Blog Archive

India's Mars Orbiter Mission update: six months from launch

Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2013/05/21 11:06 CDT | 2 comments

A couple of articles on India's Mars Orbiter Mission were published on the news website The Week yesterday, and they're much more in-depth and insightful than the norm.

Report from the Starship Century Conference

Posted by Jon Lomberg on 2013/05/21 10:42 CDT | 2 comments

This week Jon Lomberg is attending the Starship Century conference, which brings together scientists, writers, and futurists to imagine the future of interstellar travel. The organizers are Greg and Jim Benford, and among the attendees are: David Brin, Neal Stephenson, Vernor Vinge, Joe Haldeman, Alan Steele, Geoffrey Landis, Freeman Dyson, Jill Tarter, Paul Davies, Nalaka Gunawardene, and Daniel Richter.

Planetary Science Echoes Through the Halls of Congress

Posted by Casey Dreier on 2013/05/21 02:12 CDT

The Planetary Society just returned from a big trip to Washington, D.C. to advocate for continued planetary exploration. Here's what happened.

Curiosity drills at Cumberland, sol 279 (before-and-after flicker gif)

Opportunity and Curiosity updates: Rolling and drilling and a little wear on the wheels

Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2013/05/20 11:27 CDT | 1 comments

For most of April, while Mars scuttled behind the Sun as seen from Earth, both Mars rovers were pretty inactive. Now that conjunction has ended, both are doing what rovers should be doing: roving and exploring. As of sol 3312 Opportunity had moved more than 300 meters southward toward Solander Point, while on her sol 279 Curiosity drilled at a second site, Cumberland.

CRISM Reveals the Minerals of Lampland Crater

Many More Colors than Red: Exploring Mars with Spectroscopy

Posted by Bill Dunford on 2013/05/20 01:31 CDT | 4 comments

Mars gives up its secrets through the unseen colors of its rocks.

New Horizons: Encounter Planning Accelerates

Posted by Alan Stern on 2013/05/17 10:18 CDT | 3 comments

Back in 2005 and 2006, when Pluto’s second and third moons (Nix and Hydra) were discovered, searches by astronomers for still more moons didn’t reveal any. So the accidental discovery of Pluto’s fourth moon by the Hubble Space Telescope in mid-2011 raised the possibility that the hazards in the Pluto system might be greater than previously anticipated.