How much ice might be on Mercury? Use math to find out!

The NASA MESSENGER spacecraft performed its first flyby of Mercury on January 14, 2008. In addition to mapping the entire surface of the planet, one of its goals is to shed new light on the existence of ice in the polar regions of this hot planet. Ice on Mercury? It's not as strange as it seems! Click here to learn more and to access a pdf that provides a series of space math questions (and an answer key) related to this topic. For more classroom activities related to ice in on Mercury and elsewhere in our solar system click here. For more space math problems visit http://spacemath.gsfc.nasa.gov. A new space math problem is added every week!

LRO Looking like a spacecraft!

Howdy folks. Last week was a really exciting week for us here at Goddard Space Flight Center. On Thursday, February 28, four of the six outermost panels were attached to the propulsion module! We were sure to capture the exciting progress so all of you could see it too! The video included in this blog shows the hard-working people of LRO in the clean room assembling the bits and pieces of the spacecraft. You'll first see the avionics panel being set upright. Then the propulsion tank assembly is brought into the tent, and the instrument module, reaction wheel, and avionics panels are attached. As you can see, our little spacecraft is growing up!

NASA and Gen Y Perspectives

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This presentation was produced by four young NASA employees. They presented it at the Next Generation Exploration Conference held earlier this month at NASA Ames Research Center. Apollo astronaut Buzz Aldrin was in the audience. The presentation was remarked upon by Wired a few days ago. According to Wired, "The presentation chronicles their love of space and the heartbreak of working at an agency that has had such a tough time connecting with the rest of their generation and getting them excited about space. It also talks about how important the under 30 crowd is. They are the ones who will pay for the bulk of the cost of the return to the Moon. By 2014, they will comprise 47% of the workforce. Is NASA ready? How can we help?"

Shared with permission.


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A New Mnemonic to Help You Remember the Planets

Ten year old Maryn Smith from Montana recently won a contest to create a new mnemonic for remembering the newly assigned 11 planets, including 3 dwarf planets, in our solar system. The 11 planets are Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Ceres, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto, and Eris. The dwarf planets are Ceres, Pluto, and Eris. Her mnemonic is:

My Very Exciting Magic Carpet Just Sailed Under Nine Palace Elephants.

To read the full story about Maryn's mnemonic, which will be published in a book and recorded in a song to be released in March, click here.
To learn more about dwarf planets, click here.