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Small BodiesStories, updates, insights, and original analysis from The Planetary Society.
Mars Exploration Rovers Update: Opportunity Rocks on Ancient Water During Walkabout
Opportunity continued her walkabout around Marathon Valley in September and sent home more evidence of significant water alteration and, perhaps, an ancient environment inviting enough for the emergence of life.
NASA announces five Discovery proposals selected for further study
NASA announced the first-round selections for its next Discovery mission today. A total of five planetary mission concepts -- three targeted at asteroids, two at Venus -- will move to the next stage of the competition.
NASA's Mars Announcement: Present-day transient flows of briny water on steep slopes
NASA held a press briefing today to publicize a cool incremental result in the story of present-day liquid water on Mars. How big a deal is this story? Was all the pre-announcement hype justified? Is this just NASA discovering water on Mars for the zillionth time? What does this mean for things many space fans care about: life on Mars or future human exploration?
Dawn Journal: 8 Years in Space
On the 8th anniversary of the launch of the Dawn spacecraft, Chief Engineer and Mission Director Marc Rayman gives his annual summary of Dawn’s progress on its interplanetary travels.
Lose yourself in this high-resolution portrait of Pluto
Enlarge this image to its full 8000-pixel-square glory and lose yourself in it.
Checking in on Uranus and Neptune, September 2015 edition
There are no spacecraft at Uranus or Neptune, and there haven't been for 30 and 25 years, respectively. So we depend on Earth-based astronomers to monitor them, including Damian Peach.
Xtronaut – A New Approach to Education and Public Outreach
Historically, NASA missions set aside a portion of their budgets for education and public outreach, or EPO. However, the OSIRIS-REx EPO budget got deleted in 2013 as part of a broader federal policy change. Dante Lauretta decided to make a run at a private company to recover the lost OSIRIS-REx EPO program – and Xtronaut was born!
Curiosity update, sols 1073-1107: Driving toward dunes, distracted by haloes
Since I last checked in with Curiosity, the rover has been steadily driving southward, heading directly toward the Bagnold dune field. They are looking for a place to drill into the Stimson sandstone unit, but have been distracted by intriguing pale haloes around frock fractures. Despite a rough road, the wheels are not showing significant increase in damage.
Spectacular New Horizons photo of Pluto's hazes and mountains: How it was made
Today, New Horizons released a stunning new image of Pluto's backlit mountains and hazes. I explain how the image was taken with its Ralph Multispectral Visible Imaging Camera.
Finding the Surveyor retro-rockets on the Moon
Planetary scientist Phil Stooke may have found the retro-rockets from NASA's Lunar Surveyor missions, sent to the Moon in preparation for Apollo.
In Pictures: A Partial Solar Eclipse from Space
Two sun-observing spacecraft in Earth orbit captured images of a partial solar eclipse Sunday morning.
Roundup of the September 11, 2015 New Horizons raw image release
Last Friday the Internet received its first post-encounter pile of goodies from the New Horizons flyby of the Pluto system.
How the duck got its neck: Rapid temperature changes from self-shadowing may explain 67P's unusual activity and shape
When Rosetta approached comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko last summer, both its shape and its activity were surprising. It looked like two comets welded together at a skinny neck. A new paper explains how the neck may be steepening itself.
A Workhorse at Mars
The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) Context Camera (CTX) is almost a silent star at Mars. The latest MRO data release brought the total number of available CTX images to over 70,000, covering well over 90% of the Red Planet at a stunning resolution of 6 meters per pixel.
Pretty Pictures: Downlink of the Full New Horizons Data Set Has Begun
New Horizons has begun the long process of downlinking all the images it acquired during its July Pluto flyby.
Pretty Picture: A Sweeping View of the Martian South Pole
The European Space Agency's Mars Express spacecraft captured a sweeping view of Mars' south pole, along with a region extending northward to Hellas Basin.
Dawn Ceres image bonanza: Grab your 3D glasses!
For months, Dawn has been steadily, methodically sharing dozens of images of brand-new sights of a previously unexplored icy world. For the last couple of days I've been making up for lost time, completely buried in the Dawn Ceres images, and I have some maps and 3D anaglyphs to share with you.
Aluminum Shapemodel of Comet 67P
Mattias Malmer describes his MacGyver-esque process in creating a homemade aluminum version of 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko.
Chang'e 5 test vehicle maps future sample return site
This summer the Chinese space agency has been making progress toward its planned 2017 launch of the Chang'e 5 robotic sample return mission, performing low-altitude imaging of the future landing site.
Mars Exploration Rovers Update: Opportunity Digs Marathon Valley Walkabout
Opportunity drove farther into Marathon Valley in August, dug into what appears to be a water-altered rock, and took a lot of picture postcards in what is turning out to be a distinctively different site from any that the mission has found since the robot field geologist landed in 2004.