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I'm a novelist and have an interest in space science and physics. I've been a programmer for more than 30 years and I like reviewing new and up-and-coming authors.
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Perseverance Rover
Last Updated: 18:15:02 Mon May 29, 2023
The Perseverance Rover, M20, is navigating its way around Jezero Crater, which is located on the flanks of Syrtis Major and to the North-West of the Isidis Basin. Jezero is easily identified the large mountain on it's Eastern crater wall.
To put things in perspective, Syrtis Major is a volcanic mountain, made from black volcanic basalt, covering over a million square kilometres and easily seen from Earth. In fact it's large, black mass was the first topological feature identified on Mars. Jezero Crater once contained a lake, with water inflowing from the North-West, and outflowing through a breach in the East-South-East. Where that water went may be the subject of future missions.
Perseverance has been examining the crater floor, testing its equipment, and is currently en-route to the silt fan, left by the water flowing into crater.
Insight Lander
This page is updated as new data is detected. InSight is no longer transmitting weather data. See InSight's Final Selfie
Last update: 14:02 Sun. Jul 17th, 2022 BST
If the image doesn't display, please wait. The NASA websites sometimes get busy.
Explanation of the Wind Speed Chart
Wind speed is shown in meters per second, as measured by the pair of TWINS booms. The barbs extending from each wind speed data point indicate the compass direction of the wind (e.g., a wind blowing from the north will have a barb straight up above the point; a wind blowing from the west will have a barb off to the left). Full and half flags extending from the barbs indicate the wind speed, with each half flag representing approximately 2.5 meters per second. A circle in place of a barb indicates a wind speed less than 2.5 meters per second.
Full details can be seen at https://mars.nasa.gov/insight/weather/
Images Courtesy of NASA/JPL-Caltech/Cornell/CAB
Note: There is a discrepancy between the summary data and the charts provided by NASA (good on you if you spotted this - if not, go hunt the thimble!). I've notified them and hopefully they'll do something about it.
Coffee Blog: 2022-08-14 Upgrade
There is a coffee roasting machine called the Aillio Bullet. You have to read its specs hear the hype to see what it is capable of, and at £3,250 it appears to be worth it. However, it doesn't have a flu or chimney, just a vent, so all the steam and oil it releases just fill up the kitchen. Hopefully they'll see the short-sightedness of this. Not all of us have garages, basements or cellars.
It does though, have one intriguing piece of technology tucked into it's sleek features, that got me rather excited.
Coffee Blog: 2022-07-31
Yesterday, I roasted Profile I, which I'd come up with after sampling Profile H. I did two loads, each of 200g.
| Profile I | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Load | 200g | End (mins) | ||
| Pre-heat | 200°C | |||
| Stage 1 (to yellow) | Drying | 200°C | 6:00 | |
| Stage 2 (to 1st crack) | Caramelising | 250°C | 10:30 | |
| Stage 3 | Development | 240°C | 16:30 | |
| Ambient Temp | 25.8°C | |||
| RH | 49% | |||
| Coffee | Columbian - El Carmen | |||
2022-07-30 Fix Website
Update to site software breaks something.