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Small BodiesStories, updates, insights, and original analysis from The Planetary Society.
Live feeds on asteroid 2005 YU55 as it passes Earth
Unless you've been living under a rock you've probably heard that there is a relatively large (400-meter) asteroid passing closer to Earth than the orbit of the Moon today -- in just a few minutes, as a matter of fact.
Phobos-Grunt and Phobos LIFE, with Yinghuo-1, have launched!
I am ecstatic to report that at 20:16 UTC, millions of passengers on board the Planetary Society's Phobos LIFE biomodule launched into space inside the Phobos Sample Return (also known as Phobos Grunt or Phobos Soil) spacecraft.
How radio telescopes get "images" of asteroids
This is a repost of an article I wrote in April 2010; I thought it'd be useful reading for those of you interested in today's near-Earth flyby of asteroid 2005 YU55.
Phobos-Grunt and Yinghuo-1 poised for liftoff
Russia's Phobos-Grunt sample return spacecraft, carrying the Planetary Society's Phobos LIFE experiment, plus China's Yinghuo-1 Mars minisatellite, are poised for launch at Baikonur! The launch window opens in less than six hours, at 20:16 UTC.
A serious problem on Phobos-Grunt
It looks like something has gone wrong with Phobos-Grunt.
Phobos-Grunt and Yinghuo-1 now encapsulated in their fairing (lots of photos)
About a week after Curiosity passed through the same milestone, Phobos-Grunt and Yinghuo-1 -- still slated for a November 8 launch -- were encapsulated in their payload fairing in preparation for being stacked on their rocket. And, of course, our little Phobos LIFE capsule is inside there too!
Curiosity stacked for launch, still waiting for plutonium power source installation
It's still three weeks until Curiosity's launch date, but the spacecraft has already been placed on top of its rocket. The Kennedy Space Center's Curiosity photo album now has lots of pictures of the spacecraft being enclosed inside the payload fairing (the rocket's
Print publications galore!
November has already been a very good month for me in the print publication realm. I've had published not one, but two, feature articles on Curiosity, the Mars Science Laboratory rover.
Dawn Journal: HAMO successfully completed, LAMO ahead
Dawn has completed another wonderfully successful phase of its exploration of Vesta, studying it in unprecedented detail during the past month.
Book Reviews: Otherworldly skies, real and imagined
Today I'm reviewing -- and recommending -- two art-laden books. Michael Carroll's Drifting on Alien Winds is nonfiction, while the IAAA's The Beauty of Space is an art book, but both books are about describing our understanding of the alien-yet-familiar worlds across our solar system, and what they'd look like if we could stand on them.
Have two spacecraft ever docked to two separate space stations on the same day?
The Chinese spacecraft Shenzhou 8 docks with space station Tiangong 1, on the same day a Progress resupply capsule arrives at the International Space Station.
Deep Impact goes for the deep sky
I love it when old spacecraft get pushed to perform feats that weren't part of their original missions.
What do Dawn's color ratio images of Vesta mean?
The Dawn mission to Vesta continues to release an image every day, and recently they have been releasing lots of color images. I like color pictures for aesthetic reasons, but color is actually a very important property of planetary surfaces.
Scale solar system presentation slide, version 2
Last month I posted a preliminary version of a slide I was working on for use in my public presentations, a slide that contains everything in the solar system bigger than 400 kilometers across, and invited comment. I've listened to all of your comments and corrections and come up with a second version.
Mars Exploration Rovers Update: Opportunity Heads for New Discovery as Winter Blows In at Cape York
Opportunity roved on this month, driving alongside the rim of Endeavour Crater toward the northern end of Cape York in search of more science gold and a place to hunker down for winter.
NPP Earth observatory launched successfully, and I was there!
Well, that was awesome. The NPP Earth observation satellite launched successfully an hour or so ago, and I was with a chilled but thrilled crowd of a few hundred people to watch it at Vandenberg Air Force Base.
NPP Tweetup schedule and launch timeline
This evening I'll be headed up to Lompoc, California, to participate in my first Tweetup along with 25 other Tweeters.
What's up in the solar system in November 2011
For a few weeks over November and December, a rare launch window to Mars opens, and then slams shut agin. Mars launch windows only happen once each 26 months, so if you miss the window, you have to wait more than two years for the next one.
Mars Climate Sounder confirms a Martian weather prediction
The Mars Climate Sounder team has recently confirmed a prediction of a weather phenomenon on Mars that we haven't been able to observe before.
Nighttime Water Ice Clouds Predicted by Models are Confirmed by MCS Observations
The Mars Climate Sounder instrument provides routine nightside observations of atmospheric temperature and opacity that document the presence of rapidly evolving water ice cloud layers in the Martian tropics during the northern summer season.