Posted on by Nancy Atkinson

A 3-D Look At Europe’s New Galileo Satellite Navigation System

The European Union and European Space Agency (ESA) will launch the first components next week of the €20 billion Galileo global navigation satellite system. This constellation of satellites will allow users to pinpoint their location anywhere on Earth. It will be a free, fully autonomous and interoperable worldwide satellite navigation system, broadcasting global navigation signals for high-performance services, which ESA says possesses the service integrity guarantees that GPS lacks for commercial and safety-critical services.

The first launch is scheduled for October 20, 2011. This 3-D video provides an overview of the system. Use red/blue 3D glasses to watch in 3D.

Posted on by Fraser Cain

Mars Video

Here’s a cool Mars video.

This is a Mars video that shows you how you can use Google Mars to explore the red planet.

This is a video of the Mars Exploration Rover program. It shows an animation of the rovers launching and landing on the surface of Mars.

Here’s a cool animation of the Mars Science Laboratory, renamed to the Curiosity Rover.

And this is an animation of the Phoenix Mars Lander which successfully touched down on the surface of Mars in 2008.

We’ve written many articles about Mars for Universe Today. Here’s an article about why Mars is red, and here’s an article about the gravity on Mars.

If you’d like more info on Mars, check out Hubblesite’s News Releases about Mars, and here’s a link to the NASA Mars Exploration home page.

We’ve also recorded several episodes of Astronomy Cast about Mars. Listen here, Episode 52: Mars.