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Small BodiesStories, updates, insights, and original analysis from The Planetary Society.
Telling Pluto’s Story, One Fragment at a Time
Mark Showalter explains how determining basic information about Pluto's small moons—Kerberos and Styx—is more complicated than initially thought.
An enigmatic line across Pluto: Plutonian canali!?
Pluto and Charon are growing larger in New Horizons' forward view, beginning to develop distinct personalities. A version of recent New Horizons photos processed by Björn Jónsson reveals an enigmatic dark line. Our maps of Pluto's surface are now as good as our maps of Mars and Venus, circa 1900!
A (very) few more details on Pluto
Last week the New Horizons mission released a few new processed versions of their latest and greatest images of Pluto. They're the best images of Pluto that Earth has ever seen, but they're still a long way from what New Horizons will be able to show us, six weeks from now.
Dawn Journal: Spiralling Closer to Ceres
Dawn's Chief Engineer and Mission Director Marc Rayman gives an update as the spacecraft's orbit takes it even closer to the dwarf planet Ceres.
Tons of fun with the latest Ceres image releases from Dawn
Fantastic new images of Ceres continue to spill out of the Dawn mission, and armchair scientists all over the world are zooming into them, exploring them, and trying to solve the puzzles that they contain.
Two Months from Pluto!
Two months. Eight and half weeks. 58 days. It's a concept almost too difficult to grasp: we are on Pluto's doorstep.
Unseen latitudes of comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko -- revealed!
A recent Rosetta image has revealed a good part of the comet's previously hidden southern terrain to the public for the first time.
New Horizons spots Kerberos and Styx
New Horizons has now spotted every one of Pluto's satellites...all the ones we know about, that is.
OSIRIS-REx – Seeking Answers to the Sweet Mystery of Life
The nature of the origin of life is a topic that has engaged people since ancient times. The samples to be collected by OSIRIS-REx, returned to the Earth in 2023 and archived for decades beyond that, may indeed hide the secrets to the origin of life.
A week's worth of "RC3" images from Dawn at Ceres
Now that Dawn is in its science orbit at Ceres, the mission has been releasing new images every weekday!
Dawn Journal: Getting Down to Science at Ceres
Dawn Mission Director and Chief Engineer Marc Rayman gives a status update on the mission, having finally arrived at dwarf planet Ceres.
More than 1000 Rosetta NavCam images released!
Today the European Space Agency released a ton of NavCam images, taken as the spacecraft approached and then entered orbit at the comet.
New Horizons sees surface features on Pluto, begins raw image release
Today the New Horizons team released a new animation of images taken on approach to Pluto. The animation clearly shows how Pluto wobbles around the Pluto-Charon barycenter. It also shows something more exciting to the scientists: variations in brightness across the surface of Pluto. They also began releasing raw images to the Internet.
Development of the OSIRIS-REx Sampling System: TAGSAM and the SRC
The OSIRIS-REx team has been busy assembling and testing the Touch-and-Go Sample Acquisition Mechanism (TAGSAM) and the Sample Return Capsule (SRC).
Rosetta update: Two close flybys of an increasingly active comet
In the two months since I last checked up on the Rosetta mission, the comet has heated up, displaying more and more jet activity. Rosetta completed very close flybys on February 14 and March 28, taking amazing photos. But comet dust is making navigation difficult, so the mission is now keeping a respectful distance from the comet and replanning its future path.
What Color Does the Internet Think Pluto Is?
Astronomers have known for a long time that Pluto’s surface is reddish, so where did the common idea that Pluto is blue come from?
New views of three worlds: Ceres, Pluto, and Charon
New Horizons took its first color photo of Pluto and Charon, while Dawn obtained a 20-frame animation looking down on the north pole of a crescent Ceres.
Shoemaker NEO Grant Winners Announced: Saving the World
The six winners of the 2015 Shoemaker NEO Grants will use the grants to upgrade their observatories to improve their abilities to study potentially dangerous asteroids.
PROCYON update: Asteroid 2000 DP107 target selected, ion engine stopped
PROCYON (PRoximate Object Close flYby with Optical Navigation) is a microsatellite that launched on December 3 as a secondary payload with Hayabusa2. The mission has now selected their asteroid flyby target -- a binary asteroid named 2000 DP107 -- but is reporting a problem with their ion engines.
OSIRIS-REx Begins ATLO (Assembly, Test, and Launch Operations)
The OSIRIS-REx mission passed another major milestone. We now have approval to build the spacecraft.