Twitter is now popular enough for users to get mad over its “business plan.”

Recently, an article on BBspot claimed that Twitter’s business plan involved charging users for its new premium accounts.

For example, the article claimed that a user could purchase the Sparrow upgrade for a limit of 145 characters and 5 extra random followers at $5 per month or spring for the Eagle account upgrade, which includes a limit of 500 characters and 1,000 extra random followers at $250 per month.

According to the TG Daily, the article was a hoax. But some users still believed that it was real, resulting in angry responses.

Twitter is a poplar microblogging Web site used by people, businesses and even the Phoenix Mars Lander to communicate with their followers.

I have to admit, when I first read this article, I had to read it a second time before I realized the article was a fake. ^^;;

[BBspot via TG Daily]

There’s a fascinating story from Craig Covault over at Spaceflight Now looking at whether or not the Phoenix Mars Lander found evidence of liquid water on Mars.  If true, it is a HUGE new development that will no doubt have NASA rethinking its whole approach to Mars exploration.

Phoenix Mars Lander. Source: NASA/JPL/Univ. of Arizona/Texas A&M

Landing on Mars on May 25, 2008 NASA’s Phoenix Mars Lander dug into the cold dry surface of the planet looking for evidence of water, the necessary ingredient for life. The five month mission has sent its findings to scientists who will be studying them for some time to come.

But it looks like water and, therefore, life were once present on Mars.

We have always seen water as a sign of life, so it’s not unusual that it plays an important role in religions throughout history.

Water cleanses the body from dirt and whatever might prevent it from functioning in a healthy way. Water also nourishes life within us. We can’t live or grow without it.

The Baptism of Jesus in the Jordan River marks the beginning of his public mission. It’s a sign that he, the Word of God made flesh, will take away sin, which can destroy us, and give us new life, which is a share in God’s divine life.

In the liturgy the feast of the Baptism follows that of the Epiphany because the Word invites all people to share in the gift he brings, not just the Jews.  ” The Magi see clearly, in swaddling clothes, the one they have long awaited as he lay hidden among the stars.”

“Today Christ enters the Jordan to wash away the sin of the world…Today the ‘voice of the Lord is heard over the waters.’ What does the voice say? ‘This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.’

Today the Holy Spirit hovers over the waters in the likeness of a dove. A dove announced to Noah that the flood had disappeared from the earth; so now a dove is to reveal the world’s shipwreck is at an end for ever.”  ( St. Peter Chrysologus)

A beautiful phrase, “the world’s shipwreck is at an end.” Water, bread and wine, water turned into wine, the human become divine. These are life-giving signs of Jesus Christ, the Word of God bringing life, not death.

His mission extends even to Mars.

A Change of Seasons

01.02.09 — Summer turned to autumn for the Phoenix Mars Lander on December 26, 2008. This image, taken on December 21 by NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, shows the lander during the last waning days of northern hemisphere summer. This is the first image targeted to the lander since it ceased activity.

Text Copyright NASA Administration, 2009

Some of you might remember from Dr. Rabiah’s “Friday Five” a couple weeks ago that the Phoenix Mars Lander’s mission has come to an end. But one of the great things about science is that when one experiment ends it usually leads to new questions and a chance for another to begin. NASA’s exploration of Mars is no different.

The Mars Science Laboratory. Image credit: NASA/JPL-CalTech; from Nasa Mars Program image gallery.

Next up is the Mars Science Laboratory, which is scheduled to launch on October 8, 2009. That’s still a long time from now, so why start talking about it already? Last week, NASA announced a contest inviting students across the U.S. to name the Mars Science Laboratory! The MSL, which is the size of a large car and is equipped with all kinds of scientific tools and an innovative new landing system, will try to help scientists determine whether Mars was or is able to support life. That’s an important job, and so is naming it!

Do you have a good name for the new Mars rover? Then send it in, and it may just end up in space!

