Emily Lakdawalla
California, United States
Proposed name: Senior Editor and Planetary Evangelist
California, United States
Proposed name: Senior Editor and Planetary Evangelist
blog@planetary.org
+1-626-793-5100
Extended bio
Appearance calendar and head shots
Emily Lakdawalla is a passionate advocate for the exploration of all of the worlds of our solar system. Through blogs, photos, videos, podcasts, print articles, Twitter, and any other medium she can put her hand to, Emily shares the adventure of space exploration with the world.
Emily holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in geology from Amherst College and a Master of Science degree in planetary geology from Brown University. She came to The Planetary Society in 2001 to oversee a portion of the Society's Red Rover Goes to Mars project, an education and public outreach program on the Mars Exploration Rover mission funded by LEGO. She has been writing and editing the Planetary Society Blog since 2005, reporting on space news, explaining planetary science, and sharing beautiful space photos. She appears weekly on the Society's Planetary Radio podcast, answering listener questions or rounding up the latest space news from the blog.
Emily has been an Administrator of the forum UnmannedSpaceflight.com since 2005, supporting a worldwide community of amateur space image processors. She is also a contributing editor to Sky & Telescope magazine and a frequent host of Cosmoquest Google+ Hangouts. Emily can be found on Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Pinterest, Tumblr, and wherever else she finds people who are equally passionate about space images.
Emily can be reached at blog@planetary.org or @elakdawalla on Twitter.
Latest Planetary Radio Appearance
Looking Back, Looking Forward: Beginning a New Year In Space
12/31/2012 | 28:50
Listen
Planetary Society experts review the challenges and triumphs of 2012 and look forward to a new and exciting year. You’ll hear Bill Nye the Science Guy, Emily Lakdawalla on new missions, Casey Dreier on “Saving our Science,” and Bruce Betts’ review of great projects, as well as a musical rendition of “Random Space Fact.”
Latest Blog Posts
Chang'e 3 undergoing thermal vacuum testing
Posted 2013/05/09 10:48 CDT | 2 comments
China's lunar lander and rover are undergoing some of their last major tests and so are nearly ready for launch.
DSS 35: Watch the construction of the next big dish!
Posted 2013/05/08 11:23 CDT | 1 comments
You can watch via webcam as the next Deep Space Network radio antenna -- DSS 35, in Tidbinbilla, Australia -- gets its dish.
Thoughts on Kiera Wilmot: Mentor curiosity to create future scientists
Posted 2013/05/03 12:30 CDT | 30 comments
Please bear with me -- this blog entry has nothing to do with planets but a lot to do with society. For the last two days, my Twitter feed has been roiling with outrage about the story of Kiera Wilmot.
Latest Processed Space Images
Posted 2013/05/02 | 0 comments
The Deep Impact flyby spacecraft performed several extended missions after observing the Deep Impact impactor hitting comet Tempel 1 in 2005. In November 2011, it encountered comet 103P/Hartley 2. Hartley 2 was unusually active for a comet, its jets easily visible to Deep Impact's cameras without substantial processing.
Fretted terrain and Deuteronilus Mensae from Mariner 9
Posted 2013/04/19 | 0 comments
A Mariner 9 photo showing fretted terrain along the boundary between Mars' southern highlands and northern lowlands.
Aproned mesas in Deuteronilus Mensae, Mars (3D)
Posted 2013/04/19 | 0 comments
In many places, Mars' northern lowlands are separated from its southern highlands by "fretted terrain," a landscape of steep cliffs and table mountains, or mesas. Here, in an area named Deuteronilus Mensae, which is considerably north of the equator, the mesas have strangely textured aprons at their feet. Many lines of evidence suggest that these aprons contain ice underneath the dust and rock visible at the surface. The image is about 200 kilometers wide.
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