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Stories, updates, insights, and original analysis from The Planetary Society.
First image from Stardust! ...but a delay for the close-approach ones
Here it is, the first image from Stardust of Tempel 1 during the close-approach phase!
High-res images of Tempel 1 from Stardust now arriving
I really didn't expect these images to look so good! I'd prepared myself for blurry images and a lot of squinting to try to match up features in pictures between Deep Impact and Stardust views of Tempel 1, but in fact the resemblance is obvious and you can clearly see that they successfully imaged the area in which Deep Impact's Impactor craft collided with the comet.
Stardust flies by Tempel 1 in 5 hours, and I'll be watching!
Stardust is very close to the last major act of its mission: the flyby of Tempel 1, which will take place at 20:40 PST (04:40 UTC). Here's a summary of the recent and current status of the mission, and how to follow the events over the next 24 hours.
Stardust update: Almost to Tempel 1
We're coming up on the final days of Stardust's approach to Tempel 1. The flyby takes place on February 15 at 04:56 UTC (February 14 at 20:56 PST).
Close approach to Earth turns Apollo into Aten
Last week we got buzzed by a very small asteroid, something that happens fairly often. But there were several details that made the close approach of asteroid 2011 CQ1 worthy of note.
How much is Vesta's geology controlled by its one huge impact feature?
Here's a neat paper just published in Geophysical Research Letters:
Dawn Journal: ORT ORT ORT
Dawn continues its flight through the asteroid belt, steadily heading toward its July rendezvous with Vesta, where it will take up residence for a year. On January 10, Dawn performed some of the activities that it will execute in its low altitude mapping orbit (LAMO) at Vesta.
Stardust update: Tempel 1 Ahoy!
It is with great relief that I now report that JPL announced this evening the sighting of Tempel 1 by Stardust, a mere month before the planned flyby.
Report from the 2011 New Horizons Science Team Meeting
The annual New Horizons Science Team Meeting was held last week at NASA's Ames Research Center.
Stardust update: Tempel 1 not yet spotted by spacecraft, hopefully next week
A new update has been posted to the Stardust website: The spacecraft continues to operate as expected and all subsystems are healthy on approach to comet Tempel 1.
Stardust prepares for first second look at a comet: Tempel 1 on February 14
A press briefing was held at NASA Headquarters this morning to preview the planned February 14 encounter by Stardust with Tempel 1. There aren't often lots of questions from media after these
Another scientific clarification: Vanth probably not half the mass of Orcus
Earlier this week I got all excited about the Orcus-Vanth system. It turns out there was a math error in the version of the paper that I read, which resulted in the notion that Vanth could be nearly as big as Orcus.
2010 JL33: How to see an asteroid from quite a long way away
A terrific set of Goldstone radar images of a good-sized near-Earth asteroids named 2010 JL33 was posted to the JPL website yesterday. They also posted a movie version but something about these pixelated radar image series absolutely begs for them to be displayed as an old-school animated GIF, so I made one.
365 Days of Astronomy Podcast: Unmanned Space Exploration in 2011
Today the 365 Days of Astronomy podcast aired my contribution, Unmanned Space Exploration in 2011, about what to look forward to in solar system exploration this year.
Orcus and Vanth
As part of a big, ongoing project to make a comparison chart of the dimensions and physical properties of solar system objects I've spent the morning tackling the difficult problem of summarizing the physical characteristics of the biggest things that are out there beyond Neptune.
Stardust mission update: 38 days to Tempel 1
Stardust is healthy after performing a
Happy 2011, and an end to the 2010 advent calendar
Welcome 2011! I can't wait for what this year has in store. The prize for all of you who have enjoyed opening each door in the Planetary Society's 2010 advent calendar is one of the best views we can get of one of the biggest objects in the asteroid belt, Vesta.
Door 31 in the 2010 advent calendar
Time to open the thirty-first (and next-to-last) door in the advent calendar. Where in the solar system are these dark-rimmed craters?
SOHO's 2000th comet
SOHO was launched more than 15 years ago to study the Sun, primarily; but a side benefit of its constant observation of the Sun has been its ability to notice
365 Days of Astronomy Podcast: Small Worlds
Today the 365 Days of Astronomy podcast aired my contribution, Small Worlds, about the smaller denizens of the solar system visited in the past year, and due to be visited in the next.