovery of water would not.

As for the discovery of water on Mars being good news for terraformers, well, I still, honestly, hand on my heart believe that terraforming - as attractive and bold a project as it is - will not happen for many hundreds of years, if ever. Too hard, too expensive, an absolute no-hoper for any politician or political party or even political system because of its staggering time-scale, and with interest in the Moon growing again we are going to see domed-over-crater cities on the Moon many, many years before we even send lichen to Mars.

Beagle isn't "Lost in space" at all, it's just not calling home yet. I still believe it will, and when it does it will have a very good chance of changing and shaping the course of Mars exploration for the next twenty years or so. This isn't a competition, Beagle and the MERs are doing different jobs, in different places, and comparing their relative merits is a bit irrelevent. But I won't have our "Plucky little Beagle" dismissed as being less use than the MERs.

I hope the MERs do find lots of water on Mars, it would be great to be able to look up at Mars on the next clear night after and think "Wow, there's water on there..."

But to look up at Mars and think "Wow, there's *life* on there..." well, wouldn't that be something? :-)

Stu

Josh Cryer · 2003-12-26 14:47:03

Well said, Stu. Like I said, I have my hopes high. Very high. I may be skeptical about it finding life (as I said in your article, I think), but I do fully accept the potential!

C'mon, Beagle 2!

kippy · 2003-12-26 15:17:28

Stu,

You make a lot of good points. You're right about finding life being a great catalyst for getting humans to Mars. There's nothing I could wish more for. My pessimism about Beagle?s fate is based on Mars? tendency to devour two thirds of missions sent to it. While the instrumentation on Beagle is no doubt more advanced than on the Viking lander, it sound like the life detection method is similar: heat up some dirt, oxidize it, see what chemicals come out. Viking did that and the best answer we got back was ?maybe?. I?m worried that if Beagle does find something interesting, that the best it?s going to give us is ?probably? and not a ?yes?. For all any of us know, all the life on Mars is a kilometer deep. I?ll give Beagle my best wishes but I?ve got my expectations set very, very low that it will find any positive signs of life.

On the water thing, I would say that finding water is almost as exciting as finding life. If there is a large amount of water under the surface, it would mean that Martian colonization is possible. Without it, the world is a lot more closed to us.

So I?ve got high hopes for Beagle. I?ve been checking the web ever since early Christmas day. Water, life, I want them to find it all.

Rxke · 2003-12-26 17:13:08

Great comment, Stu! Hope history'll show you're right on Beagle 2!

Oh boy, do I hope jan, 4 will bring us news about the 'The little probe that Could!'

Christina · 2003-12-27 02:06:36

After all, Express was always the main mission. Beagle was a small add-on. A nice-to-have.

Stu · 2003-12-27 03:21:09

"A small add-on" eh?

Well, I bet that if Beagle is found, and discovers life, everyone, and every country, with even a tiny, tiny involvement with it will be declaring how they were the most vital contributor, and had *always* been 1000% behind it.

Stu

Josh Cryer · 2003-12-27 05:28:03

I sincerely hope that she is detected by Odyssey or Mars Express, in the coming days, even though my inital interest in Mars Express was relatively low (I keep rediscovering the camera on that thing and I astound myself, heh). I'm truely hoping that Beagle 2 will wake up, and I believe that the odds are sill in her favor.

But NASA's rovers have piped my interest moreso than Beagle 2 (primarily because I think NASA has far superior press coverage than EASA, and information will be far more readily available; they've been down this road several times, and all; remember Pathfinder? Most looked at site... in history. I expect the same for the MER sites). The only thing I don't like is the darn Flash all over nasa.gov. It makes it darned near impossible to find the actual rover site. I'm sure they'll remedy this in the coming days, but still.

