Articles

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.

Jason Davis

Just because you live in an urban area with skyglow doesn't mean you can't have fun with astrophotography. How to capture the planets, constellations and the ISS.

Mat Kaplan

This is the first episode of editor Emily Lakdawalla's new video series exploring the solar system.

Emily Lakdawalla

On June 30, Dawn stopped thrusting for a full Vestian day -- five hours and 20 minutes -- and just watched the asteroid rotate. But unlike the previous observations, they used all of Dawn's color filters to acquire the best-ever color photos of the lumpy world.

Emily Lakdawalla

I'm not encouraging people to search individual images for the Mars Polar Lander anymore, for three reasons.

Emily Lakdawalla

Cary and Michael Huang present a basic

Neil Patrick Stewart

The International Dark Sky Association designated Big Bend as an International Dark Sky Park, confirming its status as an incredible place to stargaze.

Emily Lakdawalla

A few times a year I find myself confronting a table full of numbers describing the orbits of things in the solar system, and cursing at myself because I've forgotten, again, what all these numbers mean and how to manipulate them to get the particular numbers I want.

Emily Lakdawalla

Earlier today I wrote a post about how to calculate the position of a body in space from its orbital elements. I'm trying to get a big-picture view of what's going on in trans-Neptunian space.

Emily Lakdawalla

Some time in the last few days, the Dawn team made public the first preliminary version of the first release of their data from the Vesta phase of their mission.

Emily Lakdawalla

An infographic explains in what

Mat Kaplan

Emily Lakdawalla and I drove down to the 3rd annual San Diego SpaceUp Unconference on February 4. We had great fun hanging out with the other space geeks.

Bill Nye

Today, NASA announced its budget for its fiscal year 2013. As you might imagine, there are large budget cuts. But, the planetary science program has been cut disproportionately. NASA's allocations are out of balance.

Phil Stooke

How does the LRO lunar map compare with the new Chinese product from Chang'e 2?

Emily Lakdawalla

It's amateur astronomers, not professionals, who are shouldering the burden of constant monitoring of the weather on Jupiter and Saturn. What's going on these days in the outer solar system?