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Stories, updates, insights, and original analysis from The Planetary Society.
Carnival of Space and Planetary Radio
This week's Carnival of Space may be found at Steve's Astro Corner.
Planetary Society Advent Calendar for December 7: Jupiter
Jupiter has been high overhead at sunset for several months, a brilliant light that's easy to spot even when the sky is still bright at dusk; but it's now moving quickly to the west as Earth speeds ahead of Jupiter's more stately march around the Sun.
Four hundred and fourteen years since Galileo
Galileo, the scientist, discovered the Galilean satellites of Jupiter four hundred years ago next month, while Galileo, the mission, arrived at Jupiter to study those moons in situ fourteen years ago Sunday.
Planetary Society Advent Calendar for December 6: Umbriel
Umbriel is the darkest moon in a pretty dark place in the solar system, the Uranus system.
Planetary Society Advent Calendar for December 5: Epimetheus
Epimetheus is one of the many small moons of Saturn that are referred to by the Cassini mission team as
Planetary Society Advent Calendar for December 3: Europa
From a distance, Jupiter's fourth largest moon Europa is the smoothest object in the solar system; its outline traces out a perfect circle.
If Earth had rings
I am the very last space blogger in the universe to post about this video, but that doesn't make it any less cool.
Planetary Society Advent Calendar for December 2: Mathilde
253 Mathilde is the largest asteroid that has ever been visited by a spacecraft. It's held that distinction for more than twelve years, but next year it'll be upstaged by the considerably larger 21 Lutetia, which Rosetta will fly by on July 10.
Planetary Society Advent Calendar for December 1: Dione
I've always loved advent calendars and the way they both managed and heightened my anticipation of the gift-opening frenzy of Christmas morning.
Spectacular animation of Halley's comet
It's a holiday and I'm enjoying time with the family, so rather than write a lot, I will let a spectacular image do the talking for me.
Near Earth Objects and Planetary Defense
Could a space rock hit Earth and cause widespread devastation? What could we do if we found an asteroid or comet on a collision course with Earth?
Saturn's aurora, even better than before
The Cassini imaging team have posted their own processed and captioned version of the Saturn's aurora movie that I posted a preview of about six weeks ago, and it was worth the wait.
Two more awesome pictures from the Enceladus flyby
I'm getting to be a broken record here, but I can't stop looking at these photos from the Enceladus flyby.
Prepare for your jaw to hit the floor when you see these pictures of Enceladus
Wow, just wow. I didn't know what to expect from the second flyby of Saturn's geyser moon Enceladus in November, which happened yesterday.
Another great Enceladus shot
Here's a 4-frame mosaic of Enceladus images -- just another everyday spectacularly alien landscape.
Encouraging motion on Spirit
It really looks like the second attempt at driving Spirit out of the trap has had the hoped-for result: some forward progress (maybe about a centimeter), and no evidence for further downward sinking.
Opportunity's poking at Marquette Island; Cassini's catching dancing moons
Since tomorrow's class is going to be on playing with raw images from the rovers and Cassini, I've been playing with recent raw images from the rovers and Cassini! I just thought I'd share a couple of the fun items I've been working with.
Be a Martian!
I think the new
Results of the first "Free Spirit" extrication drive, sol 2088: not much, as expected
Even though all of us rover fans know that Spirit is really, really stuck, I think I'm not the only one who was secretly hoping that today's images downlinked from Spirit would show that the rover had magically popped out of the ground overnight. Of course, she didn't.
LCROSS team: "Yes, we found water!"
I just posted a story on the announcement today that LCROSS definitely found lots of water in the spectra from their October 9 impact.



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Jupiter
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Uranus
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Small Bodies