Here's the main Mars Rover site: http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.html

Shaun Barrett · 2003-12-27 06:24:55

Hi Stu!
I admire your well justified optimism at this stage of the search for Beagle 2; you're quite right in saying the game isn't over yet.
If we ever get around to going to Mars, though, I feel reasonably confident that an attempt at terraforming will take place sooner than "many hundreds of years, if ever". The development of domed-over-crater cities on the Moon, on the other hand, I have trouble visualising. Here at New Mars, we've gone into the basic technical requirements of creating domes over cities on Mars, an essentially similar task to domes on Luna, and the problems of containing the awesome upward forces on the domes themselves demand extreme engineering solutions.
On Mars, rich in all the minerals needed by modern industry and rich in water and other volatiles, where humans could live and work, the incentive to achieve such demanding technological feats would be enough to ensure they are attempted. On our desolate Moon, devoid of volatiles, completely lacking an atmosphere, and with its enervatingly low gravity, I have the most serious doubts that anyone will ever live there for more than a few months at a time, nor ever want to! Large settlements seem to me to be not only unlikely but also unnecessary. Small scientific outposts or mining colonies are probably all that will ever be built there, unless a low-gravity playground for wealthy tourists is added to the list.

Domes may well be the first stage of Mars colonisation but, soon after the first domes are constructed, the impetus toward terraforming will be irresistible. Even if the atmosphere could be thickened up to about 350 millibars of CO2, that at least would allow the domes thereafter to be made very much bigger because the enormous pressure differential problem across the dome material would be eliminated.

This may sound like sacrilege but the possible loss of Beagle 2's life-seeking experiments doesn't really trouble me greatly. To my mind, the likelihood of DNA-based life (i.e. the same basic plan as terrestrial life) being found on Mars is very high; in fact, I'd be simply amazed if it proved not to be the case. For me at least, Beagle 2 might raise the probability from 99.5% to 100%!
While it would be nice to know for absolute certain that there are microbes on Mars, it would hardly be Earth-shaking news for me. But the consequences for future crewed missions could be rather less rosy than you outline in your post. As soon as Beagle 2 or some such craft discovers irrefutable proof of biological activity in the martian soil, there'll be the predictable flurry of demands that a sample is returned to a secure quarantine facility on Earth, or in Earth orbit, for detailed analysis. All the usual concerns will be raised by the usual suspects about man-eating pathogens eating our astronauts alive on Mars or, worse, coming home with them at the end of the mission to eat all of us here at home!
The other side of the coin will be the reaction of the anti-technology 'bug-hugging greenies' (a la NovaMarsollia), who'll start on about the evils of imposing our imperialistic will on the fragile martian ecosystem.
All of these people seem oblivious to the fact that life has been hitch-hiking both ways between Mars and Earth for as long as the solar system has existed, and that various contaminated probes from Earth have crashed onto Mars periodically since the 1960s!
The prospect of damaging bio-transfer in either direction is thus vanishingly small - essentially zero - but we'll still be required to take elaborate precautions costing billions and lasting decades, before we can send a human to explore Mars. Send me on Mars Direct! Let me be your guinea pig. I have absolutely no fear whatsoever of martian germs because they'll be the same familiar germs I left behind on Earth. Even if I'm wrong (zero chance, in my view), I'll have over 500 days to develop the symptoms of Martian Myopia or Red-Planet-Rubella and drop dead. The perfect quarantine period, 500 days and 100 million kilometres from the rest of humanity!
Ask any astronaut and I practically guarantee you s/he'll say the same thing: "Where do I sign up for the first trip?!"

No, for now it's probably better we should go on thinking Mars is sterile and coated in weird and wonderful superoxides. Nevertheless, a part of me still wants Beagle 2 to phone home!
:;):

Palomar · 2003-12-27 06:30:53

"A small add-on" eh?
Well, I bet that if Beagle is found, and discovers life, everyone, and every country, with even a tiny, tiny involvement with it will be declaring how they were the most vital contributor, and had *always* been 1000% behind it.
Stu

*I completely agree.

I'm rather perplexed at a few opinions being expressed here about the Beagle, as if downplaying its importance and what the scientific community stands to lose if indeed it is lost.

