~ Launch into Gold Coast Libraries these school holidays ~

For all things ‘Out Of This World’
6th to 16th April 2021
 
There are FREE space events and activities being held over these school holidays at Gold Coast Libraries for kids from 2 years to 12 years old.
 
As part of this exciting space event, presenter Noeleen Lowndes will deliver an astronomy experience for kids aged 7 years to 12 years. Noeleen is NASA’s SOC educator in Australia and a member of the Southern Astronomical Society on the Gold Coast.
 
Please go to the Gold Coast Libraries ‘What’s-on’ link below, as bookings to all events are essential:
​ https://new.goldcoast.qld.gov.au/libraries/Whats-on
 
Go deep into space with at-home resources and activities at:
https://new.goldcoast.qld.gov.au/libraries/Explore/Kids#panel-1-4
 
Astronomy & Space events for 7 -12 years
 
Destination to the planet Mars
Tuesday 6th April at Runaway Bay Library from 3.00pm to 3.45pm.
 
Our Amazing Moon
Tuesday 13th April at Nerang Library from 3.00pm to 3.45pm.
 
Starry Starry Night - How to learn the Night Sky
Friday 16th April at Elanora Library from 3.00pm to 3.45pm.
​

While coming back on the sea ferry across Moreton Bay, I looked up into the sky and saw this pretty Sun halo around the Sun and just as I took the picture a couple of welcome swallows flew by in the sea breeze :-) 
 
A solar halo is a very interesting optical phenomenon that’s caused by the Suns light interacting with ice crystals in very high cirrus type clouds. You can also see the same phenomenon when you have a full Moon in the night-time sky. Another interesting fact is this ring around the Sun or Moon is exactly 22 degrees!
 
You can find out more about the science of solar and lunar halos at:
https://www.atoptics.co.uk/halosim.htm
 
My image was taken on Sunday the 28th March 2021 with a Canon G7X camera Mark 11 camera; the exposure time was 1/400th second with ISO200 using manual focus.

This is the first 360-degree panorama taken by Mastcam-Z, a zoomable pair of cameras aboard NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover. The panorama was stitched together on Earth from 142 individual images taken on Sol 3, the third Martian day of the mission (Feb. 21, 2021).
Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS/ASU

​To read the story please go to:
https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-s-perseverance-rover-gives-high-definition-panoramic-view-of-landing-site

For more information about Perseverance
https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/

NASA's Mars 2020 Perseverance mission captured thrilling footage of its rover landing in Mars' Jezero Crater on Feb. 18, 2021.
 
The real footage in this video was captured by several cameras that are part of the rover's entry, descent, and landing suite.
 
The views include a camera looking down from the spacecraft's descent stage (a kind of rocket-powered jet pack that helps fly the rover to its landing site), a camera on the rover looking up at the descent stage, a camera on the top of the aeroshell (a capsule protecting the rover) looking up at that parachute, and a camera on the bottom of the rover looking down at the Martian surface.
 
The audio embedded in the video comes from the mission control call-outs during entry, descent, and landing.

​For more information about Perseverance, visit
​https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/ 

​Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Wow…that was just Amazing, the members of NASA’s Mars exploration team have done it again, just absolutely awesome!!!

Please go to the story on the NASA website link at:
https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/touchdown-nasas-mars-perseverance-rover-safely-lands-on-red-planet

Members of NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover team watch in mission control as the first images arrive moments after the spacecraft successfully touched down on Mars, Thursday, Feb. 18, 2021, at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. A key objective for Perseverance’s mission on Mars is astrobiology, including the search for signs of ancient microbial life.
 
The rover will characterize the planet’s geology and past climate, pave the way for human exploration of the Red Planet, and be the first mission to collect and cache Martian rock and regolith.
Credits: NASA/Bill Ingalls
​

NASA is inviting the public to take part in virtual activities and events as the agency’s Mars 2020 Perseverance rover nears entry, descent, and landing on the Red Planet, with touchdown scheduled for approximately 3:55 p.m. EST Thursday, Feb. 18.

Australian (AEST) Friday 19th at 6.55am Feb.19th
 
Live coverage and landing commentary from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California will begin at 2:15 p.m. on the NASA TV Public Channeland the agency’s website, as well as the NASA App, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitch, Daily Motion, and THETA.TV.

During landing, the rover will plunge through the thin Martian atmosphere at more than 12,000 mph (about 20,000 kph). A parachute and powered descent will slow the rover down to about 2 mph (3 kph). During what is known as the sky crane maneuver, the descent stage will lower the rover on three cables to land softly on six wheels at Jezero Crater.
 
Perseverance also is carrying a technology experiment – the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter – that will attempt the first powered, controlled flight on another planet.
 
“If there’s one thing we know, it’s that landing on Mars is never easy,” said NASA Associate Administrator for Communications Marc Etkind. “But as NASA’s fifth Mars rover, Perseverance has an extraordinary engineering pedigree and mission team. We are excited to invite the entire world to share this exciting event with us!”
NASA is offering many ways for the public to participate and stay up to date on landing information, mission highlights, and interaction opportunities.
 
