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Small BodiesStories, updates, insights, and original analysis from The Planetary Society.
Eris and embargoes (or: don't fear Ingelfinger!)
Last Tuesday at the Division of Planetary Sciences meeting Bruno Sicardy presented the results of his research group's observations of a stellar occultation by Eris.
Lovely pic of a recent crater on Vesta
With little fanfare, the Dawn mission continues releasing a new picture from Vesta every day. This one is definitely my favorite among their recent releases, a closeup on one of Vesta's strange streaky bright craters.
Saturnlit moon, sunlit fountains
It's been a week of very heavy science on this blog, so I thought it'd be nice to go into the weekend with a post in which a breathtaking picture speaks for itself, without needing my thousands of words.
Notes from Day 5 of the EPSC/DPS meeting: Saturn's storm, Phobos, and Lutetia
Today was (is) the last day of the Division of Planetary Sciences / European Planetary Science Congress meeting in Nantes, France.
Notes from Day 3 of the EPSC/DPS meeting (all about MESSENGER)
Today I largely spent in the MESSENGER sessions. They have a lot of data to talk about.
Russia's Venera-D mission (DPS-EPSC 2011)
During the afternoon poster session at the Division of Planetary Sciences / European Planetary Science Congress meeting, I had a long talk with Ludmila Zasova (IKI) about Russia's Venera-D mission to Venus.
Brief notes from Day 2 of the DPS-EPSC meeting
It's been a very full day at the DPS-EPSC 2011 joint meeting. My day was less full than it might have been, because I overslept and missed most of the morning's session. I really needed the rest though so I think it was probably for the best!
Some first impressions of EPSC-DPS meeting
Today they turned on the scientific fire hose at the Division of Planetary Sciences / European Planetary Science Congress meeting happening here in Nantes, France. My brain already feels full and I still have four more days!
Pretty pictures: Dancing moons
Since Cassini currently orbits Saturn within the plane of Saturn's rings, it has lots of chances to catch two or more moons in the same photo. One such
A Distant View of Triton
Ted Stryk reminisces on how he was turned on to astronomy.
The latest HiRISE view of Opportunity, on Endeavour's rim
In a now-routine act of obtaining detailed photographs of robots from Earth sitting on the surface of another planet, the HiRISE camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has captured a view of Opportunity sitting on the rim of Endeavour crater.
Tethys and Dione don't seem to be active after all
About four years ago I wrote a blog entry about an ESA press release about paper published in Nature that suggested that Saturn's moons Tethys and Dione might have volcanic activity, like Enceladus. A new paper published in Icarus casts doubt on that conclusion.
Earth science's next big thing
Meet the next big thing in NASA's mission to study planet Earth: NPP, the NPOESS Preparatory Project satellite.
Reading Itokawa's life history from microscopic samples
When Hayabusa's sample return capsule was first opened and found to be very clean-looking inside, I doubted that there could be enough material for laboratory analysis. JAXA announced later that they scraped about 1500 dust grains from the inside with a teflon spatula, and these likely came from Itokawa.
Video: Soaring over Earth
This amazing video has already been posted by basically every other space blogger but I can't resist featuring it too, especially because I just realized that it was not made by NASA but instead by a member of the public digging into public NASA archives of image data -- yay for amateurs!
Students Design Human Asteroid Mission in Caltech Space Challenge
I spent much of the past week attending the Caltech Space Challenge, a student-organized international competition to design a human mission to a Near-Earth asteroid. It was a great week, and one of the most positive, upbeat and hopeful programs I have participated in concerning the future of space exploration.
Video: Zooming around Vesta
The Dawn team released today a nice little video that flies around a shape model of Vesta produced by DLR, the German Aerospace Corporation, who built and operate Dawn's camera.
Scale solar system presentation slide, a provisional version for you to review
I'm preparing a talk for the Pacific Astronomy and Telescope Show here in Pasadena on Sunday afternoon at 1:45. I have spent the morning putting together a slide that I have long wanted to have for presentations.
Dawn's cryptic image release titles
Every day's image release from the Dawn spacecraft shows something on Vesta that is weird and cool and difficult to explain. The images come out with very little information describing what is going on to make those weird landscapes.
New Horizons Day 2: Liquids on Pluto's surface?
Jeff Moore's presentation was cool because of the discussion it stimulated. He considered what exogenic processes might be operating on Pluto's surface. What's an exogenic process? It's something that modifies the shape of the surface from the outside, and doesn't require the body to be geologically active inside.