Blog Archive

Planetary Radio: A Dawn MIssion Update

Posted by Mat Kaplan on 2012/11/20 12:36 CST

A Planetary Radio status report from the Dawn mission's Marc Rayman, accompanied by a fascinating video tour of Marc's at-home collection of space information and memorabilia.

Curiosity news that's not news (or maybe it is), and some thoughts on art and science

Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2012/11/20 12:24 CST | 5 comments

This morning while driving to work I heard a terrific story about Curiosity on National Public Radio from Joe Palca, NPR's science correspondent. It was a great story despite the fact that it contained virtually no news. The nugget of non-news is that SAM's analysis of Mars soil has yielded some unspecified, exciting, but not-yet-confirmed result. But that's not really what Palca's story is about.

Calling (Really Serious) Asteroid Hunters

Posted by Bruce Betts on 2012/11/19 10:06 CST | 9 comments

I am happy to announce a new call for proposals for The Planetary Society’s Gene Shoemaker Near Earth Object (NEO) grant program, which is celebrating its 15th Anniversary. Proposals are due Feb. 4, 2013.

Curiosity sol 102 panorama: on the edge of Glenelg

Curiosity sol 102 update: Eppur si muove

Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2012/11/19 06:36 CST | 2 comments

Curiosity is a rover again at last! She was parked at the dune named Rocknest for 40 sols, from sol 60 through 99. On sol 100, she drove right on top of the dune, obliterating her five scoop marks. Then on sol 102 she took a good long, 35-meter drive so that she's now right on the edge of the "high thermal inertia unit" that attracted her to the spot the team has named Glenelg.

The latest issue of Planetary Report is available online!

Posted by Donna Stevens on 2012/11/17 05:57 CST | 2 comments

The September Solstice 2012 issue of The Planetary Report is now available online for members who prefer to get their magazine electronically. I’m especially proud of this issue because of its broad scope—it celebrates our past and peers into our future as a spacefaring species.

Enhanced-color view of Vesta's southern mountain

Dawn Vesta Data is publicly available (for real this time!)

Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2012/11/16 07:08 CST | 2 comments

After a false start earlier this year, the first chunk of Dawn Framing Camera data from Vesta has finally made it to the Planetary Data System. As a first step to understanding the data set, I've built some index pages to these cool images.