Any additional information/data Beagle can return is invaluable.

--Cindy

Christina · 2003-12-27 07:44:29

Mars Express is the major part of the European mission - Beagle was a late add-on.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3351023.stm

Just stating facts....

and being frightfully British about the whole thing - stiff upper lip and all that, hey what?

Stu · 2003-12-27 08:18:06

It would be a lot more constructive, and supportive of the Beagle team, and dare I say "patriotic", to not dismiss Beagle as an "add on" and give it the credit it's due. Many people seem to be forgetting that as well as looking for life, Beagle's mission - like that of each MER - includes the detailed study of the interiors of martian rocks with a grinding tool and microscope, studies of the chemistry of the soils and dusts around the lander, weather measurements, photo recces etc etc.

Not at all bad for an add-on.

Stu

Mark · 2003-12-27 08:21:16

"A small add-on" eh?

Stu

I think some people maybe say that at this stage to try and neutralize any growing disappointment with the whole Mars Express + Beagle2 mission thus far, with the failure of detecting signals from Beagle2 so far.

I for one am glad that the Mars Express is in successful orbit now, but am still hopeful of signal from the Beagle 2. As it was stated, the best chance of receiving Beagle 2 signals is through the Mars Express, which was specifically also designed to pick up the Beagle 2's signal.

Josh Cryer · 2003-12-27 08:54:55

I'd read a rumor that the Beagle 2 airbags weren't tested before launch. I just did some googling and found a link dispelling this myth. Yes, there were airbag problems, but they seemed to get them kinked out in time for launch (with adequate testing also performed). So, really... let's wait for Mars Express before really getting worried.

Stu · 2003-12-27 09:04:43

Josh,

Yes, those airbags were a royal pain in the... ;-) But you're right, they did get them to work, after a re-design (which was shown in the excellent 3 part BBC documentary about the Beagle project. I don't know if it has been shown in the US, but it was recently repeated here in the UK, and many people took the opportunity to tape it. It was a VERY honest "fly on the wall" record of the project from its birth in Colin Pilinger's mule-stubborn imagination right thru to launch, with fascinating insights into the way projects like this evolve and change. I can recommend it very highly if it crops up on US tv), and no-one is too worried that they're the cause of any of the problems we're facing at the moment - although some people are speculating that perhaps Beagle landed in a very rocky area and the airbags, after being jettisoned, weren't able to fully clear the lander itself and might be blocking the signal. It's all just guesswork, any theory anyone puts forward now is just a guess. We might as well say that Beagle hasn't phoned home yet because there's a mouse trapped inside, or because Princess Thuvia found it and took it home to display in her palace.

Guesswork, guesswork, guesswork.

Sigh.

Stu

Josh Cryer · 2003-12-28 05:18:10

Man, Beagle 2 has a lot of insturments. They packed a lot into that small space. Three cameras, a mass spectrometer (there's your life detector right there), an x-ray detector. A UV sensor, a temperature sensor, a pressure sensor, a wind gauge, dust impact detectors (to measure how dusty it is). And there were other sensors to determine what happened as it decended into the atmosphere. Beagle 2 has over 15 different experiments it can preform, far more than most other probes (the last probe to land on Mars, Pathfinder, had very few in comparasion).

The MER robots don't have a mass spectrometer (though they do have magnificant cameras, which I am so excited to see). And the microscope couldn't possibly discover bacterial life, larger fossils or small plantlife might be recognizable, though.

Stu · 2003-12-28 05:45:07

>> Man, Beagle 2 has a lot of insturments.

