Bad Astronomy

Three quickie NASA updates, now with less bad news

Just some updates:

1) NASA has picked some science to do from the Moon, and they’re pretty cool. Two of them deal with laser ranging, getting the distance to the Moon to sub-millimeter accuracy. This will tell us a lot about relativity, the Earth-Moon system, and other fun things.

2) The Shuttle launch has been delayed a day because replacing a valve took longer than expected. It’ll be on Wednesday, August 8, at 6:36 p.m. Eastern time.

3) I haven’t mentioned it, but a global dust storm on Mars is severely hampering the rovers. Hubble turned its eye to the Red Planet, and Emily has the scoop, and the images. Yikes. It sucks to be on Mars right now.