Blogs

Planetary Society Advent Calendar for December 20: Iapetus

Emily Lakdawalla • December 20, 2009

Iapetus! I'm always interested in Cassini images, but five years ago this month I was refreshing the Cassini raw images website several times a day, eagerly anticipating the mission's first good encounter with Iapetus.

Planetary Society Advent Calendar for December 19: Eros

Emily Lakdawalla • December 19, 2009

Not quite ten years ago, the Near Earth Rendezvous (NEAR) spacecraft arrived at the near-Earth asteroid Eros. NEAR accomplished many firsts.

Planetary Society Advent Calendar for December 18: Neptune

Emily Lakdawalla • December 18, 2009

Here's Neptune, but not quite like you've ever seen it before.

Cassini VIMS sees the long-awaited glint off a Titan lake

Emily Lakdawalla • December 17, 2009

The Cassini mission announced today the first observation of a specular reflection off of a lake on Titan. A specular reflection is a mirror-like flash, and you only get one when you have a mirror-like surface -- very, very smooth.

Planetary Society Advent Calendar for December 17: Proteus

Emily Lakdawalla • December 17, 2009

Proteus is a weird name for this world. It's the second-largest moon of Neptune, and so it's named (as are all of Neptune's moons) for deities associated with the sea.

A sol 2117 spin of Spirit's front wheels

Watch that front wheel spin!

Emily Lakdawalla • December 17, 2009

Holy cow, look at that right front wheel spin. I am alternately amazed and horrified by this animation.

Hayabusa on the home stretch

Emily Lakdawalla • December 17, 2009

Hayabusa is still 100 million kilometers from the Earth, less than an astronomical unit away but still with months to travel. But according to an update posted to their websitethis morning by project manager Junichiro Kawaguchi, Hayabusa is on the home stretch.