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The Planetary Society Blog

Archive

Archived posts are listed in reverse chronological order.


  • Sep. 22, 2008 | 12:11 PDT | 19:11 UTC
    What's up in the solar system for the week of September 22
    Again, I have two weeks' worth of events to catch up on. Things have been fairly quiet but I think it's not too soon to begin preparing for what's going to be a highly eventful week for space exploration, the second week of October. It kicks off... More»
  • Sep. 22, 2008 | 11:27 PDT | 18:27 UTC
    Doug Ellison at Europlanet 2008: Arrival and Mars' north pole
    All this week, Doug Ellison will be filing reports from the third European Planetary Science Congress, also known as Europlanet, taking place in Münster, Germany. Doug is the dictator-for-life of the online forum unmannedspaceflight.com. ... More»
  • Sep. 19, 2008 | 15:03 PDT | 22:03 UTC
    Opportunity's got a long road ahead
    Mars Exploration Rover principal investigator Steve Squyres announced on National Public Radio's Science Friday show the next goal for Opportunity, and it's a long, long, long way away: a huge crater about 12 kilometers southeast of its current... More»
  • Sep. 18, 2008 | 21:06 PDT | Sep. 19 04:06 UTC
    Phoenix Mission Receives OK to Listen for Sounds on Mars
    Good news, everyone! The jillions of you who have asked me "are they ever going to record sounds using microphone on Phoenix?" now have at least part of an answer: NASA has given the Phoenix mission the permission to attempt to power on the... More»
  • 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»