|
|
The Planetary Society Weblog
Archive
Archived posts are listed in reverse chronological order.
Jan. 10, 2008 | 14:45 PST | 22:45 UTC
MESSENGER flyby preview
I listened in to this morning's press conference and have now posted an extensive preview of Monday's flyby of Mercury by MESSENGER. Enjoy!
And here's that optical navigation photo of Mercury from MESSENGER that I lamented not having yesterday. ... More»
Jan. 10, 2008 | 09:19 PST | 17:19 UTC
Mars impact chance drops to 1 in 10,000, which may as well be zero
1 in 10,000 is still better than your chance of winning a lottery, but it's very, very unlikely. The newly discovered Earth-crossing asteroid 2007 WD5 has been generating a lot of excitement because at one point it had as high as a 1 in 25 chance... More»
Jan. 9, 2008 | 14:24 PST | 22:24 UTC
MESSENGER's cameras are working
...but I can't show you any pictures yet.
The MESSENGER mission announced today that the first eight optical navigation images of Mercury have been received on the ground. However, the release didn't actually include the images themselves; I... More»
Jan. 8, 2008 | 14:43 PST | 22:43 UTC
Mars impact probability now 1 in 40
...or, there's a 39 in 40 chance that nothing too exciting will happen on January 30, 2008, when near-Earth asteroid 2007 WD5 will make its closest approach to Mars. According to the latest news from the Near Earth Object Program, a few more... More»
Jan. 8, 2008 | 09:34 PST | 17:34 UTC
American Astronomical Society meeting in Austin this week
This week is the 211th meeting of the American Astronomical Society (the double-A-S, not to be confused with the triple-A-S, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, which publishes Science magazine). I'm not there; this meeting is... More»
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»
|
|
[ what is this? ]