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Phoenix (spacecraft)
''Phoenix'' was an uncrewed space probe that landed on the surface of Mars on May 25, 2008, and operated until November 2, 2008. ''Phoenix'' was operational on Mars for sols ( days). Its instruments were used to assess the local habitability and to research the history of water on Mars. The mission was part of the Mars Scout Program; its total cost was $420 million, including the cost of launch. The multi-agency program was led by the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory at the University of Arizona, with project management by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Academic and industrial partners included universities in the United States, Canada, Switzerland, Denmark, Germany, the United Kingdom, NASA, the Canadian Space Agency, the Finnish Meteorological Institute, Lockheed Martin Space Systems, MacDonald Dettwiler & Associates (MDA) and other aerospace companies. It was the first NASA mission to Mars led by a public university. ''Phoenix'' was NASA's sixth successful landin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Star Trek
''Star Trek'' is an American science fiction media franchise created by Gene Roddenberry, which began with the eponymous 1960s television series and quickly became a worldwide pop-culture phenomenon. The franchise has expanded into various films, television series, video games, novels, and comic books. With an estimated $10.6 billion in revenue, it is one of the most recognizable and highest-grossing media franchises of all time. The franchise began with '' Star Trek: The Original Series'', which debuted in the US on September 8, 1966 and aired for three seasons on NBC. It was first broadcast on September 6, 1966 on Canada's CTV network. It followed the voyages of the crew of the starship USS ''Enterprise'', a space exploration vessel built by the United Federation of Planets in the 23rd century, on a mission "to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before". In creating ''Star Trek'', Roddenberry ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Airy Mean Time
Though no standard exists, numerous calendars and other timekeeping approaches have been proposed for the planet Mars. The most commonly seen in the scientific literature denotes the time of year as the number of degrees from the northern vernal equinox, and increasingly there is use of numbering the Martian years beginning at the equinox that occurred April 11, 1955.). Mars has an axial tilt and a rotation period similar to those of Earth. Thus, it experiences seasons of spring, summer, autumn and winter much like Earth. A sol, or Martian day, is less than an hour longer than an Earth day. A Mars year is almost twice as long as Earth's, though its orbital eccentricity is considerably larger, which causes those seasons to vary significantly in length. Sols The average length of a Martian sidereal day is (88,642.663 seconds based on SI units), and the length of its solar day is (88,775.244 seconds). The corresponding values for Earth are currently and , respectively, w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
MacDonald Dettwiler
MDA Ltd. is a Canadian space technology company headquartered in Brampton, Ontario, Canada, that provides geointelligence, robotics & space operations, and satellite systems. History MDA (formerly MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates) was founded in 1969 by John S. MacDonald and Vern Dettwiler in the basement of MacDonald's Vancouver home. The company became a subsidiary of Orbital Sciences Corporation (OSC) from the United States on 17 November 1995. MDA was primary contractor for, and took ownership of, the RADARSAT-2 Earth observation satellite. MDA bought the space robotics division of Spar Aerospace—manufacturer of the Canadarm—in March 1999, renaming it MD Robotics. The company completed the Mobile Servicing System (including the Canadarm2) for the International Space Station. OSC sold its entire stake in 2001. Nearly 70% was sold to a group of Canadian investors; the Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan (OTPP) became the largest shareholder with a 29% stake. In t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Finnish Meteorological Institute
The Finnish Meteorological Institute (FMI; fi, Ilmatieteen laitos; sv, Meteorologiska institutet) is the government agency responsible for gathering and reporting weather data and forecasts in Finland. It is a part of the Ministry of Transport and Communications but it operates semi-autonomously. The Institute is an impartial research and service organisation with expertise covering a wide range of atmospheric science activities other than gathering and reporting weather data and forecasts. The headquarters of the Institute is in Kumpula Campus, Helsinki, Finland. Services FMI provides weather forecasts for aviation, traffic, shipping and media as well as private citizens via internet and mobile devices. It also has air quality services. For sea areas, it provides information about ice cover, sea level changes and waves. In 2013 FMI made openly available data sets such as weather, sea and climate observation data, time series and model data. The open data is targeted to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Canadian Space Agency
The Canadian Space Agency (CSA; french: Agence spatiale canadienne, ASC) is the national space agency of Canada, established in 1990 by the ''Canadian Space Agency Act''. The president is Lisa Campbell, who took the position on September 3, 2020. The agency is responsible to the minister of innovation, science and industry. The CSA's headquarters are located at the John H. Chapman Space Centre in Longueuil, Quebec. The agency also has offices in Ottawa, Ontario, and small liaison offices in Houston; Washington, D.C.; and Paris. History The origins of the Canadian upper atmosphere and space program can be traced back to the end of the Second World War. Between 1945 and 1960, Canada undertook a number of small launcher and satellite projects under the aegis of defence research, including the development of the Black Brant rocket as well as series of advanced studies examining both orbital rendezvous and re-entry. In 1957, scientists and engineers at the Canadian Defence Resea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lunar And Planetary Laboratory
