17 January 2013
The two-faced crust of Mars
I am always a sucker for research that uses very simple observations to come to profound conclusions, and that is definitely the case with “The dual nature of the martian crust: Young lavas and old clastic materials” by Josh Bandfield, Chris Edwards, David Montgomery, and Brittany Brand. This paper suggests that the martian crust has a dual nature, where the oldest rocks are actually softer and easier to erode, while more recently lava flows have led to much more durable terrain.
21 December 2012
Fire or Ice? Options for the Apocalypse
Well folks, this is it. As of tomorrow, December 21, 2012, we will reach the end of the current b’aktun of the Mayan Long Count calendar. And then, well, you know what will happen.
5 December 2012
AGU 2012: Days 1 and 2 Highlights
Greetings! It’s been a busy first two days of AGU, and it’s impossible to convey it all, but here are a few highlights: Monday morning was my poster presentation, so that prevented me from seeing very many talks. I did stop by the Mars talks long enough to hear ChemCam team member Darby Dyar give a talk summarizing the many challenges involved in getting quantitative numbers out of LIBS data, …
3 December 2012
AGU 2012
Greetings from San Francisco! I have to say, flying here from Flagstaff is a lot nicer than flying from Ithaca. And the scenery from the first leg of the trip is hard to beat: The view out my hotel room window here in San Francisco is somewhat less scenic. It overlooks the loading dock of a Bloomingdale’s. BUT I’m not here for scenery. I’m here for the AGU “fall” meeting, …
22 November 2012
Thanksgiving With the Kranzes
I post this pretty much every year, but it’s too good not to share. If you’re feeling ambitious, Gizmodo also has some… “interesting” ways to cook a turkey from NASA engineers. I personally like the sounding rocket method.
19 November 2012
MSL Instrument Papers Available!
Just in time for the thanksgiving holiday, Space Science Reviews has released its special issue containing all the instrument papers for MSL, along with papers describing the mission’s overall goals, the landing site selection process, and the studies of the atmosphere that helped NASA stick the landing. So this year while you wait for the turkey to cook, take a look at some of these papers and learn about the awesome laboratory that is exploring Mars and give thanks that we live at a time when such things are possible. I’m sure your family won’t mind once you tell them what interesting stuff you’re reading… 
6 November 2012
Updated Google Mars!
You guys! Google Mars has been updated!
You did know that Google Earth comes with a Google Mars mode, right?
1 November 2012
Hurricane Sandy in Perspective, part 2
I was going to photoshop my own image comparing hurricane Sandy to the great red spot, but this will do nicely:
30 October 2012
Hurricane Sandy’s Rainfall in Perspective
With all the breathless reporting about how hurricane Sandy (a.k.a. Frankenstorm) is such a massive weather event, I was curious what the quantity of rainfall from Sandy looks like in comparison to, say, the amount of water in the martian atmosphere.
20 October 2012
Earth-sized planet discovered around Alpha Centauri!
Science fiction fans have been awaiting this news for decades: new results from the European Southern Observatory’s HARPS (High Accuracy Radial Velocity Planet Searcher) reveal that there is an Earth-sized planet orbiting the nearest star system to Earth.
Ryan Anderson is the Shoemaker Postdoctoral Fellow at the U.S. Geological Survey Astrogeology Science Center. Ryan has a background in Physics and Astronomy and received his PhD in Planetary Science from Cornell University. His research helped lead to the selection of the Gale crater landing site for the Mars Science Laboratory rover "Curiosity", and he is on the science team for the ChemCam instrument on Curiosity. He is a payload downlink lead for ChemCam and for the Pancam color cameras on the Opportunity rover. 
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