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The new Cosmos: Standing Up in the Milky Way

Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2014/03/10 11:55 CDT | 68 comments

My daughters liked the new Cosmos and want to watch next week. I thought it was a successful beginning for a long series, and I think it'll become a weekly viewing event for our family. I hope other families think the same.

Comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko on February 28, 2014

The Very Large Telescope sights Rosetta's comet target, sees activity beginning

Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2014/03/10 02:18 CDT

Rosetta's comet target, 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, has emerged from behind the Sun as seen from Earth, and the Very Large Telescope has photographed it. The new images show that cometary activity has already begun as Rosetta approaches for its August rendezvous.

Why Cosmos should matter, especially to Hollywood

Posted by Taryn O'Neill on 2014/03/07 01:52 CST | 2 comments

For a town dependent on Stars, there are far too few people here who look up at the sky. But come this Sunday, March 9, the epic series of science, space and humanity will return: Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey. Why does it matter for Hollywood, specifically? I'll tell you why it will. And then why it should.

Europa Report Film Still--On the Surface

[Updated] To Europa!...Slowly. First Impressions of NASA's New Budget Request
My first impressions of the 2015 NASA Budget Request from the White House

Posted by Casey Dreier on 2014/03/07 11:20 CST | 4 comments

Europa may get a mission...eventually. We give our first take on the 2015 NASA Budget request. How does Planetary Exploration fare? Which projects were cancelled? Will NASA capture an asteroid? And most importantly, what can you do about it?

That time Bill Nye took a selfie with Neil Tyson and Barack Obama

That time I took a selfie with Neil Tyson and the President of the United States

Posted by Bill Nye on 2014/03/07 07:44 CST | 4 comments

Last week, my fellow Board Member Neil deGrasse Tyson and I were invited to be presenters at the first edition of the White House Film Festival. Neil asked the President if we could take a selfie with him. In those few moments, the President, Neil, and I spoke about science and space exploration.

PlanetVac at the IEEE Aerospace Conference

Posted by Bruce Betts on 2014/03/07 04:35 CST | 1 comments

PlanetVac project leader Kris Zacny of Honeybee Robotics reports on presenting results of the Planetary Society project PlanetVac that created a prototype planetary dirt sampling system and tested it under Martian pressures.

Bruce Betts screen shot teaching CSUDH Introductory Astronomy class with Saturn in background.

Intro Astronomy Class 5: Venus (continued) and Mars

Posted by Bruce Betts on 2014/03/06 10:49 CST

Continue exploring Venus and begin looking at Mars in this video of class 5 of Bruce Betts' Introduction to Planetary Science and Astronomy class.

Drive-direction panorama toward Kylie, curiosity sol 550

Curiosity update, sols 549-562: Shooting past Kylie on the road to Kimberley

Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2014/03/06 07:35 CST | 7 comments

In a series of drives, Curiosity flew past the "striated terrain" that outcropped at Kylie, and is now negotiating her way around some rockier territory as she makes her way south toward the enticing outcrops of Kimberley.

Hypervelocity Cratering and Riding Out the Risk

Posted by ESA Mars Express Team on 2014/03/06 07:34 CST

Today's update from the Mars Express team contains the realisation that, for some of the risks associated with October's Siding Spring flyby, there may not be much the team can do.

Every round object in the solar system under 10,000 kilometers in diameter, to scale

2015 will be the Year of the Dwarf Planet, and you need to tell people about it!

Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2014/03/05 07:00 CST | 10 comments

I am very excited about 2015, more so than I have been about any year since I started working at The Planetary Society. Dawn will enter orbit at Ceres, and New Horizons, which will fly past Pluto and Charon. But if we want this kind of exploration to continue, I'm challenging you, dear readers, to tell the world why such non-planetary worlds are compelling places to go exploring.

Mars Exploration Rovers Update: Opportunity Cruises Through Winter Solstice, Into Year 11
Sols 3564 - 3590

Posted by A.J.S. Rayl on 2014/03/05 01:32 CST

The Mars Exploration Rover mission put its 10th anniversary in the rear view mirror in February and roved on into its 11th year of surface operations at Endeavour Crater.

NASA Wants to Explore Europa On the Cheap
Will science suffer with this arbitrary cost-cap?

Posted by Casey Dreier on 2014/03/05 11:49 CST | 10 comments

NASA announced today that their Europa mission concept studies will be for a sub-$1 billion spacecraft, a lower level than previously imagined for a mission to this watery moon.

Chang'e 3 and Yutu on the Moon on their third lunar day

Checking in on Chang'e 3 and Yutu from Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter: Yep, still there!

Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2014/03/04 01:08 CST

Seeing hardware that was built by human hands sitting on the surface of another planet never, ever gets old. Today, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera team released two new images of Chang'e 3 and Yutu on the Moon.

Color map of Mars: Viking Orbiter MDIM 2.1

A new map of Mars from some pretty old data

Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2014/03/04 11:46 CST | 3 comments

The United States Geological Survey recently issued an improved version of the Viking color map of Mars. This 40-year-old data set still provides the prettiest global-scale map of the planet.

Space is really, really big – except sometimes it isn’t

Posted by ESA Mars Express Team on 2014/03/04 11:19 CST

Here's the next installment in the continuing story of how the Mars Express team is preparing for Comet Siding Spring flyby, 19 October 2014. This week: introducing the spacecraft's subsystems and structure – and wondering how we can absorb impacts.

Eyes and stopwatch are all that are needed to help measure an invisible asteroid

Posted by Ted Blank on 2014/03/03 01:04 CST

Would you like to be part of one of the largest citizen-science efforts in the history of astronomy? The International Occultation Timing Association (IOTA) invites you to join in the campaign to observe and time the best and brightest asteroid occultation ever predicted to occur over a populated area – and no telescope is required!

Brief Yutu update: Slightly more detail on what's keeping rover from roving

Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2014/03/03 12:13 CST | 4 comments

Over the weekend, Chinese state news agency Xinhua reported in both Chinese and English a little bit more information on what has stilled the Yutu rover's motions across the lunar surface: "a control circuit malfunction in its driving unit."

Dawn Journal: Maneuvering Around Ceres

Posted by Marc Rayman on 2014/03/03 06:00 CST | 2 comments

Continuing its daring mission to explore some of the last uncharted worlds in the inner solar system, Dawn remains on course and on schedule for its rendezvous with dwarf planet Ceres next year.

Pounding the Pavement in Congress, Together
The Space Exploration Alliance's Legislative Blitz Advocates for Space Exploration

Posted by Casey Dreier on 2014/03/01 12:38 CST | 1 comments

A coalition of grassroots pro-space advocates descended on Washington, D.C. this week, and held over 100 meetings with representatives and staff throughout Congress to argue for increased investment in NASA.

Intro Astronomy Class 4: Eclipses, Mercury, Venus-Earth-Mars Atmospheres, Venus

Posted by Bruce Betts on 2014/02/28 01:30 CST

This video of class 4 of Bruce Betts' Introduction to Planetary Science and Astronomy class discusses eclipses, Mercury, Venus, and a comparison of the atmospheres of Venus, Earth, and Mars.