Articles

Stories, updates, insights, and original analysis from The Planetary Society.

A discontinuous rille on the Moon (Lunar Orbiter view)

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...

Using Earth to Study the Moon

Exploring Earth analogues of space landscapes is a valuable activity that can help planetary scientists correctly interpret what their instruments are telling them.

Sighting the homeworld

Coming closer every day, Mr. Hayabusa has sighted his final destination: his homeworld, Earth, and its attendant Moon.

Moon Zoo crater counting interface screen grab

Moon Zoo is ready for you

I'm delighted to point you to a citizen science project for wannabe space geologists like me: Moon Zoo.

APOLLO program pinpoints location of Lunokhod 1 retroreflector

With the recent Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter imaging of the Lunokhod 1 rover, scientists on the APOLLO project were finally able to do something that scientists have been dreaming of for more than three decades: shoot the rover with a laser.

Hubble turns 20

Tomorrow is the 20th anniversary of the launch of the Hubble Space Telescope. It's hard to believe it's been going strong for so many years.

Mosaic of Chandrayaan-1 Moon Impact Probe images

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.

Chain of Elliptical Craters on the Moon (wide & detail)

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.

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.

What planet is THIS?

Check out this watery world! It's clearly a computer simulation of something, but of what? Can you guess?

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.

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.