The view at Mars from Rosetta

The ESA's Rosetta spacecraft flew by Mars yesterday on its long mission to reach Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko in 2014. As is standard, the spacecraft imaged Mars. What's ultimately so satisfying about this picture is perspective; the wholeness of the experience creating by putting a little of the spacecraft in the image. Look at the rest of the Rosetta images; none of them give you a sense of location as the special image taken by the piggyback Philae lander.

We are also only a day away from a Jupiter fly-by from the New Horizons spacecraft, speeding its way to Pluto as fast as it can, hopefully before the Pluto's atmosphere refreezes onto the surface. See where New Horizons is now.

Source: ESA

Lunar Eclipse Saturday

The moon wheels closer to full over the week, moving ever closer to its eclipse on Saturday.

Image source: MMT Skycam.

Jupiter ... from Mars

The impressiveness of the Mars Reconaissance Orbiter's instruments continues to amaze me. Geek Counterpoint has a link to a HiRISE image of Jupiter taken from Mars. See Jupiter close-up or a wide-image of Jupiter and its satellites (10MB JPG). The MRO is expected to return 3.25 terabytes of data during its mission.

More on Adult Swim and the Boston Bomb Scare: the local Chicago angle

This unidentified hoax device was found in a Hyde Park establishment where it has been hanging up for over a year, hooked up with wires to local power lines and emitting a buzzing sound. I frightfully asked an employee to turn it on. Click on the link for a short movie (AVI, 12MB).

Southern Aurora and Comet McNaught

Technicolor aurora and Comet McNaught. From Spaceweather.com

The idiocy continues to spread

Now that the Adult Swim light board is a known, non-terroristic device, Chicago Police Superintendent Phil Cline has saved! Chicago from mass hysteria:

Speaking at a Navy Pier news conference this morning where he had several of the devices on display, Cline noted the illuminated signs—intended to promote the late-night cable TV cartoon show "Aqua Teen Hunger Force"—could have created "chaos" had they been discovered during this weekend's Super Bowl festivities.

Jumping on a bandwagon, eh?