What's happening in space (that's interesting)

The image needs a fix though …

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Can anyone name some of NASA’s stretch goals?

At least they stopped looking for Klingons. Huge waste of resources.

This is cool. Plucky New Zealanders make small rockets!

Wish Armadillo could have achieved this… ah well.

Mars in a Minute is a playlist of minute-long animated videos produced by NASA/JPL about sending robots to Mars. Great for kids of all ages, and awesome for getting ready for the Insight landing.

In this video, Rob Manning, chief engineer at NASA/JPL, tells you all about Insight and why it’s awesome.

One of the lesser-known feats of engineering that’s happening at the same time as the Insight landing? The MarCO cubesats! These tiny spacecraft hitched a ride part of the way to Mars with the sole purpose of providing relay communications for the landing. They are the first cubesats used in deep space. Pretty awesome.

Some more on the Insight landing.

That is super cool. I saw the headline in the Washington Post but thought it was for an upcoming launch.

For future reference it looks like the entry/landing is going to be around 3PM EST on November 26. You can watch the NASA livestream here.

So, not a rover this time.

http://www.solarham.net/

Signs of Cycle 25 becoming more common. Will it be the spotless bust some predicted? Will it be more or less like 24? stay tuned over the next 5 or 6 years to find out.

November 17, 2018 @ 14:55 UTC
Signs of Cycle 25
Although this plage region that popped up today may not appear to be something to write home about, it is located high enough in latitude and also appears to have the correct magnetic configuration to associate it with the upcoming Solar Cycle 25. This marks the second such region in the northern hemisphere in as many weeks. A very small spot that formed on November 9th also had the correct Cycle 25 configuration. We will likely see more regions just like this while isolated sunspots associated with Cycle 24 continue to appear near the solar equator. Eventually over the next year or two, Cycle 25 regions will outnumber those of the previous solar cycle and we will once again see a gradual increase in sunspots and solar flare activity. Image below by SDO/HMI.

More things need tiny helicopters!

Do you want the robot apocalypse? Because that’s how you get the robot apocalypse.

If anyone wondered if Jim B. was gonna be good for NASA? Nope:

They’re more concerned with Elon Musk doing something less dangerous than a little alcohol vs. Russians drilling holes in their cabins and dropping cranes on parts.

Also, I wonder what kind of lobbying power ULA is throwing around. With the billions they stand to lose, I’m guessing a lot.

The trump virus destroys all.

If movies and futuristic TV shows have taught me anything, this is the end of times. Flocks of robot drones will destroy us all.

Though they are quite cool to look at.

This just came out of nowhere! I need to get plugged back in.

I’d have more sympathy at the SpaceX concerns if we still had a public launch programme.

Insight is landing on Mars today at 3PM EST. Needless to say, going from 3.4 miles per second to a soft landing is tricky.

Where can we watch this?

less than one hour to go. Here’s my boarding pass: