All
All
Stories, updates, insights, and original analysis from The Planetary Society.
MSL Landing Sites Narrowed to Four
I've known about this for a little while but it was finally made public: The list of MSL landing sites had now been trimmed to four.
High dust levels are making life tough for Spirit
There was a worrying update posted on the JPL website for Spirit today: an early-season dust storm has darkened its skies enough that its solar panels produced only 89 watt-hours of power yesterday, sol 1,725. Neither rover has ever, ever seen power production levels that low, not even during last year's massive dust storm.
The Antarctic search for meteorites: who's going, and where we are going
A summary of the 2008-2009 expedition team, and where they will go to hunt meteorites.
Opportunity and Spirit updates: Both are now driving
Another day, another drive: on sols 1,693 and 1,695 the Opportunity rover conducted two more lengthy drives to the south, totaling almost 200 meters. On the other side of the planet, Spirit is FINALLY in motion again.
MESSENGER's Second Mercury Flyby: Ancient Geology, Active Atmosphere
When MESSENGER flew past Mercury for a second time on October 6, 2008, its cameras snapped photos of an impressive 30 percent of the planet's surface that had never previously been seen by spacecraft.
Opportunity is really hitting the highway
Victoria crater, the site of a Mars year's worth of study, is now far over the horizon, as Opportunity has lately completed a series of very long drives. Opportunity is once again sailing the sand seas of Meridiani Planum.
Why is only half of Mars magnetized?
An article in the September 26 issue of Science neatly explains why only the southern half of Mars is strongly magnetized.
A shift in orbit for Mars Odyssey
Last week, the Mars Odyssey team announced that their mission is being extended another two years. This mission extension will be slightly different from previous mission phases due to a planned change in the spacecraft's orbit.
DPS meeting: Sunday: Lakes on Titan
This time around DPS features three separate oral sessions on Titan, indicating just how much attention that moon is getting from the scientific community right now. From the first session, on Titan's lower atmosphere, I'm just covering the two talks on Titan's lakes.
MSL Still Aiming for Oct 2009
NASA is holding a press conference right now regarding MSL and it sounds like they are going to press on and try to achieve the October 2009 launch date.
Long drives at last for Opportunity (or, getting your kicks on sol 1,666)
It's been way, way, way too long since the view from either rover's cameras has changed very much. So I hope you'll join me in a shout of
Plumbing on Mars: HiRISE Reveals Groundwater Cracks
This image from the HiRISE camera on the Mars Reconaissance Orbiter, shows cracks in the rocks on Mars that once formed the underground plumbing through which groundwater traveled.
Opportunity's got a long road ahead
Mars Exploration Rover principal investigator Steve Squyres announced on National Public Radio's Science Friday show the next goal for Opportunity, and it's a long, long, long way away: a huge crater about 12 kilometers southeast of its current location, which the team is referring to internally as
Potential MSL Site: Holden Crater
The next landing site that we heard about was Holden Crater. Holden is a 154 km diameter crater formed early in martian history that happened to fall smack in the path of an extensive fluvial system.
Potential MSL Site: Eberswalde
The Eberswalde site is interesting because it is unarguably the best example of a delta on Mars.
Potential MSL Site: Mawrth Vallis
The Mawrth Vallis landing site is actually a set of four possible landing ellipses in an area with huge clay mineral signatures that is cut by a meandering outflow channel.
Potential MSL Site: Gale Crater
I am sort of breaking my own protocol here by posting about Gale crater before I hear the presentations today, but since we will immediately go into discussion and decision making after it is presented this morning, I figured that it would be good to familiarize you with it now.
MSL Workshop Presentations!
For those of you playing along at home, I thought I should point out that most of the presentations so far are posted at the
MSL Workshop: Votes are Cast!
The discussion and arguments are over! We are just waiting for the last few ballots to be submitted, and then the project science group will start counting them.
MSL Landing Site Selection: The Votes are In!
It looks like the top three sites are Eberswalde, Holden and Gale.