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Blog Archive
Planetary Society Weekly Hangout, Thu Jan 3 1200PT/2000UT: Jim Bell
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2013/01/02 12:32 CST | 3 comments
Join Emily Lakdawalla and Casey Dreier for a chat with Jim Bell, a scientist who wears many hats. He's the team lead for the Pancam color cameras on the Spirit and Opportunity rovers; he's a member of the Curiosity science team; and he's the esteemed President of the Planetary Society's Board of Directors. We'll talk about the great science being done by both Curiosity and Opportunity, and about what's in store for the future.
Who is the photographer behind Mars rover photos? Answer from Mark Lemmon
Posted by Mark Lemmon on 2012/12/21 11:10 CST | 2 comments
A Mars imaging scientist answers the question: who is the "photographer" behind images returned from Mars?
Planetary Radio Live Celebrates Curiosity/Truly Haute Cuisine!
Listen to or watch the webcast recorded Saturday, December 15th, and enjoy a neat little French animation.
Posted by Mat Kaplan on 2012/12/20 04:06 CST
Listen to or watch the webcast recorded Saturday, December 15th with MSL Project Manager Richard Cook and Project Scientist John Grotzinger. Bonus: enjoy a neat little French animation.
Mars Express VMC resumes raw data posting
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2012/12/19 09:31 CST | 2 comments
ESA brought Mars Express' VMC back online in May, but hasn't been posting the images. This week, they launched a new process to release VMC images automatically to a Flickr page.
Watch Planetary Radio LIVE on Saturday!
Saturday's webcast is all about Curiosity on Mars
Posted by Mat Kaplan on 2012/12/15 11:10 CST | 1 comments
Watch the live show at 2pm Pacific on Saturday, December 15 to see Bill Nye, Emily Lakdawalla and the leaders of the Mars Science Laboratory rover mission.
Posted by Casey Dreier on 2012/12/13 12:15 CST | 3 comments
Join us for our weekly hangout and catch up on GRAIL, Curiosity, and the future Mars rover.
Blast from the past: Mariner 4's images of Mars
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2012/12/10 09:15 CST | 5 comments
While hunting for photos to use in a presentation, I came across a couple of different amateur takes on the Mariner 4 photo catalog.
Sol 3151-3153 - December 5-7, 2012
Posted by Larry Crumpler on 2012/12/07 10:27 CST
An attempt to bump left and get a small bright vein into the instrument deployment device (IDD) work volume failed to get the target in the work plane.
Curiosity update, sol 117: Progress report from AGU
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2012/12/05 07:58 CST | 4 comments
Monday was the big Curiosity day at the fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union. A morning press briefing was followed by an afternoon science session. I traveled to San Francisco briefly just to attend those two events. Here's my notes on the first science reports from the mission.
Planetary Society Weekly Hangout: present and future rovers
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2012/12/05 06:56 CST | 3 comments
The Planetary Society has a new weekly Google+ Hangout time slot, Thursdays at noon PT / 1800 UT. This week, Casey Dreier and I talked about the Curiosity kerfuffle and NASA's future rover plans. Here's the archived recording.
The 2020 Rover in Context
It's not as a big of a change as you might think
Posted by Casey Dreier on 2012/12/05 02:24 CST | 4 comments
The 2020 rover announced today is entirely consistent with NASA's reduced commitment to planetary exploration due to its 2013 budget.
Mars Exploration Rovers Update: Opportunity Digs In at Matijevic Hill
Sols 3119 - 3147
Posted by A.J.S. Rayl on 2012/12/03 08:34 CST | 1 comments
While Curiosity and her team found themselves entangled in a media furor over comments, assumptions, and rumors of findings that have yet to be found, Opportunity roved on in November, finishing up the geologic survey of Matijevic Hill and setting a new mileage record along the way.
Posted by Larry Crumpler on 2012/12/03 10:27 CST
Here at station 14 we have decided to do a detailed investigation of an outcrop that is well exposed and lies within an area where there is orbital remote-sensing evidence for clay minerals. These particular rocks are interesting in that they contain a lot of thin veins and alteration zones along joints (cracks) in the outcrops.
More than you probably wanted to know about Curiosity's SAM instrument
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2012/11/30 12:31 CST | 24 comments
With all the hoopla surrounding the unknown results of the first analysis of a soil sample by Curiosity's Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) instrument, I thought an explainer would be useful. What is SAM, what is it designed to measure, and what is the nature of its results? Here you go.
Posted by Casey Dreier on 2012/11/26 04:44 CST
MSL Curiosity left the Earth one year ago today. This is my experience of the launch.
Pretty Picture: Curiosity on the edge of a geologist's paradise
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2012/11/26 03:11 CST | 1 comments
On Saturday, while parked for the Thanksgiving holiday at the edge of Glenelg, Curiosity took a lovely panorama pointed to the east and into Glenelg.
Cosmoquest Science Hour, Wednesday: Curiosity update with Emily and Fraser
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2012/11/21 05:30 CST | 6 comments
This week's Cosmoquest Astronomy Hour Google+ Hangout at 1600 PST / midnight UTC on Wednesday will feature me and Fraser Cain talking about what Curiosity's been up to, and answering your questions.
Nifty animation: Dust in the air for Curiosity
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2012/11/21 11:21 CST
An animation of Curiosity photos shows changes in the weather.
Planetary Radio Live--Celebrating Curiosity
Leaders of the Mars Science Laboratory mission join Bill Nye and others on stage.
Posted by Mat Kaplan on 2012/11/20 04:28 CST
Bill Nye and Planetary Society colleagues welcome mission leaders Richard Cook and John Grotzinger to a live discussion about the Mars Science Laboratory Rover.
Curiosity sol 102 update: Eppur si muove
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2012/11/19 06:36 CST | 2 comments
Curiosity is a rover again at last! She was parked at the dune named Rocknest for 40 sols, from sol 60 through 99. On sol 100, she drove right on top of the dune, obliterating her five scoop marks. Then on sol 102 she took a good long, 35-meter drive so that she's now right on the edge of the "high thermal inertia unit" that attracted her to the spot the team has named Glenelg.
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