Emily's Blog
Snapshots from Space
by Emily Lakdawalla
Follow the thrilling adventures of planetary missions, past and present, and see the stunningly beautiful photos that they return from space!
Search Blog Posts:
Latest Blog Posts:
Nifty animation: Dust in the air for Curiosity
Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2012/11/21 11:21 CST
An animation of Curiosity photos shows changes in the weather.
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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!
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.
Featured Images
Featured Video
Connect With Us
Facebook! Twitter! Google+ and more…
Continue the conversation with our online community!
