There is a vast region of sand dunes at high northern latitudes on Mars. In the winter, a layer of carbon dioxide ice covers the dunes, and in the spring as the sun warms the ice it evaporates. This is a very active process, and sand dislodged from the crests of the dunes cascades down, forming dark streaks. In the subimage falling material has kicked up a small cloud of dust. The color of the ice surrounding adjacent streaks of material suggests that dust has settled on the ice at the bottom after similar events. Also discernible in this subimage are polygonal cracks in the ice on the dunes (the cracks disappear when the ice is gone). Images here

Using interferometry, an international team led by an astronomer of Paris Observatory (LESIA) obtained an unprecedented image of the surface of the red supergiant Betelgeuse, in the constellation of Orion.

Beginning Jan. 18, NASA's Mars Odyssey orbiter will listen for possible, though improbable, radio transmissions from the Phoenix Mars Lander, which completed five months of studying an arctic Martian site in November 2008.

Environmental Tectonics Corporation's The National AeroSpace Training and Research (NASTAR(R)) Center (www.NASTARCenter.com) congratulates today the winner of the NASTAR Student Patch Design Contest Tatsuya Arai, student at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA. Tatsuya's design has become the new Official Patch for The NASTAR Center's Suborbital Scientist-Astronaut Training Program, debuting this week, January 12-13th, 2010.

NASA's Deputy Administrator, Lori Garver, will be the opening keynote speaker at the Next-Generation Suborbital Researchers Conference on February 18-20, 2010, at which scientists, engineers, educators, and vehicle developers will gather to discuss the research and education benefits of new commercial suborbital spacecraft.

Spirit Status for sol 2131-2136: Spirit remains embedded at the location called "Troy" on the west side of Home Plate. Attempts to extricate Spirit have been complicated by the lack of functionality in both the right-rear and right-front wheels.