Articles

Bruce Betts

In 2007, The Planetary Society awarded $34,500 as part of its Gene Shoemaker Near Earth Object (NEO) Grant Program. The grants were made to a group of international researchers to find, track, and characterize potentially hazardous NEOs.

Bruce Betts

Thanks to The Planetary Society Shoemaker Grant, the 1.06-meter KLENOT telescope optics was completed at the Klet Observatory. Regular observations of the KLENOT project started in March 2002 under the new IAU/MPC code 246, so we can now present results covering 5 years of this work.

Emily Lakdawalla

OK, I had planned to confine my posts this week to Rosetta and New Horizons, but I could not let these images sit on my computer until next week.

Emily Lakdawalla

According to a press release issued minutes ago, New Horizons has successfully completed its close flyby of Jupiter.

A.J.S. Rayl

Dust storms are beginning to whirl around Mars as spring blooms in the southern hemisphere of the planet and along the equator where the Mars Exploration Rovers (MERs) are roving into their fourth year with a second banner month of exploration.

Emily Lakdawalla

There were two new pictures posted on the New Horizons Science Operations Center website this morning, of Io, and if you enhance the images a bit, there are two clear volcanic plumes visible on the limb -- Tvashtar and Prometheus are active!

Amir Alexander

Winter time is observing time at the Oak Ridge Observatory in Massachusetts, when humidity is low and the sky is often clear. And so it has been for the Optical SETI telescope, which opened its doors in April 2006.

Amir Alexander

Located in the southern part of the continent of South America, Southern SETI has a continuous view of densest star-fields in our galaxy. And, since 1990, it has been sponsored and supported by The Planetary Society.

Emily Lakdawalla

This amazing view was captured by the CIVA camera on Rosetta's Philae lander just four minutes before its closest approach to Mars on February 25, 2007. The spacecraft was only 1,000 kilometers above the planet.

Emily Lakdawalla

Iapetus is one of the many fascinating bodies in the Saturn system.

Emily Lakdawalla

It's easy to forget that Mars is another such world with cloudy weather and seasonally varying climate. This lovely image release from the CRISM instrument on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter brings that point home.

Emily Lakdawalla

Emily Lakdawalla

Emily Lakdawalla

I've just posted a very detailed timeline of New Horizons' encounter with Jupiter -- take a look!

Emily Lakdawalla

I wrote recently about a set of images of Saturn acquired by Cassini from a unique vantage point, well above the planet, looking down on the rings. Someone has taken up the challenge of assembling the 36 different images into a single mosaic, in color, and it is as lovely as I'd hoped.

Emily Lakdawalla

A year after its launch on January 19, 2006, New Horizons is fast closing in on Jupiter, the first target on its near decade-long journey. On February 28 the spacecraft will approach to within 2.3 million kilometers (1.4 million miles) of Jupiter before speeding along on to its way to the edge of the solar system.

A.J.S. Rayl

The Mars Exploration Rovers (MERs) celebrated their 3rd anniversary this month and are now roving into their fourth year of exploration on the Red Planet.

Emily Lakdawalla

Another recent, cool set of images that came down from Cassini was a series taken last week as the spacecraft crossed the ring plane.

Emily Lakdawalla

I got an email from John Spencer this morning telling me that the mission had posted all of New Horizons' most recently acquired images on the mission website.

Emily Lakdawalla

Over the weekend, Cassini acquired a set of images that will (I am assuming) eventually be used to produce a glorious portrait of the ringed planet from a point of view that's never been seen before.