Blog Archive

Planetary Society Hangout: Naming Bennu, with Mike Puzio and Dante Lauretta

Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2013/05/01 09:51 CDT | 2 comments

In this week's Hangout, Emily Lakdawalla hosted Mike Puzio and Dante Lauretta in a discussion about the naming of OSIRIS-REx' asteroid target.

We have a winner! The OSIRIS-REx asteroid's name is: Bennu!

Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2013/05/01 09:37 CDT

We received more than 8000 entries from all over the world in the Name That Asteroid contest, and we can finally announce the winner. The asteroid formerly known as 1999 RQ36 is now formally named (101955) Bennu, for a heron associated with the Egyptian god Osiris.

2011 HM₁₀₂: A new companion for Neptune

Posted by Alex Parker on 2013/04/30 04:20 CDT | 2 comments

This month my latest paper made it to print in the Astronomical Journal. It's a short piece that describes a serendipitous discovery that my collaborators and I made while searching for a distant Kuiper Belt Object for the New Horizons spacecraft to visit after its 2015 Pluto flyby.

American Astronomical Society Criticizes NASA Planetary Science Budget

Posted by Casey Dreier on 2013/04/30 01:38 CDT

The AAS made a strong critique of proposed cuts to NASA's Planetary Science program today.

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.

Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo first powered flight

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.