News from NASA

Three news items from NASA:

1) NASA is getting ready to land its Mars Phoenix Lander in two weeks. They have a really interesting video out called that descibes the mission:

Seven Minutes of Terror

See also this description of the lander’s instruments:

See also: How NASA’s Phoenix Will Land on Mars

2) In order to lower the cost of going to the Moon and Mars and speed up the process, NASA is developing a modular lander platform. This article describes the project and has videos showing the testing process:

Exclusive Video: Meet the Spacecraft That Could Save NASA a Fortune

3) Lots of people were hoping that this announcement would be more monumental (like “ALIEN CRAFT DISCOVERED ON DARK SIDEOF MOON”), but even so it is an interesting announcement:

NASA Announcement of “Success of Long Galactic Hunt”

From the article:

Scientists using a combination of radio and x-rays have found the most recent supernova remnant observed in our galaxy, located about 26,000 light years from here. It’s the youngest, most energetic supernova we know and could shed light on just exactly how the stardust we’re made of — heavier elements and all– gets created. The finding also lends some support to astronomers calculations that there should be about three supernovae in our galaxy per century, although they still need to find dozens more similar supernova remnants to confirm their suspicions.