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Small BodiesStories, updates, insights, and original analysis from The Planetary Society.
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).
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.
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.
How did they make the nuclear power source for the Curiosity rover?
Maybe it's because I was a kid during the Cold War; I always assume that information about anything nuclear only comes out on that
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).
Curiosity is on its way to Mars!
It was a textbook launch for the Atlas V 541 today at 15:02 UTC, and within an hour after liftoff, the Centaur second stage had sent Curiosity on its way for an 8.5-month journey to Mars.
Mars Exploration Family Portrait
Jason Davis put together this neat summary of the checkered history of Mars exploration.
Brief contact made with Phobos-Grunt after two weeks of silence
On Tuesday, November 22 at 20:25 UTC, a European Space Agency ground station in Perth, Australia, successfully made brief radio contact with Phobos-Grunt.
Curiosity in context: Not exactly "Viking on wheels," but close
As I was beginning my research for my two magazine articles on the Curiosity rover's upcoming mission to Mars, I needed to figure out for myself how exactly this gigantic, ungainly machine fit in to the context of past Martian missions.
Is Europa's ice thin or thick? At chaos terrain, it's both!
Among Europa scientists there are two warring factions: the thick-icers and the thin-icers. The question is how thick is the ice shell that overlies Europa's subsurface ocean (the existence of which pretty much everyone agrees on).
Our friendly neighborhood asteroid, 2005 YU55 (an animation)
Last week JPL released two animations of asteroid 2005 YU55 made from the radar data acquired by Goldstone's 70-meter radio dish.
Phobos-Grunt status, launch plus six days
I said I wasn't going to post again unless the spacecraft talked to us, but I changed my mind because finally there were official comments today about the status of the mission from Roskosmos head Vladimir Popovkin.
A little fun with Deep Impact deep-sky data
Last week, the team put all of the data from Deep Impact's deep-sky imaging session online, and challenged visitors to see what they could make from it. I made some photos of M51, but there were some challenges.
Phobos-Grunt summary, three days after launch
I can summarize the news about the last day's efforts to save Phobos-Grunt in three words: there is none. At least nothing official.