Blog Archive

Hunting Asteroids from a Field in Kansas

Posted by Bruce Betts on 2012/06/15 06:33 CDT

TPS Shoemaker NEO Grant Winner Gary Hug hunts near Earth objects from his back yard in Kansas. NPR's Morning Edition picked up on this fascinating story.

Pretty picture: Halo on a halo?

Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2012/06/15 05:21 CDT | 6 comments

An interesting set of images of Titan that Cassini took recently shows a peculiar cap at Titan's south pole.

Chang'e 1 or 2 Moon orbiter artist's concept

Update on yesterday's post about Chang'E 2 going to Toutatis

Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2012/06/15 11:29 CDT | 3 comments

I have a couple of updates on my post from yesterday: confirmation that Chang'E 2 is indeed gone from L2, and more specifics on encounter dates with Toutatis.

Chang'E 2 has departed Earth's neighborhood for.....asteroid Toutatis!?

Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2012/06/14 07:53 CDT | 1 comments

According to a Chinese spaceflight forum, Chang'E program chief scientist Ouyang Ziyuan recently announced that Chang'E 2 has departed the Sun-Earth L2 point and is now en route to asteroid 4179 Toutatis!

Weekly Space Hangout

Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2012/06/14 12:13 CDT

This week's Cosmoquest Google+ Space Hangout, featured me, Fraser Cain, Amy Teitel, and Nicole Gigliucci. We talked about Curiosity's landing, exoplanets, the Fermi Paradox, and tropical lakes on Titan.

A composite photo of the 2004 Transit of Venus by Fred Espenak.

Yet more planet transits

Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2012/06/14 11:00 CDT | 7 comments

A reader comment on Jay Pasachoff's post last week about Venus transits viewed from other planets had me asking whether transits of other planets were also interesting to astronomers. Jay provided some answers!