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Stories, updates, insights, and original analysis from The Planetary Society.
New opportunity to name an asteroid!
The Space Generation Advisory Council (SGAC) has just announced a new asteroid naming competition, open to anyone, so if you've ever wanted to name an asteroid, now's your chance.
One More U.N. Step Forward on NEOs
This week, the United Nations will move one step closer to an international response to the threat from near Earth objects (NEOs).
DPS 2013: The fascination of tiny worlds
In which I summarize Joe Veverka's Kuiper Prize talk at the Division for Planetary Sciences meeting:
America's Pastime: Planetary Science
Apologies to baseball fans and others for the theme of this week's Planetary Radio preview, which has star player Emily Lakdawalla on deck.
An early look at Comet ISON
Comet ISON is brightening as it approaches the Sun, and can now be seen from many ground-based telescopes.
Your Name...On Its Way to the Stars?
This week's Planetary Radio features artist Jon Lomberg inviting listeners to join the New Horizons Message Initiative.
Cometary Science at EPSC
Recently, almost a thousand researchers gathered in London for Europe’s annual meeting of planetary scientists. Here's a report from one session on cometary science.
Europe Will Select Its Next Major Science Mission in November
The European Space Agency will announce two major science missions this November, one of which is likely to be devoted to solar system exploration.
Mission Leader Bruce Jakosky's MAVEN Prepares for Mars
Pay attention! This Mars orbiter, headed for launch in November, is a terrific science mission, as Mat Kaplan learned in a recent workshop, and in this week's Planetary Radio.
Two new ways to browse Vesta: 2. Vesta Image data browser
A few weeks ago I received an email pointing me to a really cool new map-based browser to Dawn's Vesta image data.
Two new ways to browse Vesta: 1. Vesta Low-Altitude Mapping Orbit (LAMO) Atlas
Last week was the European Planetary Science Congress in London, and there's been a lot of science news. One thing that caught my eye Friday was the publication of a new atlas for Vesta.
Pluto's atmosphere does not collapse
Just four months ago I posted about a paper recently published by Leslie Young and coauthors that described three possible scenarios for Pluto's atmosphere. Yesterday, Cathy Olkin, Leslie Young, and coauthors posted a preprint on arXiv that says that only one of those scenarios can be true. And it's a surprising one. The title of their paper says it all:
Dawn Journal: Distant interplanetary adventurer
Traveling confidently and alone, Dawn continues to make its way through the silent depths of the main asteroid belt. The interplanetary adventurer is on its long journey to the uncharted dwarf planet Ceres, by far the largest of all asteroids.
New Horizons: Late in Cruise, and a Binary Ahoy
New Horizons has just completed a summer of intensive activities and entered hibernation on Aug. 20. The routine parts of the activities included thorough checkouts of all our backup systems (result: they work fine!) and of all our scientific instruments (they work fine too!).
Producing global views of Vesta from archival data
Björn Jónsson produces beautiful color and 3D global mosaics of Vesta from Dawn's archival data.
Asteroid Telescope First Light
Using a Shoemaker NEO Grant a new telescope is operating in Illinois to do asteroid tracking.
Dwarf planet, wassup?
In which the fifth graders of Kipp Heartwood Academy argue the competing sides in the is-Pluto-a-planet debate through the medium of rap.
Comet ISON lives on! (we think...)
For several weeks now, ground-based observers have been blind to Comet ISON as our local star was sitting directly between us and the comet. I am delighted to share two pieces of good news: first, that ISON is still alive and well, and secondly that it has been recovered.
Interplanetary eyes on the lookout for comet ISON
Space blogger Daniel Fischer provides a preview of the exciting interplanetary observing campaign that has recently begun to study comet C/2012 S1 (ISON) from vantage points across the solar system.
Determining Near Earth Asteroids’ Properties from the California Desert
Shoemaker NEO Grant winner Bob Stephens specializes in lightcurves of near Earth asteroids to determine their physical properties. Here is an update on recent progress using his 2013 Planetary Society grant. This is the first in a series of updates on Shoemaker NEO Grant winners.