With 5 months of research under its belt, the Mars Lander has gone peacefully into the quiet yonder.  After 9 days of silence, NASA scientists are not expecting the mechanical explorer to return to life.  The malfunction is thought to have been caused by the onset of the extreme Martian winter and a harsh dust storm.  Scientists had predicted this would happen but you can’t help but to mourn the loss of this little robot as it was the first to discover water on Mars as well as several other chemical compounds resting in the red soil so far away from us.

There is a slight chance it could be resurrected after the Spring thaw but NASA is doubting this will happen.  RIP Mars Lander robot in your lonely, icy grave millions of miles away!

The Phoenix Mars Lander was just put into Lazarus Mode. NASA scientists hope that this would help the probe survive the Martian winter. Reading this I couldn’t help but liken the situation to what’s happening here, at Skoar. What we are doing is raising the magazine from dead, or a deep dark coma at least.

Six months after the last edition, here we are putting together the December edition, with big sister Digit, aiming to take the magazine to a new place. We are now reaching beyond the gamers and also looking at the people who are interested in gaming as an industry. We will always have the game / hardware reviews and we will continue to have the gamer / honcho interviews. We gamers love this and Skoar has always been good at it. However from here on you can expect us to pay more attention to industry analysis.

New-n-improved and back from the dead.

Just prior to the scheduled launch of the last Hubble Space Telescope’s repair/upgrade mission, an onboard data router failed.  The shuttle launch was delayed until next year.  Scientists and engineers worked to use an onboard backup (thank you, redundancy!).  That backup unit is up and running.  A test photo was released by NASA and things look real good!  Unfortunately, the already delayed upgrade mission was delayed a little more.  NASA wants to send up a replacement part to the unit that failed last month.  It won’t be ready for another six months.  That could delay NASA’s plans to reconfigure the launch pad to accomodate the next generation of launch vehicles.  Fortunately, Endeavour’s Nov. 14th launch to the International Space Station remains on schedule.

A Google Lunar X-Prize contestant is not only planning to send their craft to the Apollo 11 landing site, they’re planning to launch five additional missions for lunar polar exploration.  To win the Grand X-Prize ($20 million), a private company must achieve a series of goals by Dec. 31, 2010.  Astrobotic now wants to send it main craft to the moon in 2010, then two smaller rovers in 2011 and 2012.  An additional lander would also land in 2012, then another rover in 2013.  This is exactly the kind of plan I want to see: a medium-term, aggressive approach to lunar exploration.

NASA’s Phoenix Mars Lander entered an inactive safe mode late Tuesday.  Very cold overnight temperatures and a dust storm has reduced Phoenix’s ability to generate enough power to conduct full science.  It’s not supposed to be a permanent condition.  Phoenix’s primary mission phase ended in August.  It has had its mission extended ever since.  Eventually, Phoenix will not be able to power itself.

NASA’s shuttle replacement might come online one year sooner than originally planned.  Plans are being drawn up to try to move the first test launch date up from 2015 to 2014.  They will be finalized in December.  This news came out prior to NASA’s announcement that the Hubble upgrade mission was going to be delayed again.  As I wrote above, the launch pad needs to be reconfigured for the Orion vehicle launch aboard the Ares rocket.

Cassini is going to pass by Saturn’s mood Enceladus for the third time tomorrow.  A number of very cool things have come from the previous two flybys.

La Mancha -que lleva siglos traspasando las fronteras de España gracias entre otras cosas a sus vinos y a Don Quijote- acaba de dar un salto aún mayor (interplanetario, de hecho). La NASA está empleando -al menos de manera informal- el nombre de La Mancha (tal cual, en español) para referirse a una de las zanjas excavadas por la Phoenix Mars Lander, y que puede verse en la siguiente fotografía.

NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona/Texas A&M University

La imagen está tomada en falso color, y muestra hielo en el interior de la zanja, de unos 5cm de profundidad. Precisamente, el propósito de esta excavación es indagar acerca de la profundidad y estructura de esta capa de hielo. Deberán apresurarse en obtener la máxima información, ya que a medida que se aproxima el invierno boreal marciano (el equinoccio de otoño tendrá lugar el día de Navidad de este año, y el solsticio de invierno será el 21 de mayo de 2009) está descendiendo el suministro de energía solar que recarga las baterías de la Phoenix, y para finales de año detendrá toda su actividad (lo cual no dejará de ser un éxito, habida cuenta de que se planificó como una misión de tres meses, y ya va por el quinto).

The Phoenix Mars Lander has found new evidence of ancient seas on the red planet. The probe performed a chemical analysis of surface sediments and found strong evidence of carbonate minerals, primarily calcium carbonate (limestone). Mixed in with pulverized basalt was an estimated 3 – 8% calcium carbonate by weight. This is big news, actually.

On Earth limestone accounts for about 10% of all sediments, and is formed solely by precipitation from water. Most limestone deposits on Earth are formed in the ocean, though some carbonate rocks can be laid down as a result of lakes drying up.

The key fact about limestone on Earth is that nearly all of it is made up of the shells of marine life, specifically single-celled plankton. Limestone forms as billions of generations of plankton live and die near the ocean surface where sunlight penetrates. As each old cell dies, its living matter rots away and its remaining little shell of calcium carbonate drifts down to the bottom. They mount up like snow, as millennia pass, and the older plankton snowfalls compress under the younger, eventually hardening to solid rock. Into the mix also go animals of the sea who secrete a calcium carbonate shell, including a myriad of shelled scuttlers, swimmers and floaters. Later, when the hardened rock is raised up and weathered to make a mountain, its fossil illustrations of ancient carrion are revealed.

The discovery of calcium carbonate on Mars conjures up images of red, alien seas filled with life. Perhaps if we’re lucky some of them scuttled on tripod legs. I hope for H. G. Wells’ sake they did. But the reality is probably not so romantic. Limestones on Earth are mostly from plankton, but a few formed by direct chemical precipitation from water, without the involvement of life. Such chemical limestone deposits are usually associated with evaporite rocks, which form just like their name sounds; by water drying up. Inland seas and lakes sometimes dry away as a result of changing climate, and leave behind all their salts as layers of different minerals, including rock salt, gypsum, borax, and limestone. When harsh alkali winds blow across Earth deserts, the alkali comes from windblown evaporite dust and grit.

Carbonates found by Phoenix might come from either a big wet sea, or a little dying sea. A little dying sea is more likely, especially considering that Phoenix also found evidence of perchlorates in the sand. Perchlorate is a highly oxidized form of chlorine, and is the active ingredient in laundry bleach. Perchlorates contain chlorine, which is also a component of sea salt (sodium chloride). A drying sea would lay down layers of rock salt and carbonate, more or less adjacent physically. Exposed for ages at the Martian surface, chloride salts would naturally oxidize to perchlorate under the relentless, unfiltered glare of solar and cosmic radiation. Limestones laid down by plankton don’t usually contain any chloride salts. In any event, a dry sea means an earlier wet sea. We now know beyond a reasonable doubt that long ago Mars was a wet world with lakes, seas and rivers.

But we still have no evidence that plankton grew in the wine-dark Martian sea. If limestone had been found in blocks, in layered bluffs, and with no perchlorate, well then we might have something interesting. But caliche sand mixed with perchlorate suggests an evaporite, not a fossil-bearing limestone. Life might have been there, but we still have no smoking gun to prove it.

Could anything still be alive in the sand Phoenix analyzed? Probably not. Perchlorate is bleach, remember. A conventional microbe exposed to that Phoenix sediment would sizzle to bits in an instant, its cell membrane ripped apart and its guts fizzing. No life there, unless it is very exotic. Eons of radiation oxidizing Martian salts to bleach have left the red planet with dunes saturated in poison.

