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The Planetary Society Blog

Archive

Archived posts are listed in reverse chronological order.


  • Sep. 18, 2008 | 09:26 PDT | 16:26 UTC
    Chandrayaan-1 update
    There is an article in the Telegraph of Calcutta giving some detailed updates on the status of India's first lunar orbiter, Chandrayaan-1. The article states that Chandrayaan-1 has passed its thermal vacuum tests. Thermal vacuum testing is... More»
  • Sep. 17, 2008 | 17:07 PDT | Sep. 18 00:07 UTC
    MSL landing site meeting: Votes are in!
    Today at the Mars Science Laboratory landing site selection meeting -- which I had to stay home and miss, having a very important other obligation (a music class with my 2-year-old) -- they spent the afternoon voting on the seven landing sites that... More»
  • Sep. 17, 2008 | 14:41 PDT | 21:41 UTC
    Welcome to the solar system, Haumea, Hi'iaka, and Namaka
    The IAU has announced that the world formerly known as 2003 EL61 is now named Haumea. Haumea satisfies the requirements for membership in the club of dwarf planets, so it is now the fifth dwarf planet in the solar system, joining Pluto, Ceres,... More»
  • Sep. 17, 2008 | 09:30 PDT | 16:30 UTC
    Ustream chat archived
    I got my act together today and have a PowerPoint presentation available for you to download (3.2 MB) if you wish to follow along with higher-resolution versions of my slides from today's Ustream broadcast. You don't have to download it to be able... More»
  • Sep. 16, 2008 | 11:27 PDT | 18:27 UTC
    MSL landing site meeting: Getting beaten up is good for science
    These landing site selection meetings are fascinating because I don't know of any other venue in which so many scientists get together and participate in open discussion (and, yes, even pointed argument). Ordinarily, in planetary science, there are... More»
  • Sep. 15, 2008 | 21:09 PDT | Sep. 16 04:09 UTC
    MSL landing site meeting: Where on Mars to look for ancient life
    I'm attending the third landing site selection meeting for the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) rover today and tomorrow. The talk I most enjoyed today was the first one I saw, by Roger Buick, who presented on the challenges of locating the most... More»
  • Sep. 15, 2008 | 14:39 PDT | 21:39 UTC
    MAVEN will be the second Mars Scout mission
    Congratulations are due to Bruce Jakosky and the University of Colorado at Boulder and its Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics: NASA announced today that the second in the low-cost Mars Scout mission series will be MAVEN. MAVEN stands for... More»
  • Sep. 15, 2008 | 11:07 PDT | 18:07 UTC
    MSL landing site meeting, September 15-17, 2008
    So as I mentioned in my Ustream announcement I'm now attending the third Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) landing site selection meeting, which takes place September 15-17, 2008. For some context, you can check out the posts I wrote at last year's... More»
  • Sep. 15, 2008 | 10:21 PDT | 17:21 UTC
    Ustream Chat Wednesday, September 17 at 1900 UTC: Mars Science Laboratory landing site selection
    This week I am attending a large meeting of the Mars community, which is trying to reach consensus on the best landing site to send Mars Science Laboratory, scheduled for launch next October. So for this week's Ustream broadcast I'll tell you about... More»
  • Sep. 12, 2008 | 11:56 PDT | 18:56 UTC
    Phoenix Sol 106 Update
    Operationally speaking, it looks like most of the last week for Phoenix was spent attempting to get a sample into the third cell of the Wet Chemistry Laboratory, without much success. In last week's update I showed an animation where you could see... More»