Planetary News: The Planetary Society (2005)
The Year in Pictures: 2005
By Emily Lakdawalla
December 31, 2005
The 25th year of The Planetary Society was packed with new discoveries and
dramatic events on Earth's missions to explore the planets. ESA's Huygens
probe performed the first-ever landing on a body in the outer solar system,
finding Saturn's moon Titan to look unexpectedly like Earth, while NASA's Cassini
completed orbit after orbit of Saturn, unraveling Saturn's rings, parting Titan's
clouds, and flying daringly close to each of the large icy moons. At Mars,
three orbiters worked steadily to return Terabytes of data, while NASA's Spirit
and Opportunity doggedly rolled across plains and up mountains, rolling over
to an unimaginable second Mars year of operations.
JAXA's Hayabusa tailed
tiny asteroid Itokawa, touching down on the surface to grab a sample. New
worlds were discovered within the solar system. 2005 also included several
launches: Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and Venus Express are en route to 2006
arrivals, while Cosmos 1 was The Planetary Society's attempt to put the first
solar sail into orbit. These selected pictures hit just a few of the significant
events of 2005. You can begin
at the beginning or click on one of the thumbnails
below.
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