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Stories, updates, insights, and original analysis from The Planetary Society.
Request for input: Any interest in tutorials on space imaging?
I am toying with the idea of running a series of classes via Ustream on the basics of space image processing.
Carnival of Space #126, plus more from Jupiter's moon Io
The 126th Space Carnival is live over at Jason Perry's always-excellent (if rather narrowly focused) Io blog The Gish Bar Times.
Send your name to Venus with Venus Climate Orbiter (PLANET-C), now known as Akatsuki
The Japanese space agency's science missions have an abundance of names. They start out with a programmatic name, like MUSES-A, PLANET-A, etc. -- which might be like calling NEAR
Last Chance for Bargains at The Planetary Society Store
We are preparing to have a brand new online store with new and different merchandise; to that end, we are clearing out EVERY LAST BIT of our old store inventory.
Augustine Committee Final Report
The Augustine Committee, which is reviewing the U.S. human space flight program, presented its final report today at a NASA press conference.
Spinning spokes in Saturn's rings
Here's a neat animation captured last month by Cassini and assembled by Mike Malaska: spokes in Saturn's B ring.
Window onto an abyss: Cave skylight on the Moon
This just in: researchers on JAXA's Kaguya lunar orbiter have discovered an open pit on the Moon that is likely a window onto a sublunar world -- a skylight into a subsurface cavern.
Saturn shadows shift with the seasons
So many goodies on the Cassini raw images website lately! I am especially excited when Cassini takes photos through red, green, and blue filters so that it's possible to create views that look roughly like what you'd see with your own eyes.
Fun for Sunday: Titan and Tethys pas de deux
Checking in on Cassini's raw images this weekend, there are several nice shots to play with, including the many frames from which I tossed together this cute animation.
Here comes Rosetta!
Heads up! ESA's Rosetta comet-chasing mission is going to buzz by Earth again in less than a month.
Opportunity's world of dunes and rock
Opportunity's been making tracks lately, with brief stops to check out a couple of meteorites. I thought this view of its surroundings on sol 2,034 (a couple of days ago) was neat.
Rhea, Enceladus, Mimas, and Tethys, oh my!
With the last Titan flyby on October 12, Cassini came back to an orbit that's nearly in the equatorial plane, and immediately rewarded us with some fine views of several of the icy moons. Here are a bunch of images of those moons.
A brief word on Saturn's radius
I've had two people write in to correct my Phoebe ring post from yesterday.
MSL: Mars Action Hero
MSL is like James Bond. Want to know why?
The Phoebe ring
Last week, planetary astronomers Anne Verbiscer, Michael Skrutskie, and Doug Hamilton published a paper in Nature succinctly titled
Netherlands fireball
I was debating whether to write anything about a reported fireball that streaked across the sky in the Netherlands at roughly 19:00 local time (17:00 UTC) yesterday, October 13, but seeing this image ended my internal debate.
AMASE 2009: Testing future Mars surface instruments in the Arctic
I have just posted four more blog entries from Juan Diego Rodgriguez-Blanco detailing the work conducted during this year's Artic Mars Analogue Svalbard Expedition (AMASE).
That psychedelic M-cubed Moon movie explained
Advance warning: this entry may be a little technical for some.
OMG! Aurora!
Unmannedspaceflight.com member Astro0 was fiddling around with an interesting-looking sequence of Cassini images when he discovered their purpose -- they were gathered in order to see if Cassini could catch aurorae flaring into being near Saturn's north pole. Cassini sure did!
Video from Palomar Observatory on LCROSS impact night
The Palomar Observatory adaptive optics image of the crater Cabeus remains the best I've seen from ground-based telescopes of the LCROSS impact site.



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