Articles

Kepler discovers its first five exoplanets

Congratulations to NASA's Kepler mission team on their announcement of the discovery of its first five exoplanets (planets around other stars).

Planetary Society Advent Calendar for December 25: Double planet

To those of you who celebrate the holiday, merry Christmas! I hope Santa was good to you.

Awesome Cassini mutual event movies

I love posting animations of Cassini images that I compose from frames grabbed from the mission's raw images website, but they are shoddy compared to the versions that eventually come out from the mission's imaging team.

Phobos and Deimos mutual event from Mars Express

Awesome Mars Express view of Phobos and Deimos together

My inbox was exploding this morning with messages about a tremendously cool animation released this morning by ESA's Mars Express team. It shows Phobos crossing Deimos, in what's known as a

Opportunity's poking at Marquette Island; Cassini's catching dancing moons

Since tomorrow's class is going to be on playing with raw images from the rovers and Cassini, I've been playing with recent raw images from the rovers and Cassini! I just thought I'd share a couple of the fun items I've been working with.

Four moons and a ring

Thanks to Mike Malaska for the tip on this one. The image is part of an animation that ends with Rhea transiting Saturn.

Another marvelous image from Cassini's Nov 2 Enceladus flyby

This image goodie was produced from the raw images from Cassini's close encounter with Saturn's geyser moon Enceladus yesterday by Gordan Ugarkovic.

Fun Friday photo: Titan and Rhea

Cassini recently captured a series of images documenting Rhea passing behind Titan.

Fun for Sunday: Titan and Tethys pas de deux

Checking in on Cassini's raw images this weekend, there are several nice shots to play with, including the many frames from which I tossed together this cute animation.

MESSENGER gets two planets for the price of one

Here's a pretty shot of Mercury taken by MESSENGER on approach...but wait, what's that tiny little speck in the lower left corner of the photo?

Cassini RADAR continues to gaze at Titan

The Cassini spacecraft made its 59th flyby of Titan, Saturn's largest moon, on Friday, July 24, and in the last few hours we have received images from the RADAR instrument in SAR (Synthetic Aperture Radar) mode.

Canto III: Hints of Equinox

Saturn is rapidly approaching equinox, where the Sun passes through the ring plane (south-to-north, i.e. the northern vernal equinox), and its ring system (i.e. its great now-gloomy poorly-lit circles of large blocks of water ice) is starting to show some really interesting behavior.