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

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 25: Double planet

To those of you who celebrate the holiday, merry Christmas! I hope Santa was good to you.

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.

Rosetta approaches the Moon, November 8, 2009 (enlarged)

Rosetta is homing in on Earth

Heads up! ESA's Rosetta spacecraft is approaching for its last flyby of Earth, on Friday, November 13.

Simulated global view of the Moon using Kaguya topographic data

Data from Kaguya's prime mission to the Moon has been released

Yesterday, the Japanese space agency announced the public release of the data from the primary mission of the Kaguya (a.k.a. SELENE) lunar orbiter.

Gorgeous high-res image of the Apollo 17 landing site

The LROC team posted today a new image of the Apollo 17 landing site, captured after Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter had gotten in to its 50-kilometer mapping orbit, so this is much more detailed than the previous view.

Window onto an abyss: Cave skylight on the Moon

This just in: researchers on JAXA's Kaguya lunar orbiter have discovered an open pit on the Moon that is likely a window onto a sublunar world -- a skylight into a subsurface cavern.

That psychedelic M-cubed Moon movie explained

Advance warning: this entry may be a little technical for some.

Video from Palomar Observatory on LCROSS impact night

The Palomar Observatory adaptive optics image of the crater Cabeus remains the best I've seen from ground-based telescopes of the LCROSS impact site.

Kaguya Terrain Camera image of Cabeus region

Gorgeous Kaguya image of Cabeus crater; where to watch impact

I'm back online and ready to watch LCROSS smash into the Moon this morning!

DIVINER image of LCROSS impact site on the Moon

Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Diviner detection of LCROSS impact

The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Diviner team just released some preliminary views of their data taken during the LCROSS impact, which clearly shows the thermal signature from the crash into the Moon.

Graphics from the LCROSS press briefing

It's been a little difficult to get a hold of the graphics that they used at this morning's press briefing.

LCROSS visible spectrometer data showing impact flash

This plot just shows the aggregate radiance in ultraviolet and visible wavelengths -- all wavelengths -- seen by one of LCROSS' spectrometers after the Centaur hit the Moon.

MMTO image of LCROSS plume on crater Cabeus A

MMT image of the plume and its shadow?

I am pretty sure this image shows the LCROSS impact plume and its shadow as seen from the MMT observatory in Arizona, but as Alan Boyle just pointed out, the time stamps indicate the photos were all taken before the nominal impact time.