Articles

Ryan Anderson

We wrapped up the landing site workshop on Wednesday afternoon by revisiting each of the four sites and discussing them in turn. Unfortunately, the way that we did this was very disappointing, and made for a frustrating afternoon.

Rosaly Lopes

There are about 60 volcanologists here at the meeting and we are wondering if the volcano is going to erupt and, if it does, what we will be able to see.

Emily Lakdawalla

Fourth MSL Landing Site Workshop: Day 3: Final discussion

Rosaly Lopes

It so happens that there is a Calderas Workshop going on the same week as DPS and I was invited to talk about planetary calderas. I chose several on Venus, Mars and Io to focus on.

Louis D. Friedman

Japan's IKAROS team stole the show at the International Solar Sailing Symposium in New York City, where they announced that their spacecraft had achieved controlled solar sail flight.

Ryan Anderson

With the details of all four landing sites on the table, we started day 3 of the meeting by hearing from the engineers and several scientists about the properties of the ellipses, the risks for landing and the capabilities of the landing system.

Emily Lakdawalla

Chang'E 2 launches to the Moon

Emily Lakdawalla

Lou Friedman congratulates China

Emily Lakdawalla

Fourth MSL Landing Site Workshop: Day 3: Engineering constraints

Emily Lakdawalla

Division of Planetary Sciences meeting next week; Career Panel Sunday

Emily Lakdawalla

Pretty picture: High-res color view of Prometheus and the F ring

Emily Lakdawalla

Here are a few photos of Chang'E 2 meeting its launch vehicle in Xichang. It's a beautiful view of the spacecraft.

Emily Lakdawalla

I left the first day of the Fourth Mars Science Laboratory Landing Site Community Workshop on Monday just as they were getting in to the site-specific presentations. I left with no concern that I'd miss anything, though, because I knew that once he got done presenting his own work on Gale Crater, Cornell grad student Ryan Anderson would be taking notes and blogging the presentations on the other three sites.

Emily Lakdawalla

Carnival of Space #171 is live over at Starry Critters. Every week, a different webmaster or blogger hosts the Carnival, showcasing articles written on the topic of space.

Susan Lendroth

With the astronomical community is buzzing with news of an exoplanet found in a star's habitable zone, The Planetary Society will co-sponsor a special event that will be streamed live on Monday, October 4.

Susan Lendroth

The 61st International Astronautical Congress (IAC) is being held in Prague in the Czech Republic, and Bill Nye is attending on behalf of the Planetary Society.

A.J.S. Rayl

As Opportunity picked up the pace to Endeavour Crater this month and crossed the halfway point on the long journey from Victoria Crater and Spirit continued sleeping in hibernation mode, the Mars Exploration Rovers chalked up their 81st month of what was supposed to have been just a three-month tour of the Red Planet.

Emily Lakdawalla

Out in space, the most exciting things cooking this month are on Deep Impact, which is fast approaching comet Hartley 2 for a November 4 encounter, and at the Moon, which should soon see a second orbiter, China's Chang'E 2, which is set to launch Friday.

David Kass

Two weeks ago Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and Mars Climate Sounder (MCS) started a four-week campaign to support entry, descent, and landing phase for the next Mars rover, Mars Science Laboratory (or

Ryan Anderson

Today was jam-packed with interesting stuff about Mawrth, Holden, and Eberswalde! I took tons of notes, and I will try to use those to assemble a coherent picture of what was presented and discussed today.