space news!

A successful launch today of NASA's Curiosity rover destined for Mars. More great space exploration to look forward to. Check back with me here in August 2012 for news about its arrival.

Here's an image of what it should look like once it is deployed on Mars:

Awwww, isn't it cute? (original)

In case you think it would be fun to play with this in your living room, here's a shot of some NASA engineers playing with it in their living room:

Whoa! It's friggin huge! (original)

Sweet!

Unfortunately Russia's Phobos-Grunt wasn't so successful. Communications with the failed probe are intermittent and although the window for its original mission has now passed, there is hope that it can be re-tasked for a different mission, perhaps to the moon. We'll have to hope that some science can be salvaged. If not, we can look forward to worrying about yet another piece of space junk falling on us next year.