We\u2019ve all been caught up in the highs and lows of the Olympics for the past couple of weeks, but it turns out there are other things going on in the world!<\/p>\n
Notably, NASA\u2019s latest mission to Mars<\/a> \u2013which even sends out tweets<\/a>! If you\u2019re confused by the many acronyms surrounding the mission, the Minneapolis-St Paul Star Tribune has provided a handy guide. Here\u2019s an extract:<\/p>\n For example: the twin rovers Spirit and Opportunity that landed in 2004 were known as MER-A and MER-B for the longest time (MER is shorthand for Mars Exploration Rover.)<\/p>\n MSL [Mars Science Laboratory] did not become Curiosity until 2009 when a sixth-grader from Kansas proposed the nickname. Still, there are some who continue to use the scientific moniker.<\/p>\n Curiosity is loaded with the most sophisticated instruments to study Mars’ environment — with convoluted names to match. “Mastcam” refers to the pair of 2-megapixel color cameras on the rover’s “head.” “SAM” — short for Sample Analysis at Mars — is the mobile chemistry lab designed to sniff for carbon compounds. “ChemCam” stands for Chemistry and Camera, otherwise known as the rock-zapping laser. And “RAD”? That’s the radiation detector. (Source: Star Tribune<\/a>)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" We\u2019ve all been caught up in the highs and lows of the Olympics for the past couple of weeks, but it turns out there are other things going on in the world! Notably, NASA\u2019s latest mission to Mars \u2013which even sends out tweets! If you\u2019re confused by the many acronyms surrounding the mission, the Minneapolis-St […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[100,1146,16],"tags":[663,544,1147,44],"class_list":["post-1561","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture","category-jargon-2","category-technology","tag-jargon","tag-lingo","tag-mars-mission","tag-words"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.language-museum.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1561","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.language-museum.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.language-museum.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.language-museum.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.language-museum.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1561"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.language-museum.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1561\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1563,"href":"http:\/\/www.language-museum.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1561\/revisions\/1563"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.language-museum.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1561"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.language-museum.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1561"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.language-museum.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1561"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}