Yep, that's precisely the reason why my grrr-ometer flies to the end of the scale when it's called an "add-on". That bike-wheel sized probe is ahead of its time, an illustration of how a small, dedicated, and virtually-independant team of scientists, engineers and visionaries can explore another world. Colin Pillinger almost single-handedly raised the money for it by convincing/lobbying/bullying businesses, politicians and organisations, and when things got tough he was the guy who kept pushing and pushing against all the odds. He's been hailed as a hero in the run-up to the landing, embraced as the classic, stereotypical eccentric Brit boffin... but now because there's been no word from Beagle YET many of the politicians and media types who were happy to be photographed next to him on Christmas day morning, and bask in his publicity, are edging away, and we can almost hear knives being sharpened in the shadows, ready to be plunged into his back if no word is heard on or after Jan 4th. It's pathetic.

God, I hope Beagle wakes up, and completes its mission, if only so Colin P and the rest of the guys behind it can laugh in the faces of everyone who put Beagle down and gave up on it prematurely. I hope he'll remind them of that fact. I know I will ;-)

Glad the link is useful Josh, I use it all the time. Very busy year ahead next year, not just for spaceflight enthusiasts but for us amateur astronomers too - TWO total lunar eclipses, Venus transitting the Sun, not one but *two* naked eye (hopefully!) comets in May, most of the major meteor showers unaffected by the phase of the Moon, and Saturn in the news because of Cassini. And, of course, an increase in the general level of interest in space and astronomy following the hopefully succesful landings of the MERs.

Roll on '04.

Stu

Gennaro · 2003-12-28 12:24:48

Hear, hear!

bmk · 2003-12-29 01:41:28

Scientists waiting to hear from Beagle 2 on Mars
Barutiwa News Service
Filed on December 29, 2003 @ 1:30 AM EDT

London, England (BNS) - AT the time of writing no one has heard from Beagle 2. The small micro-like robotic spacecraft was scheduled to land on Mars several days ago. "We need to get Beagle 2 into a period when it can broadcast for a much longer period," says Professor Colin Pillinger, Beagle 2 lead scientist. "This will happen around the 4th of January after the spacecraft has experienced a sufficient number of communication failures to switch to automatic transmission mode." Both Professor Pillinger and Professor David Southwood, ESA Director of Science, agreed that the best chance to establish communication with Beagle 2 would now seem to be through Mars Express.

Scientists and engineers are eagerly awaiting the Mars Express spacecraft to fly close enough to Mars so an attempt to establish contact with Beagle 2 can be accomplished. This is expected to happen on January 4, 2004.
----------------
Distributed via EndeavorLink on telnet://endeavorlink.myip.us

Stu · 2003-12-29 07:20:45

Reports on BBC radio and websites, following this morning's briefing from the Beagle team, are putting forward a theory that Beagle may have landed in a 1km wide crater just found in the centre of the landing ellipse. This crater was identified on images taken by the NASA Mars Global Surveyor, and the MGS imaging team sent the Beagle team an image of the crater late last night.

Full story, and pic, here
http://www.spaceflightnow.com/mars/mars … rater.html

Few points...

* Unlikely Beagle is in the crater, it would be VERY unlucky if it
was.

* Even if it is in the crater, craters aren't like wells, they aren't abyss-like, so if Beagle is in the crater it's not as if it's fallen into a bottomless pit like Gandalf and that Balrog...

* The existence of the crater does, however, mean that there would me many more rocks and boulders in the landing zone than previously thought. When craters are formed a lot of debris comes hurtling out, and falls back to the ground, making a very dangerous area for a probe of ANY kind to land in. If Beagle came down near the crater it would have fallen into a much more hazardous rockfield than hoped for, with consequences for opening-up, airbag jettisoning, communications etc.

Still a long way to go tho, and this is by no means a "smoking gun".

