I can sense hard drives whirring and copies of Photoshop a'chugging as UMSF members create their own Christmas cards, so I'll start the (snow)ball rolling...

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All the best everyone...

Here's mine.

Happy Holidays and Best Wishes for 2009!

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(click to animate)

-Mike


[Bonus points: Name those globes!]

I must add Henry Kline's clever card he sent around to our office earlier this week (with his permission). He sends us a planet-themed card every year. Henry is our lead video editor and also produces many of the graphics you see on www.jpl.nasa.gov.

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Merry Christmas to all

(doug..happy birthday...hope the knee holds out)


cheers

And this one is a clever socio-economic-political cartoon, too.

What picture summarises the significance of christmas in an astronomical sense me wonders? I got my answer quite by accident and here it is.

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P.S. for those who don't know, the 3 camel riders in the picture are the Magi aka, the 3 wise men. Have a wonderful holiday everyone!

To the tune of Little Donkey


Little rover, little rover,
On a northern slope.
Got to keep on charging batteries,
Never give up hope.

Got a high tau, little rover,
Murky skies up high,
Don’t give up now, little rover,
Time will clean the skies.

Clean off those cells tonight
Thin Mars winds, thin Mars winds.
Amp hours swell tonight,
Thin Mars winds, thin Mars winds.

Little rover, Little rover,
Got no end in sight,
Little rover, keep on driving, don't give us a fright

Little rover, little rover,
In your dusty guise,
There are drivers waiting for the
Watt Hours to rise,

Do not falter, little rover,
JPL's awake.
They will guide you, little rover,
Till your wheels all break!


Stu - don't ever tell me I'm not a rover hugger

Oh the Tau on Mars is quite frightful,
But the science is delightful
Since the dust will not go,
Let it blow, let it blow, let it blow.

It doesn't show signs of cleaning,
But the rocks have been revealing,
Water here used to flow,
Let it blow, let it blow, let it blow.

When the uplinked commands are right,
The rover will beep, all is norm,
While the dust grains still cling on tight,
All night long the WEB is still warm.

The rover team won't stop trying,
As long as bit's are flying,
When Watt Hours are really low,
Let it blow, let it blow,let it blow.


Oh crap, I can hear Santa. I'd better go to bed.

Doug,

Those are priceless!

Regarding the link between Christmas and astronomy, especially related to the story of Magi, I think the short story "The Star" by Arthur C Clarke is rather interesting ("http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Star_(short_story)"). A nice twist is the proposal to call GRB 080319B (one of the five GRBs occurred only hours after his death on March 19) "The Clarke Event", given the main storyline of The Star (need to read the story -available online - to know what I mean).

Happy Holidays!

Genius, absolute genius! Guess that Advocat bottle's finished now...

And you are DEFINITELY a member of the Rover Huggers Club Doug, never thought otherwise. You just usually try to hide it from the other club members, that's all.

Yesterday, BBC 2 had an excellent documentary on " The Star of Bethelem " explaining it as either a conjunction of Jupiter/Saturn, Jupiter/Venus or a Supernova... Great graphics, available on BBC iPlayer ... but for UK only

Could the star of Bethlehem have been a comet, an alignment of planets or even a supernova? Who were the wise men, and why were they watching the night skies? Could evidence from a clay tablet from Babylon, an ancient manuscript from China, a fresco in the Catacombs of Rome and biblical texts help to finally unravel the greatest astronomical story in history? A superb documentary!

Maybe Santa could give us all a nice Christmas present and clean those rovers' solar arrays.

Merry Christmas to everyone here.

Thanks to all for some fascinating thoughts to consider during this holiday season...and to all, a good night.

The trouble with Christmas is that the whole solar system seems to shut down for a few days...

Phil

Tell me about it *sigh*