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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 40 years and I like reviewing new and up-and-coming authors. I have become a committed member of the OpenSimulator community.
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Mars July 2020
It's mid-July now, and temperatures at the InSight lander's location on Mars (south-west corner of Elysium in the northern hemisphere) are teetering on the edge and about to fall. At the end of the month - July 30th - NASA's Perseverance rover (formerly known as the Mars 2020 rover) gets its first launch opportunity. It had previously been scheduled to launch two weeks earlier but, you know, things happened.
On the 3rd August, Mars reaches Perihelion, its closest approach to the Sun. It's probably roasting down in the southern hemisphere which is currently experiencing Summer, but for InSight it's the last dregs of Autumn.
Autumn ends on 1st September, and as you might expect, it's into Winter. Martian months vary in length up to 67 sols, but the two months each side of Perihelion are the shortest at just 46 sols each.
Check the Mars Weather page and scroll down to the temperature-over-time graph to see how this uncertain time settles down into something a lot more freezer-like. At the bottom of the page you can see the current position of the planets.
Pi Zero Plan
I've been wondering what to do with my Raspberry Pi Zero, and didn't think I'd come up with an idea for a few months. Like most things, it's not necessarily a good idea to go looking for a use for it: wait until a use suggests itself.
Anyway, I'd seen a project where someone had turned a Zero into a mobile phone. I kid you not. It didn't have a touch screen, but it was great for receiving calls and SMS text messages, and the fact that it looked like it was home-made has that nerdy appeal. I decided that maybe, one day I'll do that, but not this year.
Updates
The physical Martian clock… I have to come up with a better name for it than that. PiMars! Yup, I like that. The PiMars clock was up and running and displaying data at a crucial time. It was just a couple of hours before the end of the day at the InSight location, and as luck would have it, I had it display time at that place.
A few hours later I noticed the clock was still saying it was (mission) sol 569, despite the fact that it was after midnight there and into a new sol. Checking the website clocks revealed the same issue. Checking the code I could see there was a narrow window when this error could be observed - as soon as AMT ticked over to the next sol, the error would be resolved and therefore hidden. Ok, it was a 9 hour window, but how often do you think I spend 9 hrs staring at that part of the Mars Weather page?
Anyway, it's fixed now in the Mars Weather page and PiMars.
NASA Image of the Day
Date: Sun 8th June, 2025
Title: Facing NGC 3344
Info Report
N.B. This page gets bumped every now and again when new info is added.
I've been pruning some of the stale articles and blog posts. If anything is broken, please let me know.