Articles

Charlene Anderson

NASA's Mars science exploration budget is being decimated, we are not going back to the Moon, and plans for astronauts to visit Mars are delayed until the 2030s -- on funding not yet allocated, overseen by a congress and president to be named later.

Emily Lakdawalla

Two brief mission updates. First, the good news: NASA announced yesterday that the twin GRAIL spacecraft have begun the science phase of the mission, transmitting precisely timed signals to each other in order to map the Moon's gravity field. The bad news: according to ESA, since the recent solar storm passed Venus, both of Venus Express' star trackers are suddenly unable to detect stars.

Emily Lakdawalla

Last night the Sun unleashed a large coronal mass ejection in our direction. Here is a compilation of images from SOHO's two LASCO cameras, plus a prediction from the new space weather prediction model that I learned about at the American Geophysical Union in December. The storm will arrive at Earth on March 8.

Charlene Anderson

The Planetary Society is deeply troubled with the priorities reflected in NASA's FY13 budget. If implemented, it will portend grave consequences for our nation's ability to conduct deep-space science missions and could irreversibly erode unique aspects of the space industrial base needed for such missions.

Emily Lakdawalla

A recap of the

Charlene Anderson

Neil DeGrasse Tyson, astrophysicist extraordinaire and Planetary Society Board Member, will be testifying to the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation tomorrow, March 7.

Mat Kaplan

A new installment of our

Emily Lakdawalla

Each Magellan images of Venus seems to be a work of abstract art.

Emily Lakdawalla

Here are two perfect examples of Voyager 2's amazing untapped treasures.

Tyler Nordgren

With Mars at opposition once again, astronomers around the world will soon be looking up for our best telescopic views of the Red Planet. But next weekend, I and a group of scientists will be turning our gaze downward for views of that alien planet.

Mat Kaplan

Have you heard it?

Emily Lakdawalla

ESA announced this morning that the launch of their BepiColombo mission, a cooperative effort with JAXA, has been delayed from its originally planned July 2014 to the backup launch window in August 2015.

Marc Rayman

Dawn is continuing its exploits at Vesta, performing detailed studies of the colossal asteroid from its low altitude mapping orbit (LAMO).

A.J.S. Rayl

There's no hail or snow or sleet, though it is the depth of winter at Meridiani Planum and a cold unimaginable to us has gripped the landscape.

Mat Kaplan

The second episode of Emily Lakdawalla's new video series reveals the gigantic library of solar system images captured by NASA spacecraft, and explains why we've seen so few of them. Emily says they're all online, waiting for space geeks to turn them into gold.

Emily Lakdawalla

There is an ever-expanding bubble announcing Humanity's presence to anyone listening in the Milky Way.

Jim Bell

Recent deep funding cuts by the Administration and Congress for NASA's space exploration programs are turning the final frontier into an ever-receding dream.

Emily Lakdawalla

A new paper in the Journal of Geophysical Research - Planets by Dombard, Cheng, McKinnon, and KayI claims to explain how Iapetus' equatorial ridge formed. Cool!

Garry Hunt

Garry Hunt brings a distinctive perspective to the now-raging debate over the cuts to NASA's science program proposed in the Administration's fiscal year 2013 budget.

Emily Lakdawalla

It took Don Davis many hours of meticulous labor to assemble this beautiful postcard from Mars.