Articles

Stories, updates, insights, and original analysis from The Planetary Society.

An unusual Hubble photo of Mars

Amateur image magician Ted Stryk dug up this lovely view of Mars, captured on May 9, 2003 by the Hubble Space Telescope. This photo is unusual for its relatively high phase.

Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter press briefing: silicic volcanoes on the Moon

I'm listening to a press briefing from several members of the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter science team, regarding three papers published today in Science.

Gale Crater Geomorphology Paper - Published!

Big news folks! The huge paper that I've been working on for the last couple years is finally, unbelievably, published!

Opportunity's drive direction panorama, sol 2358 (11 September 2010)

Opportunity's rocky road ahead, good news for an aging rover

What a difference a couple of months of driving make. Here's the sort of view of the Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity's road ahead that I'm accustomed to, taken two months ago.

Mars As Art

Attention Mars data trawlers! NASA Headquarters is looking for community input on an exhibition and book of

High-resolution global view of Jupiter from Voyager 1

The Voyager Mission Updates

We take for granted now the ability to get detailed mission updates in a timely fashion via the Web. But How did people get their mission status before the Web?

Mars Exploration Challenge Launches Today

The explorers who will someday walk on Mars are in school today. Exactly who they are, we don't yet know. But we do know that they are among the students who are captivated by the wonders of science and the challenges of engineering.

365 Days of Astronomy Podcast: The Flight of Hayabusa

Today the 365 Days of Astronomy podcast aired my contribution, The Flight of Hayabusa, a recap of that dramatic mission.

Jaded by Mars Organics

So, you may have heard the news making the rounds last week that a new analysis of the Viking data suggests there may actually be organics and (dare I even say it?) life on Mars! Yawn. Consider me underwhelmed.

Pretty picture: Crescent Dione

I was busy with other projects today, so today's post just asks you to look at this gorgeous three-image mosaic of a crescent Dione, taken during Cassini's most recent flyby a week ago.

Early warning for close approaches of two house-sized asteroids

Most of you have probably heard by now of two small asteroids, both in the neighborhood of 10 meters in diameter, recently discovered on trajectories that pass unusually close to Earth.

Deep Impact snaps first image of flyby target comet Hartley 2

Deep Impact is rapidly approaching its next -- and final -- target, comet Hartley 2, which it will fly by on November 4.

Two natural bridges on the Moon (now with 3D!)

Imagine this landscape: you're walking across an unusually smooth lunar surface, an impact melt sheet on the floor of a relatively recently formed crater.

Neptune and Triton from New Horizons, July 2010

Neptune from two slightly different perspectives

Coincidentally, two new images of Neptune were posted today, from two very different sources.

Special report by Bill Nye from the VEXAG Meeting

Is Venus the forgotten planet, or just one that's hard to figure out?

Fly over Saturn's icy moons

A couple of weeks ago Paul Schenk posted a few really cool videos to his personal blog. Paul's subspecialty is the topography of icy moons, and he's been doing a lot of work on the moons of Saturn lately.