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Small BodiesStories, updates, insights, and original analysis from The Planetary Society.
Ringing in the New Year with two new arrivals to the Moon
The twin GRAIL spacecraft are nearly at the end of their three-month cruises to the Moon. Currently being discussed is an extended mission for GRAIL that would begin after the June eclipse and last through most of December 2012.
Pretty pictures from Cassini's 12 December 2011 Dione flyby
Cassini flew close by Dione on December 12 and, as usual, the close pass provided opportunities for lots of dramatic photos, not just of Dione, but of other moons wandering by in the background.
A recap of Comet Lovejoy
A timeline of one of the most memorable solar events in recent memory: the observations by six Sun-observing spacecraft of Comet Lovejoy making its perihelion passage.
More radar images of icy moons from Cassini: Iapetus, Enceladus, and Rhea
When I posted about the really cool Cassini SAR images of Enceladus a few weeks ago, I initially wrote that this was the first-ever SAR image of an icy moon other than Titan. Several people (some readers and two members of the Cassini science team!) corrected that statement: Cassini has performed SAR imaging of other icy moons (including Enceladus) before.
Separating fact from speculation about Kepler-20's Earth-sized planets
A large team of researchers has announced in a Nature article the discovery of not one, but two, Earth-sized planets orbiting a star named Kepler-20. This article separates the observational facts from the quite-likely-to-be-true inferences from the downstream speculations.
Video: Comet Lovejoy entered SOHO's LASCO C3 field of view this morning!
An animation of comet Lovejoy entering the field of view of one of SOHO's Sun-monitoring cameras.
Pretty picture: Mimas scuttles behind Dione
Images from the Cassini spacecraft's flyby of Dione.
Phobos-Grunt: all but over, a letter from IKI
A letter sent by Lev Zelenyi, director of the Russian Space Research Institute (IKI) to participants in the Phobos-Soil project about the mission's failure.
Notes on Dawn at Vesta from the 2011 American Geophysical Union meeting
A report on the press briefing and talks from the Fall 2011 American Geophyisical Union meeting about the data on Vesta collected so far by Dawn.
Mars Exploration Rovers Special Update: Opportunity Finds Best Evidence Yet for Liquid Water in Gypsum at Homestake
Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity has discovered gypsum and its
Good news, everyone: We're getting as good at space weather forecasts as we are at Earth weather forecasts
Emily reports from the Fall 2011 American Geophyisical Union meeting about advancements in space weather prediction.
Sungrazing with Lovejoy's Comet
Observations of the newly sighted Kreutz sungrazer comet C/2011 W3 (Lovejoy) from the ground and from SOHO (a joint NASA/ESA satellite) and STEREO (NASA's Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory).
From the 2011 Fall Meeting of the American Geophysical Union (AGU): Voyager 1 at the edge of the solar system
A report on a press briefing about Voyager 1 at the Fall 2011 American Geophyisical Union meeting. The spacecraft has entered a new region between our solar system and interstellar space, which scientists are calling the stagnation region.
Curiosity, from a 1935 perspective
With a new rover, Curiosity, on its way to Mars, Jason Davis takes a look at what we knew - or thought we knew - about the planet back in 1935.
ESA is ending ground station support for Phobos-Grunt
After modifying two antennas and attempting to send commands to Phobos-Grunt for weeks without success, ESA has made the decision to stop tracking support.
First-ever high-resolution Synthetic Aperture Radar image of Enceladus
On the November 6, 2011 flyby of Enceladus -- the third such flyby in just a few weeks -- the Cassini mission elected to take a SAR swath instead of using the optical instruments for once. So here it is: the first-ever SAR swath on Enceladus. In fact, the only other places we've ever done SAR imaging are Earth, the Moon, Venus, Iapetus, and Titan.
Dawn Journal: Riding gravitational currents to LAMO
In this update on the Dawn mission, project system engineer Marc Rayman reports that the probe is headed for its low altitude mapping orbit (LAMO), where it will focus on making a census of the atomic constituents and on mapping the gravity field in order to determine Vesta's interior structure.
Mars Exploration Rovers Update:Opportunity Crunches Homestake, Scouts Locales for Winter
Opportunity roved toward the end of its eighth year of exploration on the Red Planet and chalking up yet another
Bye-bye, Curiosity
A few fortunate (and forward-thinking) skywatchers looked upward in the hours after Curiosity's launch and were able to see the spacecraft leaving Earth.
The 70-meter dishes of the Deep Space Network
I was inspired by my recent trip to Goldstone to put together this poster showing all three of the great 70-meter dishes of the Deep Space Network. There's one at each of the three complexes, at Goldstone, at Robledo (near Madrid, Spain), and at Tidbinbilla (near Canberra, Australia).