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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.
Conjunction season is over, and Opportunity is back to work
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2011/02/17 04:04 CST
It's always a relief when conjunction passes. Opportunity has gotten right back to work, sending down data acquired just before the moratorium, which spanned from January 27 to February 11.
Happy Valentine's Day from Mars
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2011/02/14 01:35 CST
I dug around and found something unique: this cool heart-shaped feature on Mars -- my Valentine to you all!
Google Mars base maps available for Opportunity's future traverse
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2011/02/09 12:47 CST
Thanks to the work of several amateurs, Google Mars is a great tool for following the past and future peregrinations of the Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity.
Mars conjunction today: Cool SOHO/SDO video
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2011/02/04 11:41 CST
Today Mars made its closest approach to the Sun -- as seen from Earth, that is. Why is this important?
Posted by Marc Rayman on 2011/02/03 12:10 CST
Dawn continues its flight through the asteroid belt, steadily heading toward its July rendezvous with Vesta, where it will take up residence for a year. On January 10, Dawn performed some of the activities that it will execute in its low altitude mapping orbit (LAMO) at Vesta.
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2011/01/27 05:32 CST
I've spent the day noodling around in the current issue of Icarus, following up some of the more interesting stories within its table of contents, and came across a picture of this very cool crater -- actually, set of craters -- on Mars.
Scientific clarification: "inverted topography" is more general than "esker-like features"
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2011/01/14 10:50 CST
In the past couple of months I've received several emails from scientists offering clarifications, corrections, or alternative points of view to previous posts, which is awesome and something that I enthusiastically encourage. Here's one of them.
365 Days of Astronomy Podcast: Unmanned Space Exploration in 2011
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2011/01/12 10:32 CST
Today the 365 Days of Astronomy podcast aired my contribution, Unmanned Space Exploration in 2011, about what to look forward to in solar system exploration this year.
"A genuinely weird experience": A video of Steve Squyres explaining a photo of Steve Squyres
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2011/01/12 10:09 CST
In a lovely talk, in his uncommonly engaging way, Steve Squyres presents the portrait of him that now hangs in the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery.
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2011/01/05 11:38 CST
These two movies were posted to the JPL website a couple of weeks ago, and they are just amazing.
Two views of Santa Maria, from orbit and from the ground
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2011/01/04 11:27 CST
Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has just snapped another photo of Opportunity sitting on the ground on Mars. These pictures never get old.
How Mars Express' orbit shifts with time
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2011/01/04 11:02 CST
While I was writing yesterday's blog entry on Mars Express' Phobos flybys I realized that I didn't understand Mars Express' orbit very well. So I sent an inquiry to the Mars Express blog, which they answered in a blog entry today.
It's Phobos season again for Mars Express
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2011/01/03 01:43 CST
The Mars Express blog has been reactivated today, as a new series of Phobos flybys is already underway.
Door 11 in the 2010 advent calendar
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2010/12/11 02:35 CST
Time to open the eleventh door in the advent calendar. Until the New Year, I'll be opening a door onto a different landscape from somewhere in the solar system. Where in the solar system are these sinuous ridges?
Mars Climate Sounder Watches Mars Weather to Prepare for Curiosity Landing
Posted by David Kass on 2010/09/29 12:00 CDT
Two weeks ago Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and Mars Climate Sounder (MCS) started a four-week campaign to support entry, descent, and landing phase for the next Mars rover, Mars Science Laboratory (or "Curiosity").
Tracing the Big Picture of Mars' Atmosphere
Posted by Bruce Betts on 2010/08/26 12:00 CDT
One of the instruments on a 2016 mission to orbit Mars will provide daily maps of global, pole-to-pole, vertical distributions of the temperature, dust, water vapor and ice clouds in the Martian atmosphere.
Observing the Martian Atmosphere for Two Mars Years
Posted by David Kass on 2010/07/13 12:00 CDT
June 29, 2010 was the second Martian anniversary of the start of Mars Climate Sounder (MCS) observations at Mars.
Pretty (strange) picture from HiRISE: Dust flow crater?
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2010/04/08 11:38 CDT
Yesterday was the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter HiRISE team's latest flood of archived images, 1,025 of them. I skipped forward to page 42 (what other number would I pick?) and started browsing from there.
Mars Express animation of Phobos' shadow transiting Mars
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2010/02/02 12:08 CST
For the first time ever, Mars Express' Visual Monitoring Camera has imaged the shadow of Mars' moon Phobos crossing the surface of Mars.
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