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The Planetary Society Blog
Archive
Archived posts are listed in reverse chronological order.
Jan. 19, 2009 | 14:01 PST | 22:01 UTC
Some amateur imaging features
Armchair scientists' use of spacecraft image data -- a subject near and dear to my heart -- has been getting some screen space and air time in the last couple of weeks. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory did a nice feature titled "Socializing on Mars"... More»
Jan. 16, 2009 | 13:57 PST | 21:57 UTC
Mini-SAR: Another Chandrayaan-1 instrument checks in
EDIT March 3, 2009: In the entry below, I hypothesize about why the Chandrayaan-1 images look less crisp to me than the SAR images I'm accustomed to seeing. Neither of my hypotheses was correct! Paul Spudis explains what's going on at his blog at... More»
Jan. 15, 2009 | 13:53 PST | 21:53 UTC
Methane on Mars varies with the seasons
A highly unusual press announcement went out on Monday, stating "NASA will hold a science update at 2 p.m. EST, Thursday, Jan. 15, to discuss analysis of the Martian atmosphere that raises the possibility of life or geologic activity." Talk about... More»
Jan. 14, 2009 | 15:49 PST | 23:49 UTC
Some events for the 5th anniversary of Spirit and Opportunity's landing on Mars
Tonight at the Boston Court Performing Arts Center in Pasadena, Jim Bell and Bill Nye will be celebrating the 5th anniversary of the landing of the rovers; Jim will be showing lots of pretty 3D pictures. The event was sold out quickly to our... More»
Jan. 14, 2009 | 13:53 PST | 21:53 UTC
2008 - the Year in Pictures - Now a wall calendar!
As he's done for the last several years, Planetary Society member Eric Hartwell has designed an absolutely gorgeous 2009 wall calendar using some of the selections from my 2008 Year in Pictures feature, which is now available from Cafe Press. It's... More»
Jan. 14, 2009 | 12:26 PST | 20:26 UTC
Stardust flies by Earth today
In less than two hours, Stardust will approach to within 10,000 kilometers of Earth, getting a gravity assist that will target it for a February 14, 2011 encounter with comet Tempel 1, once the target of the Deep Impact mission. This page from the... More»
Jan. 12, 2009 | 10:52 PST | 18:52 UTC
Where are they now?
Over the holidays I had the great pleasure of re-establishing contact with many of the students that I worked with as part of The Planetary Society's Red Rover Goes to Mars project. This project was originally conceived as part of the Mars Surveyor... More»
Jan. 12, 2009 | 10:14 PST | 18:14 UTC
On the pronunciation of "Uranus"
I'm writing my script for my next 365 Days of Astronomy podcast, which will be in honor of the 23rd anniversary of the Voyager 2 Uranus encounter, and since this will be an audio podcast I have to confront the problem of how to pronounce the name of... More»
Jan. 9, 2009 | 16:14 PST | Jan. 10 00:14 UTC
One last plea for donations
I haven't posted about my fund drive in a bit because I figured people would be preoccupied with December holidays. Donations have matched the $600 challenge issued by the unmannedspaceflight.com moderators, for which I thank you all very much. In... More»
Jan. 9, 2009 | 16:02 PST | Jan. 10 00:02 UTC
The wind blows rocks on Mars?
There's a press release that's making the rounds today that neatly explains the regular spacing of rocks on the plains on Mars. Everywhere we've landed spacecraft on Mars, they arrive on relatively flat surfaces that are covered with rocks. This... More»
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