Articles

Emily Lakdawalla

Tak Iyori from The Planetary Society of Japan has sent us a couple of updates on the status of Hayabusa and the mission's plans for landing on Itokawa.

Emily Lakdawalla

These photos pretty much speak for themselves. They are amazing. Hayabusa saw its own shadow on Itokawa, and took a photo of the released target marker.

Emily Lakdawalla

The Hayabusa mission has proven to be a bit of a tease -- they were releasing lots of images to the public as they approached asteroid Itokawa, but once they arrived, the image releases shut down entirely. There is finally a little postage stamp of an image captured by Hayabusa at

Emily Lakdawalla

This lovely animation of Itokawa represents 20 individual images taken between 18:10 on September 5 and 00:30 on September 6, from a distance of less than 700 kilometers away.

Emily Lakdawalla

Hayabusa (formerly known as MUSES-C) is getting very, very close to its target asteroid Itokawa, and should be arriving soon!

Emily Lakdawalla

I had very much hoped to be able to post an update about the Deep Impact mission this week, but it looks like my various sources are keeping very very quiet (or maybe they are just tired of me pestering them :)

Emily Lakdawalla

We haven't forgotten about Deep Impact, but there's still no word on the crater size.

Emily Lakdawalla

With its mission at Tempel 1 over, the Deep Impact spacecraft has altered its course in order to allow a future mission at another comet.

A.J.S. Rayl

When Deep Impact crashed into the nucleus of Tempel 1 at 23,000 miles per hour on July 4, it sent a huge, bright cloud of stuff upward and outward from the comet, providing a spectacular image that is already assured a place in the space history books, and may well be seared into the brains of all those who watched the event.

Emily Lakdawalla

The team has just released a really pretty high-resolution view of Tempel 1 just 67 seconds after the impact.

Emily Lakdawalla

There was a stage set up on the steps of the administration building, and the quad in front of it was filled with JPLers of all ages and descriptions. Rick Grammier and Don Yeomans introduced the band -- five guys, all members of the band since 1953 or earlier, still rockin' and rollin'.

Emily Lakdawalla

So yesterday, after covering the Deep Impact press conference at JPL and recording for Planetary Radio, my husband and I drove to his parents' house for an Independence Day barbeque. When I explained the nature of the Deep Impact mission my mother-in-law exclaimed,

Emily Lakdawalla

Live blog from the press room at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory as Deep Impact's Impactor meets its fate at the comet....

Emily Lakdawalla

The Deep Impact mission seems to have produced an impact crash beyond the expectations, but not the hopes, of the science team.

Emily Lakdawalla

It looks like the European Space Agency was busy overnight -- lots of great Earth- and space- based images of the impact have been appearing on various websites.

Emily Lakdawalla

Here in Von Karman auditorium at JPL, as they get ready for the press conference, they are playing

Emily Lakdawalla

Emily Lakdawalla

I woke this morning to find a press release in my Inbox that said:

Emily Lakdawalla

The panel consists of: Andy Danztler, Solar System Division Director at NASA HQ; Rick Grammier, Deep Impact Project Manager, JPL; Jennifer Rocca, Deep Impact Systems Engineer, JPL; and Mike A'Hearn, Principal Investigator, University of Maryland.

Emily Lakdawalla

After the press conference I asked Mike A'Hearn a couple of questions about the raw images we're seeing online.