Tomorrow (Saturday December 10) the Moon will pass into the Earth’s shadow, causing it to plunge into ruddy darkness, an event called a total lunar eclipse. These happen roughly twice a year somewhere on Earth, but this is the last one visible in North America for more than two years, so even though it’s in the morning it might be worth a look for you.

You can get all the info you need on watching the eclipse from my pal Alan Boyle over at the Cosmic Log, including timing, locations, and where to watch live online, too. NASA has a page with more detailed information as well. This one favors US folks farther west; the Moon will have set when the eclipse really starts for East Coast folks.

But the fun begins when the Moon starts to enter the deepest part of the Earth’s shadow at 12:45 UT (04:45 Pacific US time), and the last bit passes into shadow at 14:06 UT (06:06 Pacific). Deepest eclipse is about 25 minutes after that. Interestingly, for people in the western US, that’s around the same time as sunrise. For me, the Sun rises at 07:12 (Mountain time) Saturday, and the Moon sets at 07:14 — when it’s still partially eclipsed! Unfortunately, the mountains to the west will block my view of the setting Moon.

But for those of you with a clear horizon to the east and west, you may get an extraordinary opportunity to very briefly see the Sun and eclipsed Moon at the same time! Normally this isn’t possible; by definition the Moon and Sun have to be directly opposite each in the sky to get an eclipse at all.

But due to a quirk of geometry and atmospheric physics, it is possible. (more…)

The Russian space probe Phobos-Grunt was an ambitious attempt to send a spacecraft to Mars, land on its moon Phobos, and return a sample to Earth. However, once it achieved low-Earth orbit after launch in November, the rocket that would have sent it on its way to Mars failed to fire, stranding the probe here at Earth. There have been numerous attempts to communicate with Phobos-Grunt, but they have been met with very limited success and most usually failure.

And now another nail has been driven in the coffin: the European Space Agency, which was tasked with spacecraft communications during the cruise phase to Mars, has announced they will no longer try to talk to Phobos-Grunt, declaring the mission "no longer feasible". Ouch.

NASA joined in the effort to talk to the probe, but had to abandon those efforts when the antennae were needed for other missions. It’s unlikely Russia will give up on the mission soon, but my own opinion is that the outlook’s pretty bleak. If they can’t get the probe on its way, or even boosted to a higher orbit, it’ll burn up in an uncontrolled re-entry over Earth sometime in February. The Russians are saying the fuel onboard will burn up as well and shouldn’t pose a threat to people on the ground. I expect we’ll be hearing more about that as time goes on.

I’ll note that Curiosity, NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory rover, launched successfully recently and is looking good as it heads to Mars, so there’s that.

As usual, you should follow Emily Lakdawalla on her blog and on Twitter for current info on all things involving planetary space missions.

I might quibble over details in this video, but the overall message is spot-on.

Tip o’ the heat shield to NASA on Google+.

I recently posted a lengthy analysis of the fiscal year 2012 budget Congress and the President approved for NASA. I didn’t mention it then because it was off-topic, but in the press release for the funding bill, they list bullet points of "Important Policy Items". I took a screen grab of the last item listed, and the note below it:

Perhaps I’m the only one who sees irony in a bullet point saying Congress won’t appropriate $322M for an NOAA climate change service, while then immediately below it noting how the natural disasters that have befallen this country have required " historic levels of relief and recovery assistance", necessitating $2.3 billion in relief funds. Hmmm.

[Note: While it can be hard to pin any one natural disaster like a hurricane, heat wave, or snow storm on climate change, as we warm up we will see more things like those. I want my tax dollars to go to more scientific investigation by NOAA and other agencies. But then, I'm not funded in any way by the oil industry, and my only motivation is the open and honest investigation of the world around us since it might just save our species.]

[Note II: DeSmogBlog digs a bit deeper into this, and has some curious comments about climate-contrarian Congresscritters who kaboshed this.]

Yesterday morning, NASA successfully launched the Mars Science Laboratory — named Curiosity — toward the fourth planet. If, like me, you missed the launch itself (^%$#@&! sinuses) why then, here’s some pretty dramatic video of the liftoff:

[Make sure to set it to 720p resolution!]

The cool parts to watch are: about 2 minutes in when the booster rockets fall by the wayside; 3:42 when the payload fairing is jettisoned, exposing the Curiosity spacecraft — as seen by the camera onboard the rocket, which is way cool; 4:38 when the entire rocket starts to slowly spin up, providing stabilization and allowing the Sun to heat the assembly evenly; then a few seconds later when the upper stage Centaur rocket ignites, leaving the booster behind (also extremely cool).

But wait! There’s more!

(more…)

[UPDATE: SUCCESS! The launch was just about perfect, and Curiosity is now on its way to Mars, scheduled to land in August 2012. Congrats to everyone on the mission!]

Tomorrow, Saturday, November 26 at 10:02 Eastern (US) time (15:02 UTC), an Atlas V rocket carrying the Curiosity Mars rover will blast off from Florida, sending the sophisticated rolling lab to the Red Planet.

You can watch the launch live at NASA TV, or I recommend on the NASA/JPL UStream channel. I imagine I’ll be up and tweeting about it, as will my pal Emily Lakdawalla.

It is no exaggeration to say that Curiosity is a huge leap forward for Mars exploration. Designed to last for nearly two years, it’s 3 meters long — the size of a hefty golf cart — and its scientific payload is ten times more massive than its predecessors. It has instruments (PDF) that can sample and taste the air and surface, imagers to provide high resolution stereo pictures, a laser to zap rocks and get their spectra (which yields their composition), and even a camera that will take video of the last two minutes of its descent to the surface to provide aerial context for its cameras once it lands.

If you thought Spirit and Opportunity were cool — and you’d be right — Curiosity will up the ante considerably. I’m very excited by the prospect of the science this rover will do, and the exploration it’s capable of as a precursor, eventually, to a human being stepping foot on this odd, dry, and cold neighboring world.