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Predicted path of comet C/2012 S1 (ISON)

Comet ISON: 30% chance of awesome, 60% chance of that being wrong

Posted by Bill Gray on 2012/09/25 12:15 CDT | 10 comments

A very interesting comet has recently been discovered -- interesting because it will nearly graze the Sun in August 2013 and then approach Earth closely the following December. Whether it will turn out to be a great comet is impossible to know.

Dragon approaches the ISS artist's concept

SpaceX ready for return to International Space Station

Posted by Jason Davis on 2012/09/25 12:01 CDT | 1 comments

SpaceX is two weeks away from returning to the International Space Station. Following a successful demo flight in May, NASA is entrusting the private spaceflight company with a half-ton of mission-critical station cargo.

Follow the Water (to our leaking pipe)

Posted by Jennifer Vaughn on 2012/09/24 12:50 CDT | 1 comments

It's been an eventful week: Curiosity drove to its first science target, Endeavour arrived in Los Angeles, and a leaking pipe shut down Planetary Society headquarters. We continue to work but not from within our headquarters. We expect to be back on Thursday morning, putting our workspaces back together and catching up on any work that got quarantined. Until then, you can find us online.

Mars Exploration Rovers Update: Opportunity Greets Curiosity, Roves to Clay Mineral Hunting Grounds

Posted by A.J.S. Rayl on 2012/09/10 02:07 CDT

Opportunity stood down for nine days in early August as Curiosity landed and went through check-out, but on the tenth day the Mars Exploration Rover was back on the road, driving along the northwestern rim of Endeavour Crater and into the "sweet spot" of the clay mineral hunting ground at Cape York.

Outcrop Ahead for Opportunity!

Posted by Stuart Atkinson on 2012/09/07 01:12 CDT | 1 comments

Oppy is opening an exciting new chapter in her adventure at Cape York. Having driven down to, over and past Whim Creek, she has now explored halfway down Cape York, to a promising fin-like ridge of dark rock.

A spectacular high-resolution view of Jupiter's globe from Voyager 2, processed by Bjorn Jonsson.

A Voyager 1 anniversary mosaic

Posted by Björn Jónsson on 2012/09/06 11:58 CDT

Back in 1979 the twin Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft flew by Jupiter. Some of their images were processed into color images and mosaics that have appeared countless times in books, magazines, on TV and on the Internet. Many of these images and mosaics are spectacular but they were processed more than 30 years ago using computers that are extremely primitive by today's standards. It's possible to get better results by processing the original, raw images from the Voyagers using modern computers and software.

Knots on Mars

Posted by David J. Fred on 2012/09/05 04:21 CDT | 3 comments

It might surprise most people to learn that multitudes of knots tied in cords and thin ribbons have probably traveled on every interplanetary mission ever flown. If human civilization ends tomorrow, interplanetary landers, orbiters, and deep space probes will preserve evidence of both the oldest and newest of human technologies for thousands, if not millions of years.

Uranus on November 13, 2011, from Keck (credit Larry Sromovsky)

Following up the dark spot on Uranus

Posted by Heidi Hammel on 2012/09/04 06:38 CDT | 2 comments

It was a surprise and delight to have our Icarus paper highlighted in Emily Lakdawalla's blog. Thanks for highlighting Uranus, since it has gotten, ahem, a bum rap over the years. Here's more about our discovery of the dark spot on Uranus.