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Enormously detailed photo of Kasei Valles from Mars Express
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2013/06/19 02:36 CDT | 7 comments
ESA celebrated the tenth anniversary of Mars Express' launch with a several-day science meeting during which they issued lots of press releases and numerous spectacular photos. My favorite of them all is this enormous image of Kasei Valles on Mars.
Posted by Bill Dunford on 2013/06/19 01:33 CDT | 1 comments
From far away, or from so near you could almost touch it, the moon is beautiful.
Exploring Ten Years' Worth of Mars Express Data
Posted by Bill Dunford on 2013/06/13 01:09 CDT | 3 comments
Mars Express has been in flight for a decade, more than enough time to send home some amazing finds.
Pretty pictures: Curiosity working late
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2013/06/07 11:47 CDT | 2 comments
Just some cool photos of Curiosity lighting up the Cumberland drill hole after sunset for a little nighttime science work.
Say "hi!" to asteroid -- actually, asteroids -- (285263) 1998 QE2
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2013/05/30 06:51 CDT | 8 comments
A large asteroid is passing reasonably close to Earth in a few hours, and astronomers at the great radio telescopes at Goldstone and Arecibo are zapping it. The latest discovery: QE2, like many asteroids, is a binary.
Lesser-known views of Uranus and Neptune
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2013/05/28 10:58 CDT | 7 comments
Despite the fact that Voyager 2 returned relatively few high-resolution images from either Uranus or Neptune, there are many more photos in the archives than regularly make it to public view.
The Shores of the Kraken Sea: Great Place Names in the Solar System
Posted by Bill Dunford on 2013/05/28 08:59 CDT | 9 comments
Nothing reflects the romance of deep space exploration more than the evocative names of places on the planets and moons.
Many More Colors than Red: Exploring Mars with Spectroscopy
Posted by Bill Dunford on 2013/05/20 01:31 CDT | 6 comments
Mars gives up its secrets through the unseen colors of its rocks.
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2013/05/15 05:02 CDT | 6 comments
I've been out of town for a couple of days and am overwhelmed with work and an overflowing email box. So what do I do about that? I ignore what I'm supposed to be doing and play with Cassini raw image data, of course. Here is a "mutual event" of Mimas (the bigger moon) and Pandora (the outer shepherd of the F ring).
Dueling Desolations: Mercury vs. the Moon
Posted by Bill Dunford on 2013/05/13 01:02 CDT | 7 comments
They look so similar they can be hard to tell apart, but each hides its own mysteries.
New Deep Impact Hartley 2 data set
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2013/05/03 09:59 CDT | 7 comments
Just messing around with a recently released processed version of the Deep Impact Hartley 2 data set.
Dark No More: Exploring the Far Side of the Moon
Posted by Bill Dunford on 2013/04/29 02:11 CDT | 3 comments
The first human beings to see the mysterious "dark" side of the moon were not astronauts.
Supersonic flight for SpaceShipTwo
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2013/04/29 12:48 CDT | 6 comments
Virgin Galactic achieved a major milestone today with the first supersonic flight for its SpaceShipTwo suborbital vehicle. The rocket fired for a total of 16 seconds.
Posted by Bill Dunford on 2013/04/21 03:07 CDT | 6 comments
Mars and Earth share a truly striking family resemblance, but there's no mistaking which one is home.
A walk among the mesas of Deuteronilus Mensae
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2013/04/19 02:17 CDT | 4 comments
Enjoy some pretty pictures of some bizarre terrain on Mars: the mesas of Deuteronilus Mensae.
Posted by Bill Dunford on 2013/04/15 02:08 CDT | 3 comments
Cassini's unique views of Jupiter and Saturn.
Russia's Mars 3 lander maybe found by Russian amateurs
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2013/04/12 01:22 CDT | 4 comments
Виталий Егоров (Vitaliy Egorov) is a Russian space enthusiast who enlisted help of fellow enthusiasts to search for -- and maybe find -- the Russian Mars 3 hardware on the Martian surface. Here he explains how he did it.
Blast from the Past: Spirit's tracks at the "End of the Rainbow"
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2013/04/09 09:05 CDT | 3 comments
Doug Ellison shared this lovely panorama via Twitter over the weekend. It's from the Mars Exploration Rover Spirit, taken back in 2004. The drunken path in the foreground is a visual record of just how exciting it was for Spirit to have finally made it to the Columbia Hills, and to rocks that were not fragments of basalt.
Posted by Bill Dunford on 2013/04/08 09:12 CDT | 4 comments
Dispatches from five different worlds--all sent by robotic spacecraft on the same day.
Pretty pictures: Gliding flight for SpaceShipTwo
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2013/04/05 12:46 CDT | 8 comments
Some beautiful photos of a recent gliding flight test of SpaceShipTwo.
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