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The Planetary Society Blog

Archive

Archived posts are listed in reverse chronological order.


  • Apr. 16, 2009 | 14:31 PDT | 21:31 UTC
    The Planetary Society's Solar Sail featured in The Atlantic
    by Susan Lendroth In The Atlantic's new article, "Across the Universe," Thomas Mallon charts a course from the discovery of exoplanets through the possibility of extraterrestrial intelligence to the most feasible way to send spacecraft to such... More»
  • Apr. 16, 2009 | 13:55 PDT | 20:55 UTC
    What to do if the big one is headed our way?
    One question I am asked frequently is whether there's any international laws or agreements on how to handle the situation of an impending asteroid impact. Planetary Society members are very concerned about the threat of Earth impacts -- we... More»
  • Apr. 14, 2009 | 20:00 PDT | Apr. 15 03:00 UTC
    COLBERT is going to space!!
    It's just been announced: Although the name "Colbert" won the popular vote for the new moniker for Node 3 at the International Space Station, NASA has elected not to name Node 3 for the Comedy Central fake news show host, but instead named it for... More»
  • Apr. 14, 2009 | 09:08 PDT | 16:08 UTC
    Ted Stryk: Europa Jupiter System Mission Colloquium
    Ted Stryk sent me the following notes on a meeting on the Europa Jupiter System Mission held on April 9 and 10. Thanks, Ted! --ESL by Ted Stryk On April 9, the University of Tennessee's Earth and Planetary Sciences department hosted a colloquium... More»
  • Apr. 13, 2009 | 14:57 PDT | 21:57 UTC
    Spirit hiccup
    Another of those dreaded "status reports" from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory arrived in my mailbox just now. Apparently, over the Easter weekend, Spirit's computer mysteriously reset twice. One of the reboots happened while it was using its... More»
  • Apr. 13, 2009 | 11:05 PDT | 18:05 UTC
    Moon shadow, moon shadow
    Over the weekend, sharp-eyed Cassini-watchers on unmannedspaceflight.com noticed a series of way-cool photos on the mission's raw images website. Here's a full-frame view, captured some time on April 8.Click to enlarge >Shadows on Saturn's... More»
  • Apr. 9, 2009 | 13:18 PDT | 20:18 UTC
    Update on the Mars dust event
    It's been a week since I posted a storm warning from Mars, and I have an update with the latest data. In brief: the southern dust event is not abating, but the dust has not spilled across the equator; everything's staying in the south for now. To... More»
  • Apr. 8, 2009 | 09:54 PDT | 16:54 UTC
    Kepler's removed the lens cap
    Since launch, Kepler's enormous photometer instrument, backed by a 42-Megapixel CCD (the largest such device ever sent to space by NASA), has been protected behind a truly gargantuan lens cap. The mission announced late yesterday that the lens cap... More»
  • Apr. 7, 2009 | 08:55 PDT | 15:55 UTC
    LPSC: Friday afternoon on Martian basins and planning for future lunar missions
    This is Ted Stryk's last contribution from his trip to the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference, two weeks ago now. Apologies to him for posting so late, and many thanks for all the notes. --ESL by Ted Stryk Herb Frey reported on an effort to... More»
  • Apr. 6, 2009 | 15:43 PDT | 22:43 UTC
    Spirit's got a clear path to Von Braun
    ...or at least Spirit has a clear sight line to Von Braun, and the latest views from the Pancam are pretty awesome. Sadly there's no color data for this view. Von Braun is the pointy bit to the left side of this three-image mosaic. Goddard is the... More»