BOULDER, Colorado – In a high-tech game of celestial hide and seek, a Mars orbiter has tried to image a lost-in-space red planet probe.
NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) has been used to attempt locating the space agency’s Mars Global Surveyor (MGS)—all in an effort to discern what caused the spacecraft to fall silent several weeks ago.
But after using several MRO instruments, the true whereabouts of MGS and its overall status are still unknown.
“We may have lost a dear old friend and teacher, Mars Global Surveyor,” said Michael Meyer, lead scientist for the Mars Explorations Program at NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C.
Meyer took part in an update today from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California with scientists, engineers and managers detailing the status of the MGS search and the probe’s past science accomplishments.
The briefing was part-wake, part holding out hope that the errant Mars probe could still be heard from again.
No definitive sighting
The last peep from MGS was on November 5, after notifying ground controllers that it had problems with a balky solar panel. For weeks, attempts to bring the Mars orbiter back on line were met with a silent response from the misbehaving probe.
“In the last two weeks we have not been able to establish communication with the spacecraft in a normal fashion,” said Fuk Li, Mars Program Manager at JPL. Over that period of time more than 800 command files were sent to re-establish communication with MGS, but none of them have been successful, he said.
To help in the search for MGS, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter was tasked last Friday, and again Monday to try and spot the MGS within a select region of space.
“Our preliminary analysis so far has not yielded any definitive sighting of MGS,” Li said.
Last curious final message
Space scientists, engineers and managers have tried to decipher a strange final message from the Mars Global Surveyor before it disappeared from radio contact.
The transmission NASA received reads as follows ~ EHTAR / DDOEOM / GEOYOBD / ADN / GDOO / LKUC
NASA has yet to decipher this message and is finally asking the public for help.
Scientists seem stumped but as I analyse this transmission ~ it appears to be a statement of some kind.
Perhaps a message or warning ?
Without consulting NASA ~ I have pieced together a possible interpretation in line with the events that are happening at this time on planet Earth.
It would appear that ADN is the key word and it must be an anagram ~ perhaps a connecting word like AND.
An Anagram is a word or phrase formed by rearranging the letters of another word or phrase but surely the NASA scientists would have been aware of this ~ but perhaps not .
If that is the case than all of these words could be anagrams and deciphered the same way as I deciphered ADN.
That certainly makes sense ~ but could it really be this simple ?
Thus, EHTAR would be EARTH
DDOEOM would be DOOMED
Oh, my God ! I think I've got it.
GEOYOBD would be GOODBYE
ADN would be AND
GDOO would be GOOD
LKUC would be LUCK
EARTH DOOMED / GOODBYE AND GOOD LUCK
Holy crap !! I'm calling NASA right away with my interpretation of the Mars Global Surveyor's final message but not before sharing it with you ~ in case they don't want to hear, acknowledge or publicize this message to the world.
Allen L Roland http://blogs.salon.com/0002255/2006/11/28.html
Of course, the message is a spoof. But it could very well of happened and would we have been told ?
Allen L Roland is a practicing psychotherapist, author and lecturer who also shares a daily political and social commentary on his weblog and website allenroland.com He also guest hosts a monthly national radio show TRUTHTALK on Conscious talk radio www.conscioustalk.net
