Blog Archive

Dione, Mimas, Titan, Tethys, Rhea, Enceladus, Hyperion, and Iapetus, from Cassini science data, to a common scale and from similar phase angles, montage by Emily Lakdawalla

What Saturn's moons can tell us about comets (Notes from LPSC 2012)

Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2012/04/03 05:20 CDT

My notes on a two-part presentation by collaborators Jim Richardson and David Minton about the sizes of things in the Kuiper belt, a story they told by looking at Saturn's moons. How does that work? What connects Saturn's moons to the Kuiper belt is craters.

Lovely Lovejoy pictures

Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2011/12/27 10:34 CST

Just a few of the amazing photos of Comet Lovejoy that have been taken from the southern hemisphere over the last few days. Comet Lovejoy is the first Kreutz sungrazer to have been discovered from the ground in 40 years, and after its surprising survival of its passage close to the Sun, it has been putting on a spectacular show in southern skies.

A recap of Comet Lovejoy

Posted by Jason Davis on 2011/12/22 10:45 CST | 1 comments

A timeline of one of the most memorable solar events in recent memory: the observations by six Sun-observing spacecraft of Comet Lovejoy making its perihelion passage.

Sungrazing Comet Lovejoy seen in SOHO LASCO C3

Video: Comet Lovejoy entered SOHO's LASCO C3 field of view this morning!

Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2011/12/14 09:37 CST

An animation of comet Lovejoy entering the field of view of one of SOHO's Sun-monitoring cameras.

C/2011 W3 (Lovejoy) is shown here in a series of images taken by Rob Kaufman Victoria, Australia.

Sungrazing with Lovejoy's Comet

Posted by Jason Davis on 2011/12/06 10:42 CST

Observations of the newly sighted Kreutz sungrazer comet C/2011 W3 (Lovejoy) from the ground and from SOHO (a joint NASA/ESA satellite) and STEREO (NASA's Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory).

Comet Garradd in 3D (sort of)

Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2011/08/12 12:52 CDT

Amateur astronomer Patrick Wiggins sent me this neat little animation of comet Garradd moving against background stars through an hour's worth of observing. I'm not any kind of astronomer but if I were I think I would get a kick out of looking at things that appear to move within one night of watching -- asteroids, comets, Jupiter's spots. I'm impatient that way.