Blog Archive

Galileo's images of Gaspra

Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2013/03/01 06:43 CST | 2 comments

Last week I trawled the archives to find all of Galileo's images of asteroid Ida; this week, I turned to Gaspra.

Dragon reaches orbit, but experiences propellant valve issue

Posted by Jason Davis on 2013/03/01 11:41 CST | 1 comments

SpaceX's CRS-2 mission began successfully, but hit a snag when a thruster propellant valve failed to work properly.

Dawn artist's concept orbiting asteroid Vesta

Dawn journal: Revisiting orbital mechanics

Posted by Marc Rayman on 2013/03/01 09:02 CST | 1 comments

Now that Dawn has changed its speed by nearly eight kilometers per second, Marc Rayman revisits the concept of orbital velocity.

Planetary Society Weekly Hangout: Studying Asteroids from Earth with Andy Rivkin

Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2013/02/28 01:25 CST | 5 comments

Emily Lakdawalla's guest this week was Applied Physics Laboratory asteroid astronomer Andy Rivkin. We talked about the menagerie of rocks in the asteroid belt, how many of them travel in pairs and triples, how some of them are surprisingly wet, and how much you can learn about asteroids using Earth-based telescopes.

Voyager captured this view of Uranus' moon Umbriel from a range of slightly more than a million kilometers on January 24, 1986. Processed by Ted Stryk.

Mysterious Umbriel

Posted by Ted Stryk on 2013/02/28 12:59 CST | 1 comments

Presenting a newly-processed version of Voyager 2's best images of Uranus' moon Umbriel.

Comet to whiz past Mars in October 2014

Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2013/02/27 05:36 CST | 17 comments

A recently discovered comet, C/2013 A1 (Siding Spring), is going to be passing very close to Mars on October 19, 2014. Does it pose a risk to spacecraft?