This journal has been somewhat behind on the latest space news, so in a nutshell, it pleases me to inform you that:
- Both Mars rovers have found evidence that Mars was once a watery planet and that water may still exist there, encrusted in the smelly, putrid soil as damp, salty brine.
- Spirit has reached Bonneville Crater, where it can see its lander’s discarded heatshield.
- Neil Armstrong supports the Bush space plan, as do I. (In principle, if not in suspected motivation.)
- Hubble has looked at distant, ancient galaxies.
- A tenth planet / plutino / Kuiper Belt Object / Oort Cloud Object may have been discovered, tentatively named “Sedna.” (Why couldn’t they name it “Rupert?”) Sedna orbits at about 90 AU. (One AU is the mean distance between Earth and the Sun, about 93 million miles. For scale, Mars orbits at about 1.5AU, Pluto orbits at about 40AU, and the Voyager 1 space probe reached 90 AU late last year.) Put another way, it takes 8 minutes for light from the Sun to get to Earth, and 12 hours to get to Sedna.