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8th Mars Report: Martian habitability
Posted by Valerie Fox on 2014/07/30 01:22 CDT | 1 comment
Valerie Fox reports from the 8th International Conference on Mars on the habitability of the Red Planet.
NASA's Budget Stalls Out
...as do all budgets for 2015
Posted by Casey Dreier on 2014/07/29 08:46 CDT | 1 comment
Congress has all but given up its goal of passing a budget before the end of this fiscal year in September. Instead, we will likely see a temporary extension through the elections in November.
8th Mars Report: Was Ancient Mars Warm and Wet or Cold and Icy?
Posted by Abigail Fraeman on 2014/07/29 02:08 CDT | 2 comments
One of the hot topics of the 8th International Conference on Mars was the nature of Mars' ancient past. Abigail Fraeman reports on our updated view of whether Mars was ever warm and wet.
Rosetta update: Long journey to a comet nearly complete
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2014/07/29 01:40 CDT | 3 comments
A journey of nearly a decade is almost over. Rosetta is making its final approach to comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, and the comet's strange shape is beginning to come into focus. As of today, the spacecraft is only 2000 kilometers away from the comet, and 8 days away from arrival.
Landsat 8 Looks at the Supermoon
Posted by Jason Davis on 2014/07/29 04:00 CDT
Why did Landsat 8, an Earth-observing spacecraft, turn its unblinking eyes toward the July 12 supermoon?
Dark mountain on Vesta: Aricia Tholus
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2014/07/28 03:07 CDT | 1 comment
Newly processed images of one of the more puzzling features on the surface of Vesta: a dark mountain named Aricia Tholus.
Posted by Dante Lauretta on 2014/07/28 02:04 CDT
The asteroid community recently gathered in Helsinki, Finland for the 12th Asteroids, Comets, and Meteors Conference. As this meeting showed, one of the hottest topics in asteroid science is the study of asteroid families.
Neil Armstrong: A Life of Flight By Jay Barbree
Thomas Dunne Books, St. Martin’s Press —A Book Review by Mat Kaplan
Posted by Mat Kaplan on 2014/07/27 04:13 CDT | 1 comment
Mat Kaplan reviews a wonderful new biography on Neil Armstrong, written with the support of Armstrong and many of the other pioneering astronauts.
Pretty pictures of the Cosmos: Perception
Posted by Adam Block on 2014/07/25 12:04 CDT | 2 comments
Astrophotographer Adam Block shares two recent images of star clusters, along with a pair of depth perception-defying galaxies.
Curiosity update, sols 671-696: Out of the landing ellipse, into ripples and pointy rocks
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2014/07/24 05:55 CDT | 7 comments
For the last four weeks, the name of the game for Curiosity has been driving. But these weeks of driving have been more challenging than they used to be.
Posted by Ted Stryk on 2014/07/24 10:19 CDT | 4 comments
Venera 9 and 10 landed on Venus in 1975 and sent back the first images of the planet's surface. Now, Ted Stryk brings new life to these images to show us what it would be like to stand on the Venusian surface.
LightSail-A Has a Blown Radio Amplifier. Now What?
Posted by Jason Davis on 2014/07/23 03:02 CDT | 1 comment
LightSail-A's blown radio amplifier doesn't affect the 2016 SpaceX Falcon Heavy mission, but it adds an unwelcome obstacle to the 2015 test mission's ever-shortening timetable.
Women Working on Mars: Curiosity Women's Day
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2014/07/22 10:57 CDT | 2 comments
Just after completing the primary mission of 669 sols on Mars, Curiosity's managers planned a special day -- June 26, 2014 -- in which mostly women were assigned to the more than 100 different operational roles.
Chang'e 3 update: Both rover and lander still alive at the end of their eighth lunar day
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2014/07/21 07:26 CDT | 5 comments
Despite the fact that it hasn't moved for 6 months, the plucky Yutu rover on the Moon is still alive. Its signal is periodically detected by amateur radio astronomers, most recently on July 19. A story posted today by the Chinese state news agency offers a new hypothesis to explain the failure of the rover's mobility systems.
Posted by Bill Dunford on 2014/07/21 08:03 CDT | 3 comments
A single day's observations take us from orbital overviews all the way down to ground truth.
Mars and Europa: Contrasts in Mission Planning
Posted by Van Kane on 2014/07/19 02:08 CDT | 30 comments
Several announcements for proposed missions to Mars and on the planning for a NASA return to Europa that highlight the contrasts in planning missions for these two high priority destinations.
New Horizons to take new photos of Pluto and Charon, beginning optical navigation campaign
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2014/07/18 05:06 CDT | 5 comments
Technically, Pluto science observations don't begin for New Horizons until 2015, but the spacecraft will take a series of photos of Pluto and Charon from July 20 to 27 as it begins the first of four optical navigation campaigns.
Capitol Hill Responds to the Lure of Europa
The Planetary Society held a massively successful event to increase awareness of Europa
Posted by Casey Dreier on 2014/07/18 01:54 CDT | 2 comments
A standing-room only crowd learned the lure of Europa, the moon of Jupiter with more liquid water than the Earth, at a special Planetary Society event on capitol hill.
Posted by Stuart Atkinson on 2014/07/18 12:02 CDT | 16 comments
A European space enthusiast, children's author, and volunteer astronomy outreach worker asks for more images from Rosetta.
45 Years after Apollo 11, NASA Prepares for Another Big Splashdown
Posted by Jason Davis on 2014/07/17 04:02 CDT | 2 comments
A new version of Apollo 11's splashdown will play out when the first astronauts aboard NASA’s Orion spacecraft return to Earth.
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