Articles

Emily Lakdawalla

I was delighted to receive an email from Morten Bo Madsen, who I knew from the Mars Exploration Rover mission as

Emily Lakdawalla

I have posted several times about the amazing photo captured by HiRISE of Phoenix under its parachute as it descended. There have been two common questions I've received about the photo: was there any color data taken, and what more can I tell you about how hard it was to take the photo? I've got answers to both questions for you today.

Emily Lakdawalla

Eduardo Tesheiner was kind enough to send me an updated version of his route map for Opportunity so we can get a sense of just how close the rover is getting to Cape Verde.

Emily Lakdawalla

One of my favorite amateur image magicians, Gordan Ugarkovic continues to play around with the amazing data recently released by the Cassini mission, covering the Iapetus encounter of last September. Here's a lovely mosaic he just put together of the Voyager Mountains.

Emily Lakdawalla

As MESSENGER flew past the night side of Mercury in January, its Fast Imaging Plasma Spectrometer (FIPS) scooped up ions from an atmosphere so tenuous that it's usually called an

Marc Rayman

Now using an ion thruster that had been powered off since October, Dawn continues to make steady progress on its journey deeper into space.

A.J.S. Rayl

The Mars Exploration Rovers (MERs) celebrated a landmark milestone in June as they

Emily Lakdawalla

The Phoenix mission confirmed it this morning: the disappearing act pulled by those chunks of bright material in the Dodo trench pretty much nails the identification of the bright material as ice, which is great news for the mission. Ice is what Phoenix went all the way to Mars to study; it's what the team has been aiming for all these years.

Jim Bell

One of the ways that planetary scientists try to understand the origin and evolution of landforms on other planets is by studying similar kinds of landforms or

Emily Lakdawalla

JAXA has posted a note on their website on the status of Hayabusa, which apparently reached aphelion in late May. Hayabusa is Japan's amazing ion-powered mission to asteroid Itokawa, which touched down on Itokawa to grab a sample in mid-November 2005, but suffered an injury that has left in doubt its ability to return the sample capsule to Earth.

A.J.S. Rayl

As Phoenix commanded the headlines with its flawless touchdown in the arctic region of the Red Planet this past month, the Mars Exploration Rovers (MERs) forged onward slowly, quietly and out of the spotlight, heading into the depths of their third Martian winter. Spirit persevered and held its own in terms of energy, while Opportunity, after six weeks of being stopped in its tracks with a shoulder joint injury, roved once more.

Marc Rayman

The Dawn mission continues smoothly, as the spacecraft reliably thrusts with its ion propulsion system, demonstrating all the patience of a...well, of an ion-propelled spacecraft!

Emily Lakdawalla

Emily hits the high points of today's press conference.

Emily Lakdawalla

A majority of the people who work in planetary geology are usually associated with one or maybe two missions, doing all their research on the results from one instrument on one mission. But there are a few people whose expertise cuts across many space missions, and an even smaller number of people who seem to work on almost everything. Randy Kirk is one of those people.

Emily Lakdawalla

It's time to check in on what's going on with our trusty robots around the solar system.

Emily Lakdawalla

I apologize for the long hiatus in this White Rock series, but I hope this entry will be worth the wait.

Emily Lakdawalla

A little project I've been wanting to do for some time, combing the NASA archives for photos that document the assembly of the International Space Station.

Emily Lakdawalla

Here's what's happening on active planetary missions this week.

A.J.S. Rayl

With winter settling in on the southern hemisphere of the Red Planet, the Mars Exploration Rovers (MERs) spent April working on their respective science campaigns and hunkering down in brutally chilly nights that are seeing temperatures drop to around -95 degree Celsius. As the month comes to an end at Gusev Crater and Meridiani Planum, there is good news and there is bad news.

Emily Lakdawalla

I thought it would be fun to start the week by taking stock of what's going on with all the active planetary missions out there.