In Egypt, near the ancient city of Alexandria, in the year 1911, on a day in late June, an event occurred that you won’t find in most history books. Those who give their lives in the pursuit of science are never as remembered as those who die during the waging of war. Human society may never properly evolve until such wrongs are corrected.
It was approximately 9a.m. in the morning and our forgotten hero had probably just gone out for a walk or finished sniffing some butts. Suddenly, from the morning sky fell 10 kilograms of rock that had broken up into several pieces as it fell through the thick atmosphere of our planet. Scientists later recovered approximately 40 total pieces. One of these rocks struck our hero, the dog, and killed it. To date it is the only mammalian fatality ever recorded at the hands of a meteorite. The dog’s true sacrifice wasn’t fully appreciated until it was discovered that the meteorite was actually a chunk of the planet Mars. The meteorite was named “Naklha”, in honor of the region in which it landed. The dog’s name is a casualty of history. Millions of years earlier the meteorite had been a basaltic rock that had been blown off the surface of Mars at escape velocity, when a larger meteorite had impacted Mars. It was propelled into a heliocentric orbit where it lingered for several millions of years. The irresistible attraction of gravity finally pulled it towards Earth, and its fatal encounter with our dog. Studying the meteorite and comparing it to data streaming back from Mars, beginning with the Viking Mission in 1976, has helped us to unravel many of the secrets of the Red Planet. If you think that I am making all this up and simply suffering from another delusion, then feel free to look it up.
Although the above story has only the most tenuous link to the following one, I just felt it was a story that needed to be told. OutlookIndia.com reports:
…NASA has given Indian names to certain types of rocks on Mars, a senior planetary geologist at the space agency’s Mars Mission said today.
“…NASA has given Indian names to a number of rocks. We shall disclose the names soon after NASA gives a clearance to make this classified information public,” NASA planetary geologist Amitabha Ghosh, currently on a three-city tour to India, told PTI today.
Ghosh said the rocks were named in consultation with Indian geophysicists and astrophysicists.
For the first time, a four-member team from NASA, including planetary geologists Ghosh, Dr Michael Wyatt, astrogeologist Dr James Rice and Dr Nicole Schultz are in India to further space science research.
“The idea is to hold talks at scientific organisations and planetaria to create awareness about space science research,” Ghosh, the only Asian on the mission, said.
As members of the Mars Explorer Rover Mission, the four have been witness to the activities of Spirit and Opportunity rovers that landed on Mars.
Of course this is just a publicity and excitement building stunt. There are countless rocks on Mars. Giving some Indian names isn’t that big a deal. More importantly the team has created a website called Tharsis India to further awareness of Mars exploration in India. The Tharsis region on Mars is known for its supermassive volcanoes.
The visit to India comes at the same time as the Paris Airshow where NASA mentioned that it is shooting for after 2015 to put humans back on the Moon. Continue reading →