Martian plankton aside, this discovery tells us something interesting about the long-ago Martian climate. The dried sea found by Phoenix is near the northern pole today, and Mars has no plate tectonics to drive it there from somewhere else. It formed there, as a liquid, on a planet where the Sun is much further away than at Earth. The Sun was substantially dimmer 3 billion years ago, too. The presence of a liquid sea at such a northern latitude suggests that it wasn’t always at such a northern latitude. Specifically, it suggests that Mars’ axial tilt has moved a lot since then. At one point in the distant past, Mars may have rolled about the Sun on its side, or at least with a tilt bigger than Earth’s.

Mars has no large moon, like the Earth does. Earth’s moon helps to stabilize our planet’s axial tilt, almost like having a giant outrigger, tethered by gravity. Without such a stabilizing influence, Mars is much more prone to tilts. The new Mars data suggest this actually happened, otherwise we’ve got an ancient sea where a permanent ice cap should have been.

But I’m still waiting on Phoenix to zoom in on a limestone bluff, and show us the fossil of a primitive tripod crab.

So they’ve detected snow on Mars using the Phoenix Mars Lander.

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/phoenix/news/phoenix-20080929.html

And this got me thinking, what if they do eventually decide that they have found that they can do some wonder and make Mars livable by humans. I’m no scientist and don’t claim to be but will we turn out like Futurama where we are going to populate Mars and have a theme park there? Or are we going to build larger spaceships to transport people between Earth and Mars?

It just feels like another space race coming on where every country will want to be the first to create that nuclear powered engine on a spaceship that will be able to cater enough people to establish life on Mars. And then soon there will be multiple “space-lines” that will compete for your business offering cheap flights to and from Mars for a fraction of the price!

Probably won’t happen in my lifetime but with the advancement of technology, who knows!

Siempre me he quejado de que en Galicia no nieva y que no he podido ver una nevada en condiciones en toda mi vida, ni hacer muñecos de nieve, ni montar una guerra de bolas de nieve… Y va el robot más majete de la historia, el Phoenix Mars Lander de la NASA ha detectado nieve cayendo de las nubes de Marte a más de 4 kilómetros de altura sobre su posición.

Eso sí, para los que ya os imaginabais un planeta blanco en ver de rojo hay que matizar que la nieve parece evaporarse por completo antes de llegar a la superficie. Pero qué queréis, no todos los días nieva en otro planeta.

-> Aquí la noticia en inglés.

Unidos por el blanco, que no por el Real Madrid

Science Friday http://www.sciencefriday.com/ has an excellent update on the Mars science program and planned projects for Mars. They also discuss possible missions in the next 5 to 10 years. The podcast should be available later today here: http://www.sciencefriday.com/feeds/about/.

Here’s the description of the segment from their web site:

“In this segment, we’ll get the big picture on science on the planet Mars. From orbiting observatories to roving rovers to the ditch-digging Phoenix — what have planetary scientists learned about Mars, and what remains to be discovered?

The most recent visitor to the Red Planet is NASA’s Phoenix Mars Lander, which launched in August 2007 as the first mission in NASA’s Scout Program. Phoenix is designed to study the history of water and habitability potential in the Martian arctic’s ice-rich soil. So far, the lander has identified water ice in soil samples, and has detected the chemical perchlorate in the soil, a sign of the presence of liquid water in the past.

The Phoenix Mars Lander joins the twin rovers of the Mars Exploration Rover project, Spirit and Opportunity, which have been in operation since 2004. Now running years past their planned lifetime on Mars, the rovers are still exploring the surface. Rover Opportunity recently exited the Victoria Crater after several months on the crater floor.

Several orbiting observatories, including Mars Odyssey, Mars Express, and Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter are examining the different aspects of the planet from above. The orbiting platforms have studied the planet’s atmosphere, mapped its surface, and are also supporting the ground-based exploration missions.

We’re broadcasting this week from Tucson, Arizona, home base for NASA’s Phoenix Mars Lander, as guests of Arizona Public Media.”

