Saturn, Selenokhod, and Scott Speicher
Today’s offering is a post-Thanksgiving smorgasbord of stories (okay, I’ll stop with the alliteration). First, a lovely NASA video of an aurora shimmering above Saturn, with commentary by Caltech planetary scientist Andy Ingersoll, who’s been exploring the outer solar system since the Pioneer 10 …
Today's offering is a post-Thanksgiving smorgasbord of stories (okay, I'll stop with the alliteration).
- First, a lovely NASA video of an aurora shimmering above Saturn, with commentary by Caltech planetary scientist Andy Ingersoll, who's been exploring the outer solar system since the Pioneer 10 and 11 missions of the 1970s:
- Next, a Russian team enters the Google Lunar X-Prize race with a rover called Selenokhod. The robot's much larger ancestor, Lunokhod-3 (below), is now in a museum at NPO Lavochkin, the company that built it back in the 1960s.
- Finally, a fascinating Associated Press story about the long, involved search for the remains of U.S. Navy pilot Scott Speicher, who was shot down during the Gulf War, and whose remains were only recovered last summer.