Articles

Emily Lakdawalla

Following up on the story I first posted on August 22, the Jupiter impact fireball first noticed by Japanese amateur astronomer Masayuki Tachikawa has been independently confirmed by two other Japanese astronomers.

Emily Lakdawalla

This may be a very common event after all: another optical flash has been observed on Jupiter, again from an observer far east of the Greenwich meridian, though it was not Anthony Wesley (for once).

Jason Perry

Thanks to its active volcanic activity and sulfur-rich surface, Io is one of the most colorful worlds yet seen in the Solar System, save the Earth of course

Emily Lakdawalla

MESSENGER is in a unique position in the solar system, orbiting the Sun well within the orbit of Venus. From there, it can gaze outward from the Sun to search for tiny objects that may possibly be traveling in the same region, called vulcanoids.

Emily Lakdawalla

Over the last couple of days Cassini flew past Enceladus, Tethys and Dione, so there are lots of treats to see on the raw images website! You should go check it out for yourself, but here are a couple of real favorites.

Emily Lakdawalla

Congratulations to Scott Sheppard and Chad Trujillo for identifying the first known L5 Trojan asteroid of Neptune!

Emily Lakdawalla

It never ceases to amaze me how much science is being wrung out of the few grams of material that were returned to Earth by the Stardust mission.

Emily Lakdawalla

The

Emily Lakdawalla

You know, I could fill this blog almost entirely with the amazing images that Gordan Ugarkovic locates, processes into prettiness, and uploads to his Flickr account.

Emily Lakdawalla

I've posted animations from Cassini before in which there are multiple moons moving around, but this is one of the coolest such sequences I've seen yet.

Emily Lakdawalla

Acidalia Planitia is a large basin in Mars' northern lowlands, a dark splotch visible even from Earth telescopes.

Ryan Anderson

The other day in Mars journal club, we took a look at a paper about the

Emily Lakdawalla

I've spent a pleasurable hour or so browsing over the latest release of images from Cassini to the Planetary Data System.

Ryan Anderson

Well folks, I'm headed off to Big Sky Country tomorrow (aka Montana)! I'll start the week at the MSL camera team meeting, where I will get all sorts of cool news about the MastCam, MAHLI and MARDI cameras which I will not be able to share with you.

A.J.S. Rayl

Winter lingers in the southern hemisphere of the Red Planet, but the Sun is beginning to rise higher in the sky and temperatures are slowly rising, signs the Mars Exploration Rovers are heading into spring. While Spirit continued hibernating, Opportunity took in the warmth of the Sun, captured its first dust devil, and picked up the pace in Meridiani Planum on the long journey to Endeavour Crater. Together, the rovers marked six and a half years of exploration.

Emily Lakdawalla

Spirit hasn't talked to Earth since March 22 -- so what new information could they have received that would make them pronounce Spirit's possible death? Is there some new analysis of the last bit of telemetry? Some new model indicating Spirit's survival was less likely than previously thought?

Ryan Anderson

I'm a little late on this, but I thought I should share the news: MSL now has a good head and neck on its shoulders, and has officially

Marc Rayman

Dawn is flying smoothly through the asteroid belt, now less than a year from entering orbit around Vesta, the first of its two cosmic destinations.

Emily Lakdawalla

This news is no surprise, but I think it's the first such discovery I've heard of: the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC) team has identified a new crater on the Moon, one that wasn't there when Apollo 15 flew over.

Emily Lakdawalla

Three years after New Horizons flew past Jupiter on its way to Pluto, the spacecraft has imaged the giant planet again.