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The Making of Martian Clouds in Motion: Part 1, working with Mars Express HRSC data
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2011/08/22 08:39 CDT
The Making of Martian Clouds in Motion: Part 1, working with Mars Express HRSC data
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2011/08/19 10:36 CDT
Martian clouds in motion
Gale's not the only Martian crater with an "enigmatic mound"
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2011/08/17 07:33 CDT
Gale's not the only Martian crater with an "enigmatic mound"
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2011/08/10 02:09 CDT
Opportunity's wheels are on a whole new different kind of rock: she has arrived at the rim of Endeavour crater, on Cape York.
Spirit Point and Odyssey crater in sight, and new rock under Opportunity's wheels
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2011/08/07 04:26 CDT
Spirit Point and Odyssey crater in sight, and new rock under Opportunity's wheels
Opportunity's horizon rises -- and maybe brings Cape York into view
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2011/07/21 03:12 CDT
Opportunity's horizon rises -- and maybe brings Cape York into view
In Memory of Spirit, and Why Cuteness Matters
Posted by Melissa Rice on 2011/06/15 02:21 CDT
An analysis of "cuteness", and why it matters when talking about science.
Posted by Ryan Anderson on 2011/05/27 09:01 CDT
Laser beams and space exploration are perfect for each other, and not just because all self-respecting starship captains know their way around a blaster. It turns out that zapping rocks with a laser is not only fun, it also can tell you what they're made of!
Memo to early risers: Look up!
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2011/05/02 11:46 CDT
There is a traffic jam of planets on the eastern horizon in the early morning right now and for the next several weeks, a prize for those of you who have to rise before dawn.
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2011/05/02 11:26 CDT
Space.com has taken advantage of the infinitely scrollable nature of Web pages to produce a really cool infographic on the scales of orbital distances in the solar system.
365 Days of Astronomy Podcast: What's up in the second quarter of 2011
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2011/04/07 11:16 CDT
Regular readers of this blog will find the content of today's 365 Days of Astronomy Podcast familiar, because it's an update on what the solar system exploration spacecraft are up to, based on my monthly "what's up" updates.
Welcome to Carnival of Space #191
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2011/04/05 11:25 CDT
Welcome, everyone, to the Planetary Society Blog for the 191st Carnival of Space! Every week, a different webmaster or blogger hosts the Carnival, showcasing articles written on the topic of space.
LPSC 2011: Kirby Runyon on Mars, the Moon, Hartley 2, and Ganymede
Posted by Kirby Runyon on 2011/03/15 01:57 CDT
Kirby Runyon, a second-year grad student at Temple University, offered to send me some writeups of selected presentations from last week's Lunar and Planetary Science Conference, and I enthusiastically agreed.
LPSC 2011: Day 3: Moon, Mars, and Venus
Posted by Ted Stryk on 2011/03/10 11:11 CST
Wednesday morning included some interesting conversations. Notably, I spoke with Pamela Gay, who is responsible for the MoonZoo citizen science program and who is presently working on developing a site through which the public will be able to help search for potential Kuiper belt objects for the New Horizons mission to encounter after the Pluto flyby.
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2011/03/09 12:23 CST
While scanning through the talks scheduled for this week's Lunar and Planetary Science Conference I came across the following talk title: "Interannual and Seasonal Variability in the North Polar Region of Mars: Observations in Mars Years 29 and 30 by MARCI, CTX, and CRISM." My first thought was "hey, cool research spanning a long time period and across data sets." But my second was "Mars years 29 and 30? What does that mean?"
Pretty picture: Viking 1 across Mars
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2011/03/09 10:10 CST
Image magician Daniel Macháček has been turning his energies to Viking Orbiter views of Mars lately, with some stunning results, like the one below. I'm not sure how he makes images that look so sharp and clean and with such rich color out of the Viking Orbiter data.
Endeavour on Opportunity's horizon: Are we there yet?
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2011/03/02 03:45 CST
Last week the Mars Exploration Rover team dumped another 90 sols' worth of data from Mars into NASA's Planetary Data System, the national repository for space mission data. As I did once before, I dove into this fresh pile of data to pull out Opportunity's color views of the distant rim of Endeavour crater.
Posted by Charlene Anderson on 2011/02/25 03:25 CST
A Planetary Society trifecta -- that's what Neil Tyson calls this episode of his StarTalk radio show broadcast this week. His guests include the Society's Vice President, Heidi Hammel, and its Executive Director, Bill Nye, (along with the Society's friend, Steve Squyres, Principal Investigator for the Mars Exploration Rovers).
New website full of color versions of Opportunity rover's microscopic images
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2011/02/24 04:47 CST
There is a fascinating new page on the Mars Exploration Rover Pancam science team's website, full of color versions of Opportunity's microscopic images. The Microscopic Imager is one of the tools on the end of the robotic arm, and serves as a hand lens for the robot geologist to explore the rocks and sands of Mars in great detail.
The Solar System from the Inside Out - and the Outside In
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2011/02/18 02:27 CST
Space probes grant us perspective, the ability to see our place within the vastness of the solar system. But opportunities to see all of the solar system's planets in one observation are rare. In fact, there's only been one opportunity on one mission to see the whole solar system at once, until now.
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