Stu

Stu · 2003-12-29 10:52:26

The Sky From Beagle

Having seen pictures sent back by the Viking and Pathfinder probes, we?re all pretty familiar with the appearance of the rock-strewn landscape which Beagle hopefully landed on Christmas Day, and the MERs will land on next month, but have you ever wondered what the sky would look like if you were stood beside one of the probes on Mars? Or, more, specifically, what the night sky would look like? Well, because I have, often, I?ve been playing about with ? sorry, I mean carefully experimenting with ? my planetarium software (STARRY NIGHT, for the record, excellent program) to see what Beagle?s view of the sky would have been after dark on the day of its landing, and in the hope it?s of interest to a few people in the Group I thought I?d let you know what I found when I set the timer on the program. Note: although the following details are specific to the first evening of Beagle?s stay as far as times are concerned, they?re still fairly accurate for the sky Beagle will be seeing now, and for the view you?d get if you were standing next to one of the MERs after they arrive in Jan, the appearances and positions of the planets won't change very much between now and then, so take your pick, ok? :-)

(Note 2: some experts insist that because Mars? atmosphere is very dusty ? something the pictures taken by Viking and Pathfinder show very clearly ? its night sky will be ruined by haze, and only the brightest stars and planets would be seen. I like to be more optimistic and think that because the atmosphere would settle down at night after the dust devils stopped blowing, and because Mars? atmosphere is thinner than Earth?s, and because there?s no pollution (chemical or ?light?) there, the night sky on Mars could actually be very nice, possibly as good as Earth?s at times when winds have cleared some of the dust away, so hereafter I?m assuming it?s a ?good? clear night on Mars? ;-) )

Okay, so what would you see, standing there on Mars after dark? Well, on a ?good? night, the sky above Beagle 2 ? or the MER of your choice in January - might well be ablaze with stars. I like to think the brighter ones would be reflected in its solar arrays too. So, the first thing you?d notice standing there would be stars. Lots and lots of stars.

By midnight, if you looked to the south east, you would see the familiar hourglass-shape of Orion shining above the horizon, but from Beagle?s landing site at least it would appear to be upside down compared to our view of it from here in the UK. Instead of being the farthest from it, Betelgeuse, the red giant star marking The Hunter?s left shoulder, would be closest to the horizon, and possibly blazing with an even more pronounced red hue thanks to atmospheric dust?? Below and to the right of Orion, Sirius, brightest star in the sky, would be a silvery-blue beacon, but it might take you a few moments to figure out why it looked ?wrong?: here on Earth, at least from the UK?s latitude, we?re accustomed to seeing Sirius flashing and sparkling in the sky with a multitude of colours because it is always very close to the horizon, and therefore its light is always significantly distorted by the trembling of the atmosphere, but on Mars its light would be steadier and more intense. It would be very strange to see Sirius not twinkling like crazy?

To the north-east, the yellow-tinged star Capella would be shining brightly, just to the right of a short, faint smudge of light ? a comet called Linear T7. At the moment T7 it is too faint to see with the naked eye from here on Earth, but from Mars, with its thinner air and zero pollution, it should just about be visible to the naked eye?

Low in the east, above and to the right of Castor and Pollux, the two brightest stars of Gemini, you?d see a bright golden-coloured star which isn?t really a star at all, but the planet Saturn. Saturn is easily visible to the unaided eye from Earth ? in fact it?s very easy to see from the northern hemisphere after dark right now ? and you might think that because Mars is slightly closer to Saturn than Earth, the Ringed Planet would appear brighter from the surface of the Red Planet, but the difference in distance is so small Saturn wouldn?t look much better at all.

And assuming the sky wasn't too dusty, in the background, dominating everything, would be The Milky Way. Only really visible from dark sites here on Earth, the Milky Way could be so bright from the airless surface of Mars that it would look like it had been airbrushed across the sky.Mottled here and there with bright star clouds and obscuring areas of dust, it could look very three-dimensional compared to our terrestrial views?

At some point thru the night you?d see a brilliant ?star? moving overhead, a lantern-bright spark of light so bright it would actually cast shadows behind you as it skated swiftly through the constellations. Very quickly it would pass overhead and then fall towards the eastern horizon, passing to Saturn?s left before vanishing behind the distant hills. This ?star? would be Phobos, Mars? largest and closest moon. We?ll come back to Phobos later on?

Deimos, smaller and farther away than Phobos, wouldn?t look anywhere near as impressive.

