Blog Archive

Curiosity landing: Powered descent phase

How Curiosity Will Land on Mars, Part 2: Descent

Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2012/06/29 07:04 CDT | 6 comments

When people first hear about how Curiosity will land on Mars, their first question always is: are they nuts? This is the second in a multi-part series describing how -- and why -- Curiosity will land this way, in excruciating detail.

Curiosity photo face by Emily Lakdawalla

Celebrate Curiosity at Planetfest 2012

Posted by Bill Nye on 2012/06/28 03:35 CDT | 6 comments

Join me at Planetfest™ 2012: Curiosity Knows No Bounds, August 4 and 5 in Pasadena, CA. Space exploration brings out the best in us humans, and Planetfest is a celebration of the amazing Curiosity rover’s historic landing on Mars! We will all get to know more about our planetary neighbor and the spacecraft unlocking its secrets.

From Glacier Point at the right, across Half Dome at center and ending at Royal Arches at the left, the path of the Milky Way over Yosemite Valley is stunning even under lighting conditions that illuminate the valley walls.

Virtual Star Parties

Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2012/06/28 12:02 CDT

Hang out with Fraser Cain and amateur astronomers all over the world in Cosmoquest's Virtual Star parties conducted over Google+. Here's how -- plus an inspiring video produced by Google to show just how cool this is.

Artist's depiction of Eris and its moon, Dysnomia

Salacia: As big as Ceres, but much farther away

Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2012/06/26 12:27 CDT | 10 comments

A newly published paper shows trans-Neptunian object Salacia to be unexpectedly large; it's somewhere around the tenth largest known thing beyond Neptune. It has a companion one-third its size, making it appear similar to Orcus and Vanth.

A geochemist's Periodic Table of Elements

Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2012/06/25 07:39 CDT | 3 comments

The Periodic Table of Elements that hangs in chemistry classrooms doesn't include a lot of the information about elements that's most important to geologists. Here's one that does.

Laser Bees lab laser ablation of sandstone rock

Zapping Rocks with Lasers to Save the World

Posted by Bruce Betts on 2012/06/25 05:59 CDT | 8 comments

The Planetary Society Laser Bees project in Scotland is studying in the lab a potential new technique for deflecting dangerous asteroids: laser ablation.