Articles

Emily Lakdawalla

In February, the Chandrayaan-1 science team had a meeting in Ahmedabad, India, to share their results with each other.

Emily Lakdawalla

Just a pretty picture post, a dramatic Cassini shot on the outer edge of the A ring captured earlier this month.

A.J.S. Rayl

Mars Exploration Rover Spirit continued to hibernate this month, parked in place near an old volcanic formation called Home Plate. At the same time though she managed to rove back into the planetary exploration spotlight when a group of the mission scientists announced they had found -- in data from an outcrop the rover visited more than four years ago -- evidence for a past watery environment more suitable for life than any other either Spirit or Opportunity have found, a place where near-pure water existed. 1

Emily Lakdawalla

We've already seen IKAROS' view of its deployed sails from cameras attached to the spacecraft, but, in a brilliant idea, the Japanese built IKAROS with two deployable cameras that could view the thing from a distance.

Emily Lakdawalla

Speaking of spacecraft crashing...

Emily Lakdawalla

Covering the events of Hayabusa's return involved a lot of watching and waiting. Rather than go blind staring at my computer and cause carpal tunnel syndrome by excessively clicking the refresh button, I decided to...go blind and develop carpal tunnel syndrome by doing some crocheting.

Emily Lakdawalla

Here are a few photos from a Flickr gallery from the Australian Science Media Centre documenting the Hayabusa sample capsule's first step in its journey from Australia to Sagamihara, Japan, where it will arrive on Friday.

Emily Lakdawalla

The major news on the Hayabusa mission this morning is that JAXA has retrieved the sample capsule!

Emily Lakdawalla

At 13:51 UTC, the Hayabusa spacecraft -- having traveled to an asteroid and back, surviving countless challenges-- broke up into a fiery meteor over the midnight, midwinter Australian sky.

Emily Lakdawalla

Hayabusa's return: round up some of the amazing photos, movies, and artworks that were posted and shared and Tweeted and re-Tweeted over the previous dozen hours or so.

Emily Lakdawalla

Oh my wonderful little flying saucer, you have been to an asteroid and back -- and you were burning like a star last night! And there you are, sitting quietly in the desert, just waiting to be retrieved...

Ryan Anderson

It looks like my MSL: Mars Action Hero post is a finalist in the 3 Quarks Daily science blogging contest. The winners will be chosen by none other than Richard Dawkins.

Emily Lakdawalla

Only about 40 hours remain for the Hayabusa mission. Its dramatic entry will take place at 14:00 UTC on Sunday, June 13.

Emily Lakdawalla

JAXA finally issued the formal announcement: they successfully expanded IKAROS' square sail!

Emily Lakdawalla

Carbonate rocks should be all over Mars. But it's been hard to find carbonates—surprisingly so.

Emily Lakdawalla

We're in the final days of the Hayabusa mission, but until Sunday I think we're in a state of

Emily Lakdawalla

Hayabusa's final maneuver, a three-hour

Emily Lakdawalla

Several pictures from the sail deployment monitoring cameras showed up on the IKAROS blog overnight.

Emily Lakdawalla

For those of you who found my Hayabusa mission recap too long, here's a graphical version of the history of the Hayabusa mission.

Emily Lakdawalla

While he was in Japan to observe IKAROS' sail deployment, Lou Friedman couldn't help but notice the country's excitement over the impending return of Hayabusa.