Articles

Frank Trixler

In this, my second blog on Origins 2011 in Montpellier, France, a conference dedicated to the interdisciplinary research on the origins of life, I aim to provide my impression of the second half of the conference.

Emily Lakdawalla

A few weeks ago a producer for a public television space documentary asked me if I knew of any cool Cassini animations and my answer was,

Emily Lakdawalla

I've got some lovely pictures from Saturn to show you! Every three months, the Cassini mission dumps gigabytes worth of precious Saturn data into the Planetary Data System, and the latest gift came on April 1. This particular pile of data, which was taken between April 1 and June 30, 2010, contains a lot of really terrific moon observations.

Emily Lakdawalla

As the disaster of the magnitude 8.9 Sendai quake of Friday, March 11, at 05:46:23 UTC continues to unfold in Japan, I have been unable to tear my attention away.

Emily Lakdawalla

Time to open the twenty-fifth door in the advent calendar. Where in the solar system are these conjoined craters?

Emily Lakdawalla

Cassini's busy downlinking photos from yesterday's close pass by Enceladus, including some neat shots of Dione and this one where Mimas skipped briefly in to the field of view.

Emily Lakdawalla

Time to open the tenth door in the advent calendar. Where in the solar system is this jumble of bouldery fissures?

Emily Lakdawalla

Over the last couple of days Cassini flew past Enceladus, Tethys and Dione, so there are lots of treats to see on the raw images website! You should go check it out for yourself, but here are a couple of real favorites.

Emily Lakdawalla

You know, I could fill this blog almost entirely with the amazing images that Gordan Ugarkovic locates, processes into prettiness, and uploads to his Flickr account.

Emily Lakdawalla

Every time I think Cassini has captured the coolest image of Enceladus ever, it does better.

Emily Lakdawalla

Cassini flew within 436 kilometers of Enceladus' surface today. Although it's Cassini's 11th targeted flyby of Enceladus, these close buzzes are never routine.

Emily Lakdawalla

Every time Cassini gets reasonably close to one of the moons of Saturn, whether the close approach is a targeted one or just an opportunistic encounter, its planners usually take advantage of the proximity to take a bunch of photos.

Emily Lakdawalla

Cassini has it almost too easy. Point at anything in the Saturn system and you're guaranteed of a shot that looks, at least, pretty.

Emily Lakdawalla

The Cassini Saturn orbiter just completed its second very close flyby of Saturn's mid-sized iceball moon Dione, and the images from that encounter have been streaming onto the Cassini raw images website this morning.

Emily Lakdawalla

The Cassini mission released a pile of images today from the super-close flyby of Enceladus that happened on November 21.

Emily Lakdawalla

This week the Carnival of Space is over at one of my favorite new blogs, Lights in the Dark. Actually it's not so new -- evidently this week marks its first anniversary!

Emily Lakdawalla

NASA has just announced that once Cassini's Equinox Mission runs out in June of this year, they will extend it a further seven more years, long enough for the spacecraft to see Saturn through its solstice!!

Emily Lakdawalla

An amateur named Bernhard Braun (

Emily Lakdawalla

I'm getting to be a broken record here, but I can't stop looking at these photos from the Enceladus flyby.

Emily Lakdawalla

Wow, just wow. I didn't know what to expect from the second flyby of Saturn's geyser moon Enceladus in November, which happened yesterday.