The Lunar and Planetary Laboratory (LPL) is a research center for planetary science located in Tucson, Arizona. It is also a graduate school, constituting the Department of Planetary Sciences at the University of Arizona. LPL is one of the world's largest programs dedicated exclusively to planetary science in a university setting. The Lunar and Planetary Lab collection is held at the University of Arizona Special Collections Library. Background LPL was founded in 1960 by astronomer Gerard Kuiper. Kuiper had long been a pioneer in observing the Solar System, especially the Moon, at a time when this was unfashionable among astronomers. Among his contributions are the discovery of Miranda and Nereid, the detection of carbon dioxide on Mars and of methane on Titan, and the prediction of the Kuiper Belt. Kuiper came to Tucson looking for greater independence than he had enjoyed at the University of Chicago, the chance to build a community dedicated to solar system studies, and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Water On Mars
Almost all water on Mars today exists as ice, though it also exists in small quantities as vapor in the atmosphere. What was thought to be low-volume liquid brines in shallow Martian soil, also called recurrent slope lineae, may be grains of flowing sand and dust slipping downhill to make dark streaks.Recurring Martian Streaks: Flowing Sand, Not Water? Nasa.org 2017-11-20 The only place where water ice is visible at the surface is at the north polar ice cap. Abundant water ice is also present beneath the permanent |
Planetary Habitability
Planetary habitability is the measure of a planet's or a natural satellite's potential to develop and maintain environments hospitable to life. Life may be generated directly on a planet or satellite endogenously or be transferred to it from another body, through a hypothetical process known as panspermia. Environments do not need to contain life to be considered habitable nor are accepted habitable zones (HZ) the only areas in which life might arise. As the existence of life beyond Earth is unknown, planetary habitability is largely an extrapolation of conditions on Earth and the characteristics of the Sun and Solar System which appear favorable to life's flourishing. Of particular interest are those factors that have sustained complex, multicellular organisms on Earth and not just simpler, unicellular creatures. Research and theory in this regard is a component of a number of natural sciences, such as astronomy, planetary science and the emerging discipline of astrobiol ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Days
A day is the time period of a full rotation of the Earth with respect to the Sun. On average, this is 24 hours, 1440 minutes, or 86,400 seconds. In everyday life, the word "day" often refers to a solar day, which is the length between two solar noons or times the Sun reaches the highest point. The word "day" may also refer to ''daytime'', a time period when the location receives direct and indirect sunlight. On Earth, as a location passes through its day, it experiences morning, noon, afternoon, evening, and night. The effect of a day is vital to many life processes, which is called the circadian rhythm. A collection of sequential days is organized into calendars as dates, almost always into weeks, months and years. Most calendars' arrangement of dates use either or both the Sun with its four seasons (solar calendar) or the Moon's phasing (lunar calendar). The start of a day is commonly accepted as roughly the time of the middle of the night or midnight, written as 00: ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
MAVEN
MAVEN is an American spacecraft orbiting Mars to study the loss of its atmospheric gases to space, providing insight into the history of the planet's climate and water. The spacecraft name is an acronym for "Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution" and also a word that means "a person who has special knowledge or experience; an expert". MAVEN was launched on an Atlas V rocket from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida, on 18 November 2013 UTC and went into orbit around Mars on 22 September 2014 UTC. The mission is the first by NASA to study the Mars atmosphere. The probe is analyzing the planet's upper atmosphere and ionosphere to examine how and at what rate the solar wind is stripping away volatile compounds. The principal investigator for the mission is Shannon Curry at the University of California, Berkeley. She took over from Bruce Jakosky of the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado Boulder, who proposed and led the mission unti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mars Scout Program
Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun and the second-smallest planet in the Solar System, only being larger than Mercury. In the English language, Mars is named for the Roman god of war. Mars is a terrestrial planet with a thin atmosphere (less than 1% that of Earth's), and has a crust primarily composed of elements similar to Earth's crust, as well as a core made of iron and nickel. Mars has surface features such as impact craters, valleys, dunes and polar ice caps. It has two small and irregularly shaped moons, Phobos and Deimos. Some of the most notable surface features on Mars include Olympus Mons, the largest volcano and highest known mountain in the Solar System and Valles Marineris, one of the largest canyons in the Solar System. The Borealis basin in the Northern Hemisphere covers approximately 40% of the planet and may be a large impact feature. Days and seasons on Mars are comparable to those of Earth, as the planets have a similar rotation period and ti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thermal And Evolved Gas Analyzer
The Thermal and Evolved Gas Analyzer (TEGA) is a scientific instrument aboard the ''Phoenix'' spacecraft, a Mars lander which landed and operated on the planet Mars in 2008. TEGA's design is based on experience gained from the failed Mars Polar Lander. Soil samples taken from the Martian surface by the robot arm are eventually delivered to the TEGA, where they are heated in an oven to about 1,000 °C. This heat causes the volatile compounds to be given off as gases which are sent to a mass spectrometer for analysis. This spectrometer is adjusted to measure particularly the isotope ratios for oxygen, carbon, nitrogen, and heavier gases. Detection values are as low as 10 parts per billion. The Phoenix TEGA has 8 ovens, which are enough for 8 samples. Major components: *Differential Scanning Calorimeter *Mass Spectrometer The soil was delivered to TEGA by a robotic arm with a scoop. See also *CheMin *Sample Analysis at Mars * Urey instrument * Viking lander biological ex ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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