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Super cool Phobos and Deimos animations from Mars Express
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2013/10/03 02:17 CDT
I've been delving in to the Mars Express image archive this week, checking out its images of Phobos, and found a couple of really cool time-series of images to assemble into animations.
More fancy Phobos and Deimos photography by Curiosity
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2013/09/24 10:19 CDT
Curiosity looked up after dark and captured more cool photos of Mars' moons. They include Phobos and Deimos passing in the night, and Phobos entering Mars' shadow.
Movie of Phobos and Deimos from Curiosity: super cool and scientifically useful
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2013/08/16 05:01 CDT | 5 comments
Yesterday, the Curiosity mission released the video whose potential I got so excited about a couple of weeks ago: the view, from Curiosity, of Phobos transiting Deimos in the Martian sky. In this post, Mark Lemmon answers a bunch of my questions about why they photograph Phobos and Deimos from rovers.
Posted by Bill Dunford on 2013/08/05 01:38 CDT | 4 comments
Seasons, sunlight, and shadow at the Moon's north pole
Curiosity is copying Cassini's tricks!
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2013/08/03 10:59 CDT | 9 comments
Take a look at this amazing photo, captured by Curiosity from the surface of Mars on sol 351 (August 1, 2013). It is unmistakably Phobos.
Posted by Bill Dunford on 2013/07/15 01:42 CDT | 3 comments
There's a cool new way to explore the first planet.
Say "hi!" to asteroid -- actually, asteroids -- (285263) 1998 QE2
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2013/05/30 06:51 CDT | 8 comments
A large asteroid is passing reasonably close to Earth in a few hours, and astronomers at the great radio telescopes at Goldstone and Arecibo are zapping it. The latest discovery: QE2, like many asteroids, is a binary.
Why don't we have any photos of asteroid 2012 DA14 if it came so close?
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2013/02/19 03:13 CST | 2 comments
A frequently-asked question last week was: if asteroid 2012 DA14 is coming so close to Earth, why hasn't anyone taken any pictures of it? Now that 2012 DA14 has whizzed past us, we do finally have some radar pictures of it, but they still may not satisfy everyone.
Posted by Bill Dunford on 2013/02/18 10:20 CST | 2 comments
When the sunlight catches it just right, Saturn's F Ring is something to see.
The Earth is a Planet: Why We Explore Space
Posted by Bill Dunford on 2013/02/11 10:50 CST
Why spend effort and scarce resources on space exploration when we have so many problems here at home? Turns out, there are some pretty good reasons.
Venerable Deep Impact spacecraft has photographed comet ISON
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2013/02/05 05:24 CST | 6 comments
Deep Impact has made the first space-based observations of comet ISON.
Pretty picture: Jupiter photo from an unusual source
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2012/12/26 01:02 CST | 4 comments
A recently launched Earth-observing satellite is using the stars to practice its pointing, and caught a neat animation of Jupiter.
That amazing image of Saturn's north pole just got better: now, it moves!
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2012/11/28 11:27 CST | 2 comments
Remember the amazing photo of Saturn's north pole that I posted yesterday? Now, thanks to an amateur image processor, it moves, and the motions of the individual clouds within the belts are mesmerizing.
Nifty animation: Dust in the air for Curiosity
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2012/11/21 11:21 CST
An animation of Curiosity photos shows changes in the weather.
Happy Cassini PDS Release Day!
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2012/10/08 01:00 CDT | 2 comments
It's a quarterly feast day for me: the day that the Cassini mission delivers three months' worth of data to NASA's Planetary Data System. Here's a few images processed from the October 1, 2012 data release.
Curiosity catches sunspots along with Phobos and Deimos transits
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2012/10/03 07:15 CDT | 2 comments
Curiosity has been shooting photos of the Sun as Phobos and Deimos cross its face, and -- as far as I can tell -- captured sunspots as well.
Posted by Bill Gray on 2012/08/25 10:55 CDT | 4 comments
An update on China's second lunar orbiter, Chang'e 2, which is now heading for asteroid Toutatis.
First look at Curiosity MARDI's descent animation (WOW WOW)
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2012/08/06 07:09 CDT | 5 comments
Even a preliminary, low-resolution, low-frame-rate version of Curiosity's descent imager animation of the arrival on Mars contains almost more awesome than I can stand.
Pretty pictures from Cassini's weekend flybys of Enceladus and Tethys
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2012/04/16 03:11 CDT
Cassini flew past both Enceladus and Tethys on April 14. Here's a cool animation of its approach to Enceladus' plumes, and a pretty global picture of Tethys.
Mariner 9 approaching Mars: a movie!
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2011/12/09 01:32 CST
In celebration of the 40th anniversary of Mariner 9's November 13, 1971 arrival at Mars, Daniel Macháček has produced a morphed animation of the images that Mars' first orbiter took while approaching the planet.
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