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Small BodiesStories, updates, insights, and original analysis from The Planetary Society.
Science from Vesta at the Geological Society of America meeting
I'm nearly two weeks late getting to this news but better late than never, right? There was a press briefing from the Dawn mission at the Geological Society of America (GSA) meeting on October 12.
NPP's launching next week, and I'll be there to see it! (Hopefully.)
I'm (hopefully) headed to the launch of a Delta II (the last currently scheduled Delta II!) at Vandenberg Air Force Base, as one of only 20 people selected to participate out of more than 600 who registered.
Pretty pictures & movies: Eye candy from two recent Cassini Enceladus flybys
Cassini has completed two very close flybys of Enceladus in less than three weeks, one of them just this morning, and the images from that encounter have already arrived on Earth.
The fish that sent us to the moon
The tale of NASA's Super Guppy aircraft, which ferried parts of America's space program to their launch pads.
NOVA: Finding Life Beyond Earth airs tonight, with lots of planetary stars
Programming note: tonight, public television stations will be airing a new, two-hour NOVA documentary,
A new trick for IKAROS: Spinning the other way
JAXA's solar sail demonstration craft IKAROS is still puttering along, 17 months after it launched, and its controllers back on Earth keep coming up with new things to try with it. I'm pretty amazed by the most recent trick: reversing its spin direction. This may not sound like a big deal, but it is, especially for IKAROS.
Book Reviews: Two books that deliver knowledge in little chunks
I consider October and November to be book review season. We're well out of the mental coasting of summer and have gotten into the groove of school and work in fall, and are in the relative quiet before the insanity of the season that stretches from Thanksgiving to the New Year, when much of the Western world will be scrambling to shop for presents for friends and family.
Phobos-Grunt unpacked! With Yinghuo-1 and LIFE!
I know I just posted about Phobos-Grunt on Friday, but there are lots of new pictures from Baikonur Cosmodrome (Russia's main launch facility in Kazakhstan) showing Phobos-Grunt being removed from its shipping crate and tipped upright in preparation for its launch in early November.
The National Science Foundation's Science360 Radio
Announcing a new service! The National Science Foundation's Science360 Radio will fulfill your science needs. Science360 Radio has over 100 shows in it's lineup, including Planetary Radio, so go take a listen. Links inside.
Heads up! ROSAT is coming down this week
It should give you a feeling of déjà vu: a defunct satellite's orbit is decaying, and because that orbit is circular it's going to be impossible to predict where and when along its ground track it's going to happen.
Phobos-Grunt update; lots of new images and video!
Фобос-Грунт is getting ready for launch!
Earth observing satellites record large Arctic ozone loss
Data from Earth observing satellites Aura and CALIPSO have shown record losses of seasonal ozone in the Arctic.
While the U.S. Stalls, Europe Moves On to Mars
The European Space Agency (ESA) seems to have gotten tired of waiting for NASA to commit to its share of the joint 2016/2018 Mars missions that were planned to lay the groundwork for an eventual delivery of samples of Mars to Earth.
Mars Missions Supported, Planetary Voices Heard
It looks like we rattled a few cages in Washington, D.C. this week. White House staffers in the Office of Science and Technology Policy returned from their holiday weekend to find more than 1500 messages from Planetary Society Members waiting for them.
Eris and embargoes (or: don't fear Ingelfinger!)
Last Tuesday at the Division of Planetary Sciences meeting Bruno Sicardy presented the results of his research group's observations of a stellar occultation by Eris.
Lovely pic of a recent crater on Vesta
With little fanfare, the Dawn mission continues releasing a new picture from Vesta every day. This one is definitely my favorite among their recent releases, a closeup on one of Vesta's strange streaky bright craters.
Photos: Preparations for Curiosity's launch proceeding (don't show these to Blofeld!)
Kennedy Space Center has recently created a photo album collecting their photos from the clean rooms where technicians are working madly to prepare the Curiosity Mars rover for launch.
Saturnlit moon, sunlit fountains
It's been a week of very heavy science on this blog, so I thought it'd be nice to go into the weekend with a post in which a breathtaking picture speaks for itself, without needing my thousands of words.
Notes from Day 5 of the EPSC/DPS meeting: Saturn's storm, Phobos, and Lutetia
Today was (is) the last day of the Division of Planetary Sciences / European Planetary Science Congress meeting in Nantes, France.
Notes from EPSC/DPS NASA Night
It's already the last day of the DPS/EPSC meeting in Nantes, France, and I've fallen seriously behind on writing up my notes. I thought I'd get some less pleasant notes out of the way before I returned to science.