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Small BodiesStories, updates, insights, and original analysis from The Planetary Society.
More from the Ozma@50 Workshop
Today's sessions at the Ozma@50 conference stretched the mind as these multidisciplinary gatherings usually do.
Book review: Older Than the Stars
Older Than the Stars is a book about Big Bang cosmology, solar system formation, and human evolution for young children.
Browse the Cassini RPWS data set
Periodically, usually after I've posted some images pulled out of an image archive, a reader asks me:
Mars Exploration Challenge Launches Today
The explorers who will someday walk on Mars are in school today. Exactly who they are, we don't yet know. But we do know that they are among the students who are captivated by the wonders of science and the challenges of engineering.
365 Days of Astronomy Podcast: The Flight of Hayabusa
Today the 365 Days of Astronomy podcast aired my contribution, The Flight of Hayabusa, a recap of that dramatic mission.
Report from SETI workshop marking 50 years since Project Ozma
Jon Lomberg repots from NRAO--the National Radio Astronomy Observatory-- in Greenbank, West Virginia on a SETI workshop marking the 50th anniversary of Project Ozma.
Jaded by Mars Organics
So, you may have heard the news making the rounds last week that a new analysis of the Viking data suggests there may actually be organics and (dare I even say it?) life on Mars! Yawn. Consider me underwhelmed.
Pretty picture: Crescent Dione
I was busy with other projects today, so today's post just asks you to look at this gorgeous three-image mosaic of a crescent Dione, taken during Cassini's most recent flyby a week ago.
NASA: NOT Grounded
So I just received my
China's Yinghuo-1 Mars Orbiter
A helpful reader has sent me copies of three recently published papers on China's first planetary probe, the Yinghuo-1 orbiter.
Early warning for close approaches of two house-sized asteroids
Most of you have probably heard by now of two small asteroids, both in the neighborhood of 10 meters in diameter, recently discovered on trajectories that pass unusually close to Earth.
Deep Impact snaps first image of flyby target comet Hartley 2
Deep Impact is rapidly approaching its next -- and final -- target, comet Hartley 2, which it will fly by on November 4.
Two natural bridges on the Moon (now with 3D!)
Imagine this landscape: you're walking across an unusually smooth lunar surface, an impact melt sheet on the floor of a relatively recently formed crater.
Bill Nye Given the World(s)
Lou Friedman handed off the keys to the Planetary Society -- and a few worlds as well -- to new Executive Director Bill Nye.
Neptune from two slightly different perspectives
Coincidentally, two new images of Neptune were posted today, from two very different sources.
Special report by Bill Nye from the VEXAG Meeting
Is Venus the forgotten planet, or just one that's hard to figure out?
Fly over Saturn's icy moons
A couple of weeks ago Paul Schenk posted a few really cool videos to his personal blog. Paul's subspecialty is the topography of icy moons, and he's been doing a lot of work on the moons of Saturn lately.
Dawn Journal: Getting Warmer, Farther from the Sun?
Dawn is now so far from the sun that even with its tremendous solar arrays, it does not receive enough sunlight to generate sufficient electrical power to operate all systems and still achieve maximum thrust.
Help explorers from Earth travel to new places in our Solar System
Nobel Prize laureates and former NASA officials have come together to express concern over the House of Representatives Science Committee's proposed budget for NASA.
Getting to the real science image data: It's not that hard!
If I have to, I will drag reluctant people one at a time to plunge into NASA's Planetary Data System.