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Stories, updates, insights, and original analysis from The Planetary Society.
Gorgeous high-res image of the Apollo 17 landing site
The LROC team posted today a new image of the Apollo 17 landing site, captured after Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter had gotten in to its 50-kilometer mapping orbit, so this is much more detailed than the previous view.
What "phase angle" means
As is probably obvious by now, I love playing with spacecraft image data. I am always looking for excuses to dive into space image archives to unearth images of stuff in space that haven't really been seen by very many people before.
Carnival of Space #126, plus more from Jupiter's moon Io
The 126th Space Carnival is live over at Jason Perry's always-excellent (if rather narrowly focused) Io blog The Gish Bar Times.
Spinning spokes in Saturn's rings
Here's a neat animation captured last month by Cassini and assembled by Mike Malaska: spokes in Saturn's B ring.
Window onto an abyss: Cave skylight on the Moon
This just in: researchers on JAXA's Kaguya lunar orbiter have discovered an open pit on the Moon that is likely a window onto a sublunar world -- a skylight into a subsurface cavern.
Saturn shadows shift with the seasons
So many goodies on the Cassini raw images website lately! I am especially excited when Cassini takes photos through red, green, and blue filters so that it's possible to create views that look roughly like what you'd see with your own eyes.
Fun for Sunday: Titan and Tethys pas de deux
Checking in on Cassini's raw images this weekend, there are several nice shots to play with, including the many frames from which I tossed together this cute animation.
Opportunity's world of dunes and rock
Opportunity's been making tracks lately, with brief stops to check out a couple of meteorites. I thought this view of its surroundings on sol 2,034 (a couple of days ago) was neat.
MSL: Mars Action Hero
MSL is like James Bond. Want to know why?
A brief word on Saturn's radius
I've had two people write in to correct my Phoebe ring post from yesterday.
Rhea, Enceladus, Mimas, and Tethys, oh my!
With the last Titan flyby on October 12, Cassini came back to an orbit that's nearly in the equatorial plane, and immediately rewarded us with some fine views of several of the icy moons. Here are a bunch of images of those moons.
The Phoebe ring
Last week, planetary astronomers Anne Verbiscer, Michael Skrutskie, and Doug Hamilton published a paper in Nature succinctly titled
Netherlands fireball
I was debating whether to write anything about a reported fireball that streaked across the sky in the Netherlands at roughly 19:00 local time (17:00 UTC) yesterday, October 13, but seeing this image ended my internal debate.
AMASE 2009: Testing future Mars surface instruments in the Arctic
I have just posted four more blog entries from Juan Diego Rodgriguez-Blanco detailing the work conducted during this year's Artic Mars Analogue Svalbard Expedition (AMASE).
That psychedelic M-cubed Moon movie explained
Advance warning: this entry may be a little technical for some.
OMG! Aurora!
Unmannedspaceflight.com member Astro0 was fiddling around with an interesting-looking sequence of Cassini images when he discovered their purpose -- they were gathered in order to see if Cassini could catch aurorae flaring into being near Saturn's north pole. Cassini sure did!
Video from Palomar Observatory on LCROSS impact night
The Palomar Observatory adaptive optics image of the crater Cabeus remains the best I've seen from ground-based telescopes of the LCROSS impact site.
Gorgeous Kaguya image of Cabeus crater; where to watch impact
I'm back online and ready to watch LCROSS smash into the Moon this morning!
Screen caps of NASA TV LCROSS camera images
I am having issues with TwitPic this morning, so will occasionally post new images from the LCROSS camera to this blog entry.
LCROSS impact recap, with animations
Quite a night! I set my alarm for 3:15 am in order to get up and watch LCROSS crash into the Moon.



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