exploration Archives - Keith Shields

Six and a Half Years of Curiosity

About six and a half years ago on August 6, 2012, I got up early to watch NASA TV as they broadcast the landing of the Curiosity Rover on Mars. I remember the significant tension of this particular landing because NASA was employing some new technology that had never been used before. They used the…

Exploring New Frontiers

Have you heard the news? It’s raining on the moon. Man in the T.V. said, It’s raining on the moon. Even the scientists Can’t believe it’s true They’re showing diagrams And little moon cartoons Where we are Is everything we know All we’ve got Is the love we show[1] We live in a time when…

Cassini

Recently I wrote a sad lament for the Schiaparelli Lander, even as I praised those who had successfully inserted the Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) into a near-perfect orbit around Mars. This orbiting communications relay and atmospheric laboratory will serve NASA scientists for the next several years and will eventually support a European Space Agency (ESA)…

Farewell Philae

The European Space Agency has had no new news on the Philae Lander since July 20th. It seems safe to say that we should bid Philae a fond farewell. The Rosetta mission to Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko has accomplished many of its aims; but, the lander achieved only a small portion of its goals due to a…

Mountains of Ice

Suddenly, we know for a fact, that there are entire mountains of water ice on Pluto. After four years of drought, wouldn’t Californians love to bring one of those mountains home to replenish their reservoirs? The photos sent back by the New Horizons spacecraft have been widely spread across many news services and, by now,…

Postcards from Pluto

The latest images from the New Horizons spacecraft, which is headed for a rendezvous with Pluto on July 14th, show a series of four dark spots on the lower edge of the visible disc. The pictures were taken on June 25th and 27th when the vehicle was approximately 22 million kilometers from Pluto. Some are…

Making Scientific Discovery Interesting

The Making of Ambition Lukasz Sobisz, is the Technical Director of Simulation for Platige Image’s film, Ambition. The film is directed by Tomek Baginski and stars Aidan Gillen and Aisling Franciosi. In an interview about the European Space Agency’s Rosetta Mission and the accompanying film, Ambition, Sobisz expressed his surprise that the European Space Agency…

Rosetta and Philae: Hello My Friend, Hello

Rosetta and Philae Communicating Again In November of 2014, the Rosetta spacecraft delivered the Philae lander to the surface of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko (see my previous blog here). This represented the first soft landing of a spacecraft onto a comet. This in itself was a great accomplishment despite the fact that the mission did not go…

Cassini and Hyperion

The Cassini spacecraft recently completed a close flyby of Hyperion, one of the moons of Saturn, and sent back some amazing pictures. Hyperion is certainly one of the more odd shaped moons in our solar system. Whereas people used to think Earth’s moon was made of cheese, Hyperion truly looks like Swiss cheese. The surface…

Sleep in Heavenly Peace

“Oh little town of Bethlehem, how still we see thee lie. Above thy deep and dreamless sleep the silent stars go by.” Earlier this week, the Rosetta spacecraft reached the end of a ten year journey and delivered the Philae lander to the surface of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko. After a bouncy landing in the open planes,…