Image: NASA’s Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity climbed out of “Victoria Crater” following the tracks it had made when it descended into the half-mile-diameter bowl nearly a year earlier.

Photo taken by the Phoenix Mars Lander, NASA

My Diva Marketing friend, Toby Bloomberg, and I were chatting about how companies are using new media options to reach their strategic objectives; case in point is the Cal Tech Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s use of podcasts, YouTube videos, blogging, Facebook and Twitter to connect with individuals interested in the Phoenix Mars Lander.

Check out coverage of their approach in the NY Times and Federal Computer Week.  JPL’s strategic objective may be “to communicate.” 

Enjoy.

As sondas americanas Mars Explorer Spirit e Phoenix Mars Lander, retiraram amostras do solo de Marte, propiciando estudos sua composição química, e acabaram comprovando a existência de água em solo marciano.

E agora através de imagens inéditas, conseguiram provar que existe vida em Marte.

E vida inteligente. Pois não só demonstraram saber se comunicar através de escrita, como também sabem das intenções imperialistas, bobas, feias e malvadas da potência deste planeta azul.

Veja a imagem exclusiva dos marcianos e de sua capacidade cognitiva:

Vejam que pode se notar parte do painel solar da sonda na parte inferior da imagem.

Nas faixas, há dizeres como Yankee, voltem para casa e Marte para os Marcianos, talvez temendo uma invasão assim como fizeram com o Afeganistão e Iraque.

Segundo fontes não identificadas, o governo americano tentou manter em segredo as imagens, mas o serviço secreto venezuelano a mando do Presidente Chaves conseguiu interceptar uma das imagens que comprova o fato.

Have you been following the progress of the Phoenix Mars Lander since it landed on the Red Planet this spring? If you haven’t, here’s a quick summary: On August 4, 2007, a team of scientists and engineers launched the Phoenix on a journey of over 400 million miles to Mars. The primary goals of this mission were to 1) collect data on water that was present over hundreds of thousands of years ago, and 2) find evidence that life forms might exist on Mars.

An image from Phoenix of the “Snow Queen” area just beneath the lander shows cracks in the ice – can you spot them? Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona/Max Planck Institute

Phoenix made the long trip, landing successfully on Mars on May 25^th of this year. Because Phoenix is a lander, designed to not move once it’s touched down, NASA researchers had to choose the landing site very carefully. They selected a polar region of Mars that previous research indicated might have some frozen water nearby. And they were right…late last week, scientists for the first time reported that tests of a soil sample did indeed contain frozen water!

Interestingly, special tests of the frozen soil indicate that, in addition to water, Mars land contains a number of elements and chemicals that are not found in Earth soil. Phoenix will continue to collect data through the end of September, five weeks longer than originally planned. Scientists want to take advantage of as many sols (Martian days) in the Martian summer sun and get as much data as they can before winter comes.

Some questions to think about (or look up!)….Why did Phoenix need to do its research in the summer sun (think batteries)? What will happen to Phoenix once summer is over? What kinds of things in the soil might indicate a planet like Mars could support living things?

Find out more on NASA’s Phoenix Lander page, or on kid-friendly sites about Mars here and here and email me your ideas or questions!

All newspapers today give this beautiful news: There is ice on Mars and this was the results of analysis by NASA Phoenix Mars Lander.

Mars as seen by Phoenix Mars Lander

I have read this article from New York Times and I think next step would be the search for life, very elementary life. Indeed, looking at pictures from Mars it does not come as a surprise that water existed in liquid form on the planet time ago and Mars should have had a very different aspect. But it is also possible that life existed at that time and now it is completely disappeared. There has been a temporal window inside which some kind of evolution took place but all depends on the width of the window to define the complexity of such organisms. Anyhow, having such a large reservoir of water should make a manned mission on Mars easier in the future.

Due to the large success and to a wide availability of resources, NASA planned to extend this mission further. Please, folks do not give up the good work!

