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Spectacular animation of Halley's comet
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2009/11/26 09:11 CST
Two more awesome pictures from the Enceladus flyby
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2009/11/22 05:54 CST
Prepare for your jaw to hit the floor when you see these pictures of Enceladus
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2009/11/21 10:26 CST
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2009/11/19 04:54 CST
It really looks like the second attempt at driving Spirit out of the trap has had the hoped-for result: some forward progress (maybe about a centimeter), and no evidence for further downward sinking.
Space Imaging II: Getting Started with MER and Cassini Raw Images now available for download
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2009/11/19 02:49 CST | 2 comments
Opportunity's poking at Marquette Island; Cassini's catching dancing moons
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2009/11/18 04:58 CST
Since tomorrow's class is going to be on playing with raw images from the rovers and Cassini, I've been playing with recent raw images from the rovers and Cassini! I just thought I'd share a couple of the fun items I've been working with.
Results of the first "Free Spirit" extrication drive, sol 2088: not much, as expected
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2009/11/17 03:20 CST
Even though all of us rover fans know that Spirit is really, really stuck, I think I'm not the only one who was secretly hoping that today's images downlinked from Spirit would show that the rover had magically popped out of the ground overnight. Of course, she didn't.
She moves! "First drive sequence in 145 sols" for Spirit
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2009/11/08 04:39 CST
It's been an awful long time since we've seen one of these from Spirit: an animation of four Navcam frames documenting motion!
Opportunity's world of dunes and rock
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2009/10/16 01:28 CDT
Opportunity's been making tracks lately, with brief stops to check out a couple of meteorites. I thought this view of its surroundings on sol 2,034 (a couple of days ago) was neat.
It would appear that Opportunity has stumbled upon another meteorite
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2009/10/02 12:58 CDT
I wonder if this came from the same original body as Block Island, or if Meridiani is the kind of slowly deflating landscape that accumulates meteorites at its surface, like the ANSMET meteorite hunting spots in Antarctica?
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2009/09/29 11:49 CDT
Opportunity rover is driving, driving, driving. It departed the meteorite named Block Island on sol 2,004 and has routinely clocked 70 meters per driving day (with drives every other day).
Beautiful 3D animation of Spirit's environs in Gusev Crater
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2009/09/23 08:14 CDT
Doug Ellison has done it again: he's created a spectacular overflight of Gusev crater based upon digital elevation models of the terrain produced by the United States Geological Survey from HiRISE data.
Opportunity's highway, and a tour of Block Island
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2009/09/15 12:35 CDT
Just a cool image to start the morning: after a 70-meter drive yesterday, Opportunity's following not one but two sets of its own tracks.
Dust storm update: Skies clearing for Spirit
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2009/09/02 12:25 CDT
For a while, Mars was beating Spirit while she was down, throwing a dust storm at the rover where it's bogged up to its hubcaps in fluffy soil When lots of dust is lofted into the sky, the hazard is that when it comes down, it may come down on the rover and its solar panels. But it appears things on Spirit are still pretty clean.
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2009/08/24 12:37 CDT
While Spirit has been stuck at Troy, it's been taking numerous opportunities to capture photos with dramatic twilight lighting. On sol 2,002 (three sols ago, or August 21), it gazed toward the setting Sun, snapping the shutter roughly once a minute.
Triple asteroid 1994 CC rotation animation
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2009/08/06 10:39 CDT
From the "just plain cool" department. I love animations of planetary images and I love radar images of asteroids -- so this animation is doubly cool.
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2009/01/21 06:48 CST
Spirit's been getting some nice views of the spot it spent all of 2008 in, "Home Plate north." Meanwhile, Opportunity is motoring along.
What do we know about Uranus' moons? Part 1
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2009/01/20 06:26 CST
I got an urge to dive in to the Voyager image archives and see what exactly we have here on Earth to base our understanding of the Uranian moons on.
Opportunity and Spirit updates: Both are now driving
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2008/10/31 01:26 CDT
Another day, another drive: on sols 1,693 and 1,695 the Opportunity rover conducted two more lengthy drives to the south, totaling almost 200 meters. On the other side of the planet, Spirit is FINALLY in motion again.
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