Help Shape the Future of Space Exploration

Join our eNewsletter for updates & action alerts

Blogs

Guest blogs from 2013

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.

Cutting NASA's Education and Public Outreach Efforts Now Is Short-sighted and Counterproductive

Posted by Lars Perkins on 2013/04/26 04:45 CDT | 4 comments

Lars Perkins, Chairman of NAC's Education Committee, writes a defense of NASA's Education and Outreach efforts, currently facing a major cut and restructuring in 2014.

The Murray-Darling river system, Australia

Australia comes of age in the satellite world

Posted by Michele Bannister on 2013/04/15 04:56 CDT | 1 comments

On April 9, the current Australian government announced the first formal Australian space policy. Astronomy graduate student Michele Bannister explains what this means for the country.

Russia's Mars 3 lander maybe found by Russian amateurs

Posted by Emily Lakdawalla on 2013/04/12 01:22 CDT | 4 comments

Виталий Егоров (Vitaliy Egorov) is a Russian space enthusiast who enlisted help of fellow enthusiasts to search for -- and maybe find -- the Russian Mars 3 hardware on the Martian surface. Here he explains how he did it.

April 12, 2013: Yuri’s Night Rocks the Planet!!!

Posted by Danielle Hannah on 2013/04/04 03:15 CDT | 2 comments

On April 12, 2013, the world’s biggest space party will take place across the globe. So far there are 190 parties in 32 countries on 6 continents registered and counting!!

Permanently shadowed, radar-bright regions on Mercury

LPSC 2013: Seeing in Permanent Shadow

Posted by Michael Poston on 2013/04/03 01:21 CDT | 1 comments

The case for water ice hidden in permanently shadowed regions at the north pole of the planet Mercury received another boost recently. On Wednesday March 20, 2013 at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference, Nancy Chabot presented the very first visible-light images of what is in the shadows of these polar craters.

The March Equinox 2013 issue of The Planetary Report is out!

Posted by Donna Stevens on 2013/03/15 07:18 CDT | 2 comments

I’m happy to tell you that the March Equinox 2013 issue of The Planetary Report is hot off the presses and will begin mailing next week.

Comet PANSTARRS, Earth, and a coronal mass ejection as seen from STEREO-B

Comet PANSTARRS from the other side of the Sun!

Posted by Karl Battams on 2013/03/14 05:21 CDT | 8 comments

Comet PANSTARRS is delighting northern hemisphere viewers right now. But it's also big, bright, and beautiful to the STEREO spacecraft.

Sea Salt

Posted by Mike Brown on 2013/03/06 10:41 CST | 3 comments

Ever wonder what it would taste like if you could lick the icy surface of Jupiter’s Europa? The answer may be that it would taste a lot like that last mouthful of water that you accidentally drank when you were swimming at the beach on your last vacation.

Voyager captured this view of Uranus' moon Umbriel from a range of slightly more than a million kilometers on January 24, 1986. Processed by Ted Stryk.

Mysterious Umbriel

Posted by Ted Stryk on 2013/02/28 12:59 CST | 1 comments

Presenting a newly-processed version of Voyager 2's best images of Uranus' moon Umbriel.

Asteroid 2012 DA14 from Siding Spring Observatory

Observing 2012 DA14

Posted by Edward Gomez on 2013/02/18 05:14 CST | 4 comments

Mostly the Universe stays unchanged for hundreds, thousands or even millions of years. There are some cases however when some things change really rapidly. Recently I observed one of these rapidly changing, transient phenomena, as asteroid called 2012 DA14. I work for Las Cumbres Observatory and we have been trying to observe this asteroid since 5 February.

What We Know About the Russian Meteor Event [UPDATED]
We have the technology to provide warning about these potential disasters

Posted by Heidi Hammel on 2013/02/15 02:26 CST | 22 comments

Preliminary estimates show that the meteoroid was 15 meters wide and weighed roughly 8000 tons. The resulting airburst would have the equivalent yield of about a 1/2 megaton explosion.

Meeting Jake Matijevic, Curiosity sol 43

An evening that brought me very close to Curiosity

Posted by Damia Bouic on 2013/02/15 09:00 CST | 3 comments

Damien Bouic received some well-deserved recognition from the Chemcam team for his great Curiosity image processing work.

Saturn's Hexagon Viewed from the Ground

Posted by Leigh Fletcher on 2013/02/01 05:49 CST | 2 comments

For the first time, amateur astronomers are capturing spectacular images of Saturn's bizarre north polar hexagon.

Seasonal fans pointing in multiple directions near Mars' south pole

Introducing PlanetFour

Posted by Ganna (Anya) Portyankina on 2013/01/23 11:51 CST | 2 comments

The Mars I study is really active; the surface constantly changes. We have collected a lot of image data about changing seasonal features near the south pole. There is so much that we can't analyze all of it on our own. We need your help, through a new Zooniverse project named PlanetFour.

High-resolution Voyager 1 view of Jupiter with Io and Europa

Voyager 1 revisited: Io and Europa transiting Jupiter

Posted by Björn Jónsson on 2013/01/22 06:04 CST

What is the highest resolution global Jupiter mosaic that includes a satellite transit that can be assembled from Voyager images? Satellite transits are especially beautiful when the resolution is high enough for some details to be visible on the satellites so I decided to check this. And I was remarkably lucky.

The Planetary Report, volume 32, number 4: The Year in Pictures

Posted by Donna Stevens on 2013/01/18 05:03 CST

For those of you Planetary Society members who like your copy of The Planetary Report served up in pixels, the December Solstice 2012 issue is ready and waiting for you.