Intresting new stuff,mostly mars,loads of new stuff going on?

[jetboy]

HI,just a few more things going on,it seems very busy up there at the moment,not many satellite models though,i can but hope?.anyway heres whats occuring.

The Curiosity Rover is vying with the Higgs Boson Particle for Time Magazines person of the year award, to be announced December 14th. It could be only the third non human to win it in 87 years.

There are some nice photos on the news of Earth at night taken by Nasa's Noaa Satellite, which was launched last year. Its sensor the day/night band of the visible infra red imaging radiometer Suite (VIIRS) is sensitive enough to pick up the light of a single ship at sea. Its designed to get more complex view of storms and fog.

There are some nice images of snow on Mars (dry ice really) in the crater where Curiosity is exploring. The pictures were taken by the high resolution stero camera on ESA's Mars Express Orbiter. The snow is in the Charitum Montes region near the Gale Crater. The Montes are a large group of mountains bordering the southern most rim of the Argyre imapct basin. They can be seen from Earth by a large telescope.

Scientist say NASA;s budget is not big enough for its stated goals, one of which is to visit an asteroid by the Human Space Flight Program, by 2025, but they are having trouble finding support for this from their own scientists and the general public.

NASA plans sending a new Rover to Mars in 2020 as a prelude to a manned mission. President Obahma says they are committed to having humans on Mars in the 2030's. NASA has already been forced to pull out of some joint missions with the ESA after budget slashing. It wants to save money on the new Rover by using spare parts left over from Curiosity, and sticking with the same design. Currently costs $1.5 billion (£900 million) That will bring the current and planned missions total to seven.

The Opportunity Rover which has been exploring since 2004

The Curiosity Rover this year

There are two orbiters studying the planet at the moment and relaying signals from the Rovers

A new craft called the Maven is to be launched next year to study the upper atmosphere

And also planning sending a craft dubbed Insight to dig to Mars's depths in 2016

thats it for now cheers Don