Three hours before sunrise a new ?star? would appear above the eastern horizon, strikingly-bright and a gorgeous blue-white colour. Again, this star is actually a planet ? Jupiter, largest world of all Earth?s brothers and sisters. Given Mars? thin air and good seeing, perhaps a keen-eyed observer would be able to spot some or all four of the famous ?Galilean Moons? with their naked eye..?

Half an hour later, with the eastern sky starting to lighten, taking on a dark plum hue, yet another new ?star? would slide up from behind the eastern horizon. But this one is very special, and just its colour ? its beautiful blue-green ? would give away its true nature, because standing beside Beagle 2 two hours before sunrise you would see Earth shining in the sky, a dazzling ?Morning Star?, almost as bright as Venus appears here from Earth. If you had a pair of binoculars clipped to your belt ? or maybe a ?Magnify? function on your visor ? you?d be able to zoom-in and see the Moon hugging close to Earth, a silvery glint compared to the sapphire- and emerald-hued star of Earth. And a telescope trained on Earth on the morning of Beagle's landing would have shown it as a broad crescent, with the rich green mass of South America just visible through the clouds?

With half an hour to go until your local sunrise the sky would be brightening rapidly, and only the brightest stars would still be visible. The Milky Way would have faded from view, and Saturn and Jupiter would be visible only as tiny glints, but Earth would still be easy to find, and if anything its blue hue would be enhanced by the contrast with the burning pink and lavender sky behind it. But if you looked a couple of fingers? width above the eastern horizon you might just glimpse the planet Mercury shining there, at the end of a diagonal line of four planets, all beautiful, all pointing towards the rising Sun?

Then sunrise, and Mercury, Jupiter, Saturn and Earth would all vanish as the sky was reclaimed by the brilliant Sun. The Sun that will shine on Beagle 2 is a pale imitation of the one that shines on Earth - less than two thirds as large - and that shrunken Sun will provide very little heat in the brittle martian air? but there would still be more than enough light to allow you, and Beagle?s cameras, to see the delicate frost that covered the surrounding rocks overnight disappear with the first touch of the Sun?s rays?

Not a bad view, I think you?ll agree ;-)

I mentioned we?d come back to Phobos. Well, everyone knows that we can see solar eclipses here on Earth when the Moon passes in front of the Sun. This can happen on Mars too, but not a) twice as often because Mars has two moons, and b) not as dramatically, because the moons are much, much smaller. But if you?re in the right place at the right time you can experience a ?kind of solar eclipse? on Mars, when Phobos flies past the Sun? and if my program is working right, and if Beagle 2 landed near the centre of its planned landing ellipse (and isn?t barking from the bottom of a crater), it will experience a ?Phobos eclipse? mid-morning on February 7th. If you were standing beside Beagle at that time you?d notice the world around you grow darker for a few moments as Phobos covered part of the Sun, and as the moon?s shadow rippled over the rocky plain towards you, you might just be able to see a dark ?notch? taken out of the lower right part of the Sun?s disc before the eclipse finished and full daylight returned.

I wonder if any measurements taken by Beagle at that time will record a drop in air temperature or surface brightness? Would be nice to be proved right ;-)

(Such eclipses will occur for the MERs too, I?m sure, I just haven?t worked out the details yet).

Hands up who?d like to see all that for real one day..?

Stu

Josh Cryer · 2003-12-29 11:51:28

::hands up::

Beautiful Stu. You Brits are so great, heh. C'mon Beagle 2!

Josh Cryer · 2003-12-29 11:54:09

Okay, I just did the worst thing, I expanded this thread. Anyone who reads this, and hasn't read Stu's long post, please head to page 3 and read it (last post), it's really great.

Stu, how did you grok what the sky would look like? I guess just by how Mars' orbit is?

Lovely stuff.

Edit: BTW, shouldn't Saturn be bright as all heck? It's the brightest object in the sky isn't it? Closest approach to Earth in Dec. Not sure where Mars is in respect to Earth, though. Didn't Cindy say it's seeable in the daytime if you're lucky? Hmm.

Stu · 2003-12-29 12:05:17

Stu, how did you grok what the sky would look like? I guess just by how Mars' orbit is?
Edit: BTW, shouldn't Saturn be bright as all heck? It's the brightest object in the sky isn't it?

No owrk on my part, just a few mins messing about with STARRY NIGHT. Like most good planetarium programs, it lets you you "relocate" to another body in the solar system, so you can look at the sky from the Moon, Mars, Miranda, Halley's Comet, anywhere really. It's very cool and very easy - just a few clicks of a mouse button and whoosh, there you are, standing on Olympus Mons or the Sea of Tranquility. :-)

As for Saturn's brightness, nope, it wouldn't be much brighter than from here, because although it's a teeny bit closer to Mars than to Earth, that distance is hardly anything in cosmic terms. It's a bit like expecting a streetlight a mile away to get brighter just because you've taken three steps forward ;-)

Stu

Palomar · 2003-12-29 18:17:54

Edit: BTW, shouldn't Saturn be bright as all heck? It's the brightest object in the sky isn't it? Closest approach to Earth in Dec. Not sure where Mars is in respect to Earth, though. Didn't Cindy say it's seeable in the daytime if you're lucky? Hmm.

*Nope...that was Jupiter (different thread).

Saturn is currently in Gemini, by the way. Easily seeable in the eastern sky 2 to 3 hours after sunset. And at about that same time Mars is overhead and abit to the west (in Pisces) currently. It's not quite so bright anymore either (about as bright as an average unaided-eye star).

--Cindy

Shaun Barrett · 2003-12-29 20:51:28

That was a beautiful description of the martian night sky, Stu. It felt like I was there and I swear I felt a shiver run up my spine as the intense cold seeped through my suit insulation!
" .. brittle martian air... " I love it! I can almost hear the muffled crunch of frosty sand under my boot.

My hands are up so high I almost dislocated my shoulders!

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#26 2003-12-26 14:15:58

Re: Beagle 2 - What's happening?

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Re: Beagle 2 - What's happening?

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Re: Beagle 2 - What's happening?

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Re: Beagle 2 - What's happening?

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Re: Beagle 2 - What's happening?

#31 2003-12-27 03:21:09

Re: Beagle 2 - What's happening?

#32 2003-12-27 05:28:03

Re: Beagle 2 - What's happening?

#33 2003-12-27 06:24:55

Re: Beagle 2 - What's happening?

#34 2003-12-27 06:30:53

Re: Beagle 2 - What's happening?

#35 2003-12-27 07:44:29

Re: Beagle 2 - What's happening?

#36 2003-12-27 08:18:06

Re: Beagle 2 - What's happening?

#37 2003-12-27 08:21:16

Re: Beagle 2 - What's happening?

#38 2003-12-27 08:54:55

Re: Beagle 2 - What's happening?

#39 2003-12-27 09:04:43

Re: Beagle 2 - What's happening?

#40 2003-12-28 05:18:10

Re: Beagle 2 - What's happening?

#41 2003-12-28 05:45:07

Re: Beagle 2 - What's happening?

#42 2003-12-28 12:24:48

Re: Beagle 2 - What's happening?

#43 2003-12-29 01:41:28

Re: Beagle 2 - What's happening?

#44 2003-12-29 07:20:45

Re: Beagle 2 - What's happening?

#45 2003-12-29 10:52:26

Re: Beagle 2 - What's happening?

#46 2003-12-29 11:51:28

Re: Beagle 2 - What's happening?

#47 2003-12-29 11:54:09

Re: Beagle 2 - What's happening?

#48 2003-12-29 12:05:17

Re: Beagle 2 - What's happening?

#49 2003-12-29 18:17:54

Re: Beagle 2 - What's happening?

#50 2003-12-29 20:51:28

Re: Beagle 2 - What's happening?

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