Articles

Emily Lakdawalla

I've gotten this question about once a week since Spirit got stuck, but yesterday, two different readers asked the same question within an hour of each other, so I figured it was time for a blog entry.

Emily Lakdawalla

The ever-vigilant Doug Ellison just posted this animation, which really actually does show a teeny tiny bit of motion in the right front wheel. If you don't notice any motion, look closer.

Emily Lakdawalla

The Moon is the most familiar of the objects in the heavens.

Emily Lakdawalla

It was worth my while to get up at 5:15 my time this morning -- I saw a flawless launch of a Delta II from Vandenberg Air Force Base, carrying the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) into orbit.

Emily Lakdawalla

If you don't think Pluto gets enough respect, just imagine what it's like to be a satellite of an asteroid.

Charlene Anderson

In our continuing saga of the Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO), the scene now switches from Copenhagen to Washington, D.C.

Emily Lakdawalla

Cassini's amazing cameras have set a new standard for the quality, sharpness, resolution, beautiful color, and all-around spectacularness of images returned from the outer solar system.

Emily Lakdawalla

This is a special post for all of my readers who are lighting the first candle on their menorot this evening.

Emily Lakdawalla

My inbox was exploding this morning with messages about a tremendously cool animation released this morning by ESA's Mars Express team. It shows Phobos crossing Deimos, in what's known as a

Charlene Anderson

Climate change and Copenhagen are dominating the world news this week, as politicians, diplomats, scientists, and protesters gathered in the Danish city for the 2009 meeting for the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change.

Emily Lakdawalla

Welcome to the tenth post in my

Emily Lakdawalla

Here's another weird-looking one, though it's less weird from this particular, polar point of view than it is when viewed from the side.

Emily Lakdawalla

I wrote a few weeks ago about a new Send Your Name to Venus campaign conducted by the Akatsuki mission. Now The Planetary Society has arranged with JAXA to collect names and messages on our website.

Emily Lakdawalla

I love this asteroid. It's just so weird-looking.

Emily Lakdawalla

This week's Carnival of Space may be found at Steve's Astro Corner.

Emily Lakdawalla

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.

Emily Lakdawalla

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.

Emily Lakdawalla

Umbriel is the darkest moon in a pretty dark place in the solar system, the Uranus system.

Emily Lakdawalla

Epimetheus is one of the many small moons of Saturn that are referred to by the Cassini mission team as

Emily Lakdawalla

Mercury is the smallest of the eight planets and, like Uranus and Neptune, has so far been studied only during flyby encounters.