Look to the skies! (last line of "The Thing" 1951) ... closeup of the Auqakuh Stripe on Mars

Oh yes. Click.

The Whole Mars Catalog

Released: Thursday 1 June 2006
Source: NASA JPL / MSSS

NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration)
JPL (Jet Propulsion Laboratory / California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California USA)
MSSS (Malin Space Science Systems, San Diego, California USA)
Lockheed Martin Astronautics (Denver, Colorado USA)

NASA Mars Picture of the Day:

Auqakuh Stripe

Mars Global Surveyor Mars Orbiter Camera
MGS MOC Release No. MOC2-1480

This Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) image shows windblown ripples on the floor of Auqakuh Vallis. The light-toned area, running diagonally across the scene from the lower left (southwest) to the upper right (northeast), may be dust that has accumulated in the bottom of the valley and on top of the ripples.

Location near: 31.3° N / 299.3°W
Image width: ~3 km (~1.9 mi)
Illumination from lower left
Northern [hemisphere] Spring

Malin Space Science Systems and the California Institute of Technology built the MOC using spare hardware from the Mars Observer mission. MSSS operates the camera from its facilities in San Diego, California. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory's Mars Surveyor Operations Project operates the Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft with its industrial partner, Lockheed Martin Astronautics, from facilities in Pasadena, California and Denver, Colorado.

News from Moon Today

* ESA SMART-1 close-up on Zucchius crater’s central peaks
* ESA SMART-1 Images: Highlands and Mare landscapes on the Moon
* New NASA Ames Spacecraft to Look for Valuable Ice at the Moon's South Pole
* Hard-nosed Advice to Lunar Prospectors
* ESA SMART-1 Status: Second Push-Broom Operations Phase
* ESA SMART-1 Status Report - May 2006
* NASA Set To Launch Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter in 2008
* Revisiting the Moon: Astrobiology Magazine Interview With Apollo Astronaut Harrison Schmitt
* Space to Breathe: Astrobiology Magazine Interview With Apollo Astronaut Harrison Schmitt
* SMART-1's view of Crater Hopmann: on the shoulder of a giant
* ISRO and NASA Sign MOU on Chandrayaan-1 Lunar Mission
* Remarks by NASA Administrator Michael Griffin at ISRO-NASA MOU Signing Ceremony
* NASA Agrees to Cooperate With India on Lunar Mission
* NASA researchers are mining old Apollo seismic data for clues to lunar meteoroid impacts
* ESA SMART-1 maps Humorum edge - where Highlands and Mare mix

Recent Status Reports

* NASA Mars Global Surveyor TES Dust And Temperature Maps 18-28 May 2006
* NASA Mars Picture of the Day: Auqakuh Stripe
* NASA Mars Rover Opportunity Status 30 May 2006
* NASA Mars Picture of the Day: Mellish Pedestal
* NASA Mars Picture of the Day: Mars at Ls 53 degrees

[Vleeptron commercial ad advisory: Caveat Emptor:]

* Outer space, travel in space, look at stars, name a star, Space Services Inc.

The Whole Mars Catalog at MarsToday.com Copyright © 1999-2006 SpaceRef Interactive Inc. All rights reserved.

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ah shit, here's another ad from this site. Also Caveat Emptor ... but this one's for a big price range of all sorts of amateur telescopes.

Vleeptron ain't making any $ for these ads. But jeez ... will you or your kids suffer from looking at the night skies with a good telescope? How bad will you regret it if you let yourself get sucked into buying a good telescope?

If you get the reflecting kind that focuses everything through a parabolic mirror, Isaac Newton invented that one. I think you can still see the first one he built with his own hands and presented to the Royal Society. From the BBC's bio:

It was Newton's reflecting telescope, made in 1668, that finally brought him into full view of the scientific community. His work with colours led him to believe that refracting telescopes [a Dutch invention improved by Galileo], which were subject to colour interference, were outdated. He made his reflecting telescope entirely on his own, some parts of it with tools that he made specifically for the purpose. His invention made telescopes much smaller - his was only six inches long, and one inch in diameter, yet it magnified over 30 times.

It was especially useful when looking at distant bodies such as Jupiter, which only reflected small amounts of light, and to this day, the most powerful telescopes continue to use reflecting dishes according to Newton's principle. Newton was so proud of his telescope, that he couldn't resist showing it off. Word went around Cambridge, and then the Royal Society got wind of the invention, and asked to see it. When the telescope arrived, it caused a sensation. Newton was ecstatic, despite his pretence of indifference, and in return sent them his theory of colours in a letter.

The letter Newton sent contained nothing new, but it was the first time that his work had been made available for discussion by other scientists. Robert Hooke, a leading power at the Royal Society, however, considered optics to be his domain, and he refuted much of what Newton said. This critique of Newton's work was to be the beginning of a long and spiteful rivalry between the two men, with Newton taking an arrogant stance, and Hooke often accusing Newton of plagiarism. Newton also received some criticism of his optics experiments from some Jesuits, who claimed that they could not replicate Newton's prism experiment, and therefore it was wrong. Newton erupted in anger at this, and at Hooke. He convinced himself of a conspiracy against him, and gave up the study of optics, refusing to correspond with anyone about it.