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Pretty picture: Landsat view of southern Greenland
Posted by Björn Jónsson on 2012/11/13 05:24 CST
This is a very large (19000 pixels square) mosaic of the fjords and glaciers of southern Greenland. I had been interested for a long time in experimenting with the processing of Earth satellite imagery just to get a comparison to the other planets.
Posted by Casey Dreier on 2012/11/13 01:48 CST
We're fighting for the restoration of NASA's planetary sciences budget to return to its 2012 level. What does that get us? New financial analysis from our sources in the scientific community provides us a glimpse.
A spectacular calendar for 2013
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2012/11/13 09:02 CST | 1 comments
Steve Cariddi's Year in Space wall calendar crams an incredible variety of information into a beautiful, large wall calendar that is great for grownups, kids, or classrooms.
Carl Sagan: "If membership is restricted to men, the loss will be ours."
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2012/11/13 01:06 CST | 6 comments
When Casey invited me to participate in last Friday's "Sagan Slam," I wasn't sure what I would read, but I found a great letter of his explaining why women, as well as men, should be considered among the world's great explorers.
Posted by Casey Dreier on 2012/11/12 07:32 CST
The world's first Sagan Slam was embraced by an open, positive, and engaged crowd. We spoke, rhymed, read, and remembered Carl while drinking cosmos and getting to know each other.
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2012/11/12 10:57 CST
In a stroke of pure genius, Randall Munroe of the web comic XKCD describes "Up Goer Five" with the ten hundred most commonly used words in the English language.
Join Our Sagan Celebration
Watch our live webcast from Pasadena Friday, November 9, at 7:00pm Pacific
Posted by Mat Kaplan on 2012/11/09 12:24 CST | 2 comments
The Planetary Society has invited a few friends of Carl Sagan's to a celebration of his birth and his legacy. Watch the live webcast featuring physicist Kip Thorne, Contact Executive Producer Lynda Obst and much more!
Beautiful butterfly crater on Mars (another HiWish granted!)
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2012/11/08 07:16 CST | 6 comments
I asked Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter to take a photo, and it turned out better than I had imagined: an incredibly fresh, well-preserved, dramatically rayed oblique impact crater.
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2012/11/07 05:30 CST | 6 comments
This week's Cosmoquest Astronomy Hour Google+ Hangout at 1600 PDT / 2300 UTC on Wednesday will feature Pamela Conrad, the deputy principal investigator for Curiosity's Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) instrument. Tune in to learn more about how this experiment will change our view of Mars, and to ask your questions!
Write the President: Re-election Edition
Posted by Casey Dreier on 2012/11/07 01:46 CST | 2 comments
We've had a great response to this advocacy push so far. Now that the President has been re-elected, our messages are even more important. Write today if you haven't, and spread to the word to your friends.
Curiosity, Endeavour, and Bill Nye on Your Phone
All these and more on this week's Planetary Radio
Posted by Mat Kaplan on 2012/11/07 10:31 CST
This week's Planetary Radio episode presents highlights of the first Curiosity press briefing about the Martian atmosphere, and then takes you to the opening day ceremony for Shuttle Endeavour. You have till Friday, November 9, at 10am Pacific to send your 10th anniversary message to the show and possibly win Bill Nye on your answering machine.
Mars Exploration Rovers Update: Opportunity Begins Reconnaissance of Matijevic Hill
Sols 3089 - 3118
Posted by A.J.S. Rayl on 2012/11/06 06:01 CST | 1 comments
After spending much of October driving around and taking pictures on Matijevic Hill, Opportunity hunkered down for Halloween and spent the holiday quietly, staying out of mischief's way and the Mars Exploration Rovers (MER) mission roved another month closer to its ninth anniversary of working on the surface of the Red Planet.
Watching the slow shift of seasons on Titan
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2012/11/06 02:45 CST | 1 comments
A sharp-eyed amateur noticed two images of Titan taken 20 months apart from nearly exactly the same perspective, and they illustrate how the shifting of Saturn's seasons has brought change to Titan's atmosphere.
Soliciting input for an idea on slides
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2012/11/05 07:09 CST | 19 comments
I'm directing a question at professional and amateur space scientists and educators: could I make slide sets that would help you educate the public about what's going on in planetary exploration?
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2012/11/02 08:03 CDT | 1 comments
Today I stumbled upon the Lunar and Planetary Institute's Lunar Sample Atlas, and was reminded of how much I love petrographic thin sections. They can make unassuming, cruddy looking rocks beautiful.
Huge self-portrait of Curiosity on Mars
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2012/11/01 07:27 CDT | 9 comments
Curiosity used MAHLI, the scientific camera at the end of the robotic arm, to shoot a huge color portrait of herself sitting on Mars, with Gale's central mountain in the background.
Posted by Casey Dreier on 2012/11/01 02:14 CDT
A great crowd came by our headquarters to learn more about volunteering in the service of planetary exploration.
Getting up to speed with Curiosity as of sol 84, and two awesome mosaics
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2012/10/31 07:39 CDT | 6 comments
Curiosity has already spent more than three weeks at Rocknest, working through the very slow process of commissioning the sample handling systems. While parked, she's taken a couple of amazing photo mosaics.
Dawn journal: scary-good ion propulsion
Posted by Marc Rayman on 2012/10/31 12:34 CDT
Dawn continues to raise its orbit en route to its 2015 date with Ceres. Also, Marc prepares his high-energy Halloween costume.
PlanetVac: Sucking Up Planetary Regolith
A New Planetary Society Project
Posted by Bruce Betts on 2012/10/30 02:27 CDT | 3 comments
Learn about the Planetary Society’s newest project: PlanetVac, with Honeybee Robotics, aims to prototype and test in a huge vacuum chamber a new way to sample planetary surfaces that could be used for sample return or for in situ instruments.
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