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Small BodiesStories, updates, insights, and original analysis from The Planetary Society.
WISE bags its first near-Earth object, 2010 AB78
The Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) just took its lens cap off on December 29, and posted its
Mars and a moonbow
Moonbows represent the same phenomenon as rainbows, it's just that the light from the Sun has reflected off of the Moon first before it's separated into its colors by the myriad tiny water droplets in the cloud.
Your chance to shoot your own high-resolution pictures of Mars
The HiRISE public suggestion tool, called HiWish, is a Web site that allows you to log in and select a spot on Mars as a suggestion for where the HiRISE instrument should take an image.
Report #2 from the New Horizons Science Team Meeting
The second report by Ted Stryk from the New Horizons science team meeting, focusing on the search for Kuiper belt object (KBO) targets.
Figuring out the shape of Mars (and other places)
An amateur named Bernhard Braun (
Report #1 from the New Horizons Science Team Meeting
The New Horizons science team is meeting this week. Ted Stryk was invited to attend the meeting, and he sent the following notes from the first day.
Buttoning up the Mars Orbiter Camera science investigation
The science team for Mars Orbiter Camera, or
ESA mission analyst suggests 2010 AL30 might be Venus Express rocket
2010 AL30 zipped past us harmlessly about five hours ago. Because of its one-year orbital period, many people speculated it might be a manmade object, but 2010 AL30 might, in fact, be artificial.
Highlights from the January 1, 2010 Cassini imaging data release
The January 1, 2010 Cassini imaging data release includes everything acquired by Cassini from January 1 to March 30, 2009 in all its high-quality glory.
Goldstone detects "STRONG" radar echoes from 2010 AL30
Radio scientist Lance Benner posted to the Minor Planets Mailing list this evening the following message:
2010 AL30: Watch out for low-flying asteroids
In less than 24 hours, a newly discovered asteroid known as 2010 AL30 will be zipping past Earth at an altitude of approximately a third the Earth-Moon distance. There's no chance it'll hit us, but it's generating a lot of excitement in the community of amateur and professional near-Earth asteroid observers.
Odyssey's going to start listening for Phoenix
It's been the second most popular question I get from readers:
Results from the Rosetta Encounter with Asteroid 2867 Steins
Last week in Science magazine appeared the first peer-reviewed article on the results of Rosetta's September 2008 encounter with the smallish main-belt asteroid Steins. This morning I got a chance to sit down and read the article, and I wrote up a summary.
Asteroid 2867 Steins
This description of asteroid 2867 Steins is based upon an article published in the January 8, 2010 issue of Science by H. Uwe Keller and numerous coauthors and on a related press release.
Spirit's still "extricating"
It's been two months, now, that extrication efforts have been going on. It's discouraging that the Mars Exploration Rover Spirit isn't out of the trap.
400 Years of the Galilean Satellites
It was 400 years ago today that Galileo discovered smaller planets attending the planet Jupiter.
Congratulations to the WISE team on a beautiful "First Light" photo!
Congratulations are due to the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) team on their lovely
New Mercury Atlas
The United States Geological Survey has just released a new atlas of Mercury, the first to be based upon the three flybys worth of image data gathered by the MESSENGER mission.