6 February 2026 - This an update of an orginal post first published in 2016 On 14 March 2016 the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) spacecraft was launched from Baikonur in Kazakhstan on a seven month journey to Mars. When it arrived at the red planet, its key sciencetific objective was to study how the distribution of… Continue reading ExoMars TGO: Tracking Methane in the Martian Atmosphere
Tag: Mars
Mars
Venus -A Mysterious World
In The Radio Man, a 1924 science fiction by the American author Ralph Milne Farley, a radio engineer, Myles Standish Cabot, invents a radio apparatus that teleports him to another world, Venus. This version of Venus has boiling hot oceans, but the land is much cooler, and the continent he lands on is inhabited by two races. One… Continue reading Venus -A Mysterious World
The Morning Star-Venus
Venus, is the brightest planet and third brightest natural object in the sky. It has an orbit closer to the Sun that the Earth, which it is mainly a daytime object and exhibits phases similar to the Moon. Galileo's observations of these phases supported heliocentrism, contrasting the geocentric model favored by the Church.
Enceladus Flyby 28 Oct 2015
On 28 October 2015 the space probe Cassini, which has been orbiting Saturn for the last 10 years, will pass within 50 km of the surface of Saturn's moon Enceladus. This is an extremely close approach by an interplanetary spacecraft (by comparison the New Horizons mission only got as close as 12,500 km above the surface of Pluto) and… Continue reading Enceladus Flyby 28 Oct 2015
Why is the Sky Blue?
Explains the scientific reasons behind blue skies on Earth. It contrasts Earth's atmospheric effects with those on the Moon, where the sky appears black due to a lack of atmosphere, and Mars, where a reddish-brown hue results from iron oxide dust.
Explaining Science 