On January 4th, 2025 at 8:28 a.m. EST, Earth will reach perihelion, the point in its orbit when it is closest to the sun. Then why is it so cold, at least in the northern hemisphere? Winter—indeed all seasons—don’t depend…
Category: Mars
Mars Is Ready For Its Closeup
Why does something look big? Is it because it actually IS big, or is it because it is close to us? The closest celestial body to the Earth is our Moon. It’s an object that’s very easy to see without…
A Crater, a Rocket Designer, and a Sci-Fi TV Show
nealsumerlin
Posted in human spaceflight, Mars, Rocket Science, Sergei Korolev, Spacecraft
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A MARTIAN CRATER Korolev Crater on Mars is located in the far north of that planet, in the low plains that surround the northern polar regions. Its site is marked by a red star at the upper left of the…
Mars, Humans, and Nuclear Power
Getting humans to Mars will be hard. Getting them back safely to Earth will be harder. Let’s look at what it will take. We’re going to get successively more technical as we go, so if you want to bail out…
Tagged with: Nuclear Thermal Propulsion
Clocks and Calendars on Other Worlds
What time is it on the moon? You may have read that the European Space Agency is proposing that an international organization be responsible for setting and maintaining lunar time. Why might that be necessary? And what’s wrong with good…
Tagged with: timekeeping
Gas Station on Mars
This Thursday February 18th at 3:55 p.m. EST, the Mars Perseverance rover will either land in a crater on Mars—or perhaps create a new one. The “seven minutes of terror” involves a complex sequence of timed events to take a…
Invasion From Earth!
Three spacecraft launched last summer will all arrive at Mars soon. The first is the United Arab Emirates’ Hope mission, which will begin firing its rocket engine to go into Mars orbit at 10:30 a.m. EST on Tuesday, February 9th.…
Mars Is Hard
Every 26 months, when Mars and Earth align themselves properly, a launch window opens to allow an efficient path to the red planet. Three spacecraft are currently on their way to arrive in February of next year. One of these…
The Arab World Goes To Mars
51 years ago today, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed their lunar module Eagle on the Sea of Tranquility. In 1969, the United States and the Soviet Union were the only spacefaring nations in the world. Yesterday (yesterday EDT; July…
BACK TO THE RED PLANET
There have been 18 attempts to land a spacecraft on Mars. Ten have succeeded. Nine of those ten have been NASA missions. The Soviet Union achieved the first landing, but communications were lost for good after only 15 seconds. Every…
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