Articles

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

The Stardust Sample Catalog

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.

Mars Express flies away from the north pole

Animation: Mars Express rising above the north pole

The

How to Recognize Titan from Quite a Long Way Away

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.

Atlas, Prometheus, Epimetheus, and Janus dancing near the rings

Cassini catches four little moons in motion

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.

The enigmatic mounds of Acidalia Planitia

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

Is Eberswalde Really a Smoking Gun?

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

Distant View of a Crescent Iapetus, September 2009

Goodies from the latest Cassini data release

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

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.

Mars Exploration Rovers Update: Spirit Sleeps Soundlessly, Opportunity Turns a Corner

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.

JPL begins actively hailing Spirit -- but is trying to manage your expectations (an editorial)

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?

3D anaglyph of Curiosity in the clean room

MSL Roves!

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

Dawn Journal: A Year from Vesta

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.

New impact crater on the Moon found in LROC image

New crater found in LROC image from the Moon

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.

New Horizons looks at Jupiter from more than 16 AU away

New Horizons images Jupiter again

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

Voyager at Saturn, one year later

Here are two newly processed portraits of Saturn, showing the planet just after its equinox.

A little chuckle for your Monday morning

During Friday's first roll for Curiosity, there was a lot of banter in the Ustream chat room about all the bunny-suited engineers waving at the cameras and mugging for portraits with the rover. One chat room member,

LightSail team learns from IKAROS

While we were in New York for the International Solar Sailing Symposium last week, we held a meeting with the Japanese IKAROS team to discuss technical results and issues in our two projects.