Articles

Stories, updates, insights, and original analysis from The Planetary Society.

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.

New Flickr collection of historical NASA photos

NASA announced today that they had placed several new sets of historical photos on their

Earth and the Moon from much closer to the Sun

MESSENGER: A snapshot of home

MESSENGER is in a unique position in the solar system, orbiting the Sun well within the orbit of Venus. From there, it can gaze outward from the Sun to search for tiny objects that may possibly be traveling in the same region, called vulcanoids.

Molar Tooth Texture

Ok, so remember the weird rock I showed in my Galcier Park geology post?

The Geology of Glacier National Park: Part 1

Well, the field trip is over and I am happy to say that I was not eaten by any bears. They seemed much more interested in the huckleberries.

The enigmatic mounds of Acidalia Planitia

Acidalia Planitia is a large basin in Mars' northern lowlands, a dark splotch visible even from Earth telescopes.

Big Sky Country

Well folks, I'm headed off to Big Sky Country tomorrow (aka Montana)! I'll start the week at the MSL camera team meeting, where I will get all sorts of cool news about the MastCam, MAHLI and MARDI cameras which I will not be able to share with you.

New impact crater on the Moon found in LROC image

New crater found in LROC image from the Moon

This news is no surprise, but I think it's the first such discovery I've heard of: the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC) team has identified a new crater on the Moon, one that wasn't there when Apollo 15 flew over.

Volcanism across the solar system: Io

Three months ago, grandiosely, I announced that I was going to survey volcanism across the solar system, and I began the journey on Earth. Then I failed to follow up.

Orientale Basin on the Moon as seen in LROC wide-angle mosaic

A bull's eye on the Moon

Orientale is the youngest large impact basin on the Moon, which means that very little of it has been obliterated by later impacts.

Saturn's hexagon is not unique

It turns out that Saturn's not the only place that displays geometrical shapes in its atmosphere. Earth does too.

’Elephant skin’ texture in the lunar soil (wide)

Elephant Skin on the Moon

There's a name for that funny hummocky texture to the lunar landscape:

One month, one journal, so many missed space stories!

Or: Emily reads you the table of contents of Icarus.

A discontinuous rille on the Moon (Lunar Orbiter view)

Likely candidate for an un-collapsed lava tube

In February, the Chandrayaan-1 science team had a meeting in Ahmedabad, India, to share their results with each other.

Is this SMART-1's impact site?

Speaking of spacecraft crashing...

Using Earth to Study the Moon

Exploring Earth analogues of space landscapes is a valuable activity that can help planetary scientists correctly interpret what their instruments are telling them.