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The Planetary Society Weblog

Archive

Archived posts are listed in reverse chronological order.


  • Apr. 24, 2007 | 14:49 PDT | 21:49 UTC
    Planetary Society testifies to Congress
    Today, Lou Friedman testified to the Appropriations Subcommittee of the U. S. House of Representatives that the Society supports the Administration's Vision for Space Exploration, but asserts that the Vision has now become distorted, with valuable... More»
  • Apr. 20, 2007 | 12:21 PDT | 19:21 UTC
    Earth Day
    It's Earth Day on April 22, which made an excellent excuse for me to create a couple of new pages on our website showing you where you can get views of Earth as a planet. It's no coincidence that Earth Day started in 1970, not long after Apollo 8... More»
  • Apr. 20, 2007 | 09:10 PDT | 16:10 UTC
    Cassini observes a new face of Iapetus
    Cassini has just begun its 44th orbit of Saturn (called Rev 43), and is starting it off with lots of views of famously two-faced Iapetus. Most of the time, when Cassini gets good views of Saturn's moons, the spacecraft is close to its periapsis... More»
  • Apr. 18, 2007 | 11:40 PDT | 18:40 UTC
    Varying dust fans on Mars' defrosting south polar cap
    It's Wednesday and time for more images from Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter's HiRISE camera. Here is my favorite from this week's release:Click to enlarge >Dark dust fans on the defrosting south polar cap of MarsThis image was captured by Mars... More»
  • Apr. 17, 2007 | 10:59 PDT | 17:59 UTC
    Recognizing the real face of Mars
    It's inevitable that whenever a new orbiter arrives at Mars, the public will demand a photo of "the Face." Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has just delivered on this popularly demanded photo, and has shown it (as Mars Global Surveyor and Mars Odyssey... More»
  • Apr. 16, 2007 | 13:34 PDT | 20:34 UTC
    The March / April issue of The Planetary Report is now online
    This issue has been out for a while, but I neglected to upload it until now. Members, go to the For Members section of this site and get a lovely PDF copy of the latest issue of The Planetary Report, which features the European Space Agency's... More»
  • Apr. 16, 2007 | 12:50 PDT | 19:50 UTC
    Optical illusions at Saturn
    Two recent images from the Cassini mission caught my attention because of the way they play tricks on the eye. The first one was released today by the imaging team, and was taken nearly ten months ago:Click to enlarge >Strange lighting on Tethys... More»
  • Apr. 13, 2007 | 14:57 PDT | 21:57 UTC
    Human and Spacecraft Errors Together Doomed Mars Global Surveyor
    The review board that was convened to look in to what caused the loss of Mars Global Surveyor has issued their preliminary report, and it's a sad one: it wasn't aging hardware that failed. Instead, the root cause was human error. I've got a full... More»
  • Apr. 12, 2007 | 12:34 PDT | 19:34 UTC
    Final preparations for Dawn's mission to Ceres and Vesta are under way
    The Dawn spacecraft arrived in Florida on Monday morning, ahead of a planned June 30 launch. (There was recently a slight delay from a planned June 19 launch due to the availability of the launch vehicle.) To me, a spacecraft's arrival in Florida... More»
  • Apr. 12, 2007 | 10:52 PDT | 17:52 UTC
    The not-so-turbulent wake region near Jupiter's Great Red Spot
    A new set of images appeared on the New Horizons raw image website the other day, focused on the region to the north and west of Jupiter's Great Red Spot. This mosaic -- assembled here by a space enthusiast who goes by "Orion" -- was intended to be... More»