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Pretty Picture: Three Wanderers
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2014/03/12 12:34 CDT
With all the excitement happening on missions criscrossing the solar system, I often forget to enjoy the views of our solar system that we can achieve from home. Amateur astronomers don't make the same mistake. Here's a lovely photo that Stuart Atkinson sent me, captured last night from Kendal, England, showing four special wanderers.
Looking Backward: Curiosity gazes upon the setting Earth
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2014/02/05 11:58 CST | 8 comments
A few days ago, Curiosity looked westward after sunset and photographed Earth setting toward the mountainous rim of Gale crater.
Cosmos with Cosmos Episode 6: Travellers' Tales
Voyager is the ultimate expression of our desire to explore
Posted by Casey Dreier on 2013/11/25 03:56 CST | 12 comments
The Voyager mission may be the ultimate expression of our desire to explore, but why does that will exist in the first place? Why is it unique to humans?
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.
The "Starship Century" Beckons
Gregory and James Benford return to Planetary Radio
Posted by Mat Kaplan on 2013/10/01 10:30 CDT
The Benford brothers provide inspiration and hard fact in their excellent new anthology about interstellar travel.
Pretty picture: spectacular Saturn and Titan
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2013/08/15 08:04 CDT | 3 comments
A lovely view of the ringed planet and its hazy moon seen from nearly behind them just a few days ago.
Posted by Bill Dunford on 2013/07/29 01:18 CDT | 4 comments
Pushing back the frontier, and filling in the blank spaces on the map.
Favorite space images: "Many Worlds"
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2013/06/17 10:58 CDT | 1 comments
For this evening's Planetary Radio Live event, Mat Kaplan asked me to do a presentation of some favorite space images. I told him that picking favorite space images is like picking favorite children; it's not possible because they're all my favorite. To narrow things down, I decided to explore a theme: "Many Worlds."
Pretty picture: Neptune and Triton
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2013/02/01 12:29 CST | 6 comments
On a lonely evening, what is one to do but to dip into archival space image data and surface with a gorgeous photo of a crescent Neptune and Triton?
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.
Pretty pictures from Cassini's recent Dione flyby
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2012/05/04 05:44 CDT
Cassini performed its last of three close encounters with Enceladus for 2012 two days ago, and followed the flyby with some spectacular images of Dione.
Pretty picture: Janus and Saturn
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2012/04/04 12:15 CDT
In the last few days as it's rounded periapsis in its current orbit of Saturn, Cassini has taken a lot of great photos of Saturn's moons. One series of photos was taken from pretty close to Janus, a moon about a third the diameter of Enceladus that orbits between the F and G rings. And among those, several were taken with the moon sitting in front of Saturn.
Pretty picture: A study in ringlight
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2012/03/08 02:27 CST
Clearly, this is Saturn, and its rings, and if you look closer you can see a tiny circle, on top of the rings, which is Mimas, and two stars in the background. It should look weird to you that while the rings are bright, Mimas is a black dot. What is happening here? Nearly everything in this picture is lit by light that has not arrived directly from the Sun.
Pretty pictures from Cassini's recent Dione flyby
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2011/12/22 11:52 CST
Cassini flew close by Dione on December 12 and, as usual, the close pass provided opportunities for lots of dramatic photos, not just of Dione, but of other moons wandering by in the background.
Pretty picture: Mimas scuttles behind Dione
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2011/12/12 06:36 CST
Images from the Cassini spacecraft's flyby of Dione.
Scale solar system presentation slide, version 2
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2011/10/31 01:14 CDT
Last month I posted a preliminary version of a slide I was working on for use in my public presentations, a slide that contains everything in the solar system bigger than 400 kilometers across, and invited comment. I've listened to all of your comments and corrections and come up with a second version.
Pretty pictures & movies: Eye candy from two recent Cassini Enceladus flybys
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2011/10/20 12:35 CDT
Cassini has completed two very close flybys of Enceladus in less than three weeks, one of them just this morning, and the images from that encounter have already arrived on Earth.
Pretty pictures: Dancing moons
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2011/09/28 12:28 CDT
Since Cassini currently orbits Saturn within the plane of Saturn's rings, it has lots of chances to catch two or more moons in the same photo. One such "mutual event" happened on September 17, featuring four moons: Titan, Dione, Pan, and Pandora.
Pretty picture: Earth and Moon from JunoCam
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2011/08/30 11:53 CDT
It's always awe-inspiring to see our great world as just a tiny spot within vast space. The latest spacecraft to get such a view of Earth and the Moon is the Jupiter-bound Juno.
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