Articles

John Smith

Each Titan flyby is not a fork in the road, but rather a Los Angeles style cloverleaf in terms of the dizzying number of possible destinations. So how did our current and future plans for the path of the Cassini spacecraft come to be? That's the question Dave Seal put to me since that's my job -- I am a tour designer.

David Seal

Saturn is rapidly approaching equinox, where the Sun passes through the ring plane (south-to-north, i.e. the northern vernal equinox), and its ring system (i.e. its great now-gloomy poorly-lit circles of large blocks of water ice) is starting to show some really interesting behavior.

David Seal

David Seal explains the complications for Cassini coming from Titan's atmosphere and Solar Cycle.

David Seal

David Seal muses on his time as the mission planner for Cassini, and the history behind its name, and astronomy in Rome.

Ken Edgett

Looking at Mars with the MRO CTX

Ken Edgett

Water and the Curiosity Landing Site Candidates

Ken Edgett

The Martian Craters Asimov and Danielson

Ryan Anderson

Well, it looks like the next-generation rover that will be launching to Mars in 2011 (and happens to be the focal point of my PhD thesis) just got a name!

Ken Edgett

Sometimes it is a bit awkward being a planetary scientist.

Susan Lendroth

This summer, the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. will commemorate that extraordinary moment in history with a very special Apollo 11 celebration, featuring the mission's original crew members along with former Johnson Space Center Director Chris Kraft.

Ken Kremer

Farewell to Hubble, Obama Calls, Astronauts Testify to Congress as Shuttle is Set to Land

Alan Stern

Despite still being more than six years and just over 18 Astronomical Units from the Pluto system, the project team for New Horizons is conducting the second and final portion of our Pluto Encounter Preliminary Design Review (EPDR) tomorrow and the next day.

Alan Stern

Today, I'm kicking the week off with a look at the unusually intense confluence of far flung planetary exploration that's just around the corner, starting the middle of next year.

Mark Adler

On Monday, if all goes well, we will launch the Space Shuttle to rejuvenate one the greatest scientific missions launched on or off the Earth: the Hubble Space Telescope.

Jim Bell

Jim Bell describes his proposal to join the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Cameras science team.

Bruce Betts

Our 2007 Shoemaker NEO Grant winners have been extremely busy over the past two years. Take for example Quanzhi Ye of Guangzhou, China: He was only 18 when he received the award but already the principal investigator of the sky survey at the Lulin Observatory in Taiwan.

Ryan Anderson

This is a tiny subframe from the HiRISE image PSP_009294_1750.

David Kass

Emily Lakdawalla

Way to go, Spirit! The last two drives for the five-wheeled rover have taken it a total of about 40 meters west, traveling around the north edge of Home Plate. If I'm not mistaken, that's more than Spirit has driven in the last 400 sols combined.

Ryan Anderson

The voting has begun to give the Mars Science Laboratory a genuine, non-acronym name!