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Looks like the Dawn flyby of Mars went well
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2009/02/21 11:10 CST
Looks like the Dawn flyby of Mars went well: here' a photo of Mars taken by Dawn near its closest approach to Mars during its February 17 flyby.
Treasures from Mars' ancient history
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2009/01/28 12:06 CST
In which I discover Earl Slipher's Mars: The Photographic Story.
Why is only half of Mars magnetized?
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2008/10/24 09:21 CDT
An article in the September 26 issue of Science neatly explains why only the southern half of Mars is strongly magnetized.
Opportunity's got a long road ahead
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2008/09/19 05:03 CDT
Mars Exploration Rover principal investigator Steve Squyres announced on National Public Radio's Science Friday show the next goal for Opportunity, and it's a long, long, long way away: a huge crater about 12 kilometers southeast of its current location, which the team is referring to internally as "Endeavour."
Phoenix Sol 2 press conference, in a nutshell
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2008/05/27 03:51 CDT
Phoenix Sol 2 press conference, in a nutshell
Mars Climate Sounder Collects 20 Millionth Sounding
Posted by Bruce Betts on 2008/03/10 12:00 CDT
Last week Mars Climate Sounder collected its 20 millionth sounding at Mars. Mars Climate Sounder is scanning without problems, collecting science observations of the atmosphere of Mars. Mars Climate Sounder has now been observing Mars for over 17 months (three quarters of a Mars year and also approximately three quarters of the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter primary science mission).
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2008/01/23 01:41 CST | 2 comments
The story of a Sasquatch-shaped rock visible in a recent panorama from Spirit is getting a lot of play in the mainstream media, but fortunately, it's not being taken very seriously. (My favorite take on this picture is the lead from the Times Online story about it: "Is it a rock? A trick of Martian light on the eye? Or Osama Bin Laden waving from his barren hideout 300 million miles from planet Earth?")
Millions of soundings yield clues to Mars' weather
Posted by Bruce Betts on 2007/04/03 12:00 CDT
Two months after the start of Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter's primary science phase, the Mars Climate Sounder instrument has already acquired more than four million soundings, building toward a vast data set on the three-dimensional structure of Mars' atmosphere over the full Martian year of the orbiter's nominal mission.
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2007/02/25 10:27 CST
This amazing view was captured by the CIVA camera on Rosetta's Philae lander just four minutes before its closest approach to Mars on February 25, 2007. The spacecraft was only 1,000 kilometers above the planet.
Spacecraft Set to Reach Milestone, Reports Technical Glitches
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2007/02/07 11:00 CST
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2005/12/24 08:30 CST
There was a big news splash about two articles that appeared in Nature about Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity's landing site. The articles suggest two theories for the formation of the layered sulfur-rich deposits at Meridiani Planum that do not involve standing liquid water.
An opportunity for Spirit to see Earth and Venus together?
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2005/09/26 08:16 CDT
I received the following question by email last week: "Do you know if the Mars rovers team has any plans to photograph Venus and Earth together in the evening sky from either rover site? They will be closest together around Sept. 29th."
A pretty Mars Global Surveyor picture
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2005/07/27 08:19 CDT
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2005/06/28 02:18 CDT
Apparently there is a bogus email circulating around the Web with the following text: "The Red Planet is about to be spectacular!" But Mars is not about to appear "as large as the full Moon."
Posted by Charlene Anderson on 2002/08/01 12:00 CDT
Home. Family. This will be Voyager's enduring legacy: It has changed forever the feelings raised by those words. Through its robotic eyes we have learned to see the solar system as our home. Through its portraits of the planets we know that they are part of our family. Apollo astronauts showed us a tiny Earth alone in the blackness of space. Now, with these images, Voyager has shown us that Earth is not really alone. Around our parent Sun orbit sibling worlds, companions as we travel through the Galaxy.
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