Laboratory tests aboard NASA’s Phoenix Mars Lander have identified water in a soil sample. The lander’s robotic arm delivered the sample Wednesday to an instrument that identifies vapors produced by the heating of samples.

“We have water,” said William Boynton of the University of Arizona, lead scientist for the Thermal and Evolved-Gas Analyzer, or TEGA.

I vow that one day I will call Mars my home.

:: Bibliography ::

• NASA. NASA Spacecraft Confirms Martian Water, Mission Extended. NASA. http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/phoenix/news/phoenix-20080731.html (1 August 2008).

NASA’s Phoenix Mars Lander could get a mission extension. Managers are asking for 30 more Martian days of funding to continue digging in search of evidence of water and possibly life. As the article mentions, the rovers Spirit and Opportunity are still chugging around four years after landing. That won’t happen with Phoenix, but another 30 days of science would be awesome.

A planned Canadian satellite could search for Near Earth Objects (small asteroids, etc.) as well as U.S. and Canadian artificial satellites. To do both jobs, a new attitude control and tracking system will have to be developed and tested.

Space shuttle Atlantis’ launch date, originally scheduled for Oct.8, could be accelerated by four days.

Virgin Galactic unveiled its new mothership, WhiteKnightTwo, to the public on Monday. A large number of test flights, at least 40 according to Burt Rutan, will be necessary before the craft is used to launch passengers aboard SpaceShipTwo 65 miles above the Earth’s surface. When I have the money…

The International Astronomical Union continues to work on language and definitions describing bodies in our solar system.  Planets, dwarf planets, plutoids and major planets are on the latest list.  This is science folks: topics are under constant observation and change.  It part of what makes science so fun.

Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to prepare a proper post this week so in lieu of actually thinking and writing I’d like to instead offer up a pot-pourri of articles elsewhere on the web that have, in one way or the other, caught my interest in the past week or so.

However, before I do that I just want to do a little shameless self-promotion and mention my interview with the Phoenix Mars Lander. No, you didn’t read that wrong. I didn’t interview any of the scientists or technicians involved with the Phoenix project, but went direct to the robot herself. Phoenix and I have been pals on Facebook for a while now and I thought it would only be natural to interview her about her thoughts and experiences as well as the important science she is doing some 170 million miles from home.

So, with that out of the way, let’s move on to some of the more headier and serious stuff. First up, Philosophy professor Priscilla Sakezles writing in eSkeptic claims that “the famous words most often attributed to Socrates, “All I know is that I know nothing,” are in fact a misquote. Today’s skeptical movement likes to trace its roots all the way back to Socrates so it’s perhaps a good idea if we get our quotes right.

Speaking of what we know, most skeptics know that determining whether or not our knowledge accurately reflects the real world is problematic at best. While the scientific method is often considered the best tool we have for understanding how the world works, our brains tend to place more value on anecdotal evidence. Michael Shermer explains How Anecdotal Evidence Can Undermine Scientific Results.

And while the way our brains evolved means we’re not naturally very good scientists, nevertheless science continues to inform our understanding of our minds. Carl Zimmer has a particulary interesting article talking about the three ways our brains affect our perception of the passage of time.

One of the reasons, I think, that it’s important to read and understand science, even if one isn’t a scientist, is because how we understand our world has implications for the kind of society we live in. An article in the May/June 2008 New Humanist talks about how a fundamental ignorance of evolution has led to a rise in creationist beliefs in Europe, including a disturbing new phenomenom — Muslim creationism.

And lastly, it would be remiss of me not to at least mention the case of Barbara Nash. Nash is a quack nutritionist who advised 52 year old Dawn Page to go on a special “detox diet”. Nash’s diet led to Page suffering sodium deficiency so servere that she suffered seizures that left her with permanent brain damage. It is easy to call Nash a quack and wallow in outrage at her advice to Page that the uncontrollable vomiting she was experiencing was simply part of the “detoxification process”. However, Ben Goldacre reminds us that the Barbara Nashes of the world do not exist independently of the society and culture that allows them to thrive.