Emily Lakdawalla • September 06, 2012
I noticed today that I hadn't seen any amateur-processed versions of Voyager's departing shots of Uranus, so I decided to give it a try.
Emily Lakdawalla • August 24, 2012
If you've been obsessively checking the Curiosity raw images websites for new pictures from Mars, you might have noticed something weird: a bunch of Mastcam images and a few from MARDI that are black-and-white instead of color, and which have a peculiar checkerboard pattern.
Emily Lakdawalla • August 23, 2012
The top of the mountain has finally been filled in, and Damien Bouic has produced what I think is the definitive version of Curiosity's first color panorama.
Emily Lakdawalla • August 22, 2012
New Hubble photos show that Uranus has both dark and bright spots!
Jim Bell • August 22, 2012
Ray Bradbury explored Mars, and the future of humanity, through words and ideas--vehicles of the imagination. He was a visionary author and, through his writings and lectures, was a direct or indirect mentor to so many of us involved with designing, building, and operating the actual space vehicles of today. I think it is so fitting, then, that the MSL team has memorialized Ray's contributions to the exploration of the planets -- and especially Mars -- by naming Curiosity's landing site in his honor.
Emily Lakdawalla • August 22, 2012
A pretty picture of Cassini's current view of Saturn.
Emily Lakdawalla • August 21, 2012
Notes from this morning's press conference. Curiosity has successfully steered the corner wheels and deployed and restowed the robotic arm. ChemCam tests went well over the weekend. But one of the two wind speed sensors in REMS appears to have suffered permanent damage during landing.
Emily Lakdawalla • August 18, 2012
Damien Bouic took Curiosity's Hazcam images of Aeolis Mons / Mount Sharp and merged them with a beautiful 360-degree Navcam panorama to give us our first look at what the view will look like once the mission finally gets higher-resolution images that include the mountain's peak.
Emily Lakdawalla • August 16, 2012
Yesterday Curiosity returned a pile of full-resolution descent imager photos to Earth. The full-resolution MARDI images are just as great as we anticipated.
Jason Davis • August 16, 2012
A recent series of ring images by the Cassini spacecraft reveal Saturn's tiny moon Daphnis cruising through the Keeler Gap.
Bill Nye • August 14, 2012
Following the successful landing of the Curiosity rover, it is gratifying indeed to see the third MarsDial© photometric calibration (cal) target on the planet Mars. It is something near and dear to me personally, and it's good for all of us, because it helps us do good science.
Jason Davis • August 10, 2012
So far, the only high-resolution surface panorama we've seen from Curiosity is the black and white Navcam image. The Mastcam shot a color panorama, but the only version we have so far was created from the lower-resolution thumbnails.
Emily Lakdawalla • August 09, 2012
Curiosity's third day on Mars has been completed flawlessly, and the first preliminary color view from her Mastcam is lovely.
Emily Lakdawalla • August 09, 2012
A look at the latest raw data dump from Curiosity: our first sharp view of the rover and immediate surroundings, plus 18 of the full-resolution descent imager frames are now available. Check out the gravel on Curiosity's deck!!
Emily Lakdawalla • August 08, 2012
Curiosity fired up her Navigational Cameras on Sol 2 and began to take a look around her. The first four full-resolution frames are enough for a small 3D panorama that shows a lovely landscape. I think we're going to like it here!
Emily Lakdawalla • August 07, 2012
The thumbnail versions of the Mars Descent Imager images have shown up on the Curiosity raw images page, and hiding among them was a single full-resolution frame containing the heat shield.
Emily Lakdawalla • August 06, 2012
It's such a rare joy to be able to dive into the images returned from a brand-new mission. The very first images that come to Earth and get posted on the Web are usually of relatively poor quality compared to what comes later, and Curiosity's are no exception to that rule.
Emily Lakdawalla • July 30, 2012
I know it’s been all Curiosity, all the time on this blog for the last couple of weeks, and that’s not likely to change much for the next couple of weeks. But I don’t want people to forget that there’s another rover exploring Mars’ ancient geology. Opportunity has been taking spectacular photos of Whim Creek and Endeavour Crater this last week.
Emily Lakdawalla • June 20, 2012
Just a pretty global view of one of Saturn's flock of icy moons, newly processed from archival data by Gordan Ugarkovic.
Emily Lakdawalla • June 15, 2012
An interesting set of images of Titan that Cassini took recently shows a peculiar cap at Titan's south pole.
Become a member of The Planetary Society and together we will create the future of space exploration.
LightSail 2 will launch aboard the SpaceX Falcon Heavy. Be part of this epic point in space exploration history!