Articles

A.J.S. Rayl

The Mars Exploration Rovers (MER) forged on in November, their 83rd month of an expedition originally planned for three months: Spirit remained silent at Gusev Crater presumably still re-charging her batteries, as Opportunity roved through a field of craters pressing on toward Endeavour Crater, quietly claiming title along the way to being the first roving robot to drive 25 kilometers on Mars.

Emily Lakdawalla

This was a fun image released by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera science team. Take a look at it and see if you can figure out what the significance of the red arrow is.

Emily Lakdawalla

To celebrate Mars Express' recent mission extension to 2014, here are some cool pictures that it took of Mars' inner and larger moon Phobos.

Emily Lakdawalla

Happy Thanksgiving!

Emily Lakdawalla

I'm surprised no one's emailed me demanding the last batch of Voyager mission status bulletins! Well, here they are.

Emily Lakdawalla

Europe is apparently of the mind that science and technology will help to carry them out of tough economic times, and has made three-year commitments to continue the in-space operations of 11 missions through 2014.

Susan Lendroth

Matt Lucking, our Regional Coordinator for the Bay Area Volunteers in northern California, shared a nice tribute to the Planetary Society — reminding us all how much the work we do matters.

Emily Lakdawalla

Two brief but significant news items today made me stop and think about how far we've come in space travel.

Emily Lakdawalla

Ever since I first saw Tyler Nordgren's awe-inspiring photographs of the Milky Way arching above the natural wonders of the national parks, I knew I wanted them on my wall. Well, now I can get them, and you can too.

Emily Lakdawalla

Jupiter, always a pretty sight in the sky, is now worth visiting every day; the

Bruce Betts

In 2010, The Planetary Society awarded $33,285 as part of its Gene Shoemaker Near Earth Object (NEO) Grant Program. The grants were made to a group of international researchers to find, track, and characterize potentially hazardous NEOs.

Emily Lakdawalla

As I did last year, I'm hereby posting reviews and comments on every recent space book for kids that's crossed my desk in the last several months.

Emily Lakdawalla

The saddest item of business to note in this linky post is that noted astronomer Brian Marsden, retired director of the Minor Planet Center and a good friend to many, passed away yesterday at the age of 73.

Emily Lakdawalla

Today the Deep Impact/EPOXI science team held a press briefing that followed up on their very successful flyby of two weeks ago, a status report on what they can say so far about the science that's coming out of the encounter.

Emily Lakdawalla

Just in time for today's Deep Impact press briefing, which you can watch on NASA TV in a few minutes: I've updated my montage of all the asteroids and comets that have been visited and photographed to include Hartley 2.

Louis D. Friedman

NASA's Nanosail-D, an innovative development by NASA’s Marshall Space Flight and Ames Research Centers, is scheduled to launch on Friday -- and we wish them well.

Emily Lakdawalla

Since I posted an update Monday about JAXA confirming extraterrestrial samples in the Hayabusa sample return capsule, JAXA has posted an English-language version of their press release, which contains a bit more information.

Emily Lakdawalla

While giving a talk at the University of Southern California last night, Planetary Society Executive Director Bill Nye fainted briefly, but returned to his feet and finished delivering his presentation.

Emily Lakdawalla

Today the 365 Days of Astronomy podcast aired my contribution, What's in a Science Meeting?, about what scientists do at big meetings like the Division of Planetary Sciences.

Emily Lakdawalla

JPL has just released some test images from the camera that has just been installed on the end of the Curiosity rover's robotic arm.