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The Planetary Society Weblog
Archive
Archived posts are listed in reverse chronological order.
Jan. 8, 2008 | 09:13 PST | 17:13 UTC
Maybe, possibly, a nuclear-powered Discovery mission?
One of the people who emailed me over the last few weeks to remind me to post about the selection of GRAIL was one Alan Stern, whose title is Associate Administrator for the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters (meaning he's head honcho... More»
Jan. 7, 2008 | 15:36 PST | 23:36 UTC
MESSENGER's first Mercury flyby is coming up
I've received many emails from people who are concerned that I may have forgotten about MESSENGER's upcoming flyby of Mercury, its first -- and the first spacecraft visit to that planet in 33 years. Closest approach happens on Monday, January 14,... More»
Jan. 4, 2008 | 22:39 PST | Jan. 5 06:39 UTC
Antares tours Saturn's rings
OK, here's yet another post for the "just plain cool" department. I've (to my shame) fallen out of the habit of checking the Cassini raw images page every day, but someone pointed out to me that today there are some nice new images of Dione. Those... More»
Jan. 4, 2008 | 16:41 PST | Jan. 5 00:41 UTC
GRAIL, the next Discovery mission
As a surprising number of you have written in to remind me, I've neglected to mention a big announcement made last month, that the next Discovery mission, to be launched in 2011, will go to the Moon. The mission is called GRAIL, which is in all... More»
Jan. 3, 2008 | 11:40 PST | 19:40 UTC
Amazing Saturn ring-plane crossing animation
Here's another stunner from Cassini. The animation below spans not quite three hours and shows Cassini's shifting view as it crossed Saturn's ring plane on February 4, 2007. The thumbnail version below doesn't do it justice; you really need to... More»
Jan. 3, 2008 | 10:17 PST | 18:17 UTC
Carnival of Space #35
The 35th Carnival of Space is now live at Music of the Spheres -- check it out!
And don't miss this week's Planetary Radio, featuring, um, me and Bruce Betts talking about the most exciting space events of 2007.... More»
Jan. 2, 2008 | 20:54 PST | Jan. 3 04:54 UTC
Mars impact chances at 1 in 28
The Near Earth Object program has posted an update on the status of asteroid 2007 WD5, which now has a reported 1 in 28 chance of hitting Mars (or, as several other bloggers have put it, a 27 in 28 chance of doing nothing exciting).
I've been... More»
Jan. 2, 2008 | 11:37 PST | 19:37 UTC
Mimas and the F ring
This Cassini photo, released today, of the F ring crossing Mimas is from the "just plain cool" department. The F ring is a narrow, dim, dusty, braided thing that orbits Saturn just outside the main A and B rings; the main rings, and Saturn, would... More»
Dec. 31, 2007 | 14:59 PST | 22:59 UTC
Happy 2008!
Happy 2008, everyone! With four launches and 20 active missions 2007 will be a tough year to beat, but there are a lot of things to look forward to in 2008. For starters, in just two weeks MESSENGER will fly by Mercury for the first time, seeing... More»
Dec. 31, 2007 | 14:13 PST | 22:13 UTC
Deep Impact snatches science data from Earth-Moon flyby
As I mentioned yesterday, Deep Impact is flying by Earth today; as a matter of fact, it has just passed its closest approach (that happened at 19:29 UTC). I wasn't sure whether the Deep Impact team was going to take advantage of the flyby to do any... More»
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