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Small BodiesStories, updates, insights, and original analysis from The Planetary Society.
Watch this week's Google+ Space Hangout
This week's lineup is a largely astronomical crowd so most of the conversation concerned dark matter and boiling exoplanets and imaging the black hole at the center of our galaxy.
The Dawn spacecraft, modeled in an unlikely medium
Last week when I joined the new weekly Space Hangout (a webcast video conference call of sorts), I realized I would need a 3D model of Dawn in order to explain what's going on with the mission right now.
Dawn Journal: The Om of Orbit Adjustment
The Dawn mission's Project System Engineer Marc Rayman reports that Dawn concluded 2011 more than 40 thousand times nearer to Vesta than it began the year. It is now at its lowest altitude of the mission, conducting a detailed exploration of the protoplanet and continuing to make new discoveries.
Notes on Dawn at Vesta from the 2011 American Geophysical Union meeting
A report on the press briefing and talks from the Fall 2011 American Geophyisical Union meeting about the data on Vesta collected so far by Dawn.
Dawn Journal: Riding gravitational currents to LAMO
In this update on the Dawn mission, project system engineer Marc Rayman reports that the probe is headed for its low altitude mapping orbit (LAMO), where it will focus on making a census of the atomic constituents and on mapping the gravity field in order to determine Vesta's interior structure.
A little fun with Deep Impact deep-sky data
Last week, the team put all of the data from Deep Impact's deep-sky imaging session online, and challenged visitors to see what they could make from it. I made some photos of M51, but there were some challenges.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Brief notes from Day 2 of the DPS-EPSC meeting
It's been a very full day at the DPS-EPSC 2011 joint meeting. My day was less full than it might have been, because I overslept and missed most of the morning's session. I really needed the rest though so I think it was probably for the best!
Some first impressions of EPSC-DPS meeting
Today they turned on the scientific fire hose at the Division of Planetary Sciences / European Planetary Science Congress meeting happening here in Nantes, France. My brain already feels full and I still have four more days!
Dawn Journal: Fourth year in space, and arrival in HAMO
Dawn's fourth anniversary of being in space is very different from its previous ones. Indeed, those days all were devoted to reaching the distant destination the ship is now exploring. Celebrating its anniversary of leaving Earth, Dawn is in orbit around a kindred terrestrial-type world, the ancient protoplanet Vesta.
Reading Itokawa's life history from microscopic samples
When Hayabusa's sample return capsule was first opened and found to be very clean-looking inside, I doubted that there could be enough material for laboratory analysis. JAXA announced later that they scraped about 1500 dust grains from the inside with a teflon spatula, and these likely came from Itokawa.
Video: Zooming around Vesta
The Dawn team released today a nice little video that flies around a shape model of Vesta produced by DLR, the German Aerospace Corporation, who built and operate Dawn's camera.
Dawn's cryptic image release titles
Every day's image release from the Dawn spacecraft shows something on Vesta that is weird and cool and difficult to explain. The images come out with very little information describing what is going on to make those weird landscapes.
Dawn Journal: Spiraling Down from Survey Orbit
Dawn has completed the first phase of its exploration of Vesta with tremendous success, and the peripatetic adventurer is now in powered flight again, on its way to a new location from which to scrutinize its subject.
Dawn Journal: In Survey Orbit (belatedly)
Dawn is now beginning intensive observations of the alien world it orbits. The approach phase, which began on May 3 is complete. Today Dawn is in its survey orbit around Vesta.
Vesta's wacky craters
Dawn's images of Vesta show craters upon craters, but the longer I study the images, the wackier the craters look.