Computer glitches

This artist concept features
NASA's Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity rover,
 a mobile robot for investigating Mars'
 past or present ability to sustain microbial life.
 Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech 

Since we returned from our holiday in Madeira, Toot and I have been having all sorts of problems with our computer network.  In addition I managed to drop a portable hard-drive and lose gazillions of bytes of information, mainly archived photographs.

Apparently NASA engineers are having difficulties with one of the computers on board the Curiosity Rover and have had to swap from the operational computer to its back up while they try to sort out 'corrupted files'. Bearing in mind the difficulties we have had updating software on two laptops and a router in our house, those girls and boys at NASA will have to be pretty smart if they want to recover corrupted files on a computer sitting in an alien desert several hundred million kilometres away.

Mars to Earth distance varies due to planetary orbits being elliptical and differential orbital speeds. Minimum distance is 54.6 million kilometres, maximum distance 401 million kilometres and average distance 225 million kilometres.  This is why, in some years, Mars becomes very bright in our skies and presents a much larger disc to the eye when viewed through a telescope.

Curiosity's work schedule has had to be suspended for a few days. It has been drilling cores in rocks and analyzing the mashed up rock fragments in its on board laboratory.  How good is that!  I'm looking forward to NASA publishing the results.

Ready, Set, Drill

An animated set of three images from NASA's Curiosity rover shows the rover's drill in action on Feb. 8, 2013, or Sol 182, Curiosity's 182nd Martian day of operations. This was the first use of the drill for rock sample collection. The target was a rock called "John Klein," in the Yellowknife Bay region of Gale Crater on Mars. 

This set of images was obtained by Curiosity's right front Hazard-Avoidance camera on Feb. 8, 2013, or Sol 182. 

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech