Articles

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!

Emily Lakdawalla

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

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.

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.

Emily Lakdawalla

Cassini just flew by Titan again on Saturday, and should have acquired a new swath of RADAR data.

Emily Lakdawalla

New Horizons' Jupiter encounter is officially underway!

Emily Lakdawalla

The first peer-reviewed article on Titan's lakes comes out in tomorrow's issue of the journal Nature.

Emily Lakdawalla

A couple of weeks ago there were press releases coming out of the American Geophysical Union meeting about the discovery of a

Emily Lakdawalla

There's a new image product released from the Composite Infrared Spectrometer (CIRS) on Cassini, an instrument that is capable of measuring the temperatures on the extremely cold surfaces of Saturn's moons and rings.

Emily Lakdawalla

Ever since I first read about the plans for Cassini's tour of the Saturn system I've been looking forward to the current phase of the mission.

Emily Lakdawalla

This week's Cassini Project Update was particularly interesting, because it contained a story about how a difficult decision was made regarding the prioritizing of different science teams' desires for an upcoming Titan flyby.

Emily Lakdawalla

Yesterday, the VIMS team released several images from Cassini's

Emily Lakdawalla

Yesterday the New Horizons team released a flicker animation showing the spacecraft's first sight of Pluto, using the LORRI long-range imaging instrument.

Emily Lakdawalla

The IAU has just approved new names for 35 craters, dorsa, fossae, and sulci on the surface of Enceladus, based upon Cassini's high-resolution mapping of the little moon. What are dorsa, fossae, and sulci, you might ask?

Emily Lakdawalla

Alan Stern just posted a detailed update on the status of New Horizons in his PI's Perspective blog on the mission website.

Emily Lakdawalla

Over time, Cassini's orbit apoapsis—the point on the orbit that is farthest from Saturn—has been shifting slowly toward Saturn's night side. Lately, this point of view has resulted in some truly lovely photos of the planet.