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Small BodiesStories, updates, insights, and original analysis from The Planetary Society.
MESSENGER's Venus flyby successful
A press release just hit my mailbox stating that MESSENGER has been heard from since its Venus flyby, so there are now only four flybys to go before MESSENGER will be in orbit at Mercury!
MESSENGER is approaching its first Venus flyby
There is a big event taking place tomorrow: the MESSENGER spacecraft flies by Venus for the first time.
Mars Exploration Rovers Update: Spirit Perseveres, Opportunity Arrives at Victoria Crater
The Mars Exploration Rovers are reaching new milestones and gaining newfound energy as winter slowly begins to pass on the Red Planet. Once again, Opportunity commanded the spotlight as it pulled up to the rim of the massive Victoria crater this week and began returning images that may redefine the word spellbinding. Twin sister, Spirit, meanwhile, is resigned to stay in its northward-tilted position for another month looking at the same scenery in order to collect the maximum energy supply for its solar panels.
Mars Exploration Rovers Update: Spirit Waits to Bust a Move, Opportunity on Final Leg to Victoria Crater
The Mars Exploration Rovers, which bounced to landings in January 2004 with 90-day warranties, have survived their second winter solstice on the Red Planet and are still going strong more than two and a half years after landing.
Mars Exploration Rovers Update: Spirit Completes Mission's Grandest Panorama, Opportunity Approaches Beagle Crater
The Mars Exploration Rovers (MER) are working right through the depths of the winter at their respective locations in Gusev Crater and Meridiani Planum. Although the twin robot field geologists are putting in short days and taking quality time to recharge, they still have team members marveling over their latest Martian finds.
Cassini's view from the backside of Saturn
Over time, Cassini's orbit apoapsis—the point on the orbit that is farthest from Saturn—has been shifting slowly toward Saturn's night side. Lately, this point of view has resulted in some truly lovely photos of the planet.
They released the entire Cassini RADAR swath across Xanadu!
Following immediately on the heels of the release of the
Cassini's T7 RADAR view of southern Titan; northern swath coming soon
Cassini's T7 flyby of Titan occurred on September 7, 2005. They've now released the full swath of RADAR image data to the Planetary Data System; here it is for your enjoyment.
Mars Exploration Rovers Update: Spirit Discovers More Meteorites as Opportunity Closes in
The Mars Exploration Rovers (MER) are wheel deep in winter, and still faring well, working hard, and sending home interesting new finds despite the below freezing Martian temperatures. The next month or so will bring the season's coldest temperatures to the rover's present habitats, but so far, no one on the team is losing any sleep over whether or not they'll make it through, because these rovers just keep going and going . . .
MESSENGER has flipped for the last time
I just received a MESSENGER mission news update stating that the MESSENGER spacecraft, en route to Mercury via two Venus flybys, has passed another milestone on its long journey: it has, for the last time, passed from Earth's environs toward the inner solar system.
New Horizons tracks an asteroid
New Horizons is spending the summer traversing the asteroid belt. I haven't written a lot about New Horizons lately because the mission has been going so uneventfully well. But now I've got something to write about: data!!
The official publication on the second Titan RADAR swath is out
Today Nature published an article titled
Mars Exploration Rovers Update: Spirit Works Winter Campaign as Opportunity Roves Adrift on way to Victoria
The Mars Exploration Rovers are now well into their second Martian winter and, all things considered, both Spirit and Opportunity are faring pretty well for being, essentially, aging Baby Boomers on bitter cold, dusty alien planet some 50 million miles away from home.
A couple of neat artist's conceptions of ExoMars
With the Aurora program under way, the next European mission to Mars will be a rover named ExoMars, to be launched in 2011.
An Odyssey THEMIS image of Gale Crater, Mars
This week's releases from the Mars Odyssey THEMIS team included a gorgeous one of the layered interior of Gale crater.
Cassini RADAR: Another Flyby, Another Completely Different View of Titan
OK, I finally got a story written about the latest and greatest of the Cassini RADAR data based upon a conversation I had with with Ralph Lorenz late last week.
Cassini RADAR images of the surface of Titan
Since the last Titan flyby on April 30, the Cassini RADAR team has been releasing quite a large number of pieces of the swath to the Web.
A play-by-play of the Cassini scare on Mayday
Last week's Cassini Significant Events Report included a detailed play-by-play of the frightening morning of Mayday. I thought it was a very interesting read on how a mission deals with an
OPAG, Day 2: Ground-based study of the small bodies in the outer solar system
After the political discussions of the morning, Mike Brown stood up to give the
OPAG, Day 1: Cassini and Juno status
The Outer Planets Assessment Group opened with the status of two of the three actual outer planets missions, Cassini and Juno.