Explore Worlds
Find Life
Defend Earth
All
All
Sun
Mercury
Venus
Earth
Mars
Jupiter
Saturn
Uranus
Neptune
Small BodiesStories, updates, insights, and original analysis from The Planetary Society.
Mars Exploration Rovers Update: Spirit Begins Extraction Process
On Monday, November 16, 2009, Mars Exploration Rover Spirit will begin the much-anticipated, weeks-long process of extricating itself from a patch of powdery soil that stopped it in its tracks six months ago. It will begin by driving forward to the north, following its tracks out, even though its right front wheel is broken and immobilized.
LightSail Featured on NPR's Science Friday
Our Executive Director Lou Friedman joins host Ira Flatow on NPR's Science Friday -- November 13 -- for a live chat about The Planetary Society's exciting new solar sail project.
Tracking the stars -- and Earth
This was a neat photo from ESA today.
Hayabusa stumbles on the path back to Earth
JAXA issued a press release (in Japanese) on November 9 stating that one of Hayabusa's ion thrusters, thruster D, had stopped operating. Hayabusa launched with four ion thrusters, but D was one of only two that are still functioning. So the failure of thruster D is a serious problem.
Rosetta is homing in on Earth
Heads up! ESA's Rosetta spacecraft is approaching for its last flyby of Earth, on Friday, November 13.
Four moons and a ring
Thanks to Mike Malaska for the tip on this one. The image is part of an animation that ends with Rhea transiting Saturn.
A million dollars says The Planetary Society can make a solar sail fly
The Planetary Society announced today that an anonymous donor has put up one million dollars to help us get a solar sail in flight.
Planetary Radio Q and A: Are meteorites on Mars actually interesting?
The Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity has been studying a lot of meteorites. That made me wonder, why study meteorites on Mars when we can study them in hand on Earth? How are Mars meteorites interesting?
She moves! "First drive sequence in 145 sols" for Spirit
It's been an awful long time since we've seen one of these from Spirit: an animation of four Navcam frames documenting motion!
Space Image Processing Classes are Go!
I got a huge response from readers interested in me conducting some online classes on space image data -- how to access and process it.
Reviews of several space-themed books for young children
While I was on maternity leave I suddenly decided to see what books were out there that could help me teach my daughters (one's three years, and the other six months old) about the science and the thrill of space exploration.
MESSENGER Rewrites Mercury Textbooks Even Before Entering Orbit
As MESSENGER zoomed toward Mercury for its third flyby, it was commanded to rotate in a maneuver that would help it test a surprising result from the second flyby.
Planetary Radio Q and A: Not-so-gassy giants
On Planetary Radio's
Another marvelous image from Cassini's Nov 2 Enceladus flyby
This image goodie was produced from the raw images from Cassini's close encounter with Saturn's geyser moon Enceladus yesterday by Gordan Ugarkovic.
Data from Kaguya's prime mission to the Moon has been released
Yesterday, the Japanese space agency announced the public release of the data from the primary mission of the Kaguya (a.k.a. SELENE) lunar orbiter.
Voting is Fixed!
There were some issues with the voting widget on the University Science Writing competition, but they have been resolved, and it turns out it was counting the votes all along! So go vote for my post if you haven't done so yet today!
Cassini's Enceladus encounter, with bonus Tethys
Raw images from Cassini's close pass by Enceladus today started appearing on the JPL raw images website, and some less-compressed versions of a few of them showed up on the CICLOPS website.
Dawn Journal: Taking Up Residence in the Asteroid Belt
Dawn has devoted another month to thrusting with its ion propulsion system, ever with its sights set on its rendezvous with Vesta in July 2011.
Vote Early and Often!
Remember when I mentioned a few weeks ago that I submitted a blog post about MSL as an action-adventure hero to ScientificBlogging's science writing competition?