Blog Archive

Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2012/03/02 01:22 CST

Here are two perfect examples of Voyager 2's amazing untapped treasures.

Posted by Bill Nye on 2012/02/03 01:09 CST | 1 comments

I have just returned from my first Planetary Society-sponsored trip to Puerto Rico and this historic, remarkable, big idea of a telescope.

Parallel planetary processes create semantic headaches

Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2012/01/26 03:55 CST

I ran into a semantic problem today: what to call the science of studying liquids on Titan?

At last: Rosetta's Mars flyby photos have been released!

Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2012/01/24 03:51 CST

At last: Rosetta's Mars flyby photos have been released!

Opportunity Deck Pan, December 2011 (sols 2811-2814)

Dusty girl

Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2012/01/23 05:32 CST

Today Opportunity sent back to Earth the last few frames of the "deck pan" self-portrait she took during the waning days of 2011. Her solar panels are very dusty, which isn't helpful. It's near winter solstice in her southern location on Mars, so the angled Sun is not providing as much power as it would in a different season.

Lovely Lovejoy pictures

Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2011/12/27 10:34 CST

Just a few of the amazing photos of Comet Lovejoy that have been taken from the southern hemisphere over the last few days. Comet Lovejoy is the first Kreutz sungrazer to have been discovered from the ground in 40 years, and after its surprising survival of its passage close to the Sun, it has been putting on a spectacular show in southern skies.

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.

Blink animation between SAR and photo observations of Iapetus

More radar images of icy moons from Cassini: Iapetus, Enceladus, and Rhea

Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2011/12/21 12:10 CST

When I posted about the really cool Cassini SAR images of Enceladus a few weeks ago, I initially wrote that this was the first-ever SAR image of an icy moon other than Titan. Several people (some readers and two members of the Cassini science team!) corrected that statement: Cassini has performed SAR imaging of other icy moons (including Enceladus) before.

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.

Mariner 7 approach image of Mars (reconstructed)

Mariner 9 approaching Mars: a movie!

Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2011/12/09 01:32 CST

In celebration of the 40th anniversary of Mariner 9's November 13, 1971 arrival at Mars, Daniel Macháček has produced a morphed animation of the images that Mars' first orbiter took while approaching the planet.

First-ever high-resolution Synthetic Aperture Radar image of Enceladus

Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2011/12/01 07:22 CST

On the November 6, 2011 flyby of Enceladus -- the third such flyby in just a few weeks -- the Cassini mission elected to take a SAR swath instead of using the optical instruments for once. So here it is: the first-ever SAR swath on Enceladus. In fact, the only other places we've ever done SAR imaging are Earth, the Moon, Venus, Iapetus, and Titan.

Every round object in the solar system, to scale (widescreen)

At last, I've finished my scale solar system presentation slide/poster

Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2011/12/01 01:22 CST

A presentation providing a correctly scaled, reasonably correctly colored view of the largest bodies in the solar system is made available for use by teachers, professors, and informal educators.

DSS-43, the 70-meter dish at Canberra, Australia

The 70-meter dishes of the Deep Space Network

Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2011/11/28 05:06 CST

I was inspired by my recent trip to Goldstone to put together this poster showing all three of the great 70-meter dishes of the Deep Space Network. There's one at each of the three complexes, at Goldstone, at Robledo (near Madrid, Spain), and at Tidbinbilla (near Canberra, Australia).

Curiosity is on its way to Mars!

Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2011/11/26 09:09 CST

It was a textbook launch for the Atlas V 541 today at 15:02 UTC, and within an hour after liftoff, the Centaur second stage had sent Curiosity on its way for an 8.5-month journey to Mars.

Mars Exploration Family Portrait

Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2011/11/23 12:26 CST | 1 comments

Jason Davis put together this neat summary of the checkered history of Mars exploration.

A little fun with Deep Impact deep-sky data

Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2011/11/14 05:44 CST

Last week, the team put all of the data from Deep Impact's deep-sky imaging session online, and challenged visitors to see what they could make from it. I made some photos of M51, but there were some challenges.