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Stories, updates, insights, and original analysis from The Planetary Society.
Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter press briefing: silicic volcanoes on the Moon
I'm listening to a press briefing from several members of the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter science team, regarding three papers published today in Science.
Two natural bridges on the Moon (now with 3D!)
Imagine this landscape: you're walking across an unusually smooth lunar surface, an impact melt sheet on the floor of a relatively recently formed crater.
New crater found in LROC image from the Moon
This news is no surprise, but I think it's the first such discovery I've heard of: the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC) team has identified a new crater on the Moon, one that wasn't there when Apollo 15 flew over.
A bull's eye on the Moon
Orientale is the youngest large impact basin on the Moon, which means that very little of it has been obliterated by later impacts.
Elephant Skin on the Moon
There's a name for that funny hummocky texture to the lunar landscape:
One month, one journal, so many missed space stories!
Or: Emily reads you the table of contents of Icarus.
Likely candidate for an un-collapsed lava tube
In February, the Chandrayaan-1 science team had a meeting in Ahmedabad, India, to share their results with each other.
Is this SMART-1's impact site?
Speaking of spacecraft crashing...
Water on the Moon: Direct evidence from Chandrayaan-1's Moon Impact Probe
I've reported before about the detection of water on the surface of the Moon by the Chandrayaan-1 orbiter and the Deep Impact and Cassini spacecraft, but what I'm about to tell you about is actually more exciting: the direct detection of water in the lunar atmosphere by the Chandrayaan-1 Moon Impact Probe.
My arduous journey to the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera images
It's been two weeks since Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter mission released a flood of data to the Planetary Data System, but I haven't posted any pictures dug out of the camera data yet. This post will explain why.
Pretty picture: An unexplained chain of elliptical craters on the Moon
Here's the first cool pic I've managed to produce from the recently-released Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera data set.
LROC spots Russian "monument" to International Women's Day
There was a piece of the Lunar-Reconnaissance-Orbiter-spots-the-Lunokhods story that I was intrigued by but just didn't have the time this week to investigate properly.
And now for Luna 17 and Lunokhod 1
I am delighted to report that within a day of the first view of Luna 21 and Lunokhod 2 since the end of that mission in 1973, the sister mission, Luna 17 and Lunokhod 1, has also been found.
Lunokhod found on the Moon -- and on Earth, too
Yesterday I posted a bit of a Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter camera image showing the tracks of the Russian Lunokhod 2 rover. Today, I can post for you an image showing the rover's final resting place
Soviet landers Luna 20, 23, and 24, plus the tracks of Lunokhod 2
Today is the bonanza day for Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter: the first formal release of orbiter data happened this morning, including 10 Terabytes (that is 10 million Megabytes!) of camera data.
LPSC: Wrapping up Tuesday: The Moon, Mars, Mercury, Vesta, and back to Mars
Well, it's already mid-day on the Friday a week after the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference ended and I'm STILL not done writing up my notes.
LPSC: Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter results
A week later and I am finally getting to the mountains of notes I took on Moon-related talks I saw at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference (LPSC) held in Houston last week.
Pretty picture: Mini-RF exposes lunar geology
There are all kinds of neat things to see in this recently released image from the Mini-RF synthetic aperture radar instrument aboard Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.
Planetary Society Advent Calendar for December 14: The Moon
The Moon is the most familiar of the objects in the heavens.
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.