All
All
Stories, updates, insights, and original analysis from The Planetary Society.
New image of Opportunity on Mars
I really can't explain why it didn't occur to me to search for the rover in the image of Victoria crater released by the HiRISE team on Wednesday.
Ever Plan Ahead? How About Six Years Ahead?
Despite still being more than six years and just over 18 Astronomical Units from the Pluto system, the project team for New Horizons is conducting the second and final portion of our Pluto Encounter Preliminary Design Review (EPDR) tomorrow and the next day.
Updates on the 2007 Shoemaker NEO Grant Recipients (27 April 2009)
Our 2007 Shoemaker NEO Grant winners have been extremely busy over the past two years. Take for example Quanzhi Ye of Guangzhou, China: He was only 18 when he received the award but already the principal investigator of the sky survey at the Lulin Observatory in Taiwan.
Hooray for Hayabusa!
According to JAXA (the Japanese space agency), poor little Hayabusa has successfully restarted its ion engine and has resumed powered flight today. Hooray! This is good news for Hayabusa's eventual return to Earth.
Welcome to the Solar System, Makemake
The trans-Neptunian object formerly known as 2005 FY9 now has a name:
Updates on the 2007 Shoemaker NEO Grant Recipients (27 June 2008)
Amateur astronomers play a critical role in retiring the risk of impact from near-Earth objects. When the Shoemaker NEO Grant program began in 1997, the focus was on finding previously undiscovered objects one kilometer in diameter and larger. Thanks to professional NEO survey programs like LINEAR (the Lincoln Near-Earth Asteroid Research program run by MIT’s Lincoln Laboratories) and the Catalina Sky Survey (run from the University of Arizona’s Lunar and Planetary Laboratory), the goal of discovering the vast majority of large NEOs is within reach, and the focus of the Shoemaker NEO Grant Program has shifted to astrometric follow-up and physical studies.
Hayabusa update
JAXA has posted a note on their website on the status of Hayabusa, which apparently reached aphelion in late May. Hayabusa is Japan's amazing ion-powered mission to asteroid Itokawa, which touched down on Itokawa to grab a sample in mid-November 2005, but suffered an injury that has left in doubt its ability to return the sample capsule to Earth.
Frame a Pluto portrait
As New Horizons continues its journey (it's now approaching the orbital distance of Saturn, though it's very far from that planet in space), the mission is taking advantage of the recent experience with the Jupiter flyby to plan out the science operations for the Pluto-Charon encounter.
LPSC: Thursday: Rovers, Titan, Mars, Venus Express, Neptune
I spent a large portion of the day at the Lunar and Planetary Institute's library and presented my own poster during the poster sessions, so my coverage of Thursday's sessions is limited.
"Return of the Falcon," a new animation of the Hayabusa mission
JAXA has released a 30-minute video of the Hayabusa mission,
MSL sites, comet outbursts, and other stuff
The latest on MSL landing sites, a look at comet outbursts, and links to other stuff.
Yet another active world: Charon
I've just posted a news story on a recently published paper that suggests that Pluto's moon Charon may have active ice volcanoes.
Bedtime for New Horizons
According to the mission website, the New Horizons spacecraft has drifted off to sleep, entering its
Updates from Past Recipients of the Shoemaker NEO Grants (1 March 2007)
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.
New Horizons is targeting Jupiter!
New Horizons' Jupiter encounter is officially underway!
New Horizons spots Pluto!
Yesterday the New Horizons team released a flicker animation showing the spacecraft's first sight of Pluto, using the LORRI long-range imaging instrument.
New Horizons is locked on target for its Jupiter encounter
Alan Stern just posted a detailed update on the status of New Horizons in his PI's Perspective blog on the mission website.
Updates from Past Recipients of the Shoemaker NEO Grants (18 July 2006)
Using the Shoemaker NEO Grant funds, Minor Planet Research has purchased a 1.7-terabyte data server for our Asteroid Discovery Station (ADS) education outreach program Through the generosity of Dr. Philip Christensen, this server is housed at the Mars Space Flight Facility (MSFF) at Arizona State University in Tempe, Arizona.