To read more of this story and go to the many links please go to:
https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-invites-public-to-share-thrill-of-mars-perseverance-rover-landing
 
For more about Perseverance:
https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020
and
https://nasa.gov/perseverance
For more about Ingenuity:
https://mars.nasa.gov/technology/helicopter

NASA's Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover Landing Animations
This video depicts key events during entry, descent, and landing that will occur when NASA’s Perseverance rover lands on Mars February 18, 2021.
 
My other Mars blogs are at: http://www.mystardustobservatory.com/astro-blog/archives/07-2020

~ Thursday 18th February 2021 ~ 
ABC Science writer Genelle Weule has written an excellent article on Mars today,
please go to the link below to read all about this incredible mission to the red planet by NASA.
 
NASA's Perseverance rover gears up to land on Mars in 'seven minutes of terror'
 
https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2021-02-18/mars-perseverance-rover-nasa-seven-minutes-of-terror-landing/13164886
​

Just one day after the UAE ‘Hope Probe’ went into orbit about Mars the Chinese spacecraft named ‘Tianwen -1’ translated as ‘Heavenly Questions’ has gone into the Martian orbit about the planet. It includes and orbiter, lander and a Mars rover.
 
To read more about China’s Mars mission in English please go to:
http://www.cnsa.gov.cn/english/index.html
To read more about China’s Mars mission in Chinese please go to:
http://www.cnsa.gov.cn
 
To read see and read all about the first image taken by the spacecraft please go to:
http://www.cnsa.gov.cn/english/n6465652/n6465653/c6811227/content.html
 
More information on the mission at:
 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tianwen-1
 
Now for something different an excellent podcast from South China Morning Post:
China's Tianwen-1 Mars mission and its fast-growing space industry
 
SCMP journalist Nadeem Shad speaks with freelance space journalist and China space industry expert Andrew Jones about the Tianwen-1 mission to Mars, and the audacious plan to deliver a vehicle to the Martian surface. Hear how the other missions being sent by NASA and the United Arab Emirates are not a new 'space race', and how it might just take FBI permission to allow an American spacecraft to communicate with a Chinese one.
 
Hear also why 2020 was one of the busiest years in China's history of space travel - and how it is embracing the commercial market to private companies keen to launch vehicles into space. #scmppodcasts​

On the 9th February the UAE Hope Martian Probe entered into a Mars orbit Insertion and is now safely orbiting the red planet after a seven-month journey from Earth.
 
This is an incredible achievement for such a small country and only the fifth country to have done so, the Hope Probe will study the Martian atmosphere and climate and in the future the UAE Space Agency plan to make a Mars human settlement on the planet.
 
To find more about the mission please go to the following links:
https://www.emiratesmarsmission.ae
 
To follow the live tracks of the Hope Probe go to:
https://www.emiratesmarsmission.ae/track-the-hope-probe-live/

ABC Science 1st January 2020
By: Genelle Weule

~ Stars, galaxies, dust clouds and Uranus: take a tour of the January night sky ~
​
Genelle Weule (Science writer for ABC) has written another excellent article on the wonderful objects you can see in the January sky, but don’t worry if you don’t catch them in January as they will still be on show for the next couple of months as they head down into the western sky.
 
I was very happy to have been asked to contribute my images again for this article; you will also see some beautiful images in the article from my fellow SAS astro friend Dylan O’Donnell.
 
Dylan’s YouTube Channel is at:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCgOf4wBnoGg8WHHHr_h4otQ
 
So hop off your comfortable lounge, grab a star chart, binoculars or telescope and have a lot of fun exploring the night sky in your own garden with family and friends :-)
 
Other helpful tools to help find your way around the night are a FREE app called ‘Star Chart’ at: https://apps.apple.com/au/app/star-chart/id345542655

Or download or print a FREE sky chart at Skymaps.com at:
 http://www.skymaps.com
*If you’re in Australia make sure you download the star chart for the Southern Hemisphere*

After taking pictures of the Moon for InOMN I then turned my attention to the planets, which were all on show in the night sky.
 
At the moment there are Jupiter and Saturn high up in the northern sky that are getting closer together and heading for a conjunction in two months time on the 14th December 2020.
 
Then the brilliant planet Mars getting higher up now in the north-eastern sky and putting on such a wonderful display with many features on show on the surface of the planet, opposition of Mars will be on the 14th October 2020.
 
Hopefully the sky will be clear enough for me to take some incredible images of our two planets coming close tighter and there seems to be no sign yet of any dust storms…yippee :-)

Images taken with a Meade LX200 10 inch Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope and a ZWO 120 MC-S camera with 3x Barlow lens attached, AVI movies were captured with between 2500 & 3000 frames then stacked in RegiStax6